Social Movements and Transformation

Series Editor Berch Berberoglu, Sociology, University of Nevada, Reno, NV, USA This series tackles one of the central issues of our time: the rise of large- scale social movements and the transformation of society over the last thirty years. As global capitalism continues to affect broader segments of the world’s population workers, peasants, the self-employed, the unem- ployed, the poor, indigenous peoples, women, and minority ethnic groups there is a growing mass movement by the affected populations to address the inequities engendered by the globalization process. These popular mass movements across the globe (such as labor, civil rights, women’s, environmental, indigenous, and anti-corporate globalization movements) have come to form a viable and decisive force to address the consequences of the operations of the transnational corporations and the global capitalist system. The study of these social movements their nature, social base, ideology, and strategy and tactics of mass struggle is of paramount impor- tance if we are to understand the nature of the forces that are struggling to bring about change in the global economy, polity, and social struc- ture. This series aims to explore emerging movements and develop viable explanations for the kind of social transformations that are yet to come.

More information about this series at http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14481 Lorenzo Cini · Donatella della Porta · César Guzmán-Concha Editors Student Movements in Late Neoliberalism

Dynamics of Contention and Their Consequences Editors Lorenzo Cini Donatella della Porta Faculty of Political Faculty of Political and Social Sciences and Social Sciences Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa Florence, Italy Florence, Italy

César Guzmán-Concha Institute of Citizenship Studies University of Geneva Geneva, Switzerland

Social Movements and Transformation ISBN 978-3-030-75753-3 ISBN 978-3-030-75754-0 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-75754-0

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

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This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland To the people who struggle for a free education for all Acknowledgments

The idea to write this book came during the preparation of the conference on “The Contentious Politics of Higher Education. Student Movements in Late Neoliberalism”, that we organized at the Center on Social Move- ment Studies (Cosmos), Scuola Normale Superiore (SNS), at Palazzo Strozzi in Florence on November 16 and 17, 2017. The event was part of a research project on the contentious politics of higher education, financed with internal funds by SNS. While our research focused on Chile, England, Italy, and Quebec, in the conference we were interested in expanding the reflection on other recent episodes of massive student protests in countries in Europe, Latin America, and Africa. From the theoretical point of view, our aim was to bridge the fields of social movement studies with the research on the politics of higher education. For sure, all those protests address the neoliberal transformations of the system of higher education, enacted by governments of all political leanings, promoting the outsourcing of personnel, the manage- rialization of governing bodies, the introduction of tuition fees as well as cuts to public funding. The outburst of the economic crisis in 2008 has represented a decisive watershed in this process of marketization: as many governments across the world have adopted the neoliberal and pro- austerity agenda as a way out of the crisis. These measures accelerated the implementation of neoliberal reforms in countries where they previ- ously did not exist. Although differences between countries continue to be pronounced, national higher education systems are becoming more

vii viii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS alike in the sense of being more market-oriented, even in countries with a strong state intervention tradition. Such transformations were not only aimed at meeting effective and well-structured policy designs, but they were also triggered by the logic of vested interests, power relations, and social conﬂicts. Over the past ten years, students of all around the world have indeed contested these policies and their implementation with different degrees of success. We want to express our gratitude to all those who participated in that conference. We are particularly grateful to Thierry Luescher and Manja Klemencic for their very insightful keynote addresses. As with all our endeavors, we have also enjoyed the stimulating and supportive environment of the Center on Social Movement Studies. We are grateful to our colleagues there with whom we had very stimulating discussions on the topic of the neoliberal university and its challenges. We are particularly thankful to Lorenzo Bosi, Rossella Ciccia, Riccardo Emilio Chesta, Daniela Chironi, Marco Deseriis, Andrea Felicetti, Anna Laviz- zari, Chiara Milan, Mario Pianta, Andrea Pirro, Martin Portos, Lorenzo Zamponi. Finally, we want to express our biggest thanks to Liam McLean and Elizabeth Graber from Palgrave for their constant help and huge patience in supporting and bearing us! Contents

1 Student Movements in Late Neoliberalism. Forms of Organization, Alliances, and Outcomes 1 Lorenzo Cini, Donatella della Porta, and César Guzmán-Concha 2 What Moves Students? Ritual Versus Reactive Student Demonstrations in Mexico City 27 María Inclán 3 Contentious Institutionalized Movements: The Case of the Student Movement in Quebec 55 Luc Chicoine and Marcos Ancelovici 4 Structuring the “Structureless” and Leading the “Leaderless”: Power and Organization in the Student Movement at the University of California 75 Sarah L. Augusto 5 Tweeting #FeesMustFall: The Online Life and Ofﬂine Protests of a Networked Student Movement 103 Thierry M. Luescher, Nkululeko Makhubu, Thelma Oppelt, Seipati Mokhema, and Memory Zodwa Radasi

ix x CONTENTS

6 Movement Leadership in an Era of Connective Action: A Study of Hong Kong’s Student-Led Umbrella Movement 133 Chi Shun Fong and Samson Yuen 7 From the Classrooms to the Roofs: The 2010 University Researchers’ Movement in Italy 157 Gianni Piazza 8 Worker–Student Unity Against Outsourcing at the University of Johannesburg: Disrupting the Neoliberal Paradigm Through Direct Action and Alternative Relations 187 Francesco Pontarelli 9 From Revolt to Reform: Student Protests and the Higher Education Agenda in England 2009–2019 213 Hector Rios-Jara 10 Chile’s Student Movement: Strong, Detached, Inﬂuential—And Declining? 241 Nicolás M. Somma and Sofía Donoso 11 Ever Failed? Fail Again, Fail Better: Tuition Protests in Germany, Turkey, and the United States 269 Didem Türko˘glu

Index 293 Notes on Contributors

Marcos Ancelovici is a Canada Research Chair in the Sociology of Social Conﬂicts and an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM). He has published numerous articles and chapters on the global justice movement, anti- austerity protests, and housing struggles, as well as co-edited Un Print- emps rouge et noir: Regards croisés sur la grève de 2012 (Écosociété, 2014) and Street Politics in the Age of Austerity: From the Indignados to Occupy (Amsterdam University Press, 2016; available in open access). Sarah L. Augusto is an Associate Professor in the Department of Soci- ology and Criminal Justice at Curry College in Milton, Massachusetts. Her research and teaching interests include social movements, inequalities, sex & gender, and pop culture. Her current research focuses on leadership and organization in diffuse, decentralized, non-hierarchical social movements. Luc Chicoine is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Sociology at the Université du Québec à Montréal and a member of the Canada Research Chair in the Sociology of Social Conﬂicts. His research focuses on student movements and its institutional repression. Lorenzo Cini is a political sociologist in the Faculty of Political and Social Sciences of the Scuola Normale Superiore of Florence, Italy. His latest publication is a monograph co-authored with Donatella della Porta and

xi xii NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

Cesar Guzman-Concha (Contesting Higher Education. Student Movements against Neoliberal Universities, 2020). Donatella della Porta is Professor of Political Science, Dean of the Faculty of Political and Social Sciences, and Director of the Ph.D. program in Political Science and Sociology at the Scuola Normale Supe- riore in Florence, Italy, where she also leads the Center on Social Movement Studies (Cosmos). Sofía Donoso (Ph.D., University of Oxford) is Assistant Professor of sociology at the Universidad de Chile and a Research Fellow at the Centre for Social Conflict and Cohesion Studies (COES). She is the co-editor (with Marisa von Bülow) of Social Movements in Chile: Organization, Trajectories and Political Consequences (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017). Her research has been published in the Journal of Latin American Studies, Research in Social Movements, Conflicts and Change, Bulletin of Latin American Research, as well as in numerous chapters in edited volumes. Chi Shun Fong is a Ph.D. student at the Pennsylvania State University. He is pursuing a dual-title Ph.D. in Political Science and Social Data Analytics. His major field of study is comparative politics. His research interests are authoritarian politics, contentious politics, politics of Greater China and international political economy. His current research focuses on how social media impact on the patterns of both collective action and repression. César Guzmán-Concha is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow and Prin- cipal Investigator of the project “Mobilizing for Basic Incomes: Social Innovation in Motion” (H2020-MSCA MOBILISE, project no. 839483) at the University of Geneva. María Inclán is a Profesora-Investigadora at Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas in Mexico City. She has specialized in the study of comparative social movements and democratization processes. In partic- ular, her research has focused on the development of social movements and cycles of protest within democratic transitions and individual triggers of protest participation. She is currently developing a research project on online political and mobilizing campaigns. She has held Visiting Professor positions at Brown University’s Center of Latin American and Caribbean Studies and Princeton University’s Program in Latin American Studies and has been a Visiting Fellow at UCSD’s Center for U.S.-Mexican NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS xiii

Studies. Her first book The Zapatista Movement and Mexico’s Demo- cratic Transition was published in 2018 by Oxford University Press. Other works have been published in the American Journal of Sociology, Journal of Conflict Resolution, Journal of Peace Research, Latin American Politics and Society,andMobilization. Thierry M. Luescher is a Research Director for post-schooling in the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) and associate professor of higher education affiliated to the University of the Free State (UFS) in South Africa. He has a Ph.D. in Political Studies from the University of Cape Town (UCT), a Postgraduate Diploma in Higher Education Studies from the UFS, and a B.A. in Politics, History, and African Languages from UCT. Thierry has a passion for researching, teaching, and publishing on the politics and policies of higher education, student politics, and student affairs and their relationship to social justice and their relationship to social justice and their relationship to social justice. His recent publications include Student Politics in Africa: Representation and Activism (with M. Klemenˇciˇc and J. O. Jowi; African Minds, 2016) and Reflections of South African Student Leaders, 1994 to 2017 (withD.WebbstockandN. Bhengu; African Minds, 2020). Nkululeko Makhubu is a Master’s Research Intern at the Human Sciences Research Council, Inclusive Development and Education program. He is also an M.Com. Information Systems student at the University of Cape Town. His current research on Information and Communications Technology for Development (ICT4D) is a case study on the #FeesMustFall student movement to describe the “soft power” influence that Twitter had on the movement online and offline in South Africa’s higher education climate. He curated the social media accounts from the University of the Western Cape during #FMF in 2015 and 2016. Seipati Mokhema studies toward a master’s degree in Sociology at North-West University (NWU) Mafikeng campus and works as a Researcher at the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) in the Inclusive Economic Development Division. She attained a B.Soc.Sc. in Development Studies and B.Soc.Sc. (Hons) in Sociology and completed two exchange programs during the first year of her master’s degree, as a DAAD and Erasmus Plus fellow, respectively, in Germany at Justus-Liebig Universität, Giessen. Her interests lie in projects that contribute to the xiv NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS development of African youth in education and leadership spaces as well as the future of work in the context of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Thelma Oppelt is a Researcher at the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC). She holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Human Life Sciences from the University of Stellenbosch, as well as Honours and master’s degrees in Psychology from the University of South Africa. She is currently completing a Ph.D. in Psychology in the Faculty of Health Sciences at Nelson Mandela University. Ms. Oppelt has participated in a number of important national research projects related to the social impact of the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) and, most recently, the impli- cations of the Fourth Industrial Revolution for the regulation of gambling in South Africa. Ms. Oppelt’s most recent publications are on the SKA and Human Development. Gianni Piazza holds a Ph.D. in Political Science at the University of Florence and is Associate Professor of Political Sociology at the Univer- sity of Catania. He is member of the Academic Board of the Ph.D. in Political Science and Sociology of the Scuola Normale Superiore of Pisa, and Associate Editor of the scientific journal Partecipazione e Conflitto. He has published books and journal articles on local government and politics, public policy analysis, social movements, territorial and environmental conflicts, student and squatting movements. He is the author of La città degli affari (1994) and Sindaci e politiche in Sicilia (1998), the co- author of Politiche e partecipazione (2004), Voices of the Valley, Voices of the Straits (2008), Le ragioni del no (2008), the co-editor of Alla ricerca dell’Onda (2010) and the editor of Il movimento delle occupazioni di squat e centri sociali in Europa (2012). Francesco Pontarelli is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the National Research Foundation Chair in Community, Adult and Workers Education at the University of Johannesburg (South Africa). He holds a Ph.D. in Soci- ology from the University of Johannesburg; a M.Sc. in Labour, Social Movements and Development at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London (UK); and a M.A. in Interna- tional Relations at the University of Naples “L’Orientale” (Italy). He serves as the book review editor for Notebooks, the Journal of Studies on Power. His areas of research embrace fields useful for transformative social movements, including Gramsci’s political thought, historical materialism, international political economy, labor studies, and popular education. NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS xv

Memory Zodwa Radasi is a Research Specialist (Postdoctoral Fellow) for education and livelihoods in the division of Inclusive Economic Develop- ment, Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC). Radasi holds under- graduate degrees and an M.A. from the University of the Western Cape, South Africa, as well as a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Porto, Portugal. Her Ph.D. dissertation was exploring policies made by the democratic new South African government regarding gender and race in the context of inequality in the workplace. Her research aimed at trans- forming inequalities that violate personhood, including gender, racism, class, xenophobia, and poverty. In addition to her research in the workplace, she is interested in policies, particularly in the education sector and human rights. She is currently examining personhood in the revaluation of children in African societies. Hector Rios-Jara is a Ph.D. candidate in Social Science at the Institute of Social Research of University College of London. He is member of the working group “Social Theory and Latin-American reality” of the Consejo Latinoamericano de Ciencias Sociales (CLACSO) and a spon- sored student of the Centro de Estudios de Conflicto y Cohesión Social (COES). Nicolás M. Somma (Ph.D., University of Notre Dame, Indiana) is an Associate Professor and Chair at the Institute of Sociology of the Ponti- ficia Universidad Católica de Chile, and an Associate Researcher at the Centre for Social Conflict and Cohesion Studies (COES). His research has appeared in journals such as Party Politics, Social Movement Studies, American Behavioral Scientist, Latin American Politics and Society and Comparative Politics, among others. Among other projects, he is leading a comparative study of labor movements in 17 Latin American countries since 1990, as well as a large-scale account of power configurations in human history. Didem Türko˘glu is a Postdoctoral Associate at New York University— Abu Dhabi whose research interests focus on political sociology, social movements, and studies of social inequalities. In her current book project, she conducts a comparative analysis of higher education policies and the protests against tuition hikes over the last four decades in 34 OECD countries with a special focus on England, Germany, Turkey, and the United States. Her articles have appeared in Mobilization, Current Sociology, Social Media +Society, Sociology Compass,andJournal of Democracy. xvi NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

Samson Yuen is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Govern- ment and International Studies at Hong Kong Baptist University. He researches contentious politics, public opinion, as well as health and food politics, with speciﬁc focus in China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. He has co-edited An Epoch of Social Movements (Chinese University, 2018) and has published articles in journals including Political Studies, Geopolitics, Mobilization, Social Movement Studies,andThe China Quarterly. List of Figures

Fig. 2.1 Participants’ motivations to participate in the annual commemoration of the 1968 students’ movement on October 2, 2011 35 Fig. 2.2 Participants’ motivations to participate in the #YoSoy132 protesting march against Enrique Peña Nieto’s presidential campaign on June 10, 2012 37 Fig. 2.3 Predicted probability of protest participation in students’ demonstrations by education 47 Fig. 2.4 Predicted probability of protest participation in students’ demonstrations by interest in politics 48 Fig. 3.1 Student protest activity in Quebec (2005–2016) (Source La Presse. Includes street marches, rallies, occupations, and blockades) 62 Fig. 3.2 Varieties of modes of action used between 2005 and 2016 (Source La Presse. Note These numbers should not be treated as “hard data” because some protest eventsreported by newspapers did not contain information on the modes of action used) 63 Fig. 5.1 Daily Unique #FeesMustFall Tweets in October 2015 (Source HSRC, 2021. Note Data generated by Mecodify on 11 March 2020; unique tweets only) 114 Fig. 5.2 Top 10 tweeting tweeters (Source HSRC, 2021. Note Data generated by Mecodify on 11 March 2020; N = 62,191) 117

xvii xviii LIST OF FIGURES

Fig. 5.3 Network of degree centrality by mentions of #FeesMustFall Twitter users (Source HSRC, 2021. Note Data generated by Mecodify, analysed in Kumu.io, 11 March 2020; N = 62,191) 118 Fig. 5.4 Campus-specific #FeesMustFall-related Tweets in October 2015 (Source HSRC, 2021. Design Dineo Luescher; Note Data generated by Mecodify between August 2018 to March 2020; Key CPUT = Cape Peninsula University of Technology; CUT = Central University of Technology; DUT = Durban University of Technology; NMU = Nelson Mandela University; NWU = North-West University; RU = Rhodes University; SMU = Sefako Makgatho University; SPU = Sol Plaatje University; SU = Stellenbosch University; TUT = Tshwane University of Technology; UCT = University of Cape Town; UFH = University of Fort Hare; UFS = University of the Free State; UJ = University of Johannesburg; UKZN = University of KwaZulu Natal; UL = University of Limpopo; UMP = University of Mpumalanga; UNISA = University of South Africa; UP = University of Pretoria; UWC = University of the Western Cape; UV = University of Venda; VUT = Vaal University of Technology; WITS = University of the Witwatersrand; WSU = Walter Sisulu University. No data: Mangosuthu University of Technology; University of Zululand) 119 Fig. 5.5 Campus-specific protest events vs. campus-specific tweets (Source HSRC, 2021. Note Tweet data generated by Mecodify between August 2018 and March 2020; Total 51,277 tweets; PEA data generated by authors from 77 sampled news articles. Both databases range from 14 to 26 October 2015 only. Note Data from institutions with N < 0.5% in both categories are omitted) 124 Fig. 5.6 Daily Unique Campus-specific #FeesMustFall-related Tweets in October 2015 (Source HSRC, 2021. Note Data generated by Mecodify between August 2018 and March 2020; N = 52,892) 126 LIST OF FIGURES xix

Fig. 10.1 Number of student protests in Chile by year (Source Data from the Observatory of Conflicts of the Centre for Social Conflict and Cohesion Studies [COES]. The figure considers protest events reporting the presence of students of any kind [high school, university, or non-identified]) 259 List of Tables

Table 1.1 Ideal types of higher education 7 Table 2.1 Surveyed protest participants and nonparticipants per student event 38 Table 2.2 Descriptive statistics per student demonstration 41 Table 2.3 Correlates of protest participation in ritual and reactive students’ demonstrations in Mexico City 43 Table 2.4 Adjusted Wald tests for each protest participation predictor 45 Table 11.1 List of cases based on presence of brokerage, the inﬂuence of collective memory, and perceived threats 275

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