Gaining Momentum
Workshop in cooperation with the Hamburg Institute for Social Research (HIS)
Organizers:
Stefan Malthaner (HIS) and Lorenzo Bosi (SNS)
Processual analysis has first been introduced to the study of collective action and political violence almost four decades ago. Since then, and particularly in the years following the publication of Dynamics of Contention, research in fields ranging from social movement studies, research on democratization, revolutions, or clandestine violence, to genocide- and civil war studies has been thoroughly transformed by dynamic and interactive perspectives. Instead of focusing on socio-structural conditions (“root causes”) or individual predispositions, collective action and violence have been analyzed as part and outcome of processes of mobilization, escalation, or radicalization. This workshop aims to re-ignite a dynamic debate. It brings together scholars who, within different disciplines, inspired and drove this paradigmatic shift at its outset, as well as leading researchers currently developing empirical work within a processual perspective, to reflect upon the evolution, problems, as well as potential future directions of processual analysis in research on collective action.
Programme:
Wednesday, October 26, 15.30 - 18.00
15.30 – 16.00 Introduction
16.00 – 18.00 Chair Lorenzo Bosi
Donatella della Porta, Scuola Normale Superiore
Contentious Politics in Pandemic Times: A Momentuous Approach to Social Movements
Sidney Tarrow, Cornell University
Roots and Branches: The Origins of the Political Process Approach and the Transatlantic Coalition of Social Movement Scholars
19.00 Dinner
Thursday, October 27, 9.30 - 18.00
09.30 – 11.30 Chair Mattias Wahlström
Niall Ó Dochartaigh, National University of Ireland Galway
Negotiation and Violence in Conflict Processes
Aliza Luft, University of California, Los Angeles
Dehumanization as Consequence, not Cause, of Violence
11.30 – 12.00 Break
12.00 – 13.00 Chair Niall Ó Dochartaigh
Kathleen Blee, University of Pittsburgh
Attending to Process in Far-Right Extremism
13.00 – 14.30 Lunch
14.30 – 16.30 Chair Donatella Della Porta
Javier Auyero, The University of Texas at Austin
The Mechanisms of the Gray Zone
Stefan Malthaner, HIS
Addressing the ‘internal temporality’ of protest events: rioting as the production of collective action
16.30 – 17.00 Break
17.00 – 18.00 Chair Kathleen Blee
Mattias Wahlström, University of Gothenburg
Online Social Media Narratives as Process and Context in Explanations of Political Violence
19.00 Dinner
Friday, October 28, 9.00 - 12.30
09.00 – 10.00 Chair Aliza Luft
Thomas Hoebel, HIS, and Wolfgang Knöbl, HIS
Does Narrative Matter? Some Methodological Remarks on the Processual Explanation of Violence
10.00 – 10.30 Break
10.30 – 12.30 Chair Stefan Malthaner
Stathis Kalyvas, Oxford University
Integrating the study of political violence
Lorenzo Bosi, SNS
Collective action as a process: factors and trajectories
12.30 – 13.00 Final discussion and farewell