Suchergebnisse

Local alternative consumerism practices supported by organized citizens seem to provide the only way to save small agro producers from economic failure. At the same time, organized small producers provide incentives to new forms of co-production. By relying on semi-structured and in depth interviews, a focus group, document analysis and participant observation, in this article, we show how Tuscan Solidarity Purchase Groups, together with producers, act in the context of the economic crisis, and how the crisis has influenced them. First, we show how organized political consumers and small producers are intensifying their relations to overcome the threats of the crisis. Secondly, we illustrate how these consumer-producer relations concretize in a co-production experience. Our case study shows that, in the adverse context of the economic crisis, local alternative consumerism practices can develop alternative processes through civic food networks and (re)discover radical forms of food democracy. That is they build a local Sustainable Community Movement.

This Paper deals with the current transformations of Solidarity Purchase Groups (SPGs) in Italy. We particularly wonder if and eventually how the economic crisis and austerity policies have affected SPGs. Through an approach based on the literature on political consumerism and social movements, six hypotheses are proposed: 'less economic resources, less SPGs,' 'cultural path dependency,' 'increased op-portunities,' 'isomorphism,' 'civic traditions,' and 'resilience.' Empirical data focus on Italian and Tuscan SPGs, by both articulating different research methods and focalizing on different levels. Although our work has only an explorative aim, our analysis shows that the amount of available economic resources cannot per se lead to a satisfying understanding of the evolution of SPGs. Hypotheses based on culture and politi-cal processes seem to be more promising and can point to the resilience capacity of those groups. Post-materialistic values resulting from economic well-being might have produced organized practices of political consumerism. However, once political consumerism gets structured—this is our tentative argument—not only does it resist to external shocks but also it transforms itself and adapts to the new conditions imposed by crises, that is, it becomes 'resilient.' The 'resilience hypothesis' applied to SPGs nevertheless has to face some social cleavages.

This article studies the construction of ideals and images associated with Europe and the European Union by non-state actors (social movements, trade unions and NGOs) based outside Europe. First, we analyse the external image of Europe and the EU through the content analysis of meaning attributed to the EU and EU politics on the homepages of non-EU NGOs, trade unions and social movements within the global justice movements. Secondly, we study the perspective of non-Western European activists within the European Social Forum process as a transnational forum 'from below' for 'another' Europe. The European Union seen from outside is an ambivalent powerful political community with both a hegemonic but also a socially transformative and democratic aspiration. While internal EU organizations and groups claim the internal democratization of Europe, activists based outside the EU see it as an important external ally for the implementation of human rights and democratization (or gender equality), though they are very critical on materialistic issues, such as trade relationships.

This article focuses on a protest campaign against the building of a high-speed railway in Tuscany, a region characterized by a "red" territorial subculture, that is, a dense network of associations and local institutions associated with the main left-wing party. The eight-year long protest campaign involved formal environmental movement organizations as well as parties and local institutional actors that often staged protests. The main actors of the campaign were, however, the local environmental movement organizations that were formed in most of the areas directly menaced by the project. Looking at the historical evolution of protest campaign, the authors investigate cooperation and competition inside the movement between the ideologically "purer" environmental organizations and the more moderate forms of action on the one hand, and the local, single-issue, and sometimes NIMBY groups that were more prone to protest, on the other. Drawing on a political process approach, the dynamics of the protest are explained by reference to a multilevel policy-making process, involving local, national, and even international political institutions. Moreover, a distinction is introduced between political opportunities and policy opportunities, all framed within the local political culture. Protest event analysis allows to relate the different repertoires with the changing set of resources and opportunities for the various actors in the different steps of the policy making process.

Notwithstanding the several threats that the Millennial generation faces (from unemployment, to precariousness and uncertainty), many young citizens still engage in politics, though not necessarily through conventional patterns of participation. The economic crisis and the related austerity policies have triggered out protest mobilizations in all South European countries (della Porta, Andretta et al. 2017), in which young generations have played a crucial role. Though in Italy anti-austerity mobilizations have been leaded especially by the old and established trade unions (Andretta 2017; Andretta and della Porta 2015), Millennials have been very much involved in those and in other kinds of protests. This generation faces indeed a very different type of life expectations and/or conditions than the previous ones, and it is more seriously threatened by the current economic crisis. This makes particularly interesting to investigate how these citizens overcome barriers of marginalization, network and develop collective identities. Our chapter focuses on the dynamics of political commitment of young Italians, defined as made of those between 14 and 40 years old, during collective mobilizations in the last years. By relying on data from several surveys carried out during protest events on social, economic and labour issues from 2010 to 2011, in this chapter we single out differences and the similarities between young and "old" generations on those aspects that social movement studies underline as crucial in explaining individual participation; namely grievance and emotion, collective identity and network embeddedness (della Porta and Diani 1996). By comparing four different types of demonstrations--a May day march (held in Florence, 2011), a typical anti-austerity protest (in Rome in 2012); an anti-neoliberal type of protest (in Florence in 2012) and, finally, a new type of protest involving directly the precarious young generation (the Euro Mayday in Milan in 2011)--we aim at understanding if such mechanisms of political engagement vary according to the issue on which young people mobilize. The chapter is structured as following: in section 1 we introduce the context on which Italian Millennials mobilize and the theoretical framework of the analysis, in section 2, we present the research method and the logic guiding the selection of the demonstrations surveyed; section 3, 4, 5, and 6, introduced by a literature review on the dimensions we decided to focus on, deal respectively with the presence and the social composition of the Italian young generation; its type of grievances and emotions; its collective identity; and, finally, its network embeddedness. In each dimension we compare older and young generations, and young generations across types of demonstrations. In the conclusions, we will summarize the most important findings and suggest some tentative explanations.

This article focuses on the precarious generation protesting in Spain and Italy in times of crisis and austerity (2010-2012). Their many similarities notwithstanding, the two countries have experienced different types of mobilization against austerity measures. In Spain, a relatively autonomous mobilization –characterized by new collective actors and new forms of action– has made possible the building of a political actor, Podemos, able to seriously challenge the established political parties. In Italy, instead, the mobilization was dominated by established political actors, especially trade unions, did not produce innovative forms of action and has not been able to overcome (so far) the fragmentation of the social movement sector. In both countries, however, the anti-austerity protests have been characterized by a strong presence of what we call hear the "precarious generation", particularly exposed to the economic crisis and the austerity measures. By relying on data from several surveys conducted in demonstrations on social, economic and labor issues in the two countries from 2010 to 2011, in this article we single out differences and the similarities in terms of presence, social composition, grievances and emotion, collective identity and network embeddedness of the precarious generation. Our findings show that the precarious generation was almost equally present in the selected demonstrations in the two countries, share similar socio-graphic features and similar types of grievance and emotions. Nonetheless, in Spain it seems to have built a more cohesive and radical collective identity based upon a more informal and internet based network integration while in Italy it seems embedded in a more traditional and formal network, which prevented the formation of a strong collective identity. Moreover, while in Spain the differences between the older and the precarious generation reveal that, both have a strong identity based on different networks; more formal the older and more related to informal and online instruments the latter; in Italy, the older generation has a much stronger collective identity based on a organizational network, while the precarious one is less but still integrated in organizational network. We conclude that the more autonomous civil society tradition in Spain, together with the particular political opportunities, under the pressure of a harsher economic crisis, may account for the differences we found.

This article focuses on the precarious generation protesting in Spain and Italy in times of crisis and austerity (2010-2012). Their many similarities notwithstanding, the two countries have experienced different types of mobilization against austerity measures. In Spain, a relatively autonomous mobilization –characterized by new collective actors and new forms of action– has made possible the building of a political actor, Podemos, able to seriously challenge the established political parties. In Italy, instead, the mobilization was dominated by established political actors, especially trade unions, did not produce innovative forms of action and has not been able to overcome (so far) the fragmentation of the social movement sector. In both countries, however, the anti-austerity protests have been characterized by a strong presence of what we call hear the "precarious generation", particularly exposed to the economic crisis and the austerity measures. By relying on data from several surveys conducted in demonstrations on social, economic and labor issues in the two countries from 2010 to 2011, in this article we single out differences and the similarities in terms of presence, social composition, grievances and emotion, collective identity and network embeddedness of the precarious generation. Our findings show that the precarious generation was almost equally present in the selected demonstrations in the two countries, share similar socio-graphic features and similar types of grievance and emotions. Nonetheless, in Spain it seems to have built a more cohesive and radical co - llective identity based upon a more informal and internet based network integration while in Italy it seems embedded in a more traditional and formal network, which prevented the formation of a strong collective identity. Moreover, while in Spain the differences between the older and the precarious generation reveal that, both have a strong identity based on different networks; more formal the older and more related to informal and online instruments the latter; in Italy, the older generation has a much stronger collective identity based on a organizational network, while the precarious one is less but still integrated in organizational network. We conclude that the more autonomous civil society tradition in Spain, together with the particular political opportunities, under the pressure of a harsher economic crisis, may account for the differences we found.