Protest, Movements, and Dissent in the Social Sciences

Drawing on a wide range of social science disciplines and approaches, each chapter in this book offers a comprehensive analysis of social protest, political dissent and collective action. The distinguished scholars contributing to the book discuss some of the key theoretical and methodological issues in social protest research, and analyse recent instances of collective dissent around the globe, ranging from the 15M movement in Spain, to the 2011 Salford riots in the UK, to Pro-Palestinian activism in Jerusalem. The result of these contributions is a sophisticated and multifaceted collection that enriches our understanding of why, when, and how groups of people decide to act collectively in order to pursue political change. The book is a timely testament to the vitality of the field. This book was originally published as a special issue of Contemporary Social Science.

Giovanni A. Travaglino is a Research Associate in the School of Psychology at the University of Kent, Canterbury, UK. His research interests include leadership and deviance, collective opposition to organised crime, and protest. He is editor of Contention: The Multidisciplinary Journal of Social Protest, and founder of the Interdisciplinary Network for Social Protest Research.

1. Social sciences and social movements: the theoretical context 2. Unity within diversity: a social psychological analysis of the internal diversity of the Indignados movement 3. The political economy of Israel's 'social justice' protests: a class and generational analysis 4. Hashtags, ruling relations and the everyday: institutional ethnography insights on social movements 5. A matter of law and order: reporting the Salford riots in local news webpages 6. The moral economy of the UK student protest movement 2010-2011 7. Networks, counter-networks and political socialisation - paths and barriers to high-cost/risk activism in the 2010/11 student protests against fees and cuts 8. Something's wrong here: transnational dissent and the unimagined community 9. Why the psychology of collective action requires qualitative transformation as well as quantitative change