'Wir kampfen um das, was wir brauchen'. Stand und Perspektiven des Erwerbslosenprotests

In: Neue soziale Bewegungen: Forschungsjournal, Band 10, Heft 2, S. 70-75

Abstract

Examines efforts to organize the unemployed in the Federal Republic of Germany. Although it is allowed that a mass movement does not exist, a high level of mobilization potential is detected in the 500 groups that have formed around the issue. Analysis of coalition building, including the emergence of a national network of anti-unemployment & antipoverty initiatives, concludes that the political action of the unemployed conforms to neither a traditional lobbying nor a mass protest model. Rather, multiple patterns of resistance -- many of them rooted in daily life practices -- are apparent. Issue is taken with Friedhelm Wolski-Prenger's (1996) more pessimistic analysis of the political potential of unemployment work in the Federal Republic of Germany. 8 References. Adapted from the source document.