Studies of social movements have addressed numerous urban riot events. In most cases riots are perceived as phenomena that can be subsumed either into the ‘collective behavior’ or the ‘political process’ models of social movements theory. In the collective behavior model the analysis of riots focuses on deprivation, its structural causes, the psychological state of participants and their individual characteristics, while urban riots are usually presented as short-lived and unorganized events. In the political process model, on the other hand, urban riots are not perceived as spontaneous and sudden outbursts, but are analyzed as the outcome of the interactions between purposive actors and their existing political context (e.g. strategic use of violence, opportunity structure, response by state actors, protest repertoires). In both cases, however, there is the implicit assumption that riots can be analyzed by the same causal processes and mechanisms that explain mobilization in social movements. The aim of this paper is to underline the crucial differences between riots and social movements by analyzing three different aspects of riots: 1) the alternating, discontinuous and volatile dynamic of riots (including the element of violence), 2) the temporal and spatial limitations of riots as a challenge to social order, 3) the contested political identities of rioters. Thus the analysis will underline that riots differ significantly from and should not be equated with social movements. Rather than analyzing riots as unified events, riots should rather be disaggregated into multiple, variable, smaller events, in which the protagonists, the repertoires ( violent or non violent) and the reasons for participating may not only differ from one event to another, but may also be contradictory. In order to illustrate the differences between riots and social movements three different cases of urban riots will be presented: 1) the 1992 Los Angeles Riots, 2) the 2001 riots in the northern towns of Britain and 2) the 2005 riots in the outer suburbs of French cities.
