The transition paradigm has traditionally viewed civil society activism as an essential condition for the establishment of democracy. The democracy promotion strategies of Western policy-makers have, therefore, been based on strengthening civil society in authoritarian settings in order to support the development of social capital -to challenge undemocratic regimes.

This book questions the validity of the link between an active associational life and democratization. It examines civil society in the Arab world in order to illustrate how authoritarian constraints structure civil society dynamics in the region in ways that hinder transition to democracy. Building on innovative theoretical work and drawing on empirical data from extensive fieldwork in the region, this study demonstrates how the activism of civil society in five different Arab countries strengthens rather than weakens authoritarian practices and rule. Through an analysis of the specific legal and political constraints on associational life, and the impact of these on relations between different civic groups, and between associations and state authorities, the book demonstrates that the claim that civil society plays a positive role in processes of democratic transformation is highly questionable.

Offering a broad and alternative vision of the state of civil society in the region, this book will be an important contribution to studies on Middle Eastern politics, democratization and civil society activism.

Social Movements: The Key Concepts provides an insightful, contemporary introduction to some of the frequently encountered terms and groups that are central to the study of collective action and social and political activism. Following an A-Z format, the entries defined and discussed are drawn from the following areas:

• the ?old? social movements of the nineteenth century
• the ?new? social movements of the 1960s and 1970s
• the rise of contemporary ?network? movements.

Key American, European and global social movements are addressed, with each entry related to contemporary developments and emergent tendencies within the field. Including helpful references for further study, this concise and up-to-date guide is of relevance for those studying a range of disciplines, including sociology, politics, cultural studies and human geography.

Constructive Anarchy, the result of more than a decade of direct study within a variety of anarchist projects, provides the most wide-ranging and detailed analysis of current anarchist endeavours. The compelling discussions of anarchism and union organising, anti-poverty work and immigrant and refugee defence represent truly groundbreaking undertakings from a rising scholar of contemporary anarchism. Organised to illustrate the development of the diversity of anarchist strategies and tactics over time, the book begins with a discussion of alternative media projects before turning attention to anarchist involvement in broader community-based movements. Case studies include a discussion of anarchists and rank-and-file workplace organising, anarchist anti-borders struggles and "No One Is Illegal" movements in defence of immigrants and refugees since 9/11, and anarchist free schools and community centres. Jeff Shantz's analysis demonstrates serious and grounded practices rooted in anarchist organising: practices that may draw on previous traditions and practices but also innovate and experiment. The varied selection of case studies allows the author to compare groups that are geared primarily towards anarchist and radical subcultures with anarchist involvement in more diverse community-based coalitions, an approach that is otherwise lacking in the literature on contemporary anarchism.

This volume provides a concise but authoritative overview of the Never Again Movement, which arose in the aftermath of a mass shooting that killed 17 people at a high school in Parkland, Florida, in February 2018. This volume in the 21st Century Turning Points series, a one-stop resource for understanding the people and events changing America today, analyzes school shootings and examines the broader issue of gun violence in America. It focuses on the history of school shootings in the United States and the debate that has raged for decades between gun control advocates and supporters of gun ownership rights. School Shootings and the Never Again Movement: 21st Century Turning Points provides a broad perspective on these issues. It recounts the evolution of gun politics and policy throughout the twentieth century, explains the positions and activities of organizations and activists on both sides of the gun debate, details notorious school shootings ranging from Columbine to Parkland, and explores the potential impact of the Never Again Movement on American gun policy at the state and federal levels. Provides entries devoted to individual events as well as milestones Offers biographical profiles to help readers understand the motivations and accomplishments of important activists and figures Presents essays that explore the lasting impact of school shootings and the Never Again Movement on American life Features an annotated bibliography that gives readers resources for further study

This is an exploration of the discourse and performance, since the 1980s, of an influential Sunni Islamic scholarly and political movement in Saudi Arabia. The text shows how reformism is deeply rooted in Islamic tradition and how Sunni scholars have become acivists for change in Saudi Arabia.

Trade unions have experienced considerable global decline since the late 1970s. Although union influence remains significant in most nations, many unions have witnessed a fall in membership, on which this influence ultimately depends. Past attempts at turning the fortunes of unions around in the face of 'globalisation' and national predicaments have been the concern of union leaderships. In the case of Nigeria, such events are economic circumstances, the use of legal instrumentality such as decrees and edicts, and lack of democratic environment due to constant military intervention in Nigeria's political system.In light of the current global developments, especially in relation to density decline of trade union membership and the role trade unions are expected to play in industrial relations, The Impact of Political Action on Labour Movement Strength explores the consequences of government action and the economic and political policies on union membership and clout. This book investigates the forms of political action undertaken by trade unions and reviews the conditions under which these actions succeed or fail, whilst exploring how trade unions balance this function in relation to their main aim of collective bargaining.

In recent years immigration and the integration of migrants and minorities have become politicised in public and policy debates in Britain, the rest of Europe and the United States. In such debates, migrants are commonly treated as objects of politics and spoken in terms of management, national interest, control and contention. This treatment has characterised not only policy makers and politicians but also many academics. Existing scholarly research on migrants as subjects of politics is limited and largely carried out through detached and structural approaches. These approaches have focused on the institutional environments in which mobilisations develop. They have, however, overlooked migrants? conditions, experiences, subjectivities and practices as well as the focus of their engagement.

This volume contributes to the study of migrants? mobilisation through theoretically informed original empirical papers focusing on current forms and aspects of migrants and minorities practices of citizenship in an engaged and people-centred manner. In particular, the book addresses issues of change both in the forms assumed by migrants? and minorities political engagements and in the transformations these engagements produce as well as exclusion-inclusion dynamics that migrants experience with regard to the political process and more generally.

This book was previously published as a special issue of Ethnic and Racial Studies.

As we enter the twenty-first century, scholars, activists and others concerned with social change increasingly realize that in order to transform society effective coalitions among different groups working for social justice need to be created and maintained. However, most of the research and writing about coalitions provide rather limited approaches to the study and understanding of radical alliances; i.e.: coalitions whose goals are to fundamentally change interpersonal relations and social structure in order to achieve equality and true social justice. This anthology challenges dominant approaches of explaining social movements and coalition building. Based on numerous case studies of alliances created between disparate peoples and among a variety of groups, the authors show that both resource mobilization theories and identity politics frameworks for the most part are inadequate for conceptualizing how alliances have been and can be created across boundaries of gender, race/ethnicity, class, nationality, ideology, sexual orientation, and age. The theoretical approach we propose suggests that coalitions are fluid sites of collective behavior where the blending of multiple identities with political activism interact with structural conditions to influence the development of commitments, strategies and specific actions. This analogy makes a contribution to a body of knowledge that aims to understand and explain how radical coalitions work in order to enable the development of visions and plans for change that advance and sustain political and social activity.

We take it for granted that the streets outside out homes are designed for movement from A to B, nothing more. But what happens if we radically rethink how we use these public spaces? Could we change our lives for the better? Our dependence on cars is damaging our health - and the planet's. The Dutch seem to have the right idea, with thousands of bike highways, but even then, what happens to pedestrians or people who want to cycle at a more leisurely pace? What about children playing outside their homes? Or wildlife, which enriches our local areas? Why do we prioritise traffic above all else? Making our communities safer, cleaner, and greener starts with asking the fundamental questions: who do our streets belong to, what do we use them for, and who gets to decide? Join journalist Thalia Verkade and urban mobility expert Marco te Broemmelstroet as they confront their own underlying beliefs and challenge us to rethink our way of life to put people at the centre of urban design. But be warned: you will never look at the street outside your front door in the same way again.

This book investigates the emergence of organic food and farming as a social movement. Using the tools of political sociology it analyzes and explains how both people and ideas have shaped a movement that from its inception aimed to change global agriculture. Starting from the British Empire in the 1930's, where the first trans-national roots of organic farming took hold, through to the internet-mediated social protests against genetically modified crops at the end of the twentieth century, the author traces the rise to prominence of the movement. As well as providing a historical account, the book explains the movement's on-going role in fostering and organising alternatives to the dominant intensive and industrial forms of agriculture, such as promoting local food produce and animal welfare. By considering it as a trans-national movement from its inception, aiming at cultural and social change, the book highlights what is unique about the organic movement and why it has risen only relatively recently to public attention. The author reports original research findings, focusing largely on the English-speaking world. The work is grounded in academic enquiry and theory, but also provides a narrative through which the movement can be understood by the more general interested reader.

Microverses comprises over a hundred short essays inviting us to think about society - and social theory - in new ways. Lockdown created the conditions for what Adorno once termed 'enforced contemplation'. Dylan Riley responded with the tools of his trade, producing an extraordinary trail of notes exploring how critical sociology can speak to this troubled decade. Microverses analyses the intellectual situation, the political crisis of Trump's last months in office, and love and illness in a period when both were fraught with the public emergency of the coronavirus. Riley brings the theoretical canon to bear on problems of intellectual culture and everyday life, working through Weber and Durkheim, Parsons and Dubois, Gramsci and Lukacs, MacKinnon and Fraser, to weigh sociology's relationship to Marxism and the operations of class, race and gender, alongside discursions into the workings of an orchestra and the complicatedness of taking a walk in a pandemic. Invitations rather than finished arguments, the notes attempt to recover the totalising perspective of sociology - the ability to see society in the round, as though from the outside - and to recuperate what Paul Sweezy described as a sense of the 'present as history'.

'Riveting; as fresh and relevant today as it was almost 50 years ago. The words fire off the page with humour, anger and eloquence' Guardian A powerful and commanding account of the life of trailblazing political activist Angela Davis Edited by Toni Morrison and first published in 1974, An Autobiography is a classic of the Black Liberation era which resonates just as powerfully today. It is reissued now with a new introduction by Davis, for a new audience inspired and galvanised by her ongoing activism and her extraordinary example. In the book, she describes her journey from a childhood on Dynamite Hill in Birmingham, Alabama, to one of the most significant political trials of the century: from her political activity in a New York high school to her work with the U.S. Communist Party, the Black Panther Party, and the Soledad Brothers; and from the faculty of the Philosophy Department at UCLA to the FBI's list of the Ten Most Wanted Fugitives. Told with warmth, brilliance, humour, and conviction, it is an unforgettable account of a life committed to radical change.

This book deals with the controversies on developmental aspects of large dams, with a particular focus on the Narmada Valley projects in India. Based on extensive ethnographic fieldwork and research, the author draws on Marxist theory to craft a detailed analysis of how local demands for resettlement and rehabilitation were transformed into a radical anti-dam campaign linked to national and transnational movement networks.

The book explains the Narmada conflict and addresses how the building of the anti-dam campaign was animated by processes of collective learning, how activists extended the spatial scope of their struggle by building networks of solidarity with transnational advocacy groups, and how it is embedded in and shaped by a wider field of force of capitalist development at national and transnational scales. The analysis emphasizes how the Narmada dam project is related to national and global processes of capitalist development, and relates the Narmada Valley movement to contemporary popular struggles against dispossession in India and beyond.

Conclusions drawn from the resistance to the Narmada dams can be applied to social movements in other parts of the Global South, where people are struggling against dispossession in a context of neoliberal restructuring. As such, this book will have relevance for people with an interest in South Asian studies, Indian politics and Development Studies.

Political violence and instability in the Middle East is arguably the world's most important political issue. The region is certainly the globe's leading area for turmoil, war, and violence; and its conflicts have continuously involved Western countries both directly and indirectly. This book surveys the main conflicts and insurgencies in recent Middle East history, focusing mainly on the period since the 1980s. Taking a historical-analytical approach, it covers challenges from revolutionary groups, civil wars, and the main conventional wars in the region. In addition to providing detailed narratives, the contributors also analyse the lessons for political and military affairs stemming from these conflicts. Conflict and Insurgency in the Contemporary Middle East assembles for the first time detailed studies of the Iran-Iraq, Israel-Hizballah, and the two Coalition-Iraq wars, along with analyses of a number of insurgencies. Assessing successes and failures, strategy and tactics, and changes in military technologies, the book will be of great interest to students of Middle Eastern politics, insurgencies, security studies and International Relations in general, as well as policymakers and military professionals.

This book examines the role of civil society organizations in several advanced European democracies: Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. Specifically the book focuses on how voluntary organizations contribute to civic and democratic health and assesses the impact of different organizational types on social capital.

Building on Citizenship and Involvement in European Democracies and Social Capital and Associations in Europe (2007), this volume seeks to widen and deepen the analysis by introducing new data on activists and combining it with the organizational data and the population data. It evaluates the impact of the organizational context on individual activity profiles and attitudes and values of activists and provides a unique assessment on the contribution that voluntary associations make to civil and democratic society. Part One deals with the consequences of associational involvement for several attitudinal and behavioural orientations and Part Two expands the scope of the effects of voluntary associations towards European attitudes.

This book is essential reading for students and scholars of civil society, democracy, political participation, politics and sociology.

Prior to the 1960s, when African Americans had little access to formal political power, black popular culture emerged as a tool to forge community and effect political change. However, with the new avenues opened to African Americans in the post-Civil Rights era, many believe the influence of black popular culture on the political sphere began to diminish steadily.
Yet as Richard Iton shows in this uniquely trenchant volume, despite the changes brought about by the Civil Rights movement--and contrary to the wishes of those committed to narrower conceptions of politics--black artists have continued to play a significant role in the making and maintenance of critical social spaces. Here, Iton offers an original portrait of the relationship between popular culture and institutionalized politics, tracing the connections between artists such as Paul Robeson, Lorraine Hansberry, Richard Pryor, Bob Marley, Erykah Badu, and those individuals working in the protest, electoral, and policymaking arenas. With an emphasis on questions of class, gender, and sexuality--and diaspora and coloniality--the author also illustrates how creative artists destabilize modern notions of the proper location of politics, and politics itself.
Ranging from theater to film, and comedy to literature and contemporary music, In Search of the Black Fantastic is an engaging and sophisticated examination of how black popular culture has challenged our understandings of the aesthetic and its relationship to politics.

Voicing Dissent presents a unique and original series of interviews with American artists (including Guerrilla Girls on Tour, Tony Shalhoub, Shepard Fairey, Sean Astin, and many others) who have voiced their opposition to the war in Iraq. Following Pierre Bourdieu's example, these discussions are approached sociologically and provide a thorough analysis of the relationships between arts and politics as well as the limits and conditions of political speech and action. These painters and graphic artists, musicians, actors, playwrights, theatre directors and filmmakers reveal their perceptions of politics, war, security and terrorism issues, the Middle East, their experiences with activism, as well as their definition of the artist's role and their practice of citizenship. Addressing the crucial questions for contemporary democracies - such as artists' function in society, the crisis of political legitimacy and representation, the rise of new modes of contestation, and the limits to free public speech - this book will be of interest to scholars in sociology, politics, and the arts.

As the National Park Service prepares for its centennial in 2016, this book provides an in-depth analysis of the role of philanthropy in national parks, with a focus on non-profit organizations known as friends groups and cooperating associations. Providing a historical review of partnerships through the lifetime of the NPS, up to a contemporary analysis of the legal and organizational framework under which non-profit philanthropic partners operate, Jacqueline Vaughn and Hanna J. Cortner explore the challenges the National Park Service faces in dealing with non-profit partners. Based on personal interviews with more than 50 non-profit leaders and National Park Service staff, financial data, and comprehensive site visits, Vaughn and Cortner offer a unique and informative view of the landscape in which philanthropy groups succeed - and sometimes fail.

Millions of people were involved in or influenced by the protest and social change movements of the 1960s. Today, they are moms, dads, even grandparents. They are teachers, architects, artists, entrepreneurs. Having intimations of mortality, they are searching for their identities what formed them, and why they have become who they are.Based on recent interviews, this unique sixties book brings together the voices of the Left leaders who spawned the sixties movements. Many remain activists today, and experience and the passage of time allow them to transcend nostalgia to form more realistic perspectives on past, present, and future. They discuss the civil rights and antiwar movements, the political outcome of the sixties, patriotism, terror, and the role of young people in the future. Important gains were made during the sixties, but there were many setbacks, too, that influence today s voters, leaders, candidates, and our day-to-day realities. The sixties of this book are not simply a sweet memory of marijuana and album rock; there were many casualties, including innocence and youthful idealism. Agger concludes with reflections on the possibilities of a next Left, which was already faintly visible in young people s massive support of Obama s presidential candidacy. "

Millions of people were involved in or influenced by the protest and social change movements of the 1960s. Today, they are moms, dads, even grandparents. They are teachers, architects, artists, entrepreneurs. Having intimations of mortality, they are searching for their identities what formed them, and why they have become who they are.Based on recent interviews, this unique sixties book brings together the voices of the Left leaders who spawned the sixties movements. Many remain activists today, and experience and the passage of time allow them to transcend nostalgia to form more realistic perspectives on past, present, and future. They discuss the civil rights and antiwar movements, the political outcome of the sixties, patriotism, terror, and the role of young people in the future. Important gains were made during the sixties, but there were many setbacks, too, that influence today s voters, leaders, candidates, and our day-to-day realities. The sixties of this book are not simply a sweet memory of marijuana and album rock; there were many casualties, including innocence and youthful idealism. Agger concludes with reflections on the possibilities of a next Left, which was already faintly visible in young people s massive support of Obama s presidential candidacy. "

This is a must read book for anyone interested in the areas of racial theory and racial relations, multicultural and polarized religions, and the making of African personality and culture. In keeping with earlier volumes in the series, it emphasizes the cross-fertilization of Africa and the world.

In "Binga Bank: Th e Development of the Black Metropolis" Beth Johnson gives an historic look at the opening of the Binga Bank, its founder, and how the bank helped stimulate the black metropolis in Chicago. "Black on the Block" takes a look at life in the community of North Kenwood-Oakland, California. Mark Christian describes what it is like to be a member in the African diaspora in the United States and United Kingdom. In the racial theory and racial relations area, Clarence Tally's "The aeRace' Concept and Racial Structure" argues that the study of race has become dominated by the idea that race is socially constructed. Reiland Rabaka analyzes discourse on the process of awarding reparations to people of African origin. Paula A. Moore explains why people of African descent with mental health problems do not receive treatment.

"Patriot Day" focuses on the emergence and growth of Islam in America and its struggle to connect with America's cultural heritage. "Edward Wilmot Blyden and the African Personality," by James Conyers, reviews Blyden's ideas and beliefs challenging the European worldview. "Cultural Helix Th eory" examines the most fundamental component of African culture, language and how it aff ects the black community. "Black in the Saddle" by Demetrius W. Pearson chronicles the professional and personal experiences of Willie Thomas, an African American cowboy.

James L. Conyers, Jr., is university professor of African American studies, director of the African American studies program, and director of the Center for the Study of African American Culture at the University of Houston. He is also the editor of Law, Culture, and Africana Studies and Afrocentric Traditions (available from Transaction).

Born in Pondoland in 1917, Oliver Tambo cut his political teeth in the ANC Youth League. This book traces his role as a leader of the legal ANC through the Defiance Campaign, the Congress of the People and the Treason Trial, and his evolution from militant ‘Africanism’ towards acceptance of the idea of the ANC as open to people of different racial groups and political persuasions. The book also traces his role from the aftermath of Sharpeville in 1960 as, for 30 years, the pre-eminent leader of the ANC in exile in London, Tanzania and Zambia. It shows how, placing himself at the political centre of the organisation, he held the ANC together through great difficulties, managing its relations with African states and great powers, and steering it towards the negotiated end of apartheid. The book analyses the sources of Tambo’s strength as a leader, emphasizing his integrity and commitment to democracy, and the importance to him of religion, music and family.

These studies examine the ways in which succeeding democratic regimes have dealt with, or have ignored (and in several cases sugar-coated) an authoritarian or totalitarian past from 1943 to the present. They treat the relationship with democratization and the different ways in which collective memory is formed and dealt with, or ignored and suppressed. Previous books have examined only restricted sets of countries, such as western or eastern Europe, or Latin America. The present volume treats a broader range of cases than any preceding account, and also a much broader time-span, investigating diverse historical and cultural contexts, and the role of national identity and nationalism, studying the aftermath of both fascist and communist regimes in both Europe and Asia in an interdisciplinary framework, while the conclusion provides a more complete comparative perspective than will be found in any other work.

The book will be of interest to historians and political scientists, and to those interested in fascism, communism, legacies of war, democratization, collective memory and transitional justice.

This book was previously published as a special issue of Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions.

US military presence in twenty-first century in Latin America has recently been characterised by rapidly intensifying militarization alongside under-supported anti-military activism. This book redirects recent debates about twenty-first century social mobilization by taking seriously those who actively resist the social movements in their midst.

This book provides new perspectives on transnational activism with a specific regional focus on Asia. By offering an innovative approach, its theoretical chapters and empirical case studies examine macro as well as micro aspects of power and how cross-border activities of civil society groups are related to problems of democracy.