New Global Social Movements in the Digital Age? An Analysis of Pro-Justice and Pro-Democracy Mass Political Protests

Abstract

Democracies have recently been in decline around the globe, as evidenced by the 2018 Freedom House report. Democratic backsliding today has also come to be associated mostly with populist parties that tend to curb political rights and civil liberties, erode media freedoms, and politicize state institutions. In response to this trend opposition parties and, most importantly, “engaged” citizens have staged mass demonstrations which suggest that the idea of defending democratic institutions is slowly becoming a rallying point capable of generating large-scale collective action. For instance, in Hungary, Poland, Romania and Turkey, citizens took to the streets to protest against what they saw as their government’s encroachment on their political rights and civil liberties. As such, popular protest in defense of democracy and justice has become for many a form of political participation. Similar to the illiberal turn in Central and Eastern Europe, popular resistance has made itself felt in other parts of the globe. Brazil, Paraguay, South Korea, Taiwan, Ukraine and, to a smaller degree, Russia, are thus part of a global trend which has seen protests emerge as a last resort mechanism against authoritarian-leaning and/or corrupt governments. This panel aims to tap into the global dimension of this recent and yet little researched political phenomenon. By employing a comparative perspective we hope to bridge the regional divide and analyze the following questions: Could these geographically disparate movements be the sign of a new wave of political change that paves the way for a liberal backlash? What are the common determinants of this new type of collective action? What role do populism and populist parties play in triggering such massive counter-reactions? Are there similarities in the content, technology use, and organizational means across movements from different regions/continents? What role does public opinion play in this context? In 2018 we celebrate fifty years since the ’68 student protests: what has stayed the same and what has changed in peoples’ way of challenging authoritarianism? We would like to take stock of the discourse, digital technology & strategies as well as the profile of the “engaged” citizens who are the drivers of recent political events. We welcome applications from researchers studying the emergence of these new movements, their inter-linkages and potential global impact. Accepted papers: Margarit, Diana (Alexandru Ioan Cuza University, Iași, Romania) and Rammelt, Henry P. (SNSPA Bucharest), Revitalization of Social and Civic Participation in Eastern Europe? Industrial Conflict and Popular Protests in Romania Esen, Berk (Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey), Contentious Politics under Right-wing Populism: the Cases of Turkey and Hungary in Comparative Perspective Mercea, Dan (City University London); Burean, Toma (Babeș-Bolyai, Cluj, Romania) and Viorel Proteasa (Aalto University School of Science, Finland), The Knowledge of Protest: An Assessment of Topical Social Media Usage in Contentious Politics Trif, Dana S. (Babeș-Bolyai, Cluj, Romania), Visualizing Political Protest and Discursive Strategies: A Comparative Analysis of Large Scale Romanian and East Asian Street Demonstrations