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How is political contention constituted as an intelligible political practice, distinct from mere social disorders? This article gets at the question by analysing the relation between protests and riots at the turn of the 19th century in England. Drawing on Michel Foucault's discussion of visibilities and post-foundational political theory, it contrasts the 1760s Wilkes and Liberty agitations with that of the London Corresponding Society in the 1790s. It articulates two ways of configuring the relation and constituting political contention in the self-governing practices of contentious actors. In the first case, political contention is an exercise of public spirit that may include riots and is opposed to passivity or factional interest. In the second, it is a process of public inquiry premised on a constitutive exclusion of riots. The comparison reveals how the emergence of protest politics also resulted in a new way of delineating and constituting political contention. In this way, it offers a new perspective on the contemporary constitution of political contention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We live in a time of protest. Relative to sociology, political science has traditionally paid little attention to 'extra-institutional' forms of political behaviour. For its part, sociology has tended to prioritize the explanation of mobilization processes over political outcomes. Using bibliometric records from 14 political science and sociology journals over the last two decades, this study demonstrates that protest has witnessed a resurgence of interest in political science and that both sociology and political science now share a focus on the outcomes of protest. The article lays out key trends in this research agenda and suggests what is missing, arguing that a political sociology of protest should integrate recent findings from both disciplines to better understand elite decision-making, the mediation of protest information and protestor aims. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the context of the wave of protests that shook the Arab world, Morocco is a particularly interesting case to address the problem of collective action and transformation of hybrid political regimes. This article describes the historical trajectory of recent protests in the country, the emergence and structuring of the 20th February Movement (M20F) and the neutralization strategy pursued by the Moroccan political regime. Taking up the idea that the success of collective action to transform a political regime is related to the ability of its promoters to legitimize their cause beyond their original base, the main argument is that both the nature of the 20th February Movement – marked by a profound heterogeneity and dualism – and the hybrid configuration of the Moroccan political regime – which offers a variety of repertoires of legitimation for the management of the protests – favoured the failure of the protest movement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We have recently seen the proliferation of a variety of progressive, democratic social movements across the globe. In the wake of various contradictions and implosions of capitalism, from the meltdown of the US banks to the euro crisis, vast numbers of people have challenged neoliberal globalization. In this article the authors offer a theoretical frame for the analysis of the most recent challenges posed to neoliberal social and economic policies as they were shaped in late capitalism. The authors first note Habermas’s thesis that legitimation crises take place at both the macro and micro levels, and that they foster various understandings as well as emotional reactions. The authors focus on the emotional aspects that are vital to social mobilizations. To do this they draw on theoretical frames from social movement and the sociology of emotion perspectives. More particularly they see the process of ‘emotional liberation’ coined by Flam, as the equivalent of McAdam’s ‘cognitive liberation’ and both as part of the process of subjectivation as put forward by Touraine. These formulations lead to considerations of the emotions that tie people to authorities and/or withdraw legitimacy from authorities, in order to understand which emotions need be mobilized in order to liberate people from their loyalty to authorities. The authors found a constellation of incongruent emotions such as distrust and disrespect for authorities/elites or their perceived agents, indignation and righteous anger, humiliation, and in turn hope for an alternative future. The value of the authors’ proposed structure of argument lies in the powerful combination of macro and micro processes and the combination of cognition and emotions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social media have become central to the organizational and logistic dynamics in contemporary social contention. Not only have they eased centralized processes of information sharing between social movement entrepreneurs and social movement publics, they have also bolstered the crowdsourced management of public discussion around social contention. This article investigates the use of social media for public reasoning around issues related to social contention. By investigating Twitter streams with reference to the Italian chapter of the 15 October 2011 polycentric protest for global change, this study specifically addresses the use of this medium in the aftermath of protest events of high impact for the general public. The quantitative analysis of longitudinal progression, networking mechanisms and processes of meaning construction in over 8000 tweets shows that Twitter does bolster public reasoning around social contention. It does so as a news medium rather than a conversational platform, primarily providing a space to share information alternative to that available in mainstream media coverage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Protests at recent international summit meetings have prompted assertions about 'global protest' and 'global civil society'. This article provides a detailed and contextualized analysis of the 2005 G8 summit in Scotland, focusing on the dynamic interplay between police and protestors. The authors argue that local variables were critical to the experience of this manifestation of 'global protest'. Focusing on the policing of events in Edinburgh, they highlight the preconceptions and assumptions (frames) underpinning police operations and contribute to a more interactive understanding of police-protestor relations. Protest emerges in relation to the 'polis' (simultaneously denoting both the political community and the police), and neglecting this relationship leads to incomplete analyses. In concluding, the authors consider the implications of their research for the policing of political protest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]