Political sociology in a time of protest

Christopher Barrie

doi:10.1177/00113921211024692

Abstract

We live in a time of protest. Relative to sociology, political science has traditionally paid little attention to ‘extra-institutional’ forms of political behaviour. For its part, sociology has tended to prioritize the explanation of mobilization processes over political outcomes. Using bibliometric records from 14 political science and sociology journals over the last two decades, this study demonstrates that protest has witnessed a resurgence of interest in political science and that both sociology and political science now share a focus on the outcomes of protest. The article lays out key trends in this research agenda and suggests what is missing, arguing that a political sociology of protest should integrate recent findings from both disciplines to better understand elite decision-making, the mediation of protest information and protestor aims.

Highlights

The 2010s has been hailed a decade of protest (Clement, 2016)
It is to claim that a political sociology of protest would do well to combine a political scientific focus on mass opinion and legislative behaviour with a sociological attention to the relationship between social movements and the media
Perhaps because the one aim that is constant across protest groups is a desire for publicity, the few articles in sociology exploiting large-N data on movement-level characteristics focus on the correlates of media attention and stop short of discussing political outcomes (Andrews and Caren, 2010; Seguin, 2016)

Summary

Introduction

The 2010s has been hailed a decade of protest (Clement, 2016). Ushered in with the wave of Arab Spring protests across the Middle East and North Africa alongside ongoing street protest after the 2008 financial crisis in Europe and North America, major protest episodes would continue to stir throughout the decade. The effect of protest on political outcomes, in other words, is likely mediated through shifts in public opinion and shifts in media attention.17 According to this understanding, legislators respond to shifts in public mood and media coverage rather than setting the agenda themselves.

Results

Conclusion