Protest and Democracy

In 2011, political protests sprang up across the world. In the Middle East, Europe, Latin America, the United States unlikely people sparked or led massive protest campaigns from the Arab Spring to Occupy Wall Street. These protests were made up of educated and precariously employed young people who challenged the legitimacy of their political leaders, exposed a failure of representation, and expressed their dissatisfaction with their place in the aftermath of financial and economic crisis. This book interrogates what impacts, if any, this global protest cycle had on politics and policy and shows the sometimes unintended ways it continues to influence contemporary political dynamics throughout the world. Proposing a new framework of analysis that calls attention to the content and claims of protests, their global connections, and the responsiveness of political institutions to protest demands, this is one of the few books that not only asks how protest movements are formed but also provides an in-depth examination of what protest movements can accomplish. With contributions examining the political consequences of protest, the roles of social media and the internet in protest organization, left- and right-wing movements in the United States, Chile's student movements, the Arab Uprisings, and much more this collection is essential reading for all those interested in the power of protest to shape our world.

Table of Contents:
List of Tables and Figures Abbreviations Acknowledgements Part I: Concepts and Explanations The Political Consequences of Protest MoisÉs Arce and Roberta Rice How Do We Explain Protest? Social Science, Grievances, and the Puzzle of Collective Action Erica S. Simmons Part II: Mechanisms and Processes Transnational Protest: 'Going Global' in the Current Protest Cycle against Economic Globalization Jeffrey Ayres and Laura Macdonald Collective Action in the Information Age: How Social Media Shapes the Character and Success of Protests Jennifer M. Larson Schools for Democracy? The Role of NGOs in Protests in Democracies in the Global South Carew E. Boulding Part III: Cases and Consequences The Ebbing and Flowing of Political Opportunity Structures: Revolution, Counter-Revolution, and the Arab Uprisings Paul Kingston 'You Taught Us to Give an Opinion, Now Learn How to Listen:' The Manifold Political Consequences of Chile's Student Movement Sofia Donoso and NicolÁs M. Somma Protest Cycles in the United States: From the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street to Sanders and Trump Ted Goertzel Conclusions Re-Thinking Protest Impacts MoisÉs Arce, Roberta Rice, and Eduardo Silva Index

About the Author :
Moisés Arce is professor and Frederic A. Middlebush Chair in Political science at the University of Missouri. He is the author of Market Reform in Society and Resource Extraction and Protest in Peru. Roberta Rice is associate professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Calgary. She is the author of The New Politics of Protest: Indigenous Mobilization in Latin Americaâs Neoliberal Era, which was nominated for the CPSA Prize in Comparative Politics.