Tag: Social Movements
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Every protest is an imagined future
Protests often emerge from a mix of grievance and hope – i.e., dissatisfaction with the present with an aim to change it for the better. Whereas street protests are commonly understood as physical, dynamic, interactive, and collective expressions of objection and dissent, less common is the idea that this form of collective action is future-oriented;…
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Prefiguration, or “Be the Change”
Prefiguration is the future-oriented construction of political alternatives during protest and movement-building, where activists reflect their political goals and values within the processes of their movements. This post is a summary of the well-cited article on the topic by Luke Yates, “Prefigurative politics and social movement strategy: The roles of prefiguration in the reproduction, mobilisation…
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NCN Grant on Pandemic Protests in Poland: Activities in 2024
We, the research team funded by the National Science Centre (NCN), Poland (2021/43/B/HS6/01155) grant entitled “The Construction of Post-Pandemic Society: Covid-19 Street Protest in Poland,” presented several papers, and published a couple of articles and a book review, in 2024. Published articles in 2024 Dubrow, Joshua K., Anna Radiukiewicz, and Alan Żukowski. “Government justification of…
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Zolberg’s Moments of Madness
I summarize and critique a classic article in the fields of protest and social movements by Aristide R. Zolberg, “Moments of madness.” Politics & Society 2, no. 2 (1972): 183-207. See also… Zolberg’s Thesis Zolberg’s thesis, designed to help us understand social and political change, is simple. During an intense social and political situation, such…
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Social Movement Outcomes
Do social movements cause social change? How would we know? We look to the success of the civil rights movement in the United States and conclude, “Yes, social movements matter.” But, there are many social movements around the world, and there are many social changes. How do we know if social movements cause social change?…
Political Inequality: A blog since 2010 