Repression and Mobilization: What We Know and Where We Should Go From Here

University Of Maryland, College Park, College Park MD

Investigators

Abstract

In the past, social movement and collective action research in sociology has concentrated largely on mobilization in democratic states. In contrast, studies of the mobilization-repression nexus in political science focus on protest in principally authoritarian contexts. Both areas have neglected important insights provided by the other. Recently, as new data from repressive as well as democratic regimes have become available, and as new theoretical perspectives on state building, political control, and culture have found their way into social movement studies as well as research on repression/human rights, there is growing interest among scholars to reexamine and reconceptualize this relationship. This research involves a workshop designed to bring together twenty junior and senior researchers who are working in diverse settings. The primary goal is to address the hiatus in theory concerning how the range of repressive tactics in democratic and authoritarian states shapes repertoires of contention, mobilizing structures, and the framing of opportunities and collective identities as various points in cycles of resistance, protest, and rebellion. The workshop output will be a book edited by the organizers. The activity is to contribute to the creation of a network of scholars who come to these issues embracing both single-state as well as global/comparative approaches.