Mobilization 

About: Mobilization is an academic journal published by San Diego State University. The journal publishes majorly in the area(s): Social movement & Politics. It has an ISSN identifier of 1086-671X. Over the lifetime, 172 publications have been published receiving 4597 citations. The journal is also known as: mobilisation.

The Return of The Repressed: The Fall and Rise of Emotions in Social Movement Theory

Abstract: In recent years sociologists have made great strides in studying the emotions that pervade social life. The study of social movements has lagged behind, even though there are few arenas where emotions are more obvious or important. We hope to understand this lag as well as make some suggestions for catching up. To do this we examine the history of scholarship on social movements, finding that emotions were poorly specified in the early years, ignored entirely in the structural and organizational paradigms that emerged in the 1960s, and still overlooked in the cultural era of the 1980s and 1990s. Despite isolated efforts to understand the emotions of social movements, they remain today a fertile area for inquiry.

Changing the world one webpage at a time: Conceptualizing and explaining Internet activism

Abstract: Researchers studying Internet activism have disagreed over the extent to which Internet usage alters the processes driving collective action, and therefore also over the utility of existing social movement theory. We argue that some of this disagreement owes to scholars studying different kinds of Internet activism. Therefore, we introduce a typology of Internet activism, which shows that markedly different findings are associated with different types of Internet activism and that some types of Internet activism have been studied far more frequently than others. As a consequence, we ask an empirical question: is this skew in the selection of cases, and hence apparent trends in findings, a reflection of the empirical frequency of different types of Internet activism? Troublingly, using unique data from random samples of websites discussing 20 different issue areas commonly associated with social movements, we find a mismatch between trends in research cases studied and empirical frequency.

Seeing Blue: A Police-Centered Explanation of Protest Policing

Abstract: Existing explanations of repression and the policing of protest focus on the interests of political elites, with research indicating that a chief predictor of state repression is the level of threat protesters pose to elite interests. However, prior research has only paid sporadic attention to how the institutional and organizational characteristics of local law enforcement agencies shape the character of protest policing. This article addresses this significant theoretical gap by developing a police-centered, or "blue," approach to protest policing. Using data on the policing of public protest events in New York State between 1968 and 1973, this article finds support for the blue approach. Specifically, the situational threats posed by protesters to those agents who actually perform repression-local police-are critical predictors of police presence and action. Results also show some residual support for the role of elite threats in structuring repression.

Moving The Masses: Emotion Work In The Chinese Revolution

Abstract: Previous explanations of the Chinese Communist revolution have highlighted (variously) the role of ideology, organization, and/or social structure. While acknowledging the importance of all these factors, this article draws attention to a largely neglected feature of the revolutionary process: the mass mobilization of emotions. Building upon pre-existing traditions of popular protest and political culture, the Communists systematized “emotion work” as part of a conscious strategy of psychological engineering. Attention to the emotional dimensions of mass mobilization was a key ingredient in the Communists’ revolutionary victory, distinguishing their approach from that of their Guomindang rivals. Moreover, patterns of emotion work developed during the wartime years lived on in the People’s Republic of China, shaping a succession of state-sponsored mass campaigns under Mao. Even in post-Mao China, this legacy continues to exert a powerful influence over the attitudes and actions of state authorities and ordinary citizens alike.

Socialization, Connection, and The Structure/Agency Gap: A Specification of The Impact of Networks on Participation in Social Movements

Abstract: While numerous studies stress the crucial role of networks for social movement participation, they generally do not specify how networks affect individual behaviors. This article clarifies the role of social networks for individual social movement participation. It argues that networks perform three fundamental functions in the process leading to participation and that they intervene at different moments along this process. First, networks socialize and build individual identities—a socialization function. Second, they offer participation opportunities to individuals who are culturally sensitive to a specific political issue—a structural-connection function. Third, they shape individual preferences before individuals decide to join a move-ment—a decision-shaping function. These network functions allow us to disentangle the mechanisms at work in the process of participation. They also integrate structural and rationalist theories, which are often considered opposing explanations of individual movement part...