ABSTRACT
European social movements have been central to European history, politics, society and culture, and have had a global reach and impact. Yet they have rarely been taken on their own terms in the English-language literature, considered rather as counterpoints to the US experience. This has been exacerbated by the failure of Anglophone social movement theorists to pay attention to the substantial literatures in languages such as French, German, Spanish or Italian – and by the increasing global dominance of English in the production of news and other forms of media.
This book sets out to take the European social movement experience seriously on its own terms, including:
- the European tradition of social movement theorising – particularly in its attempt to understand movement development from the 1960s onwards
- the extent to which European movements between 1968 and 1999 became precursors for the contemporary anti-globalisation movement
- the construction of the anti-capitalist "movement of movements" within the European setting
- the new anti-austerity protests in Iceland, Greece, Spain (15-M/Indignados), and elsewhere.
This book offers a comprehensive, interdisciplinary perspective on the key European social movements in the past forty years. It will be of interest for students and scholars of politics and international relations, sociology, history, European studies and social theory.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
part |25 pages
European theory/European movements
part |16 pages
European precursors to the Global Justice Movement
chapter |14 pages
The emergence and development of the “no global” movement in France
chapter |15 pages
The continuity of transnational protest
chapter |18 pages
Where global meets local
chapter |15 pages
Constructing a new collective identity for the alterglobalization movement
chapter |16 pages
Movement culture continuity
part |18 pages
Culture and identity in the construction of the European “movement of movements”
chapter |16 pages
Europe as contagious space
chapter |15 pages
The shifting meaning of ‘autonomy' in the East European diffusion of the alterglobalization movement
chapter |14 pages
Collective identity across borders
chapter |15 pages
At home in the movement
part |16 pages
Understanding the new “European Spring”