Collective Action and Political Change: Activism, Participation, and Protest

Political Science 795E Instructor: Professor Sonia E. Alvarez Office: 424 Thompson Office hours: Mondays 1:30-3:30 pm and by appt. Email: [email protected]

Course Description: This course examines the multiple, often competing, ways in which scholars have theorized how diverse kinds of collective actors both shape and are (re)shaped by politics. Drawing on select case studies, principally from Latin America, Europe, and the U.S., and varied theoretical approaches from a range of disciplines—including not only several subfields in Political Science, but also Sociology, Anthropology, Feminist Studies, Geography, African Diaspora Studies, History, Cultural Studies, and more—we will explore the following questions, centered on Activism, Participation, and Protest (APP, for our purposes): o What does political activism look like? How do we know it when we see it? o What does activism entail? (e.g. demonstrating, protesting, signing petitions, canvassing, doing graffiti, engaging in civil disobedience, drafting policy briefs, living alternatively, running for office, crashing windows) o How/when/why does one form/modality of APP shift to another? (e.g. protest to participation) o Where does APP happen? In the streets, in civil society, in participatory institutions, on the internet, elsewhere, all of the above? o What forms of collective action/activism constitute what 20th century social science called “social movements”? o Are other concepts available to characterize today’s activism? o What frameworks might we need to develop to better apprehend contemporary forms of APP? o What modalities of APP are most effective, why, and to what ends? o When and how does collective action shift scales, from local, to national, to global and (sometimes) back again? o How and why do contemporary protests/mobilizations emerge? o What is the role of the larger political, organizational, discursive environment in that emergence? o How and why do they decline, “fail,” or end? Do they have “afterlives”? If so, what are their effects? o How do we assess APP success? APP failure? o How does the policing/militarization and criminalization of protest affect mobilizational outcomes? o How do shifting concepts and discourses regarding diverse forms of collective action reflect changing theoretical and political agendas in different disciplinary arenas and on national, regional and transnational scales?

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Course Materials: Most article-length required readings can be accessed on Moodle [indicated by an (M) below] and are organized online by date and topic in accordance with the Course Outline. The following are the books we will be reading good chunks of or in their entirety. They are available for purchase online through the UMass-Amazon agreement. Many are also available as e-books through the W.E.B. Du Bois Library and some can also be accessed through a variety of other online sources.

Taylor, Keeanga-Yamahtta. 2016. #Black Lives Matters to Black Liberation. Chicago: Haymarket Books. McAdam, Doug. 1999. Political Process and the Development of Black Insurgency, 1830–1970. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, Second Edition. Piven, Frances Fox and Richard Cloward. 1979. Poor People’s Movements: Why They Succeed, How They Fail. New York: Vintage Books. Paschel, Tianna. 2016. Becoming Black Political Subjects: Movements and Ethno-Racial Rights in Colombia and Brazil. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Tarrow, Sidney. 2011. Power in Movement: Social Movements and Contentious Politics. New York: Cambridge University Press, Third Edition. Reed, T. V. 2005. The Art of Protest: Culture and Activism from the Civil Rights Movement to the Streets of Seattle. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Enke, Anne. 2007. Finding the Movement: Sexuality, Contested Space, and Feminist Activism. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Lang, Sabine. 2013. NGOs, Civil Society, and the Public Sphere. New York: Cambridge University Press. Bernal, Victoria and Inderpal Grewal, eds. 2014. Theorizing NGOs: States, Feminisms, and Neoliberalism. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Keck, Margaret E. and Kathryn Sikkink. 1998. Activists Beyond Borders: Advocacy Networks in International Politics. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Thayer, Millie. 2010. Making Transnational Feminism: Rural Women, NGO Activists, and Northern Donors in Brazil. New York: Routledge. Juris, Jeffrey J. 2008. Networking Futures: The Movements against Corporate Globalization. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Della Porta, Donatella. 2015. Social Movements in Times of Austerity: Bringing Capitalism Back into Protest Analysis. Malden, MA: Polity Press.

Course Requirements: Class participation, which will count for 50 percent of the grade for this course, will be assessed on the basis of: 1) active participation in seminar discussions; 2) online critical reading responses to seminar readings for 9 of our 13 class meetings, to be posted on Moodle no later than noon on the day of class; and, 3) organization and facilitation of seminar discussion, working with one or more partners, at least twice during the semester (material posted for each these count as the equivalent of a reading response).

Each week, facilitation teams of 2-4 students will prepare discussion questions and brief (no more than 2-page) analytical reflections on required readings. These, along with well sequenced questions for class discussion, should be posted to Moodle no later than noon on the day of that class. Facilitators also will prepare brief oral presentations—no longer than 5-7 minutes each—that

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pull together the readings into some kind of critical framework, relate them to previous weeks’ readings, and frame questions for class discussion. Teams will meet during the preceding week to plan their collaborative presentations and will co-facilitate discussion with the instructor during class. Discussion techniques may include small group breakouts, role plays, games, or debates, but at least part of the seminar time should be spent in whole group discussion.

The final paper will count for the remaining 50 percent of your grade. It should be no more than 20- pp. long and may take one of the following forms: A) a research paper, drawing on course materials and original research; B) a research proposal or dissertation prospectus; C) a “rehearsal” of imagined comprehensive exam questions (two or more); D) a paper that is a draft comp for either the inter/intra-disciplinary field or contemporary theory; or E) a dissertation chapter on a topic relevant to this class.

You will submit three installments on the final paper (all due at noon on the Monday before class meets): a brief topic statement on October 3; a 2-3 pp. paper proposal on November 7; and full a rough draft, for peer review, on November 28. Students will exchange rough drafts with a partner and write peer reviews of each other’s work. These various installments will not be graded, but this 50 percent of your grade will be reduced by half a letter grade (A to an A-) for each that is not turned in on time. The final draft of the term paper must be posted to Moodle by 5pm on Friday, December 19. Your grade will be reduced by one half letter grade for each day or part of a day that the paper is late, no exceptions.

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Course Outline Fall 2016

September 6—Introduction: Activism, Participation, and Protest Background readings for your perusal (will not be discussed in detail during first class, but will be referenced throughout the semester): • Meyer, David S. and Lindsey Lupo. 2007. Assessing the Politics of Protest: Political Science and the Study of Social Movements. In Handbook of Social Movements across Disciplines, ed. Bert Klandermas and Conny Rogeband. NY: Springer. (M) • McAdam, Doug. 1999. Political Process and the Development of Black Insurgency, Preface to the Second Edition. • Della Porta, Donatella and Mario Diani. 2015. Introduction: The Field of Social Movement Studies. In Oxford Handbook of Social Movements, ed. Donatella della Porta and Mario Diani. Oxford: Oxford University Press. (M) • Juris, Jeffrey S. and Alex Khasnabish. 2015. Immanent Accounts: Ethnography, Engagement, and Social Movement Practices. In Oxford Handbook of Social Movements, ed. Donatella della Porta and Mario Diani. Oxford: Oxford University Press. (M) • Butler, Judith. 2011. Bodies in Alliance and the Politics of the Street. (M)

Part I: Making Sense of Black Lives Matters and other Contemporary Mobilizations/APP: Theoretical, Historical, and Comparative Perspectives

September 13—Black Lives Matters: Shaking Up Politics and Conceptual Approaches Readings: • Taylor, Keeanga-Yamahtta. 2016. #Black Lives Matters to Black Liberation. Chicago: Haymarket Books. All. • Hooker, Juliet. 2016. Black Lives Matter and the Paradoxes of U.S. Black Politics: From Democratic Sacrifice to Democratic Repair. Political Theory 44 (4): 448-469. (M) • “Time Person of the Year: Black Lives Matters.” (M) • Cobb, Jelani. 2016. The Matter of Black Lives. The New Yorker. 26 March. http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/03/14/where-is-black-lives-matter-headed • A Herstory of the #BlackLivesMatter Movement by Alicia Garza. 2014. (M)

September 20—Historicizing Today’s Black Activism Readings: • Murch, Donna. 2015. Historicizing Ferguson: Police Violence, Domestic Warfare, and the Genesis of a National Movement Against State-Sanctioned Violence. New Politics Vol. XV-3, Whole No. 59 http://newpol.org/content/historicizing-ferguson • McAdam, Doug. 1999. Political Process and the Development of Black Insurgency, 1830–1970, selections. • Piven, Frances Fox and Richard A. Cloward. 1979. Poor People’s Movements: Why They Succeed, How They Fail, selections.

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• Reed, T. V. 2005. The Art of Protest: Culture and Activism from the Civil Rights Movement to the Streets of Seattle, selections.

September 27—Comparative Perspectives on Black Movements and Racial Politics: Activism, Participation, and Protest in the Afro-Latin American Diaspora Readings: • Paschel, Tianna. 2016. Becoming Black Political Subjects: Movements and Ethno- Racial Rights in Colombia and Brazil, all. • Perry, Keisha-Kahn. 2016. Geographies of Power: Black Women Mobilizing Intersectionality in Brazil.; Meridians: feminism, race, transnationalism 14 (1); Part I of special issue on Special Issue on Afro-descendant Feminisms in Latin America: Brazil, guest edited by Sonia E. Alvarez and Kia Lilly Caldwell. (M) • Lao-Montes, Agustín. 2016. Introduction: Afro-Latin American Feminisms at the Cutting Edge of New Political Currents. Meridians: feminism, race, transnationalism 14 (2); Part II of special issue on Special Issue on Afro-descendant Feminisms in Latin America: South and Central America and the Spanish-Speaking Caribbean, guest edited by Sonia E. Alvarez, Kia Lilly Caldwell, and Agustín Lao-Montes. (M)

RESEARCH TOPIC STATEMENT DUE BY NOON ON OCTOBER 3 ON MOODLE.

Part II—Back to the Future: (Re)Viewing the Present through the Lenses of (now) Classic Social Science Paradigms

October 4—From Interest Groups to Social Movements to Political Process to Contentious Politics Readings: • Tarrow, Sidney. 2011. Power in Movement: Social Movements and Contentious Politics, 3rd Edition, all. • McAdam, Doug, Sidney Tarrow, and Charles Tilly. 2001. Dynamics of Contention. NY: Cambridge University Press, pp. 3-37. (M) • Goodwin, Jeff and James M. Jasper. 2004. Caught in a Winding, Snarling Vine: The Structural Bias of Political Process Theory. In Rethinking Social Movements: Structure, Meaning, and Emotion, ed. Jeff Goodwin and James M. Jasper, pp. 3-30. New York: Rowman & Littlefield. (M) • Taylor, Verta. 2003. Plus Ca Change, Plus C’est la Meme Chose. Mobilization 8, 1 (2003): 122-126. (M)

October 11—NO CLASS, Monday schedule followed

October 18 and 25—Rethinking Political Activism: Cultural Politics, Everyday Politics Readings: • Alvarez, Sonia E., Evelina Dagnino, and Arturo Escobar. 1998. Introduction: The Cultural and the Political in Latin American Social Movements. In Cultures of

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Politics/Politics of Cultures: Re-visioning Latin American Social Movements, ed. Sonia E. Alvarez, Evelina Dagnino, and Arturo Escobar. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. (M) • Jordan, Glenn and Chris Weedon. 1995. Cultural Politics: Class, Gender, Race and the Post-modern World. Oxford: Blackwell, “Introduction: What are Cultural Politics?,” pp. 3-22. (M) • Wedeen, Lisa. 2002. Conceptualizing culture: Possibilities for political science. American Political Science Review 96 (4): 713-728. (M) • Reed, T. V. 2005. The Art of Protest: Culture and Activism from the Civil Rights Movement to the Streets of Seattle, selections. • Enke, Anne (Finn). 2007. Finding the Movement: Sexuality, Contested Space, and Feminist Activism. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, all. • Abers, Rebecca and Luciana Tatagiba. 2015. Institutional Activism: Mobilizing for Women’s Health Inside the Brazilian Bureaucracy, ed. Federico M. Rossi and Marisa Von Bulow. Burlington, VT: Ashgate. (M)

November 1—The Politics of/surrounding Civil Society and Civic Participation, Social Capital, Public Spheres Readings: • Lang, Sabine. 2013. NGOs, Civil Society, and the Public Sphere, selections. • Edwards, Michael. 2011. Introduction: Civil Society and the Geometry of Human Relations. In The Oxford Handbook of Civil Society, ed. Michael Edwards. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 3-14. (M) • Jordan, Lisa. 2011. Global Civil Society. In The Oxford Handbook of Civil Society, ed. Michael Edwards, pp. 93-105. (M) • Diamond, Larry. 1994. Rethinking Civil Society: Toward Democratic Consolidation. Journal of Democracy 5, 3: 4-17. (M) • Putnam, Robert D. 1995. Bowling Alone? America’s Declining Social Capital. Journal of Democracy 6: 65-78. (M) • Ferguson, James. 2006. Global Shadows: Africa in the Neoliberal World Order. Durham: Duke University Press, pp. 89-112. (M) • Fraser, Nancy. 1993. Rethinking the Public Sphere: A Contribution to the Critique of Actually Existing Democracy. In The Phantom Public Sphere, ed. Bruce Robbins, pp. 1- 32. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. (M) • Chatterjee, Partha. 2004. The Politics of the Governed: Reflections on Popular Politics in Most of the World. New York: Columbia University Press, pp. 53-78. (M) • Alvarez, Sonia E. 2017. Beyond the Civil Society Agenda? Civic Participation and Practices of Governance, Governability and Governmentality. In Beyond Civil Society: Activism, Participation and Protest in Latin America, edited by Sonia E. Alvarez, Jeffrey R. Rubin, Millie Thayer, Gianpaolo Baiocchi and Agustín Lao-Montes. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

RESEARCH PROSPECTUS DUE MONDAY, NOVEMBER 74 BY NOON ON MOODLE.

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November 8—The Vexing Politics of NGOs: Development’s Darlings, Neoliberalism’s Handmaidens or ??? Readings: • Fisher, William F. 1997. Doing Good? The Politics and Antipolitics of NGO Practices. Annual Review of Anthropology 26: 439-464. (M) • Petras, James. 1997. NGOs and Imperialsm. Monthly Review 49, 7: 10-27. (M) • Lang, Sabine. 2013. NGOs, Civil Society, and the Public Sphere, selections. • Bernal, Victoria and Inderpal Grewal, eds. 2014. Theorizing NGOs: States, Feminisms, and Neoliberalism, selections.

November 15—Global Advocacy Networks and Transnational Feminisms Readings: • Keck, Margaret E. and Kathryn Sikkink. 1998. Activists Beyond Borders: Advocacy Networks in International Politics, pp. 1-38, 165-198. • Thayer, Millie. 2010. Making Transnational Feminism: Rural Women, NGO Activists, and Northern Donors in Brazil. New York: Routledge, all. • Lang, Sabine. 2013. NGOs, Civil Society, and the Public Sphere, selections.

November 22—Thanksgiving Break

Part III—Looking Forward: Conceptual Incursions into 21st Century Activism, Participation, and Protest

ROUGH DRAFT/NARRATIVE OUTLINE OF FINAL PAPER DUE NOV. 28 AT NOON, FOR PEER REVIEW

November 29—Anti/Alter-Globalization APP and the World Social Forum Process • Juris, Jeffrey J. 2008. Networking Futures: The Movements against Corporate Globalization, selections. • Eschle, Catherine. 2005. ‘Skeleton Women’: Feminism and the Antiglobalization Movement. Signs: A Journal of Women, Culture and Society, 30, 3. (M) • Martínez, Elizabeth (Betita). 2000. Where Was the Color in Seattle? In Globalize This! The Battle against the World Trade Organization and Corporate Rule, pp. 74-81, ed. Kevin Danaher and Roger Burbach. Monroe, Maine: Common Courage Press. (M)

December 6—Rethinking APP in the late 2010s: Mass Mobilizations, Popular Uprisings and Protest Politics Readings: • Juris, Jeffrey. 2012. Reflections on #Occupy Everywhere: Social Media, Public Space, and Emerging Logics of Aggregation. American Ethnologist 39, 2: 259–279. (M)

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• Escobar, Arturo. 2008. Territories of Difference: Place, Movements, Life, Redes. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, chapter 6, “Networks” (M) • Della Porta, Donatella. 2015. Social Movements in Times of Austerity: Bringing Capitalism Back into Protest Analysis, all. • Alvarez, Sonia E., Gianpaolo Baiocchi, Agustín Lao-Montes, Jeffrey R. Rubin, and Millie Thayer. 2017. Interrogating the Civil Society Agenda, Reassessing Uncivic Political Activism: An Introduction. In Beyond Civil Society: Activism, Participation and Protest Latin America, ed. Sonia E. Alvarez, Jeffrey R. Rubin, Millie Thayer, Gianpaolo Baiocchi and Agustín Lao-Montes. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. (M)

December 13—Student Research Presentations/Public Conference (time to be arranged)

FINAL PAPERS MUST BE POSTED TO MOODLE NO LATER THAN FRIDAY, DECEMBER 19 BY 5PM.