n this chapter we focus specifically on the outcomes of political violence, especially violence committed by armed groups. The literature on political violence and terrorism has grown massively since 9/11, but has so far been mostly silent about outcomes This is even more striking if we consider that the very purpose of the vast majority of tactical political violence is precisely to elicit reactions from the state. First, we focus on the range of potential outcomes associated with political violence. Second, we briefly review the difficulties of research on the outcomes of political violence. Third, we compare nonviolent and violent action, from the less extreme to the more extreme, and ask which is more likely to be successful and under which conditions. We conclude by underlining some avenues for further research and how research on political violence contributes as well to the social movement literature, particularly by enriching the relatively scant attention it has paid to violent forms of political action. Throughout, we draw on empirical examples obtained from the literature on contentious politics.
The idea that the political context sets the parameters within which political participation and mobilization occur is quite common among scholars of collective action, but it has found only limited space among scholars dealing with the political activities of the unemployed. In this chapter, we assess the extent to which objects, positions, and forms of political claim making in the field of unemployment depend upon institutional approaches to unemployment. Our point of departure is represented by work on the impact of configurations of citizenship, political opportunities, and claim making in the political field of immigration and ethnic relations (Giugni and Passy 2004, 2006; Koopmans et al. 2005), and, more particularly, on first attempts to apply this latter type of work to the unemployment field (Berclaz and Giugni 2005; Berclaz et al. 2004; Giugni et al. 2009). More precisely, we deal with two main dimensions of the political context. We gathered data from the analysis of a large number of political indicators so as to examine the role of unemployment regulations and that of labor market regulations. Different combinations of these two dimensions are then identified so as to discuss the potential impact of specific institutional configurations of opportunities within the unemployment field. We also focus on more general opportunities relating to the institutional setup of a country when dealing with variations of forms of action, since mobilization in the unemployment field may well respond to more general stimuli that exist beyond this specific field.
We are all inclined to think today that processes of globalization have a strong impact on national political structures and processes. Most commonly, we refer to a gradual transnationalization of economic, political and cultural reality at the national and local level that poses a challenge to national political institutions and public policies, political contentions and national identities. As scholarly literature in sociology and political science has argued recurrently, these processes do not necessarily threaten established nation-states as such, but undermine their political autonomy and power. The nation-state seems to lose its ability to set policy agendas and to define, formulate and implement related public policies, due to the increasing importance of international institutions and regimes on the global and European level (e.g. the United Nations, the World Trade Organization or the World Bank, or the European Union). This development entails a trend toward increasing similarities across countries in certain political fields. The former issue can be referred to as the denationalization thesis, the latter as the convergence thesis. Both issues are assumed to be aspects of a more general trend toward the transnationalization of political processes and structures at the national level.
This book has taken a look back at a difficult period for the labor market in order to inquire into the relationships between political institutional approaches to employment policy and political conflicts mobilized by collective actors over unemployment in the public domain. This is what we have called the contentious politics of unemployment. In more prosaic terms, we have looked at the intervention, in claim making in the public domain, but also in policy networks, on issues relating to unemployment. On a more theoretical level, this volume has tried to bring together two research streams and theoretical traditions that have remained largely unaware of each other: work on social movements and contentious politics, in particular the works that have stressed the impact of political opportunity structures on social protest (see Kriesi 2004a; Meyer 2004 for reviews), on the one hand, and the literature on the comparative political economic of the welfare state on the other (see Arts and Gelissen 2002; Green-Pedersen and Haverland 2000; Pierson 2000a for reviews).
Discussions about how public policies can promote more effectively the active engagement and participation of immigrants and their children1 in the political and civic life of the countries where they live are at the core of current scholarly and public debates. In advanced democracies, there are recurrent disputes about the appropriateness and potential benefits or shortcomings of introducing legal reforms that would guarantee that large immigrant populations — and especially their native-born children — are not excluded from the political process and from political representation. As Jones-Correa (1998: 35 and 46ff.) notes, migrants’ political marginalization has several potential negative implications for democratic politics: it undermines the process of democratic representation and accountability, it undervalues the role of active participation in the polity for the construction of the political community, and it perpetuates the view of immigrants and their descendants as outsiders to that community. Furthermore, the negative consequences related to migrants’ political exclusion are likely to spill over to their social and economic integration, as the policy process will fail to address adequately their needs in these domains. Yet there are widely divergent views on what are the most effective ways to promote migrants’ political inclusion, and on when and under what conditions should first-generation immigrants be granted full political rights.
The idea that the political context sets the parameters within which political participation and mobilization occur is quite common among students of social movements and contentious politics (see Eisinger, 1973; Kriesi et al., 1995; McAdam, 1999; Tarrow, 1998; Tilly, 1978). This holds as well for the political activities carried out by migrants’ organizations (Bloemraad, 2006; Vermeulen, 2006). However, previous work has stressed the impact of the institutionalized political system, largely overlooking more cultural and symbolic contextual aspects. In addition, previous work has looked at the role of political opportunities for explaining collective action, focusing much less on how they influence individual participation and behaviour (but see Leighley, 2001; Morales, 2009). This chapter engages with the systematic analysis of a set of ‘opportunity structures’, ranging from institutional opportunities to discursive opportunities, for the political participation of migrants at the individual level. To what extent does the political context influence individual participation? If there is an impact, how can we disentangle the institutional from the discursive aspects of that context? What are the implications in terms of policy-making?
This paper seeks to explain differential participation in social movements. It does so by attempting to bridge structural-level and individual-level explanations. We test a number of hypotheses drawn from the social networks and the rationalist perspectives on individual engagement by means of survey data on members of a major organization of the Swiss solidarity movement. Both perspectives find empirical support: the intensity of participation depends both on the embeddedness in social networks and on the individual perceptions of participation, that is, the evaluation of a number of cognitive parameters related to engagement. In particular, to be recruited by an activist and the perceived effectiveness of one's own potential contribution are the best predictors of differential participation. We specify the role of networks for social movements by looking at the nature and content of networks and by distinguishing between three basic functions of networks: structurally connecting prospective participants to an opportunity to participate, socializing them to a protest is- sue, and shaping their decision to become involved. The latter function implies that the embeddedness in social networks significantly affects the individual perceptions of participation.
Contrary to what is usually implied by work on the relationship between political opportunity structures and social movements, political institutions are not a general setting offering or denying formal access and political opportunities to every challenge, but rather favor certain types of movements and constrain others. This process of institutional selectivity depends on the relationship between the structure of a given political institution and the movement type and defines social movements as pro-institutional, counter- institutional, or neutral. Accordingly, variation in the movements' action repertoire and degree of success can be observed. Yet, political institutions leave the door open to different interpretations by social actors so that a framing struggle takes place; at stake is the fit between movement demands and the structure of political institutions. The argument is developed through the example of federalism and its impact on two types of movements-namely, regionalist and squatters' movements-and illustrated by discussing their fate in France, the Netherlands and Switzerland. Empirical data suggest that institutional selectivity is to be taken into account to reach a better understanding of the relationship between social movements and their political context.
