Genocide as Contentious Politics

Despite a recent turn towards the study of political violence within the field of contentious politics, scholars have yet to focus their lens on genocide. This is puzzling, as the field of collective action and social movements was originally developed in reaction to fascism (Nazism in particular), while research on collective action and research on genocide has long shown parallel findings and shared insights. This paper reviews the history of this scholarly convergence and divergence, and suggests that recent findings of research on genocide can be improved by the consideration of concepts from social movements and collective action. It then details three theories of the micro‐mechanisms that mobilize individuals for contention – framing, diffusion, and networks – and specifies how they refine existing explanations of civilian participation in genocide. In the conclusion, I suggest that a contentious politics approach to genocide would consider it one form of collective action among others, analyzable within the existing framework of collective action and social movement theory.     

In credit we trust: Building social capital by Grameen Bank in Bangladesh

In this paper we examine how a third-party – Grameen Bank in Bangladesh – created social capital that has been a boon to the explosive growth of Microfinance in Bangladesh and elsewhere. Using Putnam's definition, we show how Grameen Bank created social capital by forming horizontal and vertical networks, establishing new norms and fostering a new level of social trust to solve the collective action problems of poor people's access to capital. The fact that a Microfinance Institution (MFI) can create social capital has strong policy implications. Since social capital is a public good – non-excludable and non-rivalrous – the market will underprovide such good. This paper shows that Microfinance corrects another type of market failure—under provision of a public good, in addition to correcting the failure of the credit market. The social capital building aspects of an MFI need to be taken into account in the whole debate about the need for subsidy.     

“Whom should We Help First?” Transnational Helping Practices in Ecuadorian Migration

Collective remittances, in the framework of migrant transnationalism, have been recently dealt with in some empirical research, especially on the Mexican‐US migration system. Far less studied is their significance in different migration flows, including their real contribution – as desirable as this may be – to local development. The article is concerned with a bottom up analysis of a migration flow where collective remittances – as the only way for emigrants to keep helping their local communities, well beyond their own families – are still in their infancy. It explores, through a translocal ethnography of Ecuadorian migration to Italy, the underlying attitudes, personal meanings and expectations – as well as the structural opportunities and constraints – accounting for helping practices at a distance. Charitable transfers to communities of origin are reconstructed as to their motivations, their main aims and beneficiaries, their embeddedness in mutual networks among immigrant co‐nationals. How is it that some of them decide to help “people in need” in their own communities overseas, or in their home towns, or in both? Is this an expression of communal belonging, or a matter of social status maintenance, or something else? Further reflections on the dilemmas inherent in transnational helping practices are then developed. Concluding remarks emphasize the relatively poor scope for such initiatives, in a recent and first‐generation flow over a long distance. While co‐ethnic solidarity overseas is a precondition for transnational helping practices, the latter are also affected by the developments of public policies in the countries of origin and of destination. Overall, an effective integration overseas is necessary for collective remittances to have some currency and impact.     

Social (Dis)Approval and Collective Action Participation: Re‐evaluating the Positive Linearity Thesis

Survey‐based studies on collective action generally assume that social approval of participation in collective action has a positive and linear effect on actual participation. However, this assumption has not yet been subjected to a genuine empirical evaluation. This article investigates the positive linearity thesis, using survey data on participation and non‐participation in a street demonstration in The Hague in 2011. Statistical analyses provide evidence in support of a curvilinear relation between social approval and participation—an increased rate of participation in case of both approval and disapproval by peers. We discuss two processes underlying the observed relation: one pertaining to rebelliousness and the other regarding political awareness. The article generally illustrates the need for further empirical research on social influence and participation in collective action.     

Making Heterogeneous Space: Land Development and the Proletarianization of Urban Underclass in Post War Japan

This paper aims to focus on a correlation between urban land development and a “proletarianization” of day‐laborers by examining Mitsui Fudosan Group [Mitsui Real Estate Group] as an agent of urban developments and construction industry in Japan, with examining daylaborers’ riots and moral economy as a counter‐culture against gentrified urban spaces.It is necessary to acknowledge the fact that the national projects – maintained by the closed market and the subcontracting labor system in the construction industry – also induce a radical opposition against the urban development. Although national projects are inevitably accompanied by gentrification, eviction of the homeless, and social exclusion of the underclass, unavoidable transgression or deviation conflicts with urban development, such as periodic and spontaneous riots by day‐laborers, demonstrates a vulnerability of the national unity. In fact, the day‐laborers changed the street labor market into their own field in order to overturn the hierarchy determined by the subcontracting structure in the construction industry. Their bodily expression in the form of riots had radically transgressed the ideas promoted in the 1964 Tokyo Olympics as “One World,” or the 1970 Osaka Expo as “Progress and Harmony for Mankind.” The Olympic legacy was disrupted boldly and transformed into a radical egalitarian thought in this sense. The underclass is immediately defined and commodified by national projects, however, it does not mean that its body is completely involved in its time and space.     

Anti-statism and Difference Feminism in International Social Movements

Feminist strategies that neglect or consistently deplore state action cannot accomplish what women need – because individuals need collectives such as states to solve collective action problems and to move toward more just social arrangements. Strategies that rely heavily on women's differences from men also cannot accomplish what women need – because women are like men in many ways relevant to individual and collective action. Despite these truths, social movements also need some strategies of action that work separately from and sometimes against the state. Moreover, strategies that accentuate the differences between oppressed and oppressing bring needed energy to a movement. The best overall strategy is, therefore, to realize that both states and difference theories are dangerous weapons, and proceed with caution.     

Lessons from Latin America's neo‐liberal experiment: An overview of labour and social policies since the 1980s

Introducing the six country studies that follow, this analytical overview shows that the social and labour policies inspired by the Washington Consensus – implemented across much of Latin America in the 1980s and 1990s – consistently failed to deliver the expected improvements. Labour flexibilization, decentralization of collective bargaining, pension privatization and other measures to increase market provision of welfare typically resulted in growing informality, widening inequalities and shrinking social protection coverage, while also failing to stimulate employment growth. But the lessons have been learned: many such policies have recently been reconsidered and there are signs that a more balanced policy approach may be emerging in Latin America.     

Migration and the Reproduction of Poverty: The Refugee Camps in Jordan

This study examines the link between poverty and migration into and out of camps, using 1999 household survey data on the refugee camp populations in Jordan and a binomial logistic regression. The findings show a clear clustering of poverty in the camps, where about one‐third of households are poor. Results from several nested regression models show that in‐migration is not the cause of persistent poverty in the camps. On the other hand, human capital variables, especially education, economic activity, and “social inheritance”, as well as demographic factors such as household headship and dependency rate have significant effects on poverty incidence. Some theoretical and policy implications of the findings are discussed.     

Exile to Poverty: Policies and Poverty Among Refugees in Poland

Poverty is a well‐known short‐term outcome of migration in general and a long‐term outcome of forced migration in a global context. Surprisingly, this outcome appears among refugees in welfare states which provide various asylum and social policies facilitating integration. The article aims to explore the relationship between asylum and social policies and poverty among refugees. The research results are drawn from two studies conducted among refugees, NGOs, national and local administration representatives, and case workers in Poland between 2006 and 2014. The results show that asylum policy contributes to the material and symbolic hardship experienced by refugees, and social policy is ineffective in its prevention. If refugees are settled in regions with high levels of poverty, unemployment and ethnic‐based prejudices, then they experience and continue to live in poverty. In such a context, and due to its weaknesses in addressing discrimination, social policy cannot successfully integrate refugees.     

Social Influences and Aggregated Immigration Dynamics: The Case of Spain 1999–2009

This research aims at broadening the applicability and scope of network‐based explanations of international migration to include explanations of aggregated immigration dynamics for multiple immigrant collectives. Using a unique dataset that contains data on approximately 4.5 million international immigration events from 180 different origin countries in Spain between 1999 and 2009, my analysis shows conclusively that information about changes in the supply of immigrant social capital between past and potential immigrants explains the variation in local immigration rates in the destination society. It also show that incorporating information about such social network influences is very informative when the goal is to explain (1) temporal variation in intra‐collective international immigration flows across different locations in the destination, (2) temporal variation in inter‐collective international immigration flows within a specific location in the destination, (3) intra‐collective differences in international immigration across locations in the destination, and finally (4) inter‐collective differences in local international immigration within the same geographical location in the destination.     

Markets,Clans, and Arbitrage: A Participant‐Observation Study of “Coopetition” Among Baseball Ticket Scalpers

We report on a participant‐observation study of baseball ticket scalpers at Chase Field in Phoenix, Arizona. Ours is a study of the market behavior of individuals working in clans. We focus on the social organization of clans and, particularly, how scalpers establish territories and engage in cooperative behavior while, at the same, time competing aggressively. The clans govern transactions not according to straightforward economic exchange or by formal rules and regulation emanating from legitimate authority, but rather through shared goals and shared values, with behavior expectations grounded in familiarity, common history, and mutual trust. During conversations with scalpers, we determined that a few of them, but not the majority, consult StubHub on a real‐time basis to help them determine their spot market ticket prices. Conclusion: The rise of Internet secondary markets for tickets may ultimately have adverse consequences for street vendors, but at present, it seems more advantageous than disadvantageous.     

Social Movements and New Media

This article explores the contention that social movements are a significant social force transforming societies through their engagement with new media, such as the Internet, Web 2.0, and digital communications, which are seen as capable of facilitating new power structures. Utilizing della Porta and Diani's framework, it considers how new media technologies may be shaping the structure, identity, opportunity, and protest dimensions of social movements. It concludes by suggesting that new media does offer important opportunities for cost‐effective networking, interpretive framing, mobilization, and repertoires of protest action. However, their adoption does not represent the creation of entirely new virtual social movements but rather a new means of providing existing social movement organisations, local activist networks, and street‐level protest with a trans‐national capacity to collaborate, share information, and communicate with a wider audience. Such new media‐enabled social action is both more congruent with a politics of identity but may also increasingly be competing within a media environment saturated by user‐generated content.     

Social Movements and Tactical Choice

For much of the past 40 years, the study of social movement tactics has viewed organizers' choices as driven by a desire to maximize efficacy and efficiency within a context of scarce resources and structural constraints. As sociologists increasingly turned toward culture, a new orientation emerged to view tactical choice as a process of gathering, interpreting, and evaluating information within dynamic, uncertain, and often‐contradictory contexts. The importance of the cultural turn has been amply demonstrated in studies of such things as identities, emotions, and collective action frames, but the full implications of its insights continue to be discovered. Four insights in particular warrant greater attention: many core concepts in the study of social movements have an interpretive, subjective, and contingent nature; tactics are a means of communication; social structures are imbued with culture, and culture is thoroughly structured; and social movements sometimes behave irrationally, and what appears to be irrational behavior often is in fact rational. I briefly discuss three areas of scholarship – collective identities, diffusion, and institutional fields – that demonstrate innovative ways that sociologists continue to combine and incorporate these insights and point the way toward a more sophisticated understanding of social movements and tactical choice.     

Privilege and burden of im‐/mobility governance: On the reinforcement of inequalities during a pandemic lockdown

In order to contain the COVID‐19 pandemic, nation states have focused on the governance of im‐/mobilities: certain mobility restrictions have been enforced, while simultaneously some forms of mobility have been maintained or even enhanced in order to keep the system running in crisis mode. With a special focus on Austria, we analyse the specific politics of im‐/mobilities concerning the organization of paid work and show how the socio‐spatial conditions of who is permitted, denied or urged to work are inextricably linked to inequalities. It becomes apparent that while in principle all bodies are equally dependent on collective social relations and enduring infrastructure, not everybody contributes equally to their maintenance. In fact, the governance of im‐/mobilities follows and reinforces already prevalent inequality regimes based on class, gender and migration relations, thereby differentiating between bodies perceived as highly valuable and worth protecting and those categorized as less valued and potentially disposable.     

A Game Real Actors Won't Play? Integration of Ethnic Minorities in Denmark as a Collective Action Dilemma1

Integration of refugees and immigrants in Denmark has so far proved more difficult than expected. In international comarison, Denmark stands out as a laggard, especially when it comes to labor market integration of the new minorities. Xenophobia and prejudices in the majority population are often cited as the main reasons. But individuals from both minorities and the majority also face a collective action dilemma when it comes to integration. In principle a collective action dilemma can be overcome through the working of selective incentives. In the case of integration, however, such incentives are weakened by some of the institutions of the universalistic Danish welfare state. Nevertheless, so far there has been very little ethnicization of Danish social policies. One possible explanation is that such reforms would create a collective action dilemma of their own. Thus the collective action dilemma of welfare state reforms seems to be blocking the solution of the collective action dilemma of integration.     

Social,Economic and Demographic Consequences of Migration on Kerala

Migration has been the single most dynamic factor in the otherwise dreary development scenario of Kerala during the last quarter of the last century. It has contributed more to poverty alleviation and reduction in unemployment in Kerala than any other factor. As a result of migration, the proportion of the population below the poverty line has declined by 12 per cent. The number of unemployed persons – estimated to be only about 13 lakhs in 1998 compared with 37 lakhs reported by the Kerala Employment Exchanges – has declined by over 30 per cent. Migration has caused nearly a million married women in Kerala to live away from their husbands. Most of these so‐called “Gulf wives” experienced extreme loneliness to begin with, and were burdened with added family responsibilities to which they had not been accustomed when their husbands were with them. But over a period, and with a helping hand from abroad over the ISD, most came out of their early gloom. Their gain in autonomy, status, management skills and experience in dealing with the world outside their homes were developed the hard way and would remain with them for the rest of their lives for the benefit of their families and society. In the long run, the transformation of these million women will have contributed more to the development of Kerala society than all the temporary euphoria created by remittances and modern gadgetry. Kerala is dependent on migration for employment, subsistence, housing, household amenities, institution building, and many other developmental activities. The danger is that migration could cease, as shown by the Kuwait war of 1993, and repercussions could be disastrous for the State. Understanding migration trends and instituting policies to maintain the flow of migration is more important today than at any time in the past. Kerala workers seem to be losing out in international competition for jobs in the Gulf market. Corrective policies are needed urgently to raise their competitive edge over workers in competing countries in South and South‐East Asia. Like any other industry, migration from Kerala needs periodic technological upgrading of workers. Otherwise, there is a danger that the State might lose the Gulf market permanently. The crux of the problem is Kerala workers' inability to compete with expatriates from other South and South‐East Asian countries. The solution lies in equipping workers with better general education and job training. This study suggests a twofold approach. In the short run, the need is to improve the job skills of prospective emigrant workers. This could be achieved through ad hoc training programmes focussed on the job market in Gulf countries. In the long run, the need is to restructure the educational system, taking into consideration the future demand of workers not only in Kerala but also in potential destination countries all over the world, including the US and other developed countries. Kerala emigrants need not always be construction workers in the Gulf countries; they could also be software engineers in developed countries.     

Mehr Arbeit,mehr Armut? Ausmaß und Hintergründe der Entkoppelung von Erwerbsarbeit und materieller Sicherheit von Alleinerziehenden im Ländervergleich

Labour market reforms implemented in recent years in a number of countries have aimed to increase participation rates among single parents in order to reduce the disproportionately high poverty rate and share of benefit recipients among them. However, our quantitative analyses based on EU-LFS and EU-SILC indicate that paid work has to some extent become dissociated from material security. Although participation rates among single parents rose in the five years before the financial and economic crisis, their risk of being in poverty remained the same or actually increased. This finding holds true for different types of welfare state, as the comparison between Germany, France, Sweden and the UK shows. The potential poverty-reducing effects of increasing labour market participation are clearly being weakened by certain counter-trends. Possible explanations, which apply to varying extents in the four countries, are declining market wages and reductions in social transfers. Moreover, previously latent material risks of lone parenting unfold with the modernisation of gender roles and the erosion of lone mothers ‘avant-garde’ role as working parents. This is a common challenge across countries which has so far not been addressed sufficiently by social and labour market policies.     

Space,gentrification and traditional open-air markets: how do vendors in the Carmel market in Tel Aviv interpret changes?

Space is often believed to lose its importance in the global era as individuals cease to interact face-to-face in favor of online communication. Studying the Carmel market located in city center Tel Aviv, Israel aims to show how space, in a global city, is constantly produced, reproduced, and transformed in reaction to the changes in the community that uses the space and remains an invaluable resource for its users. By specifying the vendors’ perspective on the changes the market undergoes, this article offers an often missing aspect of the study of space, gentrification, and human action. It argues that public spaces in gentrified areas provide the vendors with means to instill their actions, traditional values which often lose their primacy in a global era and gain social recognition. I spent two years of participant observation and detailed ethnographic interviews with vendors. These have led me to conclude that in addition to a steady income that access to space provides, the vendors claim access to space to enable them to sustain familial values and offer to members of the community the opportunity of face-to-face interaction. Also they interpret their interaction with the new clients as a means of compensating for lack of social upward mobility.     

Migration,Small Farming and Food Security in the Caribbean: Jamaica and St. Vincent and the Grenadines

Long‐term and short‐term (seasonal) migrations from Caribbean countries have been strategies for enhancing the livelihoods and assets of individuals and families for many decades. The greatest challenges to food security are felt by the populations below the poverty level, most of whom are rural dwellers. Taking two Caribbean countries – Jamaica, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines, this article assesses whether in rural, characteristically small‐farming areas, the financial and social remittances resulting from migration are used to improve food security, through either supporting agricultural production or providing money to purchase food. The findings show the contrast between Jamaica and St. Vincent. Whereas migration generally benefits small‐scale farming and domestic food production, increasing food accessibility in Jamaica, migration has been variously used by the rural poor in St. Vincent to replace farming. Food security in St. Vincent is heavily dependent on purchasing food and, in this regard, migrant remittances play an important role.