Protest Movements Between Social Justice, Peace, and Anti-Establishment Politics? Evidence from Monday Demonstrations in Eastern Germany

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes See for example James L. Gibson, 'Changes in Russian Attitudes toward Democratic and Economic Reform: Results from a 1996–2000 Panel Survey', paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, 31 August 2000; John R. Hibbing & Samuel C. Patterson, 'Public Trust in the New Parliaments of Central and Eastern Europe', Political Studies, 17, 1994, pp. 570–592; William Mishler & Richard Rose, 'Five Years After the Fall: Trajectories of Support for Democracy in Post‐Communist Europe', in Pippa Norris (ed.), Critical Citizens: Global Support for Democratic Government (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1999); and Alexander Pacek, 'Macroeconomic Conditions and Electoral Politics in East Central Europe', American Journal of Politics, 38, August 1994, pp. 723–744. James L. Gibson, Raymond M. Duch & Kent L. Tedin, 'Democratic Values and the Transformation of the Soviet Union', Journal of Politics, 54, May 1992, pp. 329–371; William L. Miller, Stephen White & Paul Heywood, Values and Political Change in Postcommunist Europe (New York, St. Martins Press, 1998); Timothy J. Colton, Transitional Citizens: Voters and What Influences Them in the New Russia (Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 2000). Raymond Duch, 'Tolerating Economic Reform: Popular Support for Transition to a Free Market in the Former Soviet Union', American Political Science Review, 87, 3, 1993, pp. 590–608; James R. Kluegel, David S. Mason & Bernd Wegener (eds), Social Justice and Political Change: Public Opinion in Capitalist and Post‐Communist States (Hawthorne, NY, Aldine de Gruyter, 1995); and Miller, White & Heywood, Values and Political Change. Richard Rose, 'Trends in Democracies and Markets: New Democracies Barometer 1991–1998', Studies in Public Policy, no. 308, Glasgow, Center for the Study of Public Policy, University of Strathclyde, 1998; Donna Bahry, 'Comrades Into Citizens? Russian Political Culture and Public Support for the Transition', Slavic Review, 58, Winter 1999, pp. 841–853; and Ellen Carnaghan, 'Thinking about Democracy: Interviews with Russian Citizens', Slavic Review, 60, Summer 2001, pp. 336–366. Donna Bahry, 'Society Transformed? Rethinking the Social Roots of Perestroika', Slavic Review, 52, Fall 1993, pp. 512–554; Richard Rose & Ellen Carnaghan, 'Generational Effects on Attitudes to Communist Regimes: A Comparative Analysis', Post‐Soviet Affairs, 11, 1, 1995, pp. 28–56; and 10 Years After the Fall of the Wall: Public Opinion in Central and East European Countries in Transition 1989–1999, prepared by Dina Smeltz, Janice Bell, Nancy Mendrala et al. (Washington, Office of Research, Department of State, 2000). Mary Mclntosh, Martha Abele Maclver, Daniel Abele & Dina Smeltz, 'Public Meets Democracy in Central and East Europe 1991–1993', Slavic Review, 53, Fall 1994, pp. 483–512; Janos Simon, 'Popular Conceptions of Democracy in Postcommunist Europe', in Samuel H. Barnes & Janos Simon (eds), The Postcommunist Citizen (Budapest, Erasmus Foundation, 1998), pp. 79–116. William Mishler & Richard Rose, 'Trust, Distrust and Skepticism: Popular Evaluations of Civil and Political Institutions in Post‐Communist Societies', Journal of Politics, 59, May 1997, pp. 418–451; Colton, Transitional Citizens; Kluegel, Mason & Wegener (eds), Social Justice. Carolyn Funk & Patricia Garcia‐Monet, 'The Relationship Between Personal and National Concerns in Public Perceptions About the Economy', Political Research Quarterly, 50, June 1997, pp. 317–342. Max Kaase, Kenneth Newton & Elinor Scarbrough, 'A Look at the Beliefs in Government Study', PS: Political Science and Politics, 29, June 1996, pp. 226–228; Kluegel, Mason & Wegener (eds), Social Justice. In the 1991 survey of the International Social Justice Project (ISJP), for example, about nine out of ten respondents in the region agreed that the government should guarantee everyone a minimum standard of living and provide a job for everyone who wanted one. Other surveys since that time have shown similar results; see David S. Mason, 'Attitudes toward the Market and Political Participation in the Postcommunist States', Slavic Review, 54, Summer 1995, pp. 385–406, at p. 391. In previous research David S. Mason & James R. Kluegel, Marketing Democracy: Changing Opinion About Inequality and Politics in East Central Europe (Lanham, MD, Rowman and Littlefield, 2000), looked at bivariate correlations between fairness evaluations and political evaluations, using only a few selected indicators. This was simply suggestive of a relationship between those concepts. In this article we call upon theory and prior research to examine this relationship within a multivariate model that permits us to draw more direct and much stronger conclusions about the effects of economic fairness assessment on political evaluations. Christopher J. Anderson & Yuliya V. Tverdova, 'Corruption, Political Allegiances, and Attitudes Toward Government in Contemporary Democracies', American Journal of Political Science, 47, January 2003, pp. 91–109; David W. Lovell, 'Trust and the Politics of Postcommunism', Communist and Post‐Communist Studies, 34, 2001, pp. 27–38; Mishler & Rose, 'Trust, Distrust and Skepticism'; William Mishler & Richard Rose, 'What Are the Origins of Political Trust? Testing Institutional and Cultural Theories in Post‐Communist Societies', Comparative Political Studies, 34, 1, February 2001, pp. 30–62; William Mishler & Richard Rose, 'Political Support for Incomplete Democracies: Realist vs. Idealist Theories and Measures', International Political Science Review, 22, 4, 2001, pp. 303–320; Susan Rose‐Ackerman, 'Trust and Honesty in Post‐socialist Societies', Kyklos, 54, 2/3, 2001, pp. 415–443. European Commission, 'Eurobarometer 2003.4: Public Opinion in the Candidate Countries', February 2004, http://europa.eu.int/comm/public_opinion. E.g. Anderson & Tverdova, 'Corruption, Political Allegiances and Attitudes'; Rose‐Ackerman, 'Trust and Honesty'. Tom R. Tyler, 'Justice and Leadership Endorsement', in Richard Lau & David Sears (eds), Political Cognition (Hillsdale, NJ, L. Erlbaum Associates, 1986), quotation at p. 269. Tom Tyler, Kenneth Rasinski & Kathleen McGraw, 'The Influence of Perceived Injustice on the Endorsement of Political Leaders', Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 15, 8, 1985, pp. 700–725. Diana C. Mutz & Jeffrey J. Mondak, 'Dimensions of Sociotropic Behavior: Group‐Based Judgments of Fairness and Well‐Being', American Journal of Politics, 41, January 1997, pp. 284–308 at pp. 288, 300, 302. E.g. David S. Mason, Revolution in East‐Central Europe (Boulder, Westview, 1992). E.g. Karol Soltan, '1989 as Rebirth', in Sorin Antohi & Vladimir Tismaneanu (eds), Between Past and Future: The Revolutions of 1989 and Their Aftermath (Budapest, Central European University Press, 2000), pp. 25–38. Timothy Garton Ash, The Uses of Adversity: Essays on the Fate of Central Europe (New York, Vintage, 1990). Marc Garcelon, 'Shock Therapy Produces Political Capitalism', Meeting Report of the Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian Studies, 13, November 1995. Edmund Wnuk‐Lipinski & Jacek Wasilewski, 'How Much Communism is Left with Us?', Politicus (Institute of Political Studies, Polish Academy of Sciences), August 1995, pp. 39–44. Yudit Kiss, 'Privatization Paradoxes in East‐Central Europe', East European Politics and Societies, 8, Winter 1994, pp. 122–152 at p. 151. Olga Kryshtanovskaya, 'Wealthy Russians: Privilege and Power', Meeting Report of the Kennan Institute of Advanced Russian Studies, 13, June 1996. Rose, 'Trends in Democracies and Markets'. The ISJP fielded a survey in these five countries and eight others in 1991. The 1996 survey replicated about 80% of the questions asked in the 1991 study; see Kluegel, Mason & Wegener (eds), Social Justice; Mason & Kluegel, Marketing Democracy; and the project's website at www.butler.edu/isjp. Mason & Kluegel, Marketing Democracy. One might speculate that the relationship between economic fairness assessments and political evaluations would be weaker among the young, who have come of age under a more capitalist economic and social order. To test this possibility, we have run all the models reported in this article for young people only (respondents aged 35 or less). These results for the younger cohorts are in all respects nearly identical to those we report here for the entire sample. This suggests that there is not likely to be a change (over the short term, at least) in the relationship of economic fairness assessments to political evaluations. Morton Deutsch, Distributive Justice: A Social Psychological Perspective (New Haven, CT, Yale, 1985); Kluegel, Mason & Wegener (eds), Social Justice; and James R. Kluegel, David S. Mason & Bernd Wegener, 'The Legitimation of Capitalism in the Postcommunist Transition: Public Opinion and Market Justice, 1991–1996', European Sociological Review, 15, 3, 1999, pp. 251–283. Hilary Appel, 'Justice and the Reformulation of Property Rights in the Czech Republic', East European Politics and Society, 9, Spring 1995, pp. 23–40. E. Allan Lind & Tom R. Tyler, The Social Psychology of Procedural Justice (New York, Plenum, 1988). Anthony B. Atkinson & John Mickelwright, Economic Transformation in Eastern Europe and the Distribution of Income (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1992). James R. Kluegel & Petr Mateju, 'Egalitarian vs. Inegalitarian Principles of Distributive Justice', in Kluegel, Mason & Wegener (eds), Social Justice, pp. 209–238; and Mason, 'Attitudes toward the Market'. Kluegel, Mason & Wegener (eds), Social Justice. Robert E. Lane, 'Market Justice, Political Justice', American Political Science Review, 80, 1986, pp. 383–402. Kluegel, Mason & Wegener, 'The Legitimation of Capitalism'. E. g. Margaret Levi & Laura Stoker, 'Political Trust and Trustworthiness', Annual Review of Political Science, 3, 2000, pp. 475–507. Christopher J. Anderson & Christine Guillory, 'Political institutions and Satisfaction with Democracy: A Cross‐National Analysis of Consensus and Majoritarian Systems', American Political Science Review, 91, March 1997, pp. 66–81, discuss the cumulated evidence that a similarly worded question — in their case measuring satisfaction with democracy — has construct validity as an indicator of political system support. Howard Schuman, 'The Perils of Correlation, the Lure of Labels and the Beauty of Negative Results', in David O. Sears, Jim Sidanius & Lawrence Bobo (eds), Racialized Politics: The Debate About Racism in America (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 2000), p. 304. We also test two two‐factor models. The first — labeled 'Two Factor, Generalised Trust' — allows for a generalised trust factor underlying the two government trust items and the four procedural justice items. One might posit that the procedural justice items effectively measure trust — in this case trust in the economic order — as well as the trust in government items. Accordingly, one might hypothesise that a relationship between these six items reflects a single factor. The second two‐factor model — labeled 'Two Factor, Separate Political Trust Dimension' — posits that the seven economic fairness items measure the same thing, and that we need not distinguish between a measure of distributive justice and a measure of procedural justice evaluations. Although in each case the two‐factor models show an improved fit relative to the single‐factor model, only for Bulgaria do we get fit statistics in the acceptable range. An average of responses to the respective three, four and two questions is calculated to form these indices. To minimise missing data, for Poor/Rich Attribution and Legitimate Inequality, an average was formed if a respondent answered at least two items. For the Trust in Government index a respondent needed to have complete data on one of the two items to calculate a score. Kenneth A. Bollen, Structural Equations with Latent Variables (New York, Wiley, 1989). Cf. Donald R. Kinder & D. Roderick Kiewiet, 'Economic Discontent and Political Behavior: The Role of Personal Grievances and Collective Economic Judgments in Congressional Voting', American Journal of Political Science, 23, August 1979, pp. 495–527. Funk & Garcia–Monet, 'The Relationship'. In Bulgaria questions about retrospective and prospective egocentric economic evaluations were asked of only a random one‐third of respondents. To minimise the loss of cases (and thereby statistical power) we do not include these variables in the equations given in Panels III, IV and V in Tables 2 and 3 for Bulgaria. In the Czech Republic questions concerning prospective egocentric evaluations, sociotropic well‐being and satisfaction with the market economy were not asked in 1995. Satisfaction with the market economy was not measured in 1996 in Eastern Germany. Mishler & Rose, 'Trust, Distrust and Skepticism'; Mishler & Rose, 'Five Years After the Fall'. Our own analysis of the determinants of voter party preferences in these countries, not reported here, shows indeed that the nature of such support varies with the political orientation of the party in power in each country. And studies of single countries have found a substantial impact of the 'communist legacy' on political evaluations; see for example Denise V. Powers & James H. Cox, 'Echoes from the Past: The Relationship between Satisfaction with Economic Reforms and Voting Behavior in Poland', American Political Science Review, 91, September 1997, pp. 617–633; and Piotr Sztompka, 'Trust and Emerging Democracy: Lessons from Poland', International Sociology, 11, 1, 1996, pp. 37–62. Robert Rohrschneider, Learning Democracy: Democratic and Economic Values in Unified Germany (New York, Oxford, 1999). Mutz & Mondak, 'Dimensions of Sociotropic Behavior'. Richard Rose & Christian Haerpfer, 'New Democracies Barometer IV: A 10‐Nation Survey', Studies in Public Policy, no. 262, Glasgow, Centre for the Study of Public Policy, University of Strathclyde, 1996. Mason & Kluegel, Marketing Democracy. The CASMIN project (Comparative Analysis of Social Mobility in Industrial Nations) is a coding scheme used for multinational projects like the ISJP. For a description see Kluegel, Mason & Wegener (1995); p. 330. To make the measure of education level as comparable as possible across countries, we recoded the original seven categories into three. It distinguishes people with a) a primary school level of education only, b) secondary school and technical training, and c) some college level education or more. We employ these subjective indicators rather than reports of current family income or occupational prestige for two reasons: first, they are more directly comparable across countries than raw income or occupational prestige rankings; and second they apply to all respondents rather than only to those who have incomes or jobs. Percent Middle Class is calculated by subtracting the perceived percent who are poor and the perceived percent who are rich from 100. To minimise missing data, respondents who said they did not know or who did not answer the respective questions about percent poor and rich were assigned the mean for respondents who did answer. In the few cases where calculations led to a negative value, Percent Middle Class is assigned the value zero. That is, the larger the middle class, the more citizens of a particular country share its economic benefit. Also, the size of the perceived middle class correlates quite strongly with the perceived percent in a country who are poor. The larger is the perceived middle class the smaller is the perceived extent of poverty in a country. How well a country is doing economically is often popularly judged by how low is its poverty rate. Analysis of factors shaping this perception (Kluegel et al., 1995) shows that it behaves as expected under the assumption that it is indicative of the perceived economic well‐being of a country. People who are themselves doing well economically perceive a larger middle class in their country of residence. More importantly, though, controlling for how well people are doing individually, the mean perceived size of the middle class closely matches the relative GDP rankings of each of the 13 Western and post‐communist countries in the ISJP. Substantial percentages in each country answered 'don't know' when asked about the future of poverty. Preliminary analyses using four categorical variables differentiating 'increase', 'decrease', 'stay the same' and 'don't know' show that the 'don't know' and 'stay the same' categories have the same effects, so we combined them to simplify the presentation of results. Using categorical variables to test for the influence of this perception allows for the possibility that the influence of a perceived increase differs in strength from a perceived decrease in future poverty. In light of the prevalent poverty, an expected lack of a future increase in poverty may indicate substantially less optimism than an expected decrease.

The primary objective of this paper is to report on two teacher educators’ development and assessment of a framework and workshop to introduce student teachers to social justice and peace education ideals within the domains of teachers’ work during student teachers’ first full-time experience of teaching in diverse schools in a major city in the Pacific region. The framework builds from a critical re-constructionist perspective and aims to raise student teachers’ critical consciousness of social and economic injustice, human rights, and defects in schooling and inspire a resolve to act on them to promote social justice (Bajaj 2008). Adopting an action research methodology, the authors/instructors assessed student teachers’ perceptions of their learning after a two-hour workshop that introduced a social justice and peace education framework. Secondary student teachers participated in workshops in two consecutive years. Student teachers reported positive outcomes from the workshop in Likert scale responses and open-ended remarks. The authors concluded that the workshop and framework over the two years offered effective guidance to student teachers in developing an initial understanding of social justice education and an openness to actively contributing toward making their classrooms and schools more just in the future. To continue to promote student teachers’ reflection and action to higher levels, the authors began efforts to infuse the seminar curriculum with social justice and peace education.

Climate change puts pressure on existing health vulnerabilities through higher frequency of extreme weather events, changes in disease vector distribution or exacerbated air pollution. Climate change adaptation policies may hold potential to reduce societal inequities. We assessed the role of public health and social justice in European climate change adaptation using a three-fold approach: a document analysis, a critical discourse analysis of a subgroup of strategies, and a ranking of strategies against our social justice framework. The ranking approach favored planning that includes various adaptation types, social issues and infrastructure changes. Themes on values identified in the five subgroup documents showed that risks are perceived as contradictory, technology is viewed as savior, responsibilities need to be negotiated, and social justice is advocated by only a few countries. Of 21 strategy documents assessed overall, those from Austria, England and Sweden received the highest scores in the ranking. Our qualitative assessment showed that in European adaptation planning, progress could still be made through community involvement into adaptation decisions, consistent consideration of social and demographic determinants, and a stronger link between infrastructural adaptation and the health sector. Overall, a social justice framework can serve as an evaluation guideline for adaptation policy documents.

Petra Kelly was one of the most remarkable members of the postwar generation, someone who determined at age thirteen that she would become either a nun in a Third World country or a new kind of politician. When she died in October, at 44, international news agencies summarized her significance as “perhaps the world's best‐known environmentalist” and “the personification of the German environmental and peace movements.” She was not only the most widely known member of the German Green Party but the person through whom a transatlantic synergy was brought full circle: German Greens had been influenced in the 1960s and 1970s by observing the ecology, peace, feminist, and social justice movements in the United States; Kelly then brought to American media and lecture halls during the 1980s charismatic testimony about the combination of those concerns in the new phenomenon called “Green politics.” She was uniquely positioned to play such a role, having spent her childhood in Bavaria and her adolescence in the United States, for her parents had divorced and her mother had married a U.S. Army colonel. While earning a degree from American University's School of International Service, Kelly worked in Robert Kennedy's campaign and Hubert Humphrey's office and was influenced by the nonviolent civil disobedience of the civil rights and antiwar movements. Returning to Europe, she worked as a policy analyst for the European Economic Community and then cofounded the West German Green Party in 1979. She was elected to the West German parliament in 1983, along with twenty‐six other Greens, and remained in office until 1990.

Peace Movements

Responses to a comprehensive national survey of peace movement organizations belies claims that pacifist groups have abandoned their commitment to nonviolence and condone revolutionary violence. Rather, the peace movement can be divided into four segments based on the strength of commitments to nonviolence and pursuit of social justice: pacifist/social justice, pacifist/not social justice, not pacifist/ social justice, and not pacifist/not social justice. Only the not pacifist/ social justice groups had any tendency to condone violence. Among pacifist groups, only a minority in the pacifist/social justice segment were ready to condone revolutionary violence in certain circumstances. These results suggest no consensus on the issue, but continued wrestling with the problem of trying to advance non-violence and social justice simultaneously.

Contents: PART I: SOCIAL JUSTICE AND ACCESS JUSTICE IN PRIVATE LAW Hans-W. Micklitz PART II: CORRECTIVE, COMMUTATIVE, PROCEDURAL AND SOCIAL JUSTICE 1. Social Justice and Legal Justice (reprint from Law and Philosophy 8 [1984] 329-354) Wojciech Sadurski 2. Can We Make Sense of Commutative Justice? Christine Chwaszcza 3. Commutative, Distributive and Procedural Justice: A Response to Professor Christine Chwaszcza Wojciech Sadurski 4. A Rejoinder Christine Chwaszcza PART III: CONSTITUTIONAL VALUES AND PRIVATE LAW 5. Constitutional Justice and the Perennial Task of Constitutionalizing Law and Society through 'Participatory Justice' Ernst-Ulrich Petersmann 6. The Constitutionalization of European Private Law as a Path to Social Justice? Hugh Collins 7. The Nile Perch in European Private Law Ugo Mattei PART IV: SOCIO-ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AND SOCIAL JUSTICE 8. At the Roots of European Private Law. Social Justice, Solidarity and Conflict in the Proprietary Order Alessandro Somma 9. Social Justice in the Welfare State - From the Perspective of the Comparative History of Institutions Cornelius Torp 10. A Vision of Social Justice in French Private Law: Paternalism and Solidarity Ruth Sefton-Green 11. Meaning(s) of Social Justice in Nordic Countries Pia Letto-Vanamo 12. The Europeanization of Social Justice and the Judiciary: How Will Judges React in the Member States? Arthur Dyevre PART V: SOCIAL JUSTICE IN LABOUR, CONSUMPTION AND COMPETITION Labour 13. Labour Relations and the Concept of Social Justice in the European Union Marie-Ange Moreau Consumption 14, The Transformation of Contractual Justice - A Historical and Comparative Account of the Impact Consumption Hannes Rosler 15. Social Justice in the Office of Fair Trading vs. Commutative Justice in the Supreme Court Chris Willett 16. Social Peace via Pragmatic Civil Rights - the Scandinavian Model of Consumer Law Bastian Schuller Competition 17. Towards a European model of Economic Justice: The Role of Competition Law K.J. Cseres

This chapter examines the relationship between social justice, security and peace. The authors note significant internal heterogeneity in India and Europe, despite the statebuilding efforts in India and standardization processes in Europe. The authors give an overview of five sets of ideas which have linked social justice and peace. All five sets of ideas are showing that if social justice is taken seriously then social harmony will be preserved and at the same time tensions will be reduced, together with chances for conflict. However, they find that peace accords have a tendency to emphasize security rather than welfare. This is because international interventions are usually led by leading actors from the global north who are guided by neoliberal agenda. They usually underplay social aspects of the state and emphasise its security aspect. This is one of the reasons why priority is given to security over social justice, when sequencing of activities in the intervention. The authors give an example of reforms in Georgia which led to drastic undermining of state in terms of social provision. They conclude that international attempts which focus on social justice are much fewer in numbers than those which address security issues.

This paper explores the profound lessons of the Qur’ān about equality and social justice, as well as how these lessons relate to promoting world peace. The goal is to clarify the fundamental ideas of the Qur’ān that support gender equality, economic justice, and human dignity while examining their applicability in the modern world. The study uses a thorough examination of Qur’ānic verses, closely examining particular allusions to social issues and their historical background to produce complex interpretations. One of the main goals is to determine the connection between social justice, equality, and world peace. The study recognizes and tackles widespread misunderstandings and historical obstacles that have impeded the successful application of Qur’ānic principles, even despite the rich Islamic tradition that places a strong emphasis on these values. Additionally, the paper evaluates the current obstacles to social justice advocacy and offers solutions. A thorough examination of the role of Muslim communities and leaders is conducted, emphasizing their obligations to advance social justice and peace worldwide. Furthermore, a comparative examination with alternative religious and ideological viewpoints is conducted to find points of agreement for interfaith communication and cooperation. The article concludes by making suggestions on how communities, governments, and legislators can incorporate the Qur’ānic teachings into real-world projects. It emphasizes the critical role that social justice and equality play in bringing about enduring world peace.

This chapter examines the relationship between social justice, security and peace. The authors note significant internal heterogeneity in India and Europe, despite the statebuilding efforts in India and standardization processes in Europe. The authors give an overview of five sets of ideas which have linked social justice and peace. All five sets of ideas are showing that if social justice is taken seriously then social harmony will be preserved and at the same time tensions will be reduced, together with chances for conflict. However, they find that peace accords have a tendency to emphasize security rather than welfare. This is because international interventions are usually led by leading actors from the global north who are guided by neoliberal agenda. They usually underplay social aspects of the state and emphasise its security aspect. This is one of the reasons why priority is given to security over social justice, when sequencing of activities in the intervention. The authors give an example of reforms in Georgia which led to drastic undermining of state in terms of social provision. They conclude that international attempts which focus on social justice are much fewer in numbers than those which address security issues.

IntroductionThe popularity of social networking sites (SNSs) bears witness to thriving movement protests worldwide. The development of new hardware technologies such as mobile devices and digital cameras, in particular, has fast enhanced visual communications among users that help document and broadcast contemporary social movements. Using social media with these technologies thus presents new opportunities for grassroots social movement organisations (SMOs) and activist groups to become narrators of their activist lives, and to promote solidarity and recognition for advancing varied civic and political agendas. With the case of a student activist group that led and organised a 10-day occupation protest in Hong Kong, this article examines the idea of new media-savvy SMOs as political curators that employ SNS platforms to (co-)create digital narratives at large-scale movement protests. Invoking the concepts of curation and choreography, it highlights how these processes can work together to encourage contentious engagement and collaboration in contemporary social movements.The New Media-Savvy SMO as Political CuratorWhereas traditional social movement studies stressed the importance of pre-existing social networks and organisational structures for collective action, developments in new information and communication technologies (ICTs) challenge the common theories of how people are drawn into and participate in social movements. In recent years, a spate of research has particularly emphasised the ability of individuals and small groups to self-organise on the Internet (e.g. Rheingold). Lately, observing the use of SNSs such as Facebook and Twitter in contemporary social movements, work in this area has focused on how SNSs enable movement diffusion through personal networks and individuals’ online activities even without either the aid or the oversight of an organisation (e.g. Shirky).However, horizontal activism self-organised by atomised new media users seems insufficient as an explanation of how many recent protest movements achieved their high tides. While the flourishing literature shows writers have correctly centred their study on the changing dynamics in control over information and the growing importance of individual users’ contributions, it fails to account for the crucial role that SMOs continue to play. In fact, recent studies consistently observe the continuing importance of SMOs in mobilising and coordinating collective actions in online environments (Bimber, Flanagin, and Stohl, Collective). Whereas new ICTs have provided activist groups with the instrument to deal with their contentious activities with less cueing and leadership from conventional institutionalised structures, SMOs have created their own new media resources. Nowadays, a significant percentage of protest participants have received their information from online platforms that are run by or affiliated with these organisations. The critical questions remain about the kinds of communication methods they utilise to activate and integrate independent activists’ networks and participation, especially in emerging social media environments.Unfortunately, existing research tends to overlook the discursive potentials and cultural dimensions in online activism while emphasising the cost-effectiveness and organisational function of new ICTs. In particular, social movement and new media scholars merely attended to the ways in which digital media enable widescale, relatively un-coordinated contributions to repositories of resources for networks of activists and interest groups, as SNS applications stress the importance of user participation, openness, and network effects in the processes of content production and sharing. However, the mere existence or even “surplus” (Shirky 27) of “second-order communal goods” (Bimber, Flanagin, and Stohl, “Reconceptualizing” 372)—a collection of resources created collectively but without a bounded community, through video-posting, tagging, and circulation practices engaged in by individuals—does not accidentally result in critical publics that come to take part in political activism. Rather, social movements are, above all, the space for manifesting ideas, choices, and a collective will, in which people produce their own history through their cultural creations and social struggles (Touraine). As such, the alteration of meaning, the struggle to define the situation, and the discursive practices carried out within a social movement are all major aspects of social movements and change (Melucci).Indeed, SMOs and marginalised communities worldwide have increasingly learnt the ability to become narrators of their activist and community lives, and to express solidarity and recognition afforded through technology adoption. The recent proliferation of social media applications and mobile digital technologies has allowed activist groups to create and distribute their own stories regarding concrete actions, ongoing campaigns, and thematic issues of protest movements on more multimedia platforms. In order to advance political ideas and collective action frames, they may bring together a variety of online content in such a way that the collated materials offer a commentary on a subject area by articulating and negotiating new media artefacts, while also inviting responses. Therefore, not only are the new media channels for activist communication comparatively inexpensive, but they also provide for a richer array of content and the possibility of greater control by SMOs over its (re-)creation, maintenance, and distribution for potential digital narrating. To understand how digital narrating takes place in contemporary protest movements with SNSs, we now turn to two analytic concepts—curation and choreography.Social Media Content Curation and Choreography Curation, as a new media practice, involves finding, categorising, and organising relevant online content on specific issues. For instance, museums and libraries may have curators to select and feature digital items for collection and display, improving the types of information accessible to a public audience. In protest movements, SMOs and political actors may also curate peer-produced content on SNS platforms so as to filter and amplify useful information for mobilising collective action. In fact, this process by SMOs and political actors is particularly important, as it helps sort and draw timely attention to these information sources, especially at times when users are faced with a large amount of noise created by millions of producers (Bennett, Segerberg, and Walker). More importantly, not only does content curating entail the selection and preservation of online materials that may facilitate collective action, but it may also involve the (re-)presentation of selected content by telling stories not being told or by telling existing stories in a different way (Fotopoulou and Couldry). In contrast to professional collecting, it is a much more deliberate process, one which clearly articulates and puts forwards (opportunities for) new meanings or new understanding of a subject (Franks). For example, when new media content is re-posted or shared in its original form but in a new context, digital narrating occurs as it may result in a new or additional layer of meaning (Baym and Shah). Therefore, more than merely expending information resources available to activists, the power of curation can be understood primarily as discursive, as users may pick up particular versions of reality in interpreting social issues and protest movements (Bekkers, Moody, and Edwards).Moreover, nowadays, social media curating is not restricted to text but also includes image and video streaming, as the development of mobile devices and digital cameras has facilitated and enhanced instant communication and information retrieval almost regardless of location. The practice of content curating with SNSs may also involve the process of choreographing with various social media modules, such as posting a series of edited pictures under an overarching schema and organising user-generated photos into an album that suggests a particular theme. Rather than simply using a single visual item designed to tell a story, the idea of choreographing is thus concerned with how curated items are seen and experienced from the users’ perspectives as it “allows curators not just to expose elements of a story but to tell a structured tale with the traditional elements of beginning, middle and end” (Franks 288).In practice, the implementation of choreography can be envisioned to bring together the practice of content curating and that of enhancing and connecting contentious engagement at protest movements. For example, when SMOs make use of images and video to help frame an issue in a more advanced way by sharing a picture with a comment added on Facebook, they may at once, whether consciously or unconsciously, suggest possible endorsement to the selected content and/or the source—may it be that of an individual user or a formal organisation—while drawing attention to the image and circulating it beyond the original network for which it was posted (Bennett, Segerberg, and Walker). As such, by posting pictures with captions and sharing user-generated photos that do not belong to the SMO but are produced by other users, curating and choreographing with social media content can create a temporary space for practicing mutual recognition and extending the relationship between the SMO and the larger public. Combined, they may therefore “entail the creation of norms and boundaries in particular user communities and their platforms” (Bennett, Segerberg, and Walker 239).This article examines the ways in which a new media-savvy SMO employed SNS platforms to (co-)create digital narratives, with the case of the 2012 Anti-National Education Movement in Hong Kong. By highlighting how social media content curating and choreogr

This study depicts various manifestations of what we call ‘actually existing’ right-wing populism. Based on empirical insights from eastern Germany, Spain, the UK and Ukraine, we explored how nationalist tendencies unfold in different contexts and what role agriculture and rural imageries play in this process. We analyse contextual factors (rural ‘emptiness’, socio-economic inequality, particularities of electoral systems, politics of Europeanization) and citizens’ perceptions of social reality (selective memory, subjective experiences of democracy, national redefinition, politics of emotions). We conclude that resistance and alternatives to right-wing populism should be context-specific, grounded in the social fabric and culture of the locale.

This study depicts various manifestations of what we call ‘actually existing’ right-wing populism. Based on empirical insights from eastern Germany, Spain, the UK and Ukraine, we explored how nationalist tendencies unfold in different contexts and what role agriculture and rural imageries play in this process. We analyse contextual factors (rural ‘emptiness’, socio-economic inequality, particularities of electoral systems, politics of Europeanization) and citizens’ perceptions of social reality (selective memory, subjective experiences of democracy, national redefinition, politics of emotions). We conclude that resistance and alternatives to right-wing populism should be context-specific, grounded in the social fabric and culture of the locale.

This chapter examines the growth of diverse civil movements in the Korean peninsula and the role of civil society in mobilising public opinion around social justice and the peace process. The struggle by the people to build just peace in the Korean peninsula goes back to the independence movement during Japanese colonial rule, but the growth of Korean civil society is closely related to the democratisation process of South Korea. Beginning with the March 1 movement, in 1919, this chapter provides a historical review of South Korean democratisation, unification, peace and antimilitarism movements, as well as the women’s peace movement, and the North Korean human rights movement in South Korea. The chapter then discusses the role of civil society in closing the justice gap and building just peace.

Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW) is a new political party that has threatened to shake up Germany’s political landscape. With a unique blend of economically left and culturally conservative positions, the BSW appeals to a substantial part of the electorate, especially in eastern Germany. Drawing on original survey data from early 2024 our study examines the ideological positions of BSW supporters. We find that both socio-economic left and socio-cultural conservative orientations increase the likelihood of backing the BSW, with the former being more important than the latter. Additionally, higher levels of dissatisfaction with democracy, political distrust, and populism further bolster the party’s support, which is significantly stronger in eastern Germany. Comparing the ideological proximity of BSW supporters with those of other parties, our study reveals that they are closely aligned with SPD and Die Linke supporters in terms of their socio-economic orientation, with CDU supporters in terms of their socio-cultural attitudes, and with AfD supporters regarding their populist sentiments. These findings underline the BSW’s ambivalent role in the German party system and allow us to conclude by reflecting on likely routes of voter migration, apparent patterns of political competition and possible constellations of cooperation involving the new party.