Citizenship Rights And Social Movements

This is the first comparative study of the relationship between social movements and citizenship rights. It identifies the main connections made between collective action and individual rights, in theory and history, and tests them in the context of modern authoritarian regimes. It does so bymeasuring both social mobilization and the presence of rights over time, and by analysing their mutual impact statistically - both within and across national cases. The results create a new perspective on democratic struggles in authoritarian conditions, and on processes of democratic transitions. The selected cases of Brazil, Chile, Mexico and Spain are similar enough to make comparisons possible, and different enough to make them interesting. Measuring mobilization and rights provides a comparative description of their forms and fluctuations, just as the statistical results promote acomparative analysis of their influence and interactions. The study uses statistical techniques, but employs them to illuminate historical processes. In sum, its quantitative methods work to enhance the qualitative inquiry, and together they come to constitute a robust defense of democracy as the direct result of collective struggles for individualrights.

øThis Handbook uniquely collates the results of several decades of academic research in these two important fields. The expert contributions successively address the different forms of political citizenship and current approaches and recent development

Debates over social movements have suffered from a predominate focus on North America and western Europe, often neglecting the significance of collective action in the global South. Citizenship and Social Movements seeks to partially redress this imbalance with case studies from Brazil, India, Bangladesh, Mexico, South Africa and Nigeria. This volume points to the complex relationships that influence mobilization and social movements in the South, suggesting that previous theories have underplayed the influence of state power and elite dominance in the government and in NGOs. As the contributors to this book clearly show, understanding the role of the state in relation to social movements is critical to determining when collective action can fulfil the promise of bringing the rights of the marginalized to the fore.

In this book, Tamar Groves and Inbal Ofer explore the effects of social movements' activism on the changing practices and conceptions of citizenship. Presenting empirically rich case studies from Latin America, Asia and Europe, leading experts analyze the ways in which the shifting balance of power between nation-state, economy and civil society over the past half century affected social movements in their choice of addressees and repertoires of action. Divided into two parts, the first part focuses on citizenship as a form of political and cultural participation. The three case studies that make up this section look into the ways in which social movements' activism prompted a critical re-evaluation of two central questions: Who can be considered a citizen? And what forms of political and cultural participation effectively enable citizens to exercise their rights? The second section focuses on citizenship as a form of community building. The three case studies that are included in this section address the ways in which activism fosters new forms of advocacy and communication, leading to the emergence of new communities and assigning qualities of fraternity to the status of citizenship. Throughout most of the 20th century social movements' literature focused on the challenges these entities posed to the state, since it was the state that had the capacity and willingness to grant social and economic concessions. This situation started to shift in the late 1960s. By the 1980s the existing configuration between the state, civil society and the economy was increasingly challenged by market penetration. Accordingly, we witness a proliferation of social movements that no longer target state institutions, or do so only partially. Their repertoires of action interact continuously with everyday practices, re-shaping demands within specific organizational, legislative and political contexts. As a result, such activism expands the understanding of the concept of citizenship so as to include demands relating to livelihood; division of resources; the production and dissemination of knowledge; and forms of civic participation and solidarity. Written for scholars who study social movements, citizenship and the relationship between the state and civil society over the past half century, this book provides a fresh insight on the nature of citizenship; increasingly framing the condition of being a citizen in terms of performance and on-going practices, rather than simply in relation to the attainment of a formal status.

This study of the relationship between social movements and citizenship rights identifies the main connections made between collective action and individual rights in theory and in history and tests them in the context of modern authoritarian regimes.

This book explores the relationship between social movements, sexual citizenship and change in Southern Europe. Providing a comparative analysis about LGBT issues in Italy, Spain and Portugal, it discusses how activism can generate legal, political and cultural impact in post-dictatorial, Catholic and EU-focused countries.

In the months leading up to the 2016 presidential election, liberal outcry over ethnonationalist views promoted a vision of America as a nation of immigrants. Given the pervasiveness of this rhetoric, it can be easy to overlook the fact that the immigrant rights movement began in the US relatively recently. This book tells the story of its grassroots origins, through its meteoric rise to the national stage. Starting in the 1990s, the immigrant rights movement slowly cohered over the demand for comprehensive federal reform of immigration policy. Activists called for a new framework of citizenship, arguing that immigrants deserved legal status based on their strong affiliation with American values. During the Obama administration, leaders were granted unprecedented political access and millions of dollars in support. The national spotlight, however, came with unforeseen pressures—growing inequalities between factions and restrictions on challenging mainstream views. Such tradeoffs eventually shattered the united front. The Immigrant Rights Movement tells the story of a vibrant movement to change the meaning of national citizenship, that ultimately became enmeshed in the system that it sought to transform.

Contemporary France has witnessed a rise of new forms of social movement, mobilising around new causes and articulating changing demands. Sarah Waters examines the new generation of movements in the last decade, from anti-racism and the movement of the unemployed to solidarity or the associations of the 'Sans' . She argues that emerging movements share a profoundly civic dimension: these are movements about rights and are concerned with who has rights and what those rights are. They manifest a desire to reinvent citizenship in the present day in relation to a new set of social struggles and conflicts.

This book explores the activism and solidarity movements formed by contemporary European citizens in opposition to populism, which has risen significantly in reaction to globalization, European integration and migration. It makes the counterforces to neo-nationalisms visible and re-envisions key concepts such as democracy/public sphere, power/empowerment, intersectionality and conflict/cooperation in civil society. The book makes a theoretical and empirical contribution to citizenship studies, covering several forms such as contestatory, solidary, everyday and creative citizenship. The chapters examine the diverse movements against national populism, othering and exclusion in various parts of the European Union, such as Denmark, Finland, the UK, Austria, Germany, France, Bulgaria, Slovenia and Italy. The national case studies focus on counterforces to ethnic and religious divisions, as well as genders and sexualities, various expressions of anti-migration, Romanophobia, Islamophobia and homophobia. The book’s overall focus on local, national and transnational forms of resistance is premised on values of respect and tolerance of diversity in an increasingly multi-cultural Europe.

The movement for civil rights in America peaked in the 1950s and1960s; however, a closely related struggle, this time over themovement's legacy, has been heatedly engaged over the past twodecades. How the civil rights movement is currently being rememberedin American politics and culture - and why it matters - is the commontheme of the thirteen essays in this unprecedented collection.Memories of the movement are being created and maintained - in waysand for purposes we sometimes only vaguely perceive - throughmemorials, art exhibits, community celebrations, and even streetnames.