Abby Peterson

Between the State and the Market Expanding the Concept of ‘Political Opportunity Structure’

This article brings together two research traditions: social movement theory and theories of corporate social responsibility. The study is an attempt to widen the perspective on the relationship between a business/business sector and its external stakeholders in order to include social movements. We depart from a three-part model of political opportunity structures, including state, cultural and economic opportunity structures. In order to illustrate our model, the article is centred on the case of the Swedish animal rights movements’ political pressure on domestic fur-farming. The animal rights movement has had considerable success by engaging with a relatively open cultural opportunity structure, winning a framing war in regard to the moral issues raised. Despite the fur industry’s attempts to counter-mobilize, the animal rights movement has found a hearing in formal political channels and has achieved considerable success. However, since the movement is faced with an economic opportunity structure that is not vulnerable to the demands of stakeholders, and where there is great inconsistency between the interests of the industry and the demands of the stakeholders, it is not surprising that the farmers have been non-compliant.

European Anti-Austerity Protests – Beyond “old” and “new” social movements?:

This article explores the social composition of participants in anti-austerity protests taking place in Belgium, Italy, Spain and the UK between 2010 and 2012, based on over 3000 questionnaires distributed to protest participants according to a standardized method. Employing a distinction between three types of mobilizations, we compare protests anchored in the traditional ‘old’ labour movements, protests by smaller radical leftist unions and parties, and the ostensibly newer kinds of mobilizations in the form of Indignados and Occupy protests. Although easily forgotten, we argue that the two former types of anti-austerity protests deserve equal attention from researchers. We conclude that there are significant differences between the protest categories in terms of socio-demographic characteristics of their participants, but the participants nevertheless appear to maintain surprisingly similar political values across demonstration types. Class identification also differed. The participants in the Indignados/Occupy protests had a markedly lower degree of identification with the working class – regardless of the ‘objective’ labour market position and controlling for country differences. These aspects relate to the classic distinction between ‘old’ and ‘new’ social movements, but we argue that it risks obscuring a more complex pattern of similarities and differences between different anti-austerity mobilizations.

Swedish trade unionism: A renewed social movement?

Claims as to the emergence of a new phase of unionism – social movement unionism – returning to its original ‘counter-cultural roots’, are closely allied with the claims as to a ‘new labour internationalism’ that is a significant break from the influential postwar trend of nation-statist unionism. This article interrogates these two popular paradigms from the perspective of the Swedish labour movement. The analysis is based on qualitative interviews with union officials, as well as quantitative analysis of union homepage content and responses to surveys among May Day demonstrators. The general conclusion as regards social movement unionism in Sweden is that the major unions, although increasingly interested in cooperation with social movement organizations, are still far from changing the repertoire of action that has been predominant in the postwar period. International solidarity – among both union officials and grassroots activists – is strongly ambivalent, and attitudes to international support oscillate between charity and self-interest.

Trials of loyalty: Ethnic minority police officers as ‘outsiders’ within a greedy institution

In this article we interrogate how ethnicity interfaces with the police culture in a major Swedish police force. While addressing administrative levels, in particular police security officers’ screening of new recruits, we focus on the role that loyalty plays in defining how ethnicity interacts with mechanisms of exclusion and inclusion in the structures of rank-and-file police culture. The police authorities, perceived as ‘greedy institutions’, demand and enforce exclusive loyalty. We argue that ethnic minority officers are rigorously tested as regards their loyalty to their fellow officers and to the police organization, and the demands made on their undivided loyalty and the misgivings as to their unstinting loyalty act as barriers to inclusion in the organization.

Who ‘Owns’ the Streets? Ritual Performances of Respect and Authority in Interactions Between Young Men and Police Officers

Joining insights from the work of Richard Sennett and Erving Goffman, I probe the power relations which underlie the performances and negotiations of respect and authority in interactions between young men and police officers. Two cultures or codes of conduct most often clash in these confrontations, which interestingly enough bear some key similarities. The officers from the local police office that I observed attempted to avoid unnecessarily engaging youths in confrontations and thereby evaded contests of face. Their assignment in the field was to make their presence felt in the area they were patrolling and to bring the youth to an understanding that they were sharing this territory with them. The officers from the ‘street peace group’ had a different agenda and sought out confrontations with youths and thereby engaged them in public show‐downs over face. Their assignment in the field was to bring respect among the youth for the authority of the police, that is, to force a submission to their authority, and this is most readily accomplished through contests of face—contests in which they had the upper hand and through which they demonstrated time and again that they (the police authorities) controlled the streets (at least momentarily).

'A locked door' - The meaning of home for punitively homeless young people in Sweden

Home and homelessness express underlying discourses of belonging and estrangement, ’inside’ and ’outside’, discourses which are at the centre of interest for contemporary cultural theorists. In many western post-industrial countries, homelessness is claiming unprecedented popular attention across the political spectrum and is a persistent theme in both mass media and academic journals precisely because it is a way, consciously or unconsciously, of attempting to articulate or clarify the structure of social relations; we perceive home in its relative contrast to the ‘alienworld’, the ’Other’. Steinbock argues that it is in

Der Holocaust – Eine unwiderrufliche Herausforderung für Sozialtheorie und Praxis

Der Holocaust ist schon langst keine vernachlassigte Episode in unserer geschichtlichen Vergangenheit mehr. Vielmehr ist er nach 55 oder noch mehr Jahren immer offenkundiger zu einem Ereignis geworden, dass Soziologen, Historiker, Theologen bis hin zu Politikern und der allgemeinen Offentlichkeit in einem beispiellosen Mas beschaftigt. Wir gedenken der Grausamkeiten des Holocaust, aber was bedeutet diese dauerhafte Auseinandersetzung? Im Januar 2000 war Stockholm Austragungsort einer grosen internationalen Konferenz, die dem Gedenken des Holocaust gewidmet war. Das ausdruckliche Ziel dieser Konferenz, die Prasidenten, Premierminister, Forscher und Uberlebende des Holocaust aus uber 50 Landern zusammenbrachte, war, uns die Grausamkeiten des Holocaust in Erinnerung zu rufen und aus seiner Erfahrung zu lernen. Laut Gosta Grassman, Pressesprecher der schwedischen Regierung, Gastgeberin dieser Konferenz, „kann auf Grund der gewonnenen Erfahrungen verhindert werden, dass ein Holocaust jemals wieder geschehen kann“.

The ‘Long Winding Road’ to Adulthood A Risk-filled Journey for Young People in Stockholm’s Marginalized Periphery

This article follows up the life stories of 15 young people from a previous study, all who grew up in a neighbourhood we called Clover Valley. Researchers have emphasized the risks encountered by young people growing up in depressed neighbourhoods such as Clover Valley. Most of the young people in our study have managed to more or less successfully negotiate different paths towards adulthood and for others (particularly among the boys) the paths have been more arduous. By analyzing more closely the life stories of three of the interviewees, I investigate how young adults actively construct and reconstruct their life stories in a way that has helped them make sense of the to and fro of life and how they have tried to influence the outcomes of their choices. In particular, attention is directed as to the ways Clover Valley has inscribed their life stories and how their experiences of growing up in Clover Valley has influenced the life courses they have taken. In focus is the resiliency of young people who overcome the odds against successful paths to adulthood and social inclusion. Central for an understanding of the long winding road to adulthood sketched in the life history narratives was the way in which their growing up in Clover Valley inscribed their different ‘possible selves’, especially their fear for possible selves.

Review Essay : Social Movement Theory

The above three important contributions to social movement theory have recently been released. Common to all three books is a fundamental rethinking of both classical and contemporary social science approaches to present-day social movements. Discussed in all three books are the two dominant contemporary approaches to social movement analysis resource mobilization theory and the structural approach and, in varying degrees, all three books offer theoretical and methodological approaches which are intended to bndge the gap between these dominant poles in social movement theory affording us a synthesis between the American approach, which concentrates upon the mechanisms by which movements recruit participation, i.e. resource mobilization, and the European structural approach, which focuses on how social problems are transformed into social movements. While all three books have this common project, they diverge widely in the focus of their project. In social movement analysis the researcher can pose three major sets of questions.

‘Normalized’ Pride? Pride parade participants in six European countries:

Based on quantitative survey data collected during Pride parades in six European countries – the Czech Republic, Great Britain, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Switzerland – we analyse who participates in Pride parades. Engaging with the so-called protest normalization thesis we ask: are Pride parade participants, aside from sexual orientation, representative of the wider populace? In none of the countries could we find indications that Pride participants mirror the general populations. The parades remain dominated by well-educated, middle strata youth, rich in political resources. However, we find variation between countries, which we link to differences in elite and public support for LGBT rights.