J. van Stekelenburg

Fitting demand and supply: How identification brings appeals and motived together

In this article, participants in two demonstrations are compared. The demonstrations took place in two different squares in Amsterdam, on the same day, opposing the same governmental policy. Everything was the same except the organizers and their appeals: labor unions with an appeal in terms of threatened interests, on the one hand, and an anti-neoliberalism alliance with an appeal in terms of violated principles on the other. We hypothesize that social cleavages shape mobilizing structures and mobilization potentials. Thereby, this study takes an important yet rarely tested assumption in social movement literature seriously: namely, that grievances are socially constructed. If indeed grievances are socially constructed, one would expect that organizers rooted in different cleavages issue different appeals that resonate with different motives. What made individuals who were protesting the same governmental policy participate in one square rather than in the other? Organizational embeddedness, identification, and appeals that resonate with peoples grievances provide the answer to that question. To test our hypotheses, we conducted surveys at both demonstrations; survey questionnaires were randomly distributed. The findings supported our assumptions regarding the influence of the diverging mobilizing contexts on the dynamics of protest participation and revealed the crucial role of identity processes.

Why People Don't Participate in Collective Action

Abstract Studies of social movements usually concentrate on explanations of participation. Much less attention is given to non-participation. In this article, we develop a social–psychological theory of non-participation. To some extent, non-participation is the flip side of participation, but it also has dynamics of its own. Theoretical notions are applied in an illustrative manner to the dynamics of collective action against nuclear weapons in the Netherlands and two demonstrations of secondary school pupils. In examining reasons to defect any farther, we explore the impact of peoples social environment. It turns out that the majority of the respondents adopt the norms of their environment. That is to say, the vast majority of the pupils who participate in collective action are from milieus that approve of their participation. The vast majority of those who did not participate, on the other hand, are from milieus that approve of their non-participation.

Emotions of Protest

Politics — and especially politics of protest — is full of emotions. People are angry about austerity measures, thrilled or fearful about the Arab Spring and indignant because they want real democracy now!1 Clearly, there is an emotional side to how people react to their social and political environment (Conover and Feldman, 1986; Lyman, 2004; Marcus, 2003; Marcus et al., 2000; Way and Masters, 1996). Politics of protest are imbued with emotions. In fact, protest is inconceivable without emotions. It is emotions which ‘give ideas, ideologies, identities and even interests their power to motivate’ (Jasper, 1997, p. 127). Social movements are carriers of meaning and organizers do their utmost to create moral outrage and to provide a target against which this can be vented. They must weave together a moral, cognitive and emotional package of attitudes. Organizers appeal to ‘attack emotions’ such as anger to create ‘fire in the belly and iron in the soul’ (Gamson, 1992, p. 32). However, ‘just’ being angry is not enough, as Martin Luther King aptly stated: ‘It is not enough for people to be angry — the supreme task is to organize and unite people so that their anger becomes a transforming force’. Social movements use their power, resources and creativity to turn individual grievances and emotions into collective claims and to stage opportunities to act upon these claims.

Comparing protests and demonstrators in times of austerity: regular and occasional protesters in universalistic and particularistic mobilisations

Abstract The recent economic crisis shaped a new wave of protest in Europe mobilising thousands of people. Austerity measures brought not only the ‘usual suspects’ onto the streets, they also awoke less frequent demonstrators. What brought all these people to the streets? Are their motivations the same for participation in all demonstrations? We compare participants in two types of mobilisations against austerity: those called particularistic (which are reactions to particular anti-austerity issues), and those universalistic (which address much broader issues such as questioning the political system). We also compare two typologies of participants taking into account their participation history: regular and occasional protesters. Employing a two-by-two design defined by type of demonstration (Particularistic vs. Universalistic) and the individual’s participation history (Occasionals vs. Regulars), we found that the differences between demonstrations were smaller than those within types of protesters. Nevertheless, even in this period of hardship, motivation to participate in particularistic or universalistic protests differ depending on the perceptions of political system, ideological positioning and organisational embeddedness. Interaction analyses showed that different levels of identity, trust in institutions and satisfaction with democracy are crucial in driving people to participate in different types of demonstrations as occasionals or regulars.

Protest in Western militaries

Although military personnel in Western democracies rarely resort to protest tactics, this does not mean that they never experience discontent. In light of the transformation of the military organization in the period following the Cold War, socio-economic pressures on military personnel have intensified. When facing these challenges, military personnel operate within a specific context in which the unique military culture and a specific legal framework often make engaging in protest more difficult than elsewhere in society. This article integrates the literature on the transformation of Western militaries, the unique context of the military organization and the empirical evidence on protest within the military organization. The article assesses the evidence amassed so far, identifies the limitations in the existing research and proposes an encompassing framework for future study of protest within militaries in Western democracies.

Political socialization and social movements. Escaping the political past

Even the staunchest authoritarian regimes allow citizens to raise their voices from time to time. In the Soviet Union, for instance, where political and social life was heavily controlled by the communist regime, citizens were allowed to complain about certain issues by writing a letter to newspapers or authorities. While no fundamental critique of the political system was permitted, this offered citizens a manner to try to resolve their daily problems and unfairness they encountered (Smale, 1985; White, 1999: 46–47). Once communism collapsed, many Soviet citizens saw their lifestyle being destroyed — most of the social services they had known all their lives fell apart. Faced with this transitional disaster, many of them kept complaining to the newspapers by writing letters. What citizens did not take into account was that the political system that made their letters count did not exist any longer — citizens kept writing letters that no one was reading anymore. This story teaches us that while the political and social system might change almost overnight, citizens might need more time to adapt their political behaviour to changing contexts.