Economic and Geopolitical Crises and Waves of Social Unrest

Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore MD

Investigators

Abstract

This project will shed light on the post-2008 global upsurge of labor and social unrest by comparing it to analogous historical periods from the mid-nineteenth century to the present. How is social unrest linked to economic and geopolitical crises? The project creates a new data base using digital newspapers of The New York Times and The Guardian (London) from 1851 forward. Thus, it situates the analysis of the current global wave of social protest in a much longer temporal frame and broader geographical scope than is normally done. It will make it possible to directly address and resolve debates about whether or not the current wave of protest is historically significant and novel. The new database will be collected and disseminated in a way that will be useful for researchers and teachers. The project design includes a significant training component, providing a team of students with the opportunity to gain professional level research training and hands-on research experience. Because of its intensity and global spread, scholarly debates on the causes and significance of the recent protest wave have mushroomed, including debates about the class composition of the participants and the causal mechanisms linking unrest to economic crises and geopolitical transformations. Main hypotheses of this project include examination of whether or not: (1) global waves of social unrest, analogous to the present in terms of intensity and geographical spread, have occurred only rarely, and only in periods of world hegemonic crisis and transition--that is, periods of intense and intertwined economic and geopolitical crises, such as inter-state and intra-state warfare); (2) the post-2008 wave of global social protest has strong analogies with the wave of unrest that took place during the late 19th and early 20th century crisis of British world hegemony; and (3) labor unrest is an important component of both waves of global social unrest. A particular feature of the current period is the large role played by workers who are unable to find stable wage employment (precariously employed, unemployed, underemployed, etc.) and who have no significant alternative (non-wage) means of livelihood.