This book offers empirical analyses of conflicts over the ownership, control, and use of knowledge and information in developed and developing countries. Sebastian Haunss and Kenneth C. Shadlen, along with a collection of eminent contributors, focus on how business organizations, farmers, social movements, legal communities, state officials, transnational enterprises, and international organizations shape IP policies in areas such as health, information-communication technologies, indigenous knowledge, genetic resources, and many others. The innovative and original chapters examine conflicts over the rules governing various dimensions of IP, including patents, copyrights, traditional knowledge, and biosafety regulations. Written from a political perspective, this book is a must-read for political scientists, sociologists and anthropologists who study IP and conflicts over property. It is also an essential read for stakeholders in institutions, NGOs and industry interested in knowledge governance and IP politics.

This volume examines why the 2008 financial crisis with the subsequent Great Recession did not foster a major institutional transformation of the capitalist market economy. It highlights the role of ideas and public discourse in explaining institutional stability and change in the wake of economic crises and other critical junctures. Examining legitimation discourse in four OECD countries (Germany, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States) between 1998 and 2011, the contributions to the volume use different text-analytical methods to bring out the ideas that underpin affirmative and critical media discourse on the capitalist regime. Individual chapters focus on the contours and trajectories of legitimation discourse before and after the financial crisis, on the attribution of responsibility for the crisis, on the use of metaphors and narratives, and on the formation of discourse coalitions challenging the regime. Together, they show that the post-2008 legitimation crisis of the capitalist market economy did not result in its sustained delegitimation or in powerful new ideas that might have mobilized support for radical institutional change. The book will appeal to students and scholars of economic sociology, media studies and political science.

This volume addresses the contested relationship between social stratification and social movements in three different ways: First, the authors address the relationship between social stratification and the emergence of protest mobilization. Second, the texts look at social stratification and social positions to explain variations in political orientations, as well as differing aims and interests of protestors. Finally, the volume focuses on the socio-structural composition of protestors. Social Stratification and Social Movements takes up recent attempts to reconnect research on these two fields. Instead of calling for a return of a class perspective or abandoning the classical social movement research agenda, it introduces a multi-dimensional perspective on stratification and social movements and broadens the view by extending the empirical analysis beyond Europe.

This volume addresses the contested relationship between social stratification and social movements in three different ways: First, the authors address the relationship between social stratification and the emergence of protest mobilization. Second, the texts look at social stratification and social positions to explain variations in political orientations, as well as differing aims and interests of protestors. Finally, the volume focuses on the socio-structural composition of protestors. Social Stratification and Social Movements takes up recent attempts to reconnect research on these two fields. Instead of calling for a return of a class perspective or abandoning the classical social movement research agenda, it introduces a multi-dimensional perspective on stratification and social movements and broadens the view by extending the empirical analysis beyond Europe.

This book offers empirical analyses of conflicts over the ownership, control, and use of knowledge and information in developed and developing countries. Sebastian Haunss and Kenneth C. Shadlen, along with a collection of eminent contributors, focus on how business organizations, farmers, social movements, legal communities, state officials, transnational enterprises, and international organizations shape IP policies in areas such as health, information-communication technologies, indigenous knowledge, genetic resources, and many others. The innovative and original chapters examine conflicts over the rules governing various dimensions of IP, including patents, copyrights, traditional knowledge, and biosafety regulations. Written from a political perspective, this book is a must-read for political scientists, sociologists and anthropologists who study IP and conflicts over property. It is also an essential read for stakeholders in institutions, NGOs and industry interested in knowledge governance and IP politics.

In Conflicts in the Knowledge Society, Sebastian Haunss demonstrates how conflicts relating to the international system of intellectual property have resulted in new cleavages in the knowledge society. Furthermore, he argues that new collective actors have emerged from these conflicts with the ability to contest the existing dominant order. With a focus on political opportunity structures, collective action networks and framing strategies, he combines a theoretical discussion of social change in the knowledge society with empirical analyses of four recent developments: software patents in Europe, access to medicines, Creative Commons licensing and Pirate Parties.

In Conflicts in the Knowledge Society, Sebastian Haunss demonstrates how conflicts relating to the international system of intellectual property have resulted in new cleavages in the knowledge society. Furthermore, he argues that new collective actors have emerged from these conflicts with the ability to contest the existing dominant order. With a focus on political opportunity structures, collective action networks and framing strategies, he combines a theoretical discussion of social change in the knowledge society with empirical analyses of four recent developments: software patents in Europe, access to medicines, Creative Commons licensing and Pirate Parties.

Bewegungsengagement ist nicht nur eine Frage politischer Uberzeugung. Wenn es dauerhaft sein soll, verbinden sich fur die AktivistInnen oft Alltag und Politik zu einem untrennbaren Ganzen. Wie diese Verbindung sich in Prozessen kollektiver Identitat niederschlagt, untersucht der Autor am Beispiel der Autonomen und der Schwulenbewegung."