Facing the Crisis in Southern Europe: Civil Society and Social-Protest Movements

Abstract

Although there is an important number of articles and books about the new stage of protest that the world has entered since the recession of 2008-present, deeper academic analysis about the specific situation of this protest movements in some geographical areas as the South of Europe is demanded. All signs are that the world economy is undergoing transition that impacts the social structure in a fundamental way, and therein are the causes of mass protests seeking change. This seems to be particularly true in the case of some countries such as Spain, Italy or Greece. Starting from this point of view, this panel will bring together current research about the study of collective protest and social movements in Southern Europe emerged from the economic crisis in the last years. Specifically, it will widely discuss the effect of financial crisis and party politics on the grassroots mobilisations through social-protest movements as the “Indignados” in Spain. Very welcome are qualitative and quantitative papers including comparative perspective and interdisciplinary approach. Five kinds of papers are welcome in particular. First, the workshop seeks theoretical and empirical papers that explore the European situation, including inquiries into protest in Spain, Italy, Greece and Portugal. Second, the panel will allow for papers that deal with cultural and political influences of a new generational approach to activism at the level of collective identities in Southern Europe. Third, papers looking for the impact of Globalisation and its accompanying influence on politics, and especially on European and South-European political agendas are required. Fourth, academic works evaluating the global “occupy” protests and their possible influence will be also very welcome. Finally, the panel welcomes comparative empirical papers on the link between theory of democracy and these social-protest movement outcomes.

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