Urban Grassroots Movements in Central and Eastern Europe

Urban Grassroots Movements in Central and Eastern Europe PDF

Author: Kerstin Jacobsson

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-03-09

Total Pages: 322

ISBN-13: 1317003853

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What can we learn about collective action across Central and Eastern Europe by focusing on activism within urban spaces? This volume argues that the recent resurgence of urban grassroots mobilisation represents a new phase in the development of post-socialist civil societies and that these civil societies have significantly more vitality than is commonly perceived. The case studies here reflect the diversity and complexity of post-socialist urban movements, capturing also the extent to which the laboratory of urban politics is richly illustrative of the complex nexus of state-society-market relations within post-socialism. The grassroots campaigns and actions reflect the new social cleavages and increased polarisation as a consequence of neoliberal urbanisation and global integration, as well as the transformation of state power and authority in the region. Studying urban activism in Central and Eastern Europe is instructive for urban movements scholars generally, as it forces us to acknowledge the variety of forms that contention can take and the usefulness of embedding the study of urban movements within a larger understanding of civil society.

Urban Movements in Central and Eastern Europe Grassroots in the City

Urban Movements in Central and Eastern Europe Grassroots in the City PDF

Author: Kerstin Jacobsson

Publisher: Lund Humphries Publishers

Published: 2015-08-01

Total Pages: 310

ISBN-13: 9781472434470

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By studying urban activism in Central and Eastern Europe, this volume argues that the recent resurgence of urban grassroots mobilisation represents a new phase in the development of post-socialist civil societies and that these civil societies have significantly more vitality than is commonly perceived. The case studies here reflect the diversity and complexity of post-socialist urban movements, capturing also the extent to which the laboratory of urban politics is richly illustrative of the complex nexus of state-society-market relations within post-socialism.

Urban Movements in a Globalising World

Urban Movements in a Globalising World PDF

Author: Pierre Hamel

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2003-09-02

Total Pages: 446

ISBN-13: 1134542399

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This collection deals with the transformation of urban movements in these new social, economic and political environments.

Beyond NGO-ization

Beyond NGO-ization PDF

Author: Steven Saxonberg

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-04-15

Total Pages: 280

ISBN-13: 1317174615

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The celebrations marking the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall provoked a debate on the outcomes of the transition process in the post-communist countries, including a debate on the functioning of civil society. This provided a good opportunity for researchers to collect new data and revise the discourse on collective action and the dynamics of civil society in these countries. Jacobsson and Saxonberg's collection of essays looks at social movements, and their forms of mobilization and organization, as well as action repertoires in relation to the social context, and their success or failure. The book meets an important need in the discourse on post-communist social movements by going beyond the usual discourse about the weak and non-participatory civil society in the post-communist context. This book gives a nuanced and updated view of social movements in post-communist Europe, by looking at the cases of relatively successful mobilization, by examining groups that have often been neglected in the discourse on social movements and civil society (including animal-rights groups, racist movements and non-feminist family organizations), and by giving a deeper analysis of the different strategies that civil society organizations and groups can use. Rather than expecting social movements in post-communist Europe to follow the same patterns and operate in the same fashion as in Western Europe, this volume shows that a wider view of contentious action is needed in order to understand the variety of strategies employed by collective actors operating in this context.

Civil Society Revisited

Civil Society Revisited PDF

Author: Kerstin Jacobsson

Publisher: Berghahn Books

Published: 2017-06-01

Total Pages: 352

ISBN-13: 1785335529

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In much social scientific literature, Polish civil society has been portrayed as weak and passive. This volume offers a much-needed corrective, challenging this characterization on both theoretical and empirical grounds and suggesting new ways of conceptualizing civil society to better account for events on the ground as well as global trends such as neoliberalism, migration, and the renewal of nationalist ideologies. Focusing on forms of collective action that researchers have tended to overlook, the studies gathered here show how public discourse legitimizes certain claims and political actions as “true” civil society, while others are too often dismissed. Taken together, they critique a model of civil society that is ‘made from above’.

Democratization and Women's Grassroots Movements

Democratization and Women's Grassroots Movements PDF

Author: Jill M. Bystydzienski

Publisher: Indiana University Press

Published: 1999-07-22

Total Pages: 407

ISBN-13: 0253028140

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Case studies examining the connections between women’s local-level political and social actions and the development of democratic systems. The book illustrates how community-based actions, programs, and organizations that allow women to determine their lives and participate in decision making contribute to the creation of a civil society and thus enhance democracy. The case studies show how participation in grassroots movements promotes women’s involvement in their organizations, communities, and in societal institutions, as it influences state policy and empowers women in personal relationships.

Social Movement Studies in Europe

Social Movement Studies in Europe PDF

Author: Olivier Fillieule

Publisher: Berghahn Books

Published: 2016-03-01

Total Pages: 526

ISBN-13: 1785330985

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Bringing together over forty established and emerging scholars, this landmark volume is the first to comprehensively examine the evolution and current practice of social movement studies in a specifically European context. While its first half offers comparative approaches to an array of significant issues and movements, its second half assembles focused national studies that include most major European states. Throughout, these contributions are guided by a shared set of historical and social-scientific questions with a particular emphasis on political sociology, thus offering a bold and uncommonly unified survey that will be essential for scholars and students of European social movements.

Contested Cities and Urban Activism

Contested Cities and Urban Activism PDF

Author: Ngai Ming Yip

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2018-10-13

Total Pages: 313

ISBN-13: 9811317305

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This edited volume advances our understanding of urban activism beyond the social movement theorization dominated by thesis of political opportunity structure and resource mobilization, as well as by research based on experience from the global north. Covering a diversity of urban actions from a broad range of countries in both hemispheres as well as the global north and global south, this unique collection notably focuses on non-institutionalised or localised urban actions that have the potential to bring about radical structural transformation of the urban system and also addresses actions in authoritarian regimes that are too sensitive to call themselves “movement”. It addresses localized issues cut off from international movements such as collective consumption issues, like clean water, basic shelter, actions against displacement or proper venues for street vendors, and argues that the integration of the actions in cities in the global south with the specificity of their local social and political environment is as pivotal as their connection with global movement networks or international NGOs. A key read for researchers and policy makers cutting across the fields of urban sociology, political science, public policy, geography, regional studies and housing studies, this text provides an interdisciplinary and international perspective on 21st century urban activism in the global north and south.

Contemporary Housing Struggles

Contemporary Housing Struggles PDF

Author: Ioana Florea

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2022

Total Pages: 251

ISBN-13: 3030974057

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This OA book provides a comparative study of housing contention in Budapest and Bucharest in 2008-2021. The financialization of housing and the resulting inequalities, expulsions and social contention are a central characteristic of today's capitalist crisis. These two East European cities that fall outside the usual focus of urban movements research provide an illuminating case of similar structural conditions governed by different political constellations at the national and local scales. Instead of searching for unilinear narratives connecting structural tensions to politicized claims, the book offers an in-depth contextual analysis of multiple forms of contention, their (often unintentional) interactions, and their broader political-structural background, including tensions surrounded by political silence. The authors analyze the two cases and their comparative lessons through what they propose as a "structural field of contention" approach to the multiple, interconnected ways in which structural tensions become (or not) politicized in today's social movements. The book will appeal to everyone interested in today's urban tensions and social movements. .

The Routledge Handbook of East European Politics

The Routledge Handbook of East European Politics PDF

Author: Adam Fagan

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2017-08-15

Total Pages: 484

ISBN-13: 1317418875

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The Routledge Handbook of East European Politics is an authoritative overview that will help a wide readership develop an understanding of the region in all its political, economic, and social complexity. Including Central Europe, the Baltic republics, South Eastern Europe, and the Western Balkans, as well as all the countries of the former Soviet Union, it is unrivalled in breadth and depth, affording a comprehensive overview of Eastern European politics provided by leading experts in the fields of comparative politics, international relations, and public administration. Through a series of cutting-edge articles, it seeks to explain and understand patterns of Eastern European politics today. The Routledge Handbook of East European Politics will be a key reference point both for advanced-level students developing knowledge about the subject, researchers producing new material in the area, and those interested and working in the fields of East European Politics, Russian Politics, EU Politics, and more broadly in European Politics, Comparative Politics, Democratization Studies, and International Relations.