A Social Psychology Of Protest

An interdisciplinary analysis of protest participation, leading to integrated approaches to the social psychology of protest.

This is an overview of the development of social movements based on current research on movement mobilization and participation. It is an ideal guide to the field for upper-level students studying the development of movement participation in social psychology, sociology or politics. The discussion is illuminated by extensive international examples ranging from women's movements, to right wing extremist groups, to social movements in South Africa. The Social Psychology of Protest addresses the classic problems that have been studied in the field: construction and reconstruction of collective beliefs, the transformation of discontent into collective action, and sustained participation and disengagement. Although the emphasis is on the individual's role, the book also discusses how the dynamics of movement participation are influenced by movement characteristics, multiorganizational fields and political opportunities.

Protest is typically rare behavior, yet the first decade of the twenty-first century has been named the era of protest. Successful protests bring masses to the streets, and the emergence of social media has fundamentally changed the process of mobilization. What protests need to be successful is demand (grievances, anger, and indignation), supply (protest organizations), and mobilization (effective communication networks). Motivation to participate can be instrumental, expressive, and identity driven, and politicized collective identity plays an important role in the dynamics of collective action. This volume brings together insights from social psychology, political psychology, sociology, and political science to provide a comprehensive and up-to-date analysis of protest participation, particularly to the question of why some people protest while others do not. It is essential reading for scholars interested in the social and political psychology of individuals in action.

Prompted by the 'affective turn' within the entire spectrum of the social sciences, this books brings together the twin disciplines of political psychology and the political sociology of emotions to explore the complex relationship between politics and emotion at both the mass and individual level with special focus on cases of political tension.

Bridging psychology and sociology, this volume demonstrates the importance of self, identity, and self-esteem in analyzing and understanding social movements. The scholars gathered here provide a cohesive picture of how self and identity bear on social movement recruitment, activism, and maintenance. The result is a timely contribution to the social movements literature and to a greater understanding of the social and psychological forces at work within them.

Asked to name an activist, many people think of someone like Cesar Chavez or Rosa Parks—someone uniquely and passionately devoted to a cause. Yet, two-thirds of Americans report having belonged to a social movement, attended a protest, or engaged in some form of contentious political activity. Activism, in other words, is something that the vast majority of people engage in. This book examines these more common experiences to ask how and when people choose to engage with political causes. Corrigall-Brown reveals how individual characteristics and life experiences impact the pathway of participation, illustrating that the context and period in which a person engages are critical. This is the real picture of activism, one in which many people engage, in a multitude of ways and with varying degrees of continuity. This book challenges the current conceptualization of activism and pushes us to more systematically examine the varying ways that individuals participate in contentious politics over their lifetimes.

Inspired by recent advances in the area of social psychology, researchers are rapidly developing realistic and detailed models of the psychological process that determines political judgements and behavior. Early attempts to merely predict political behavior have been replaced by an attempt to describe the actual process whereby individuals gather, interpret, exchange, and combine information to arrive at a political judgment or decision. This volume provides comprehensive coverage of this pioneering era of research in political psychology.

This book aims to revisit the interdisciplinary roots of social movement studies. Each discipline raises its own questions and approaches the subject from a different angle or perspective. The chapters of this handbook are written by internationally renowned scholars representing the various disciplines involved. They each review the approach their sector has developed and discuss their disciplines’ contributions and insights to the knowledge of social movements. Furthermore, each chapter addresses the "unanswered questions" and discusses the overlaps with other fields as well as reviewing the interdisciplinary advances so far.