Between moderation and radicalization: transnational interactions of Jamaat‐e‐Islami of India

Abstract Religious movements have often been studied in the context of nationstates. With scholarly attention now shifting to globalization and other world system processes, there is a growing move to go beyond the particularity of nation‐states and study the general transnational dimensions of religious movements. In this article I describe the processes through which Jamaat‐e‐Islami Hind (JIH), a contemporary Islamist movement in India, developed links with ideologically similar movements, institutions and networks in the Gulf countries, Iran and the West. Taking JIH as a social movement, I argue for a more nuanced conceptualization of transnational social movements, because existing theories are based on the experiences of Western democracies and, as such, are insensitive to collective actions in undemocratic polities such as the Gulf states. While making a case for taking into account the transnational dimensions of understanding JIH, I call into question the alarmist thesis that emphasizes the homogenous radicalization of the entire movement as an inevitable consequence of the transnational connections an Islamic movement develops. On the contrary, I contend that they also lead to conflict within the movement and its moderation.     

Place,space, networks,and the sustainability of collective action: the Madres de Plaza de Mayo

This article provides a framework for analysing social movements and explaining how collective action can be sustained through networks. Drawing on current relational views of place and space, I offer a spatialized conception of social networks that critically synthesizes network theory, research on social movements, and the literature on the spatial dimensions of collective action. I examine the historic and contemporary network geographies of a group of human rights activists in Argentina (the Madres de Plaza de Mayo) and explain the duration of their activism over a period of more than two decades with regard to the concept of geographic flexibility. To be specific, first I show how, through the practice of place‐based collective rituals, activists have maintained network cohesion and social proximity despite physical distance. Second, I examine how the construction of strategic networks that have operated at a variety of spatial scales has allowed the Madres to access resources that are important for sustaining mobilization strategies. Finally, I discuss how the symbolic depiction of places has been used as a tool to build and sustain network connections among different groups. I conclude by arguing that these three dimensions of the Madres’ activism account for their successful development of geographically flexible networks, and that the concept of geographic flexibility provides a useful template for studies of the duration and continuity of collective action.     

Collective Identity in Social Movements: Central Concepts and Debates

The concept of collective identity has been used extensively by social movement scholars seeking to explain how social movements generate and sustain commitment and cohesion between actors over time. Despite its wide application, collective identity is a notoriously abstract concept. This article focuses on the use of the concept in the literature on contemporary social movements and offers a comprehensive theoretical overview. The central elements of collective identity in the social movement literature are developed, and some key differences in interpretations are highlighted. Finally, some contemporary debates around the continuing usefulness and limitations of the concept of collective identity are explored, with a special emphasis on the challenges of applying the concept to movements that define themselves in terms of heterogeneity, diversity and inclusiveness.     

Poland's Contentious Elites Enter the Age of Revolution: Extending Social Movement Concepts

Scholars of social movements commonly call for the field to be broadened in various ways because movements are often intertwined with other forms of conflict and because the causes or consequences of movements may operate differently in different contexts. Important change processes that were unfolding in Poland at the time of the French Revolution provide an instructive case. Although the contemporaneous French Revolution, with its enormous quantity and variety of collective mobilizations has been a touchstone for social movement scholars, the work of Poland's reform parliament and the adoption of Poland's 1791 constitution have gotten much less attention. Poland's reform politics not only provides both instructive parallels to and differences from French revolutionary developments, but were also deeply intertwined with them and embedded with those French events in a larger, European field of contention. Perhaps one of the most intriguing aspects of the Polish reform movement is that it was largely driven by elites, something noted in Karl Marx's bemused praise. Although social movements played very much less of a role in Poland than in France, we try to show here that familiar tools of social movement analysis permit an account of those Polish events as well.     

Moving beyond class: A critical review of labor‐environmental conflicts from the global south

Popularly referred to as the “Blue‐Green conflicts,” the tensions between labor and environmental movements have received extensive scholarly attention as it exposes the trade‐off between the economy and the environment. The jobs versus the environment trade‐off has been a focal point of tension in the relationship between trade‐unions and green movements across the globe. In this article, I critically review the existing literature on labor and environmental conflicts from a Global South standpoint. The review exposes how the extant literature on labor‐environmental relations almost exclusively focuses on cases and settings in the Global North, thereby centering the process of inquiry entirely around western social contexts and movements. In this article, I demonstrate why the conception of environmentalism as a middle‐class phenomenon within the extant literature is problematic as; (a) it fails to consider the poor and working‐class environmental movements in countries in the Global South, and (b) it completely overlooks the environmental justice movements and other working‐class environmental movements in the Global North itself. The review highlights the need to bring postcolonial movements and settings to the center of sociological analysis to decolonize the research on social movements.     

A home far away? Religious identity and transnational relations in the Iranian diaspora

Abstract In this article, I address the influence of religious identity on the discourses of national belonging that traditionally dominate transnational discussions. Many of the children of the Iranian diaspora live in a state of exile from contemporary theocratic Iran. Living at a temporal and physical distance from the homeland has resulted in differential long‐distance imaginings mediated by the diasporic context. Through the reflections of the children of Iranian migrants on the desire to ‘return’, a picture is painted of differing transnational trajectories divided along religious lines within the Iranian diaspora. For many of the second generation from a Muslim background their centrality in the discourses of national belonging, typified through the conflated ‘Muslim Iranian’ of media representations, feeds a desire for return. In contrast, for many second‐generation Baha ‘is their positionality as a minority, in both the homeland and the diaspora, combines with an eschatological problematizing of national belonging, to lead them away from Iran. In this article I draw on discussions about email communication in the diaspora(s) carried out as a part of research with the Iranian communities of London, Sydney and Vancouver.     

Immigrant rights and social movements

The disciplinary fields of immigration and social movements have largely developed as two distinct subareas of sociology. Scholars contend that immigrant rights, compared to other movements, have been given less attention in social movement research. Studies of immigrant‐based movements in recent decades have reached a stage whereby we can now assess how immigrant movement scholarship informs the general social movement literature in several areas. In this article, we show the contributions of empirical studies of immigrant movements in four primary arenas of social movement scholarship: (a) emergence; (b) participation; (c) framing; and (d) outcomes. Contemporary immigrant struggles offer social movement scholarship opportunities to incorporate these campaigns and enhance current theories and concepts as earlier protest waves advanced studies of collective action.     

清真寺与霍梅尼革命及其影响:伊朗核问题新解

从霍梅尼对清真寺的基本认知、坚守、支持和利用等进一步解读伊朗伊斯兰革命,旨在强调清真寺管道与伊朗内政外交的关联性,进而凸现精神领袖在解决伊朗核问题中的深远影响,尤其是国际社会更应正视围绕伊朗核问题而形成的四种话语阻障了彼此的沟通与对话。因此,国际社会必须在畅通沟通与对话的前提下,不断拓展外交解决此问题的空间与途径,以期采取行之有效的解决措施。     

Negotiating civic identity across different political contexts: Immigrant participation in social movements and political incorporation

This article examines the understudied intersection between migration and contentious politics, focusing specifically on immigrant participation in social movements within their host societies. Drawing upon data from the Anti-Extradition Law Amendment Bill (Anti-ELAB) Movement in Hong Kong, it illuminates the process through which Chinese immigrants become politicized, evolve collective identities, and mobilize against civil dominance. Further, it underscores the transformative potential of social movements in facilitating immigrant political incorporation. However, it also recognizes the unilateral acceptance determined by mainstream society, which often leaves immigrants sidelined in discussions regarding their qualifications for unconventional political participation. To address civil inequality, immigrants establish their civil identities, challenge dominance, and amass political capital for future incorporation. This study extends the migration and social movements literature by shedding light on the political dynamics of immigrant participation and the hurdles they encounter during their journey toward political incorporation. It also underscores the significant role of progressive social movements in fostering immigrant political participation. Furthermore, the research highlights the unique immigrant political identity that emerges and evolves through participation in social movements, contesting exclusion and monopolistic dominance over democratic realization.     

Black Movements Need Black Theorizing: Exposing Implicit Whiteness in Political Process Theory

The history of racism in the United States has produced a paradox in social movement literature: blackness shaped the character and substance of black antiracist mobilization, but whiteness shapes most analysis of their efforts. Despite frequently using the black Civil Rights Movement for theory development and testing, leading theorists have yet to identify a specific theory of race undergirding their analysis or explaining how racism impacts the trajectory of antiracist social movements. Instead, theorists rely on common white-privileging notions of race that hinder analyses of black movements. I critically analyze political process theory (PPT) from a racial perspective, showing that the dominant critiques of PPT stem from PPT creators’ failure to critically theorize race while analyzing the Civil Rights Movement. Theorists implicitly adopted white-centered perspectives that ultimately undermined PPT’s development. I conclude with a call to simultaneously theorize collective action and the system of inequality with which a movement is engaged.     

Marginal movements and minority struggles? The case of the Japanese minority social and labour movements

In Japan, some of the socially, economically and politically marginalised have developed robust social and labour movements that engage with mainstream society. These movements have developed strategies challenging the conditions of the excluded, while also highlighting pathways to establish, or enhance, individual and collective participation in the labour market and the wider society. Two distinct though related, social and organisational forms of these movements are elaborated – firm‐centred and community centred respectively. The former especially has a combative past in the labour struggles of the 1950s in what are known as sa'ha shōsū‐ha kumiai (left wing Minority union, or, Minority‐faction union). However, this does not mean Minorities are inherently leftist in orientation. In the 1940s and 1950s, during a period of radical union hegemony, a collaborative form of second unions developed assisting the purge of radical leaderships. Our focus here is on a contemporary radical democratic current. While articulating concerns of those in full time employment outside the political mainstream they may also represent ethnically and otherwise socially marginalised workers. The community unions, a form of what are known as ‘new‐type union’, shingata kumiai (this term will be used here to describe the community unions) articulate the concerns of those socially and economically marginalized in the community and the wider labour market. Controversially, the term ‘Minority union’ is used to depict the different forms of oppositional social movement union in a broader sense than is typically understood in the literature. This is because they share a common concern with the articulation of Minority social and political interests in the context of the employment relationship and the local community. In considering the character of these social movement unions the article seeks to add to what Price (1997 ) describes as ‘bottom up history’ which we term ‘sociology from below’.     

Theories of collective action and the Iranian revolution

Most analyses of the collective actions that led to the Iranian revolution rest upon one of two classical models: social breakdown or social movement. These explanations emphasize such factors as the politicization of recently uprooted migrants, the growth of a new middle class opposing autocracy, the authority of the clergy, and specific aspects of Shiite Islam. Conflicts of interest, capacity for mobilization, coalition formation, and the structure of opportunities that shaped the collective actions of various groups and classes are ignored or downplayed. This paper argues that mobilization and collective action against the monarchy resulted from the adverse effects of state development policies on bazaaris, industrial workers, white-collar employees, and professionals. Bazaaris' mobilization provided an opportunity for other social groups and classes to oppose the government. A coalition of disparate interests, led by Ayatollah Khomeini, brought down the monarchy.Iran's two major twentieth-century revolutions, and especially the second, appear so aberrant. They do not fit very closely widespread ideas of what modern revolutions should be like. Yet there is no doubt that the Islamic revolution in 1978–79 provided a thoroughgoing overthrow of the old political, social, and ideological order (Keddie, 1983:580).     

The Islamic Soccer League in Israel: Setting Moral Boundaries by Taming the Wild

This article strives to use the institutional and discursive strategies employed by the Islamic Movement in Israel in the soccer sphere to illustrate wider theoretical arguments about setting boundaries of inclusion and exclusion in the public sphere. The Islamic Movement uses an isolationist strategy, by creating the independent Islamic Soccer League. In contrast, social agents who strive to promote integration in Israeli society or, alternatively, Arab-Palestinian national pride encourage the involvement of Arab teams and players in the Israeli Football Association. The article argues that the isolationist strategy is inherent in the attempts of a religious movement to articulate a definition of collective identity that is based on a sacred moral code. Then, relying mainly on the contents of the sports sections of the Islamic press, the article analyzes the inevitable tensions stemming from the use of an institution with a strong secular orientation for the purpose of reproducing religious identity.     

Iranian College Students’ Attitudes Toward Premarital Sex,Marriage, and Family Before and After the Islamic Revolution

ABSTRACT. Objectives: The purpose of this study was to examine Iranian college students’ attitudes toward premarital sex and marriage before and after the Islamic Revolution. Methods: Responses to a survey from 526 students at University of Shiraz in 2011 were compared to those from another study of 392 students from the same university who completed the same survey in 1977 (2 years before the Islamic Revolution). Results: No substantial changes were observed to indicate that college students adopted theocratic views on premarital sex and marriage after the Islamic Revolution. Conclusions: The Islamic regime's efforts to cultivate conservative attitudes toward sexuality and marriage have not achieved their goals.     

Creating Cohesion from Diversity: The Challenge of Collective Identity Formation in the Global Justice Movement*

Collective identity formation is important because it plays a crucial role in sustaining movements over time. Studying collective identity formation in autonomous groups in the Global Justice Movement poses a challenge because they encompass a multiplicity of identities, ideologies, issues, frames, collective action repertoires, and organizational forms. This article analyzes the process of collective identity formation in three anti‐capitalist globalization groups in Madrid, Spain, based on 3 years of ethnographic fieldwork. The author argues that for new groups practicing participatory democracy the regular face‐to‐face assemblies are the crucial arena in which collective identity can form and must be both effective and participatory in order to foster a sense of commitment and belonging. The article raises the possibility that scholars should consider what seems to be an oxymoron: the possible benefits of “failure” for social movements.     

伊朗伊斯兰共和国政治体制探究

1979年伊朗爆发了伊斯兰革命,从表面看,革命的胜利是政教合一体制建立的主要原因。然而在经过两伊战争、政治孤立、经济制裁、伊核危机和总统大选风波后,这种政治体制仍能稳步发展且依然具有活力的深层原因很值得研究。本文将通过波斯传统的政治思想、伊斯兰教什叶派的宗教思想、外来现代化思想的影响和其他模式尝试的失败等四个方面来揭示这一体制得以确立和发展的内在根源。     

A Comparative Framework for the Analysis of International Student Movements

Recent theory and research on revolution indicate that leadership and ideology play crucial roles. Much of the leadership and ideology for contemporary revolutions developed within the context of student movements. But previous research on student movements has often been limited to developed Western societies and has yielded typologies of student activism that have little application to revolutionary movements worldwide. Based on an analysis of student movements in many societies during the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, a new typology of student movements is formulated. The typology, which allows differentiation among reform student movements, identity radicalism student movements, structural revolutionary student movements, and social revolutionary student movements, appears capable of identifying the essential contrasts as well as key similarities among a wide range of student movements in many societies. Conditions fostering each type of movement are described. The paper concludes with a discussion of case studies in several countries and how these student movements are categorized in the new typology.     

Clothing and social movements: Tibet and the politics of dress

The ‘cultural turn’ in social movement studies has brought a renewed outlook on new social movements and lifestyle movements. In this development on the symbolic challenge of contemporary movements, research has expanded to both music and art. However, little is known about the role of clothing in movements and how activists use it for social change. In making the case for a greater consideration of clothing’s tactical use in identity work, this paper explores the case of the Tibetan Lhakar movement. I argue that for Lhakar activists, clothing is the materialization of the political consciousness of the movement and symbolically acts as a mechanism of communication in shaping its political goals. By using social media to observe individualized collective actions of wearing Tibetan clothing, the paper demonstrates how activists frame and create new political opportunity structures for civic participation in a one party state that controls all speech and movement.     

From Solidarity to Fluidarity: Social movements beyond 'collective identity'--the case of globalization conflicts

Over the 1980s 'collective identity' became established as one of the orthodoxies of the sociology of social movements. This paper considers this development, and argues that 'collective identity' does not allow a conceptualization and exploration of critical dimensions of action and identity emerging in contemporary globalization conflicts. Drawing on fieldwork undertaken with Direct Action groups in Australia and the USA, this paper considers (i) the role of affinity groups, (ii) the question of representation, (iii) network culture and fluidarity, and (iv) the narrative structure of action. In the light of these, the paper critiques the 'collective identity' model, while also suggesting limits to the 'personalized commitment' thesis (Lichterman, The Search for Political Community , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996) advanced in relation to Green activists. The paper argues in the context of network societies, the analysis of processes of action and identity within contemporary social movements must shift from 'solidarity' to one of 'fluidarity', and from 'collective identity' to one of 'public experience of self'.     

Cultural Analysis of Religious Change and Movements*

In this article I review a cultural perspective on religion and suggest that cultural analysis resolves current debates over the nature of religion as either collectivist or individualist. I use one type of cultural analysis, institutionalism, to present an interpretive overview of religious change and movements in historical contexts of global instrumental rationality, in particular the expansion of state authority. The usefulness of this approach is revealed in interpreting Protestantism in the United States, Islamic fundamentalism, and movements and trends in global Roman Catholicism. While not reflecting precisely the views of the authors of this collection, this article introduces the studies of the recent restructuring of religion in the United States (Robert Wuthnow), Islamic fundamentalisms in Iran and Syria (Mansoor Moaddel). and global Roman Catholicism (Jose Casanova).