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Social constructionists have produced a rich theoretical and empirical literature on the rise and fall of public issues. By focusing exclusively on claims‐making behavior in a micro interactive context, social constructionists, in the tradition of Spector and Kitsuse, generally have rejected efforts to link claims‐making to antecedent variables. Thus they often treat claims‐making participants as activities, devoid of motives, meanings, and intentions. In this paper, ideology and interest are offered as antecedent variables to claims‐making and as the critical factors which determine why some claims are more marketable than others. Interest and ideology also are examined as both subjective and structural/cultural phenomena.

How do Indian citizens access the state? While a standard answer would be "through patronage," three recent books show that clientelism, while important, is just part of the story. Not just passive clients at the mercy of their political patrons, Indian citizens actively engage the
state and their representatives to make claims and secure what is due to them. Gabrielle Kruks-Wisner's Claiming the State—Active Citizenship and Social Welfare in Rural India shows how rural dwellers navigate the local government system to access social welfare. Adam Auerbach's
Demanding Development: The Politics of Public Goods Provision in India's Urban Slums documents how local political workers make claims on behalf of their neighbours and provide their settlements with essential services. Jennifer Bussell's Clients and Constituents: Political Responsiveness
in Patronage Democracies persuasively demonstrates the importance of higher-level representatives in providing assistance to their constituencies. Together, these books not only demonstrate how political the daily life of ordinary citizens is, but also how the Indian state, while far
from its Weberian ideal, is much more inclusive than previously thought.

This project aims to advance knowledge in labour politics by focusing on the 'contentious politics of unemployment', i.e. the relationship between political-institutional approaches to employment policy and political conflicts mobilized by collective actors over unemployment in the public domain. It is designed to study this topic at national, international comparative, and transnational levels. Key objectives: (a) to generate new data for longitudinal and comparative analyses of ideological and policy positions of actors and their relationships; (b) to study the potential for political participation 'from below' by citizens campaigning for the rights of the unemployed and the conditions under which existing organizational networks and policy dialogues transform in a more open civil policy deliberation; (c) to provide knowledge based on rigorous cross-national and EU-level transnational analyses allowing grounded empirical statements about the Europeanisation of the field.

As the contested and negotiated character of the employment policy field expresses itself both in the public domain and in the institutional arenas for interest mediation, we look both at political claim-making in the public space and policy deliberation within the polity. The overall design of the research has three main components: (a) mapping the field of political contention, i.e. structures of ideological cleavages and actor relationships, both longitudinally and cross-nationally; (b) examining the nature of the multi-organizational field extending from the core policy domain to the public domain, i.e. networks and channels of political influence between core policy actors and intermediary organizations, on one side, and civil society organizations and social movements representing the unemployed (including the unemployed themselves), on the other; (c) studying the nature of the interaction between EU-level and national policy-making by determining the channels of political influence that exist between European institutions and national policy domains in the field (the multi-level governance of employment policy), and examining to what extent there are new political opportunities for the bottom-up empowerment of citizens' organizations as a consequence of the emergence of the EU as an actor in the field. The body of data generated allows for longitudinal (1990-2002) and comparative (F, D, I, S, CH, UK) analyses of ideological and policy positions of actors and their relationships in the unemployment issue-field. It is backed up by interviews conducted with key actors in the organizational field (policy actors, employers associations, trade unions, parties, NGOs and social movements) both at the national and transnational levels. Innovative attempts are made to establish networks and links between the involved actors as part of our dissemination strategy, which is key to the overall success of the project.

Objectives: This project aims to advance knowledge in labour politics by focusing on the 'contentious politics of unemployment', i.e. the relationship between political institutional approaches to employment policy and political conflicts mobilized by collective actors over unemployment in the public domain. It is designed to study this topic at national, international comparative, and transnational levels. Key objectives: (a) to generate new data for longitudinal and comparative analyses of ideological and policy positions of actors and their relationships; (b) to study the potential for political participation 'from below' by citizens campaigning for the rights of the unemployed and the conditions under which existing organizational networks and policy dialogues transform in a more open civil policy deliberation; (c) to provide knowledge based on rigorous cross-national and EU-level transnational analyses allowing grounded empirical statements about the Europeanisation of the field. Description: As the contested and negotiated character of the employment policy field expresses itself both in the public domain and in the institutional arenas for interest mediation, we look both at political claim-making in the public space and policy deliberation within the polity. The overall design of the research has three main components: (a) mapping the field of political contention, i.e. structures of ideological cleavages and actor relationships, both longitudinally and cross-nationally; (b) examining the nature of the multi-organizational field extending from the core policy domain to the public domain, i.e. networks and channels of political influence between core policy actors and intermediary organizations, on one side, and civil society organizations and social movements representing the unemployed (including the unemployed themselves), on the other; (c) studying the nature of the interaction between EU-level and national policy-making by determining the channels of political influence that exist between European institutions and national policy domains in the field (the multi-level governance of employment policy), and examining to what extent there are new political opportunities for the bottom-up empowerment of citizens' organizations as a consequence of the emergence of the EU as an actor in the field. A new body of data will be generated which will allow for longitudinal (1990-2002) and comparative (F, D, I, S, CH, UK) analyses of ideological and policy positions of actors and their relationships in the unemployment issue-field. This will be backed up by interviews conducted with key actors in the organizational field (policy actors, employers associations, trade unions, parties, NGOs and social movements) both at the national and transnational levels. Innovative attempts will be made to establish networks and links between the involved actors as part of our dissemination strategy, which is key to the overall success of the project. Expected results: The success of this project is underwritten by the European dimension. It will provide the first systematic cross-national comparison of the contentious politics of unemployment based on original data. It has a high potential for being a path-breaking academic study in labour politics, social movements and Europe. The findings will feedback understanding to the actors in the field, facilitated through our dissemination strategy which aims to contribute toward a constructive social dialogue.

This article uses unique data to explore individual claims-making on the Terri Schiavo case. We analyze 2,509 e-mails sent to Jeb Bush and 1,182 newspaper stories about the Schiavo case to assess how mass media, claims-makers, and individual experience affect the frames and identities used to support or oppose intervention on Terri's behalf. We find that the frames individuals use vary according to whether they support Bush's involvement in the case. In addition, we find that the frames individuals use in their claims-making do not always mirror those discussed in mass media. Specifically, the frequency with which e-mailers discuss particular ideas varies according to the engagement of claims-makers on the issue as well as the complexity of the frame. Finally, we find that some individuals do deploy identities strategically in their e-mails. Opponents of intervention, for instance, use their political identities as Republicans to urge Bush to stay out of the case. Not all identity deployment, however, corresponds with support or opposition to Bush's involvement on the Schiavo case. Individuals use their familial and religious identities to both support and oppose intervention. We conclude with a discussion of the relevance of these findings for understanding claims-making in the twenty-first century.

This article examines the Internet's emergent role in the claims-making process. My central premise is while Internet technology provides lay citizens with a mass mediated platform to distribute claims publically, power dynamics in the public sphere have remained relatively stable: Insiders and lobbyists continue to be powerful cultural voices; the press still functions as a cultural gatekeeper of newsworthiness; most people continue to have relatively little social authority; and the least powerful risk being completely left out of a digital society. Using the National Rifle Association (NRA) web presence as a case study, I describe the Internet as a vast collection of interconnected public cyber-arenas where problem claims are continuously disseminated, global communication is facilitated via online advocacy networks, and claimants utilize novel cyber-strategies to mobilize supporters. In doing so, I examine how cyber-arenas fundamentally differ from more static traditional claims-making arenas like television, radio, and print publication. I conclude by considering the extent to which historically powerful insider claims-making groups like the NRA are actually best positioned to succeed in a supposedly democratized new media world.

Abstract
This article discusses approaches and strategies in criminal justice social work that assert the claims of criminal justice clients over welfare and entitlements, in a context where their voices are compromised. It discusses claim-making and the dynamics underlying the process. The article reflects on the field experiences of a social work intervention project that the authors are associated with, that promotes legal rights and social re-entry of marginalised populations in criminal justice. The project's work highlights the need for claim-making and participatory approaches towards development of policy and programmes in the neoliberal era.

Through everyday practices, excluded and marginalised undocumented migrants struggle for citizenship, question bordering practices, and can achieve forms of inclusion incrementally. Based on an ethnographic case study in Amsterdam, this article evidences and theorises these piecemeal struggles of undocumented migrants. We show how undocumented migrants—discursively and spatially—claim 'the right to have rights'. We demonstrate how forms of inclusion emerge as the result of 'claim-making': by making appeals to human rights, the use of (limited) legal rights, and identity claims. We combine the analysis of claim-making with research into an understudied but highly relevant process of 'claim-placing', which refers to how the use (public) spaces and places can add weight to discursive claim-making. We demonstrate that an incremental process of 'claim-making' and 'claim-placing' leads to a slightly increased recognition as political subjects and forms of inclusion.

Adivasi assertion of distinction based in the communities' relationship with land and their surrounding environment has been the subject of much debate within academic writing. Critiquing romantic and essentialising images of adivasi societies, recent literature on adivasi politics, increasingly read within the frame of a politics of indigeneity, has raised questions regarding the nature of mobilisation around such romantic imagery. In this article, I suggest the need to reframe the question we ask of movements that make seemingly romantic claims, by asking how and why such claims take the shape that they do. In asking this question, the article argues for a reading of political claims made within the movement as historically contingent and rooted in the dynamic of the conflict that allows for its emergence. Understanding them as such allows for a renewed understanding of seemingly romantic claims, which instead point to the material and historical complex within which the struggle takes place.

ABSTRACTWhile the challenges of family law reform and barriers to justice are widely studied, there is a gap in our understanding of the gendered nature of the use of courts in West Africa. Through analysis of judicial decisions in Courts of First Instance (Tribunaux de Première Instance) in Allada and Cotonou, Benin, this article examines how women and men use lower courts in family law cases. This article finds that despite barriers to access to formal institutions, women use these courts in equal numbers as do men, and they use them for divorce, as well as to claim child custody, child-support and alimony. Men mostly use family law courts to determine paternity and to seek divorce. Despite a widespread lack of confidence in courts and tribunals, these Courts of First Instance are a tool for women to challenge social hierarchy and to claim rights for themselves and their children.