Suchergebnisse

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.

Activists are the engines of social movements. What spurs their activism? This article scrutinizes the role of civic participation in stimulating political action. We examine how the type of voluntary organization, scope of involvement and intensity of activity relate to political activity. Contrary to existing studies that collapse noninstitutional political activities into a single measure, we differentiate collective activities from individualized activities, enabling us to investigate how the type, intensity and scope of civic participation differentially stimulate political activities. Our sample included 14,787 participants in 71 street demonstrations. We show that membership and interest in activist organizations stimulates political activity, especially for those actively involved and especially for collective noninstitutionalized activities, while membership in leisure organizations only stimulates individualized political activities, but not collective activities. We therefore conclude that civic participation is a multifaceted phenomenon associated with various political activities in different ways.

The emphasis in the social-psychological collective action literature is on why individuals take part in collective action; however, it does not elaborate on how different mobilizing contexts may appeal to distinct motivational dynamics to participate. The present study connects the microlevel of motivational dynamics of individual protesters with the mesolevel of social movement characteristics. To do so a field study was conducted. Protesters were surveyed in the act of protesting in two different demonstrations in two different town squares simultaneously organized by two social movements at exactly the same time against the same budget cuts proposed by the same government. But with one fundamental difference, the movements emphasized different aspects of the policies proposed by the government. This most similar systems design created a unique natural experiment, which enabled the authors to examine whether the motivational dynamics of individual protesters are moderated by the social movement context. Previous research suggested an instrumental path to collective action, and the authors added an ideology path. The authors expected and found that power-oriented collective action appeals to instrumental motives and efficacy and that value-oriented collective action appeals to ideological motives, and, finally, that efficacy mediates on instrumental motives and motivational strength, but only so in power-oriented action. © 2009 The Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues.

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.

Studies of the participants in "Fridays For Future" climate protests on 15 March, 2019 in 13 European cities.

Studies of the participants in "Fridays For Future" climate protests on 15 March, 2019 in 13 European cities.