ABSTRACT

The book has synthesized the broad literature on social movements in the aftermath of the 2008 crisis in three important respects. It synthesized first, research on protests against austerity with research on protests against free trade; second, research on protests in Southern Europe with research on (the lack of) protests in Eastern Europe; and third, research on media practices with research on the strategic actions of political players beyond bottom-up activists that have been the focus of most social movement studies so far. I have connected these largely disconnected strands of literature by exploring the diffusion of protests against austerity and free trade within the EU in the aftermath of the Great Recession. Focusing on diffusion allowed me to trace inductively the many players involved in spreading protest, including intellectuals, political parties, trade unions, NGOs, and mainstream media that used a wide variety of media practices to spread protest frames and repertoires. Studying how protests in these parts of Europe are connected has been long overdue, since most authoritative research on the cycle of protest after the Great Recession has either focused exclusively on Western European cases or has compared protests in Eastern and Western Europe without paying attention to the ways they have influenced each other, being part of the same complex system. Finally, the focus on diffusion has shown not only that the politicization of the 2008 crisis in the EU was highly differentiated, but also that even if there were no adequate “adopters” of protest at a certain point of time, thanks to diffusion such players could and did appear, since we live in dynamic political systems in which change is possible.