Government 1115: Social Movements, Protest and Politics in Comparative Perspective

Semester: 

Spring

Offered: 

2018

2018 Spring, Tuesday, 2:00pm - 3:59pm, Grzegorz Ekiert

This course is designed as a research seminar with limited enrollment. Our focus will be on social movements and the relationship between contention and politics. The course aims to: (1) provide the comprehensive introduction to the literature on social movements, protest and contention; (2) survey conceptual and methodological tools for studying contention, and (3) offer analytical frameworks to interpret movements and protests in various socio-political contexts.

During the course of the semester we will explore some of the most enduring and complex questions of the comparative political and sociological analysis. Why and under what conditions do people become involved in protest activities? What social groups are more prone to engage in contention and what political and economic systems are more vulnerable to popular challenge from below? How do individual grievances coalesce in the formation of protest movements? What are the forms and strategies of contention? What role do ideologies and organizations play in this process? How are globalization and new social media transforming the dynamics of contention? What is the impact of protest movements on the state and its policies? Can popular protest play a role in sustaining, as well as in challenging, governing regimes? What are the patterns of contention under democratic and authoritarian regimes?

During the last few decades, research and theorizing on collective action and protest movements have developed through several phases and was dominated by a number of distinct theoretical models. Recently, efforts to integrate theoretical and empirical insights developed by different schools have made this field one of the most dynamic and innovative within contemporary social sciences. The seminar readings were selected to reflect the theoretical and empirical richness of the field. They survey major theoretical developments and debates on contention and protest movements in contemporary social sciences. They also explore empirical patterns of popular resistance and protest in various social and political conditions.