How Social Resistance is Generated when Social Mobility is Obstructed: A Process-Tracing Study of the 2012-2023 Strike Movement in the UK

Abstract

The UK strike was one of Europe's most extensive and topical social protests in the last decade. Only a little attention has been paid to it in sociology, as perspectives on contemporary society are not popular in academia. To fill this gap, we will use historical, sociological methods to theoretically reconstruct the social structure of the British strike movement and restore its historical-social processes. The relationship between strikes and social mobility in Britain is the subject of this thesis, and it is found that the relationship between social mobility and social resistance is not linear. Instead, it is structured as a 'double helix.' Social resistance does not necessarily begin with a decrease in social mobility, but it does impact the current state of social mobility. Indicators of mobility will be one of the resistance issues, and the official method of counting them is subject to further academic debate and research.