Acts of Dissent New Developments in the Study of Protest

Although living conditions have improved throughout history, protest, at least in the last few decades, seems to have increased to the point of becoming a normal phenomenon in modern societies. Contributors to this volume examine how and why this is the case and argue that although problems such as poverty, hunger, and violations of democratic rights may have been reduced in advanced Western societies, a variety of other problems and opportunities have emerged and multiplied the reasons and possibilities for protest. Acts of Dissent: New Developments in the Study of Protest examines some of those problems, progressing from methodological issues, to discussions of the part that the mass media plays in protest, finally to several case studies of protests in different contexts.

Beissinger, Mark R., Department of Political Science, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin, USA. Crishock, Louis J., Department of Sociology, The Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C., USA. Ekiert, Grzegorz, Department of Government/Center for European Studies, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. Fillieule, Olivier, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, CRESAL, Saint Etienne, France, and Institute of Political Studies (IEP), Paris, France. Gentile, Pierre, Department of Political Science, University of Geneva, Switzerland. Hocke, Peter, Research Unit "Social Movements and the Public Sphere," Social Science Research Center Berlin (WZB), Germany. Koopmans, Ruud, Research Unit "Social Movements and the Public Sphere," Social Science Research Center Berlin (WZB), Germany. Kubik, Jan, Department of Political Science, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey, USA. McCarthy, John D., Department of Sociology, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park McPhail, Clark, Department of Sociology, The University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, USA. Neidhardt, Friedhelm, Research Unit "Social Movements and the Public Sphere," Social Science Research Center Berlin (WZB), Germany. Olzak, Susan, Department of Sociology, Stanford University, California, USA. Olivier, Johan L., Human Sciences Research Council, Pretoria, South Africa. Rucht, Dieter, Research Unit "Social Movements and the Public Sphere," Social Science Research Center Berlin (WZB), Germany. Schweingruber, David, Department of Sociology, The University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, USA. Smith, Jackie, Department of Sociology, State University of New York, Stony Brook Tarrow, Sidney, Department of Government, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA.