The Local Politics of Protest Movements: Implications from the Arab Uprisings to the European Indignados

This workshop aims at developing a better understanding of the dynamics and role of local contentious politics by prioritizing a strategic interactionist perspective over more structural explanations of political change. To achieve this objective, the research focuses on the local dynamics of protest and governance around the Mediterranean region since the 2008 financial crisis. By bringing together the local politics of the European indignados movements and of the Arab uprisings, this workshop has two main objectives. First it seeks to better understand how local actors (individually and collectively) make sense of contentious events, practices and discourses and how they articulate their actions into larger political dynamics. Second it aims to further expand upon the current literature by examining not only how social and political actors become protestors but how protestors become institutionalized social and political actors.