Gains and Losses How Protestors Win and Lose

Presents cutting edge theory about the consequences of social movements and protest while asking what kind of trade-offs protest movements face in trying to change the world around them.

Many scholars have tried to figure out why some social movements have an impact and others do not. By looking inside movements at their component parts and recurrent strategic interactions, the authors of Gains and Losses show that movements usually produce a variety of effects, including recurring packages of gains and losses. They ask what kinds of trade-offs and dilemmas these packages reflect by looking at six empirical cases from around the world: Seattle's conflict over the $15 an hour minimum wage; the establishment of participatory budgeting in New York City; a democratic insurgency inside New York City's Transport Workers' Union; a communist party's struggle to gain votes and also protect citizen housing in Graz, Austria; the internal movement tensions that led to Hong Kong's umbrella occupation; and Russia's electoral reform movement embodied in Alexei Navalny. They not only examine the diverse players in these cases involved in politics and protest, but also the many strategic arenas in which they maneuver. While each of these movements made some remarkable gains, this book shows how many also suffered losses, especially in the longer run.

James M. Jasper has written about culture and politics for more than forty years. He recently retired from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. He writes about culture and politics, and his most recent books are Public Characters, Protestors and their Targets, and The Emotions of
Protest.

Luke Elliott-Negri is a doctoral candidate in sociology at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.

Isaac Jabola-Carolus is a doctoral candidate in sociology at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.

Marc Kagan is a doctoral candidate in the History program at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.

Jessica Mahlbacher received her Ph.D. in Political Science from the Graduate Center, City University of New York. She now work at the US Department of State.


Manès Weisskircher is a political scientist in the Department of Sociology and Human Geography and the Center for Research on Extremism (C-REX) at the University of Oslo.

Anna Zhelnina is a fellow at the University of Helsinki.