6.1.1. Motivazioni e cause del terrorismo suicida: il caso palestinese

Francesco Marone

Abstract: Negli ultimi anni il fenomeno del terrorismo suicida ha acquisito una rilevanza innegabile, specialmente dopo gli attentati dell'11 settembre 2001. Gli attacchi suicidi costituiscono una forma clamorosa di violenza politica che combina nel medesimo atto volontà di uccidere e volontà di morire: l’obiettivo è dunque “morire per uccidere” (Bloom [2005]).
Il paper concentra l’attenzione su uno dei casi più importanti e interessanti di terrorismo suicida, quello palestinese, servendosi di un database originale degli attacchi suicidi eseguiti contro obiettivi israeliani nell’arco di tempo compreso tra il 1993 ed il 2005 (Marone [2008]).
Lo scritto, accogliendo l’invito degli organizzatori del panel SISP, intende delineare un’interpretazione delle cause e delle motivazioni del terrorismo suicida nel caso palestinese articolata su tre livelli (micro, macro e meso), avvalendosi anche di concetti e approcci provenienti dalla letteratura sui movimenti sociali (cfr., tra gli altri, Oberschall [2004], Beck [2008], della Porta [2008], Gunning [2009]).
Da una parte, gli attentatori suicidi offrono la loro vita alla luce di differenti motivazioni personali, non necessariamente di natura politica. Dall’altra parte, le organizzazioni richiedono tale disponibilità al sacrificio per raggiungere determinati scopi politici, sulla base di un calcolo di costi e benefici. Questa sorta di «mercato dei martiri» tra individui e organizzazioni (v. Iannaccone [2006]) non potrebbe instaurarsi senza alcune condizioni del contesto. Cruciale appare a questo proposito il ruolo di una comunità di sostegno disposta a riconoscere socialmente e a legittimare questa pratica nella forma onorevole del «martirio» attraverso un’elaborata serie di riti collettivi, di narrazioni e di rappresentazioni simboliche, spesso di derivazione religiosa. Particolare attenzione verrà dedicata anche all’influenza delle azioni e delle reazioni dell’avversario israeliano.

6.1.2. Dynamics of escalation and control: The relationship between terrorist groups and their constituencies

Stefan Malthaner

Abstract: Research on the emergence and development of terrorist groups has taken into consideration processes of interaction between violent groups and their adversaries, particularly cycles of provocation and repression, and processes of escalation. There is much less knowledge, however, about the relationship between terrorist groups and their constituencies, that is, those parts of a population who constitute the terrorists' normative and political reference groups and from whom they may receive support. Yet, as this paper argues, the relationship with their constituencies not only plays a crucial role in the formation of terrorist groups but also shapes their further development. Citing several examples of terrorist groups – with a particular focus on Hizbullah in Lebanon and the Egyptian groups al-Jamaa al-Islamiyya and al-Jihad – the paper describes typical relationship structures and development patterns as well as mechanisms of control. It shows how the formation of terrorist groups within the context of broader protest movements is accompanied by the re-structuring of its social environment, which can entail a process of isolation and radicalization towards their constituencies or, on the other hand, a process of adaptation and consolidating support.

6.1.3. State strategy and the incorporation of social movements: the case of Provisional Irish Republicanism

Kevin Bean

Abstract: This paper considers the development of the Provisional republican movement in Ireland as a social movement from the early 1980s. It suggests that its organizational trajectory has been one of institutionalization and incorporation whilst ideologically Provisionalism has adapted pragmatically to the status –quo in Northern Ireland. In attempting to explain the main processes that have shaped this development the discussion will consider the nature of civil society in the nationalist community from which the Provisionals emerged, and the developing relationship between that community and the British state. In particular it will stress the importance of social and economic policy as a political instrument deployed by successive British governments in Northern Ireland since the late 1960s.
The paper assesses the effectiveness of this state strategy by tracing its impact on the politics and strategy of the Provisional Republican movement. It also attempts to deepen our understanding of the nature of the contemporary state and its ability to shape the forms and structures of civil society. It looks at the patterns of these partnerships and relationships in Northern Ireland and considers how far they represent state strength or weakness in the face of an insurgent challenge.
In making these assessments, the paper will suggest that British state strategy in its various manifestations of both ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ power has created a contradictory and yet essentially stabilizing structure of power that will continue to define Northern Ireland for the foreseeable future. Given the international interest in the Northern Ireland peace process and the widely held view that it provides a model for conflict management and resolution that is applicable elsewhere, this consideration of a key determining factor in Northern Irish politics and society during the last forty years should have broader relevance to our understanding of the politics of ‘radicalismo, violenza politica e terrorismo’ in the twenty first century.

6.1.4. The Radicalisation of Anti-Colonial protest in 1950’s Cyprus and the Emergence of EOKA

Charlotte Heath-Kelly

Abstract: This paper will examine the micro, meso, and macro dimensions which contributed to the radicalisation of Greek-Cypriot nationalist contestation. Based on empirical research into the organisation, including interviews with ex-members, these levels of facilitating factors will be analysed as to the effects they had on the non-violent nationalist movement, and the emergence of the EOKA militancy (1955-59).
At the macro level this paper will examine how the actions of the colonial government and the Orthodox Church shaped the political terrain for EOKA to emerge. The Church not only supervised and nurtured the nationalist ambitions of the population, but also contributed to the formation of EOKA and the recruitment and concealment of its members. The colonial government, meanwhile, exacerbated the tensions on the island through its intransigent stance towards Cypriot independence/union with Greece.
At the meso level, the affective and familial ties which structured recruitment will be detailed. Knowing an EOKA fighter through family, educational or friendship networks was often the only way to solicit entry to the organisation. Social networks and institutions also shaped the population around identity narratives and commitment to enosis (union with Greece).
Finally, at the micro-level the paper will address the emotional dynamics which interviewees centralised when explaining their transition to violence. Frequently ex-members could not verbalise the extent of their frustrations with certain setbacks in the nationalist movement, or with malevolent actions of the regime. Rather than rationally calculating their options, they often joined the movement through a complex interaction of anger, frustration, commitment to the enosis narrative (as maintained by Church, educational, and familial institutions), and desire for excitement and status. The influence of macro and meso factors often contributed to a powerful perception that fighting for liberty was absolutely necessary, and the right thing to do.

6.1.5. Insurrectionary Collective Action: What form of Radicalism? Theoretical conclusions from the Greek Eruption of December 2008

Loukia Kotronaki e Seraphim Seferiades

Abstract: This paper focuses on a conspicuously understudied form of radical-disruptive collective action: Insurrectionary Collective Action (ICA). Mustering evidence from the convulsive events that shook Greece in the aftermath of the unprovoked shooting of teenager Alexandros Grigoropoulos by riotous police in the centre of Athens in December 2008, we seek to conceptualize, interpret and explicate the ensuing social eruption employing (and seeking to further refine) analytical tools drawn from the rich literature of Contentious Politics. Explosions such as the Greek ‘December days’ are usually portrayed (and subsequently discarded) as senseless violence, mere rioting. ‘Riots’, however, are nowhere defined, which precludes serious analysis and explanation. Starting off our analysis from this conceptual core (What constitutes and What causes rioting?) we claim that the Greek events were something profoundly more intense and politically consequential. Involving far more than mere violence, the novel form we conceptualize, i.e. ICA, was characterized by broad diffusion processes, whereby riotous activity originally undertaken in the centre of Athens snowballed to engulf the whole of the country and beyond (with syncretic action breaking out in over 50 cities in some 40 countries). In it, participated a large number of underprivileged strata –school students, second-generation migrants, precariously employed etc— whilst its political message was framed in utterly uncompromising ways, making a shambles of official leftist rhetoric. Calling attention to key structural (macro-) factors helping explain this diffusion (varieties of the democratic deficit, economic crisis, crisis of political representation etc) we lay special emphasis on three neglected dimensions of contentious politics bearing on both the meso- and the micor-level of analysis, the emotional, the spatial and the temporal. We also enquire on outcomes: Can/has December 2008 transform/-ed the nature of Greek contentious politics as a whole?

6.2.1. I centri sociali meridionali tra marginalità istituzionalizzata e strategie di territorializzazione politica

Francesco Caruso

Abstract: Il presente paper si propone di illustrare i risultati di una ricerca svolta nell’autunno del 2009 sull’evoluzione politica dell’esperienza dei Centri Sociali autogestiti (csa) nelle regioni meridionali.
A partire dal materiale raccolto in occasione di due precedenti ricerche sul campo nel 1993 e nel 1999, il presente lavoro ne riprende la medesima traccia di lavoro per ridefinire una mappatura geografica della diffusione delle esperienze dei Csa, l’evoluzione organizzativa interna dei singoli centri sociali, la modificazione dei sistemi di alleanza.
Nell’individuare un processo tendenziale di indebolimento e di frammentazione dell’esperienza dei csa nel sud Italia, il presente lavoro di ricerca cerca di analizzarne le cause e gli effetti di questo ripiegamento assumendo come prospettiva d’analisi la tensione costante tra le pratiche di resistenza dell’antagonismo sociale e le strategie governamentali di controllo.
Lo studio si propone di individuare e descrivere una modalità specifica di “istituzionalizzazione della marginalità” dei centri sociali, nella quale le caratteristiche tradizionalmente dicotomiche dell’evoluzione finale del “ciclo della protesta” – marginalizzazione o istituzionalizzazione - convivono invece di divaricarsi.
Alle strategie di cattura e di imbrigliamento, i centri sociali rispondono attraverso una molteplicità di tattiche e di pratiche di resistenza finalizzate ad aggirare tali dispositivi.
In particolare il carattere flessibile e multiforme dei network di relazione, delle formule organizzative, dei repertori d’azione, dei codici e degli schemi interpretativi dei csa ha permesso una riconfigurazione del “ripiegamento localistico” da dimensione ciclica dell’accentuazione della territorialità come spazio privilegiato dell’azione nelle fasi di debolezza, a risorsa strategica per la sperimentazione di spazi costituenti e solidali di opposizione ai processi di sradicamento e deterritorializzazione che caratterizzano la società contemporanea.

6.2.2. Squatted social centres and the Political Opportunity Structure at local level. A case study

Gianni Piazza e Valentina Genovese

Abstract: As other powerless groups, Squatted Social Centres interact, contentiously and/or cooperatively, with public institutions (often local administrations), party system and other social movement organizations, finding allies and opponents. In fact, according to the “political process” approach, the attention should focus on the interactions between unconventional actors and the institutional political system: for instance, thanks to the opening of the local Political Opportunity Structure, some Social Centres have been legalized, others have experimented new forms of self-organization forming non-profit associations; on the contrary, other have refused any mediation with state institutions. Moreover, according the POS framework, mobilization tends to intensify when channels of access to the authorities open, leading protest actors to hope for success. This seemed to happen during the protest campaign aimed at the reopening of the social centre CPO Experia in Catania, after the eviction by police on 30 October 2009; in fact, unexpectedly, moderate centre-left political actors supported mobilization and centre-right local administration accepted to put the issue on the institutional agenda, although the centre has not reopened. In this paper we wonder about the factors that increase the chances of success for social centres that mobilize against the evictions and/or for their reopening. Based on the reconstruction of the protest campaign of CPO Experia, we wonder why it has been unsuccessful (at least until now), although there have been some factors that, according to POS literature, favour the achievement of the goals of the protest: the broadening of system of alliances and the reduction of conflict system, the internal division of elites, the ability of protest actors to globalize the frames and insert the specific claim in a more general discursive framework. Which other factors are necessary to increase the chance of success for social centres, since these and the request for negotiation with local authorities are not enough? The paper try to answer this and other questions, testing the explanatory capacity of the POS framework in the case of the interactions between social centres and local administrations.

6.2.3. Squatted Social Centers in Central and Eastern Europe

Grzegorz Piotrowski

Abstract: I would like to present the outcomes of the fieldwork conducted for my PhD project on the alterglobalist movement in Central and Eastern Europe. While meeting with the activists and interviewing them, squatted social centers turned to be an important feature of the movement in the mobilization process, as a place for the movement’s activities and in building the movement’s identity. Therefore I would like to present a brief history of the squatted social centers in Poland (with squat Rozbrat from Poznań and Jagellończyka and CRK from Wrocław), the Czech Republic (the cases of two squats: Ladronka and Milada) and Hungary (a history of the Centrum group). The squatted social centers seem to face similar difficulties as the social movements do in the region, there are few of them and they do not receive support in order to sustain themselves for a longer time. In my opinion such social centers play a role of network hubs for most of the underground/alternative activities, but I am also interested in their interactions with the other actors of the local and national political scenes, for example in the recent campaigns against gentrification. For my analysis I will refer to the works of Darcy Leach (2008, 2009) and Sebastian Haunss (2009) on the movement’s ‘scene’ which helps to conserve and sustain the movement in its ‘submerged’ phase (Melucci 1989). The concept of the ‘scene’ and at the same time the function of the squatted social centers as the background and logistical backup for the movement might – in my opinion – also give answers to the questions about the characteristics of the movement in Central and Eastern Europe and in particular its use of practices and ideas that are a result of diffusion from their western counterparts.

6.2.4. Rethinking leftist political radicalism in Western Europe: The social centers movement in comparative perspective

César Guzmán-Concha

Abstract: What are the conditions for the emergence of the social centres’ movement in Western European cities? Despite growing literature in comparative politics and social movements, there is little investigation that addresses the question on how and why leftist radical movements climb to the public space within democratic settlements (notable exceptions are: Della Porta, 1995; Koopmans, 1995; Kriesi et al, 1992; Wisler & Giugni, 1996). In particular, there is a lack of knowledge on the factors that foster or prevent the squatters’ movement emergence in comparative perspective. Drawing on the literature on social movements and radicalization (Kriesi et al 1992; Koopmans 1995; Kriesi & Wisler 1996, Eisinger 1973), urban studies (Mayer 2007, 2000, 1995; Jessop 2002, 1995; Harvey 2009, 1989), and comparative politics (Gallie 1983; Lash 1984; Della Porta & Rucht 1995), we advance and test some hypotheses that explicitly or implicitly aim at explaining the different fate of this movement. In this paper we confront these hypotheses with original data on 52 European cities through the method of qualitative comparative analysis (QCA, see Ragin & Sonnett 2004; Rihoux & Ragin 2009; Ragin 2008). Our findings confirm that although there is multi-causation –that is, diverse settings allowing for vigorous squatters’ movement– there are some patterns of prevalence of this movement, while no single variable seems to be enough to prompt it. The most important factors are the prominence of the extreme right and the local political culture, while a detrimental economic condition of the youth has an effect only when combined with one of the formers. As for the urban system, it appears that either managerial or welfare urban regime’ types influence the development of the squatters’ movement, but none of them determines by itself its strength. These findings suggest that it is the political dimension, rather than the purely economic or structural one, to be most relevant for explaining this countercultural movement. Finally, we discuss the implications of these findings for the theoretical debate underlying the current research on social centres and radical or countercultural movements.

6.2.5. Squats and Immigrants: a fruitful relationship?

Michele Lembo

Abstract: This work aims at exploring the practices of attendance and involvement in the activities of the squats (social centres and other occupied spaces) of the city of Milan by immigrants.
The theoretical question behind this project can be synthesized as follows: why, how and with which objectives these new social actors, the immigrants, approach the world of squats, that is to say the physical spaces, the people and the activities that compose the “self-management movement”?
The answers to this question must be looked for in the diversity of “uses” immigrant people do of squats, and in the “latent functions” social centres and occupied spaces provide to them.
In fact, while the majority of Italian social centre goers share some common beliefs (left-wing ideology, anti-fascism, etc.), for immigrants things are quite different: often, especially for the “sans papiers”, squats are simply the only option to spend the night, because of the generally lower-than-elsewhere costs of entrance and consumption and the friendlier-than-elsewhere environment towards foreign people.
Of course, this has much to do with the general Italian political scene, which in the past 15 years has seen the birth and solidification of an aggressive, populisitc and xenophic Right, with the slippering of “common sense”, helped by the economic crisis and the mass media system, towards more and more conservative positions, especially about immigration (i.e.: the discourse about “safety”).
This work aims at exploring the practices of attendance and involvement in the activities of the squats (social centres and other occupied spaces) of the city of Milan by immigrants.
The theoretical question behind this project can be synthesized as follows: why, how and with which objectives these new social actors, the immigrants, approach the world of squats, that is to say the physical spaces, the people and the activities that compose the “self-management movement”?
The answers to this question must be looked for in the diversity of “uses” immigrant people do of squats, and in the “latent functions” social centres and occupied spaces provide to them.
In fact, while the majority of Italian social centre goers share some common beliefs (left-wing ideology, anti-fascism, etc.), for immigrants things are quite different: often, especially for the “sans papiers”, squats are simply the only option to spend the night, because of the generally lower-than-elsewhere costs of entrance and consumption and the friendlier-than-elsewhere environment towards foreign people.
Of course, this has much to do with the general Italian political scene, which in the past 15 years has seen the birth and solidification of an aggressive, populisitc and xenophic Right, with the slippering of “common sense”, helped by the economic crisis and the mass media system, towards more and more conservative positions, especially about immigration (i.e.: the discourse about “safety”).
Through participant observation among different squats in different parts of town, we tried to compose a number of small pictures of who and how, among immigrant people, attend this kind of places, and see if this “injection” can be a fruitful one for both the actors in terms of enforcing the issues social centres and immigrants stand for through mutual aid and the increasing of participation levels.

6.3.1. Do theories travel? Studies of social movements in contemporary India

Manish K. Thakur

Abstract: Most of the reviews and surveys of scholarship on social movements take Europe and North America to be the prime locales for theory formulations and invest great efforts in bringing out the analytically nuanced distinctions between different theories of social movements such as ‘resource mobilisation’, ‘political process approach’ or ‘collective identity’. They help us understand the differences between an Alain Touraine and a Charles Tilly and expose us to the state of the art. Yet, there is palpable lament about the under-theorised nature of social movement studies in the countries not belonging to the industrial North. Of course, protest movements have never been confined to a given geographical area of the globe. That ‘prominent sites of pertinent theoretical production’ generally elude countries like India necessitates an examination of the nexus between these theories and the empirical studies that they inform. Against this backdrop, the present paper intends to assess the contemporary scholarship on social movements in India with a view to discern its theoretical receptivity and variations therein. The responses to these theories coming from the North will yield insights as to how theories get read, appropriated and indigenised in a different socio-cultural context notwithstanding the hullabaloo about academic/intellectual colonialism?

6.3.2. The death of a paradigm? Relationality and re-conceptualization of political opportunities

Jana Warkotsch

Abstract: While Thomas Kuhn, in his by now iconic book on the “Structure of Scientific Revolutions” certainly did not have the social sciences in mind in talking about paradigm changes1, the pace of innovation and change within social science research makes some of the processes of scientific progress (or lack thereof) both more plausible, as well as easier to observe than maybe in the natural, ‘mature’ sciences proper. The concept of the so called ‘Political Opportunity Structures’ (POS) is a case in point. Developed in the 1970s as an answer to psychologically oriented approaches to the study of mobilization that detected its origin in the psychological anomalies of its participants, it became later integrated into the ‘political process model’ by its most famous proponents Doug McAdam, Sidney Tarrow, and Charles Tilly. The approach stressed environmental structures constraining and enabling rational agents using mobilization to have their demands met, and soon rose to a dominant status in the study of social movements. However, in recent years criticism towards the political opportunity “paradigm” mounted, resulting in several lines of critique attacking the lack of
cross-case testing of its propositions, the mere accumulation of different dimensions of political opportunity, the neglect of perceptional, social and cultural factors, and the empirical bias towards the western world. Some scholars even went as far as suggesting that the concept had outlived its utility and should be replaced by more psychologically oriented approaches, thus in a way coming full circle to the earlier approaches to which it purported
to be an answer (Goodwin and Jasper 2004). McAdam, Tarrow and Tilly, in reacting to the mounting criticism of POS have moved towards a more mechanism oriented approach intended to rectify the structuralist bias of POS decried by its opponents. However, in moving towards the arrows of mechanisms and away from the boxes of classical social movement concepts, they repeated the very same mistake that the original POS approach was fraught with – the assumption that it is possible to specify conditions and mechanisms of protest mobilization that are indeed universal, whether we call them mechanisms or structures, applying across time and space. This paper will try to argue that neither option – abandoning the concept vs. having it be universally applicable – is entirely convincing. Instead of falling prey to simply replacing the old, supposedly overcome paradigm with a new one, we should try to build a more defensible conception of political opportunities based on ‘what is left’ – after taking the critique of it seriously. One way of doing so, I will argue, is by bringing context back in, in the form of relational approaches. These approaches are relational in that they view political
opportunities less as static structures, and instead acknowledge the fact that “any action is the result of the way actors and practices are situated vis-à-vis one another and within particular institutional contexts” (Steinberg 2004: 122). The most basic consequence of the relationality of political opportunities is that they are dependent on the embeddedness of movement actors into different spheres of mobilization, such as institutional ones or networks of power. The different constellations of actors and interests within these spheres privilege some movement actors while hindering others. In specifying the constellation of actors and institutions that make up such relational opportunities, several things need to be taken into account. On the one hand, we need to pay more attention to the type of regime we are faced with. It is almost commonsensical to say that whether a movement acts within a democratic setting vs. an autocratic one will make a difference, but nonetheless we rarely come across systematic inquiries of how movement dynamics vary according to regime type, and to take it even a step further within different subtypes of regimes (thus in the case of autocracies for example personalist, military and one party ones). Integrating this into the study of social movements will not suffice to free PO out of their structuralist straight jacket, however. What needs to be specified in addition is the kind of movement that is challenging a specific regime. Spheres of mobilization in this context are then understood as the relation between the nature of the movement, and its demands to the power structure of the regime, and its actors, its legitimacy discourses, as well as need for responsiveness They are created and upheld by the constant interaction of regime and movement actors within certain structural boundaries provided by the regime type. While they are not static ‘structures’ – since being the result of an interactive process they are naturally subject to change over time – they nonetheless allow movement actors some degree of predictability of the obstacles they face and likely responses they can expect. Re-conceptualizing political opportunities as relational would thus imply taking a
more realistic position that abandons the notion that it is possible to specify political opportunities in a universalistic manner that is applicable to all movements across time and space, and still retains explanatory power. Instead, political opportunity must be treated as a background concept– like a map which will show us where to look instead of what exactly to find.

6.3.3. Repertoires of strategies, legacies and stocks of perceived alternatives for action: A threefold conceptual proposal for a non-determinist study of social and political movements

Federico M. Rossi

Abstract: On Monday 12th August 2002, 350 militants of the union Central de Trabajadores de la Argentina (CTA), its related piqueteros/unemployed workers social movement organizations (SMO) the Federación de Trabajadores por la Tierra, Vivienda y Habitat (FTV), and the Corriente Clasista y Combativa (CCC) from the Maoist Partido Comunista Revolucionario (PCR) started in the Buenos Aires’ delta of Tigre a 100 kilometers march that ended four days later with 20.000 activists in the provincial capital of La Plata. Though framed within a repertoire of contention that cannot be considered innovative - long marches are very traditional types of protest; there was an element that is innovative: these organizations were claiming for the application of a “paritaria” (a traditional syndical institution historically used in Argentina solely for salary corporativist negotiations) to the employed as well as the unemployed workers (i.e., salary and unemployment subsidies increases). The “paritaria social” included much more than income discussions, while done through the use of a redefined syndical tool in a tied together negotiation for the improvement on housing, habitat, health and education for their constituency. Another SMO not allied to the FTV nor the CCC, the Polo Obrero (PO) -of the Trotskyist Partido Obrero- several times have presented to the parliament, the Supreme Court and the national Ministry of Labor claims for the establishment of a paritarias law. As Eduardo Belliboni, of the PO says: “Es decir, presentamos un recurso reclamando paritarias para los desocupados. Es decir, establecer una ley de paritarias entre el Estado que era quien tenía, quien otorgaba los planes sociales y las organizaciones de desocupados” (interview 2007). While the conception of the claim for incorporation of their constituency of unemployed laborers is similar to the one supported by FTV, CCC and CTA, is though dissimilar the repertoire used for its achievement. These repertoires of strategies based on a shared legacy among some piqueteros SMOs took authors as Svampa and Pereyra (2003: 58-63) to understand this syndical presence on the FTV and the CCC as a signal that these piqueteros SMOs could be understood as unemployed workers unions. An alternative explanation of this commonality among SMOs was given by Grimson (2003: 10) who says that it prevail a syndical and short-term sighted logic in the piqueteros-state interaction that has subsumed strategic thinking to a secondary level. If we do not agree with the conceptualization of the piqueteros movement as a union of the unemployed, nor as solely syndical in its strategies, how do we recognize and explain the strategies adopted by the main SMOs in the piqueteros movement preserving its diversity and complexity? In further theoretical terms: How can we acknowledge and study in historical terms present actors without posing a structuralist deterministic account of the unfolding of history as proposed by path-dependence? The set of three concepts that I will proposed in this paper can suggest a conceptualization for this and further predominant strategies (as well as help us to see inside that apparently unique prevailing strategy). The threefold set of interrelated concepts I will propose I called them:
1. Stock of perceived alternatives: the collection of distinguished available options for action, the ones which are restricted by socialization but are also open to innovation within a limited chain of legacies that had enriched or impoverished the range of the stock.
2. Legacies: the concatenation of past struggles through sedimentation of phenomenological and purposely learning accumulation of experience that adds or eliminates from the stock of perceived alternatives certain repertoires of strategies as a self-conscious and oblivious process.
3. Repertoire of strategies: a historically constrained set of available options for non-finalist strategic action in public, semipublic or private arenas within a modular repertoire of contention. As such it is not solely contentious in its nature, but it does not exclude from its definition being contentious. As with the repertoire of contention concept, the repertoire of strategies is collective, cultural and historic, but its expansion or reduction is based on the restricted to specific chains of legacies attribution of success that build repertoires based on evaluating (correctly or not) theirs or others past strategies and thus opting for emulating, readapting or avoiding them in a (socially restricted) conscious and oblivious fashion. Thus, it is not a synonym of ideology or framing process, being them possible inputs within the legacies that alter the amplitude of the stock of perceived alternatives that will affect the repertoire of strategies and consequently the actually performed actions.
As will be analyzed in more detail in the course of this paper, these concepts have some shared attributes with Tilly’s “repertoire of contention” and Bourdieu’s “habitus”, but they are new concepts for the explanation of strategic action in historical terms without being subsumed by a structura or voluntas determination of action. The crucial question for social research if we expect to understand and explain political human interaction without determinisms is to search for a historically minded approach to the concatenation of political events in patterns of interaction. Thus, I will intend to show how the debate has been mostly moving as in a pendulum between a voluntas determinist approach, represented by the mainstream approach to political science- rational choice. And a structura determinist approach, represented by path-dependence in historical institutionalism and Bourdieu’s habitus concept. For this reason I will briefly review the limitations of both pendulum points and propose my threefold conceptualization as an in-between complement to both determinations.

6.3.4. Movimenti e soggetto nella sociologia di Alain Touraine

Andrea Villa

Abstract: Alcune riflessioni di Georg Simmel, contenute in Über sociale Differenzierung [1890], sembrano particolarmente adatte ad introdurre i caratteri essenziali della prima sociologia dell’azione di Alain Touraine: «Nessuno potrà negare che si verifichi un’interazione delle parti entro ciò che chiamiamo società. La società non è un essere completamente conchiuso in sé, un’unità assoluta, non più di quanto lo sia l’individuo umano. Rispetto alle interazioni reali delle parti essa è solo secondaria, solo un risultato, tanto dal punto di vista materiale che da quello della nostra riflessione. Se facciamo astrazione dalla manifestazione morfologica, nella quale il singolo è in tutto e per tutto il prodotto del suo gruppo sociale, e se riandiamo invece al fondamento gnoseologico ultimo, dobbiamo dire: non c’è un’unità della società dal cui carattere unitario deriverebbero qualità, relazioni, trasformazioni delle parti, ma è dato trovare relazioni ed attività di elementi, e solo su questo fondamento è possibile esprimere l’unità. […] Anche nel caso della conoscenza, quindi, non si può cominciare, poniamo, con il concetto di società, dalla cui determinatezza deriverebbero le relazioni e le interazioni delle componenti: sono invece queste che devono essere accertate, e la società è solo il nome con cui si designa la somma di queste interazioni, un nome che è utilizzabile solo nella misura in cui esse siano state accertate e stabilite» [Simmel 1982, pp. 18-19, corsivi miei]. In realtà, quello delle radici ‘classiche’ sulle quali si fonda la proposta teorica principale [1973; 1974], non è un tema cui Touraine dedica molto spazio. Non è, comunque, un difetto. Quel che importa, in quanto rafforzativo, è che, per entrambi, gli oggetti di studio della sociologia sono le relazioni e le azioni sociali a partire dalle quali la società assume la sua forma storica. È questo il criterio attraverso cui Touraine rivendica la necessità di affiancare, all’analisi dei meccanismi di funzionamento, integrazione e adattamento di un sistema sociale [cfr. Parsons 1951], le dinamiche di sotto-sistemi che, interagendo tra loro, contribuiscono a produrre tale funzionamento e allo stesso tempo se ne distanziano. Che è a dire porre in rilievo le modalità attraverso cui gli orientamenti che muovono le pratiche (azioni) possono relazionarsi, negoziare, confliggere, essere dominati e generare, in ultima analisi, l’uniformità delle decisioni, delle norme, così come dei modelli organizzativi. Le eterogenee pratiche e le relazioni conseguenti, costituiscono l’oggetto della sociologia, cercando, così, di spezzare – o quantomeno di diluire – le rigide categorie dicotomiche che vedono le teorie struttural-funzionaliste – della società che pre-esiste – contrapporsi a quelle individualiste e fenomenologiche. Società e individuo, situazione e azione, in quanto categorie irriducibili, sembrano ridurre le potenzialità della conoscenza sociologica: «Il senso di un’azione non si riduce né all’adattamento dell’attore a un sistema più o meno istituzionalizzato di norme sociali, né alle operazioni dello spirito che ogni attività manifesta» [Touraine 1965, p. 9]. Inoltre, e con grande efficacia, Touraine afferma che le condizioni storiche per l’emergere della sociologia come scienza sono direttamente proporzionali all’affermarsi dell’emancipazione dei soggetti da principi meta-sociali, ovvero di una società, sempre più, in grado di cogliersi – di percepirsi – come il prodotto delle sue azioni e relazioni. Un processo, nella realtà, graduale e non lineare nello stesso momento: «Le società imparano a conoscersi sociologicamente quando si riconoscono come prodotto del loro lavoro e dei loro rapporti sociali, quando ciò che sembra dapprima un insieme di ‘dati’ sociali è riconosciuto come risultato di una azione sociale, di decisioni o di transazioni, di una dominazione o di conflitti. È per questo che il nostro tempo, orientato verso lo sviluppo, crea a poco a poco la sociologia. A lungo nascosta da forme di filosofia sociale che riportavano i fatti sociali ad un principio di spiegazione non sociale (la provvidenza, la legge, l’evoluzione, i bisogni ‘naturali’), essa si libera con difficoltà dall’appello a una forza creatrice (energia, idea, valori), che conquista e organizza una natura selvaggia. È, infatti, questa la forma più comune del pensiero pre-sociologico, associato ai trionfi dell’industrializzazione, del capitalismo industriale e degli imperi coloniali. […] Dopo essersi valutata in nome dei principi, dopo essersi situata all’interno di una evoluzione, la società si riconosce come una rete di relazioni e azioni» [Touraine 1973, p. 13]. All’immanenza della tecnica, alla capacità di trasformare e controllare la natura, si affianca, nelle società post-industriali, la sempre maggiore possibilità di costruire o controllare, entro sistemi di relazioni più o meno istituzionalizzati, gli orientamenti, generali e particolari, delle proprie azioni. Affermando, con forza, che il ‘materiale’ della ricerca empirica non è né oggettivo, né soggettivo, bensì relazionale, e delimitando le condizioni storiche entro le quali la Sociologie de l'Action può effettivamente dilatarsi, Touraine sottolinea una cogente necessità: quella di costruire analiticamente il proprio oggetto di studio estrapolandolo dalle categorie storicamente situate delle pratiche sociali [cfr. Melucci 1975].
Facendo tesoro di queste considerazioni di carattere epistemologico, obiettivo del paper sarà quello di proporre una riflessione sulle conseguenze teoriche connesse alla codificazione, ovvero alla presenza/assenza di rapporti conflittuali, anche potenziali, nel tessuto sociale e culturale contemporaneo. Si ritiene che il beneficio di questa impostazione possa essere quello di consentire un’analisi approfondita circa la tenuta di alcune categorie concettuali tipiche dell’opera tourainiana (società post-industriale e movimenti sociali, principalmente) alla luce della centralità attribuita attualmente dall’autore francese alla dimensione del soggetto e della corrispondente provocazione accademica circa la «fine del sociale».

6.3.5. La partecipazione tra delega e deroga: fenomeni partecipativi e stili d’azione antipolitici

Irene Bono

Abstract: La partecipazione di attori non statali sembra ormai un complemento necessario per assicurare l’esercizio di un numero crescente di funzioni di governo: dalla gestione delle politiche sociali, all’esternalizzazione di una serie di mansioni della pubblica amministrazione, all’organizzazione dei grandi eventi e degli interventi d’emergenza. In parallelo, davanti alle crescenti difficoltà dei corpi intermedi nel fare da tramite tra cittadini e sistema politico, sembrano essere riposte molte aspettative nella capacità dei movimenti sociali o, più in generale, della “società civile”, di tenere vive le dinamiche democratiche. In particolare, alla partecipazione pare generalmente associata la capacità di formazione del personale politico, quando non di reclutamento, e di rinnovamento delle issue in agenda. Tali fenomeni politici sono generalmente studiati come se fossero distinti e indipendenti uno dall’altro: da un lato, l’analisi della “partecipazione alle politiche pubbliche” si colloca generalmente all’interno degli studi di governance, trascurando gli strumenti della sociologia politica che si è dedicata allo studio dei movimenti sociali e della partecipazione politica. Dall’altro lato, lo studio della “partecipazione alla società civile” parte frequentemente da ipotesi elaborate nell’ambito dello studio dell’azione collettiva, come la separazione tra stato e “società civile” e la natura prevalentemente “rivendicativa” dei movimenti. Considerando distintamente i due fenomeni non è facile cogliere la sovrapposizione e l’interconnessione tanto delle dinamiche quanto degli attori che partecipano sia alle “politiche pubbliche” sia alla “società civile”. In questo lavoro si proporrà piuttosto di considerare la “partecipazione alle politiche pubbliche” e la “partecipazione alla società civile” come due livelli di analisi dello stesso fenomeno politico. Si tenterà, quindi, di elaborare un approccio allo studio di “fenomeni partecipativi” in termini di stili di azione di natura antipolitica. L’ottica proposta si basa sull’analisi del rapporto che “gli attori che partecipano” a entrambe le dinamiche intrattengono, rispettivamente, con le istituzioni e con le regole del gioco politico. Si parlerà quindi di partecipazione come delega e come deroga per intendere uno stile di azione che si basa sull’affidamento di determinate mansioni politiche ad attori terzi, e che legittima il loro agire in deroga alle norme che regolano tali materie, in maniera formale o consuetudinaria. Il lavoro sarà dedicato all’identificazione e all’esplorazione degli elementi che possono giustificare la considerazione di tali dinamiche come due livelli dello stesso fenomeno politico, e alla illustrazione delle ipotesi alla base della sua analisi in termini di stili d’azione antipolitici. In un primo momento, si proporrà una rassegna della produzione scientifica recente su “partecipazione all’azione pubblica” e “partecipazione alla società civile” con l’obiettivo di costruire catene semantiche che illustrino come, in ognuna delle due tradizioni analitiche, vengono diversamente declinati la nozione di delega e di deroga. In particolare la produzione scientifica recente che affronta distintamente i due livelli d’analisi verrà esplorata con l’obiettivo di identificare (i) la materia oggetto di delega e i principi interessati dalla deroga, (ii) l’attore o gli attori che ne sono coinvolti e (iii) la ratio che legittima entrambi i fenomeni. In un secondo momento si porranno le basi dell’approccio allo studio dei fenomeni partecipativi come specifica modalità d’azione antipolitica, in cui i principi che portano ad agire in delega e in deroga giustificherebbero un canale d’azione politica parallelo a quello che si appoggia sui principi di rappresentanza e di maggioranza. Tale approccio verrà illustrato nell’impostazione di un disegno della ricerca in materia di partecipazione e grandi eventi, a partire dall’Expo di Milano2015.

6.3.6. Participative tools in the European Union and Robert Putnam’s social capital: a new democratic way at European level?

Alina Dinu

Abstract: We are witnessing today a « new democratic era » in the sense that the classical separation of powers is no longer enough to address changes and challenges faced by our societies. New actors and new elements should be taken into consideration, as the importance of consultation mechanisms prior to the implementation of policies or the role of experts and civil society in the preparation and the evaluation of policies. Governing means today to serve a double goal: to propose and implement effective public policies while respecting the democratic ideal of our political systems. Good management of the rei publicae implies more involvement and strong participation of concerned actors hitherto rather marginal to the decision making process.
At European level, traditional modes of production and application of norms face new approaches, more open and inclusive. The parliamentarian democratic vision, dominant in the European democratic “model”, is “competed” both in practice and at the theoretical level by new forms of political participation and new concepts which are supposed to better organise the collective action and to give a specific answer to the democratic expectations of European citizens.
This paper analyses one of the democratic tools created by the European Parliament in order to enhance citizens’ role in the EU -Citizens’ Forums – using the concept of social capital put forward by Robert Putnam. Our concern is whether this kind of mechanism could be seen as a way (mean) to stimulate the consolidation of a European social network democratically valuable.
The democratic framework in the EU was essentially conceived under a representative vision dominated by the European Parliament as the main institution (if not the only one) able to give voice to European citizens’ interests. The weaknesses of this approach, reflected in the decreasing interest of citizens in European institutions and policies, require new theoretical views and new practical tools in order to restore confidence in the European project. In this sense, the emergence of a European social capital could represent, in our opinion, a possible democratic way for the European Union. Putnam’s vision seems also interesting in that it questions the foundations of strong representative institutions which are at the same time close to the citizens and the various links between representation and civic participation. In this perspective, finding coherent and substantial answers at European level would represent the first effective step to a substantial procedural implementation of a political project built on a democratic ideal.
Our view is that the disillusion of European citizens doesn’t concern democracy itself, which continues to preserve its force of seduction, but the current European democratic mechanisms, unable to make the EU a democracy that works. If democracy is an ongoing and changeable process, adapted and adaptable to diverse and sometimes very complex realities, the EU has to “test” a plurality of tools and mechanisms for finding the most appropriate answers for its democratic needs.
The first part of our study underlines the main elements of Putnam’s approach, emphasising the link between social capital and democracy. If the social capital, like any other form of capital, is productive, making possible the achievement of certain goals that would not be reached in its absence, Robert Putnam sees it as an important factor for the capacity of a society to live and act together.
The second part focuses, from an empirical perspective, on Citizens’ Forums held since 2006 in all EU Member States. Our observations are based on data coming from two different sources: reports drawn up by organisers and direct interaction with citizens who have participated at this kind of public debate. Initiated as a pilot project aimed at stimulating the interaction and at creating synergies between citizens and their representatives at European level, this form of public debate became a permanent communication tool serving democratic goals.
In the third part we propose a parallel between our observations and Putnam’s reflection on the social capital and its role and value within a democratic system. Certainly Citizens’ Forums organized by the European Parliament still are far from having the capacity to strengthen the legitimacy of political process at European level or to improve the efficiency of European political institutions. Nevertheless, they represent a progress in building a democratic European project, in the sense that they give to a community in nuce new tools to act for common purposes.

6.3.7. Società civile ed europeizzazione: dialogo o conflitto?

Luca Alteri

Abstract: Nonostante la frequenza di domande – a volte retoriche – su quale sia il criterio interpretativo più aggiornato nella sociologia dei movimenti sociali, su quale sia il ruolo delle mobilitazioni sociali nel mutamento/conservazione della società, su quale sia il futuro per la partecipazione politica non convenzionale, su cosa induca un giovane a impegnarsi in strutture diverse dai partiti e dai sindacati, la strumentistica concettuale a disposizione dello studioso di movimenti sociali fatica ad aggiornarsi e a uscire da un ambito di nicchia. Sono ancora utilizzati quei cleavages teorici che Alberto Melucci riteneva superati già nel 1984 (Altri codici): l’approccio che vuole la mobilitazione effetto di una disgregazione sociale contrapposto all’altro che la analizza come espressione di interessi condivisi e di sentimenti di solidarietà (di classe, si sarebbe detto in passato); l’alternativa tra i movimenti come prodotto della logica del sistema oppure delle credenze/motivazioni degli attori; persino la differenziazione su base geografica tra gli europei che sarebbero portati (da Touraine in poi) ad analizzare la dimensione conflittuale del movimento e gli statunitensi maggiormente interessati al modo in cui l’attore collettivo usa le proprie risorse per sopravvivere alla fine fisiologica del ciclo di protesta al quale appartiene. Ancora Melucci notava come tutti i suddetti approcci presentassero il grave limite di concentrarsi esclusivamente sul sistema politico, ignorando la società civile. Nel momento in cui la dimensione europea è diventata lo scenario privilegiato della mobilitazione collettiva negli ultimi venti anni, un ulteriore problema si pone di fronte al ricercatore sociale e rende ancora più nebulosa la sua indagine: esiste una società civile europea?
Il presente lavoro (sulla scia di paragoni ben più illustri, pubblicati dagli anni Novanta fino ai giorni nostri) si concentra, di conseguenza, sul rapporto tra società civile ed europeizzazione, inserendosi tanto tra gli studi della sociologia dei movimenti sociali, quanto tra gli studi della sociologia dell’Europa, con un’attenzione particolare alla costruzione dal basso di un’identità collettiva su base continentale.
Scendendo più nel dettaglio (e nello specifico del paper proposto), si cercherà di applicare il modello del funzionalismo democratico ad alcune recenti esperienze di “europeizzazione dal basso” (le grandi manifestazioni contro la guerra, i forum sociali europei, la rete di Ong e di associazioni per la cooperazione), valutando la possibilità di definire – almeno a livello prodromico – una sfera pubblica europea che costituisca il brodo primordiale di una società civile partecipativa e conflittuale.

6.4.1. A Tale of Two Cities: Urban Conflicts and Contentious Dynamics in Valencia (Spain) and Montreal (Quebec, Canada), 1995-2010

Luis del Romero Renau e Catherine Trudelle

Abstract: Under capitalism, urban space is never permanently fixed but is continually shaped and transformed (Brenner et al. 2009): New infrastructures and facilities are built, land-use changes are made, renovation projects in historic centres are launched, etc. Renewal projects are often contested by a wide range of citizens and urban movements, resulting in NIMBY protests, among many other forms of conflicts. We seem to live in “cities and territories in permanent turmoil” (Nel·lo, 2003), evoking the circumstances described in Dickens’ novels about pre-revolutionary Paris. With more high-intensity conflicts arising to contest public decisions, the city is no longer as easy to manage as it was thirty years ago. This is a consequence of the increasing delegitimization of the governments and policymakers, the revival of local identities, and the emergence of new concerns such as heritage and environmental protection, local development, women’s or minorities’ rights, or the right to the city (Bobbio, 1999; Ascher, 2004). In the past years, the social composition and political orientation of the urban movements have become increasingly heterogeneous, manifesting more polarization, cleavages, and forms of implosion (Mayer, 2000). This heterogeneity has led to a diversification of conflicts. In a given city district, we may now find middle-class NIMBY or LULU conflicts, inter-class alliances for the preservation of a historic industrial site or a park, or even class-struggles as a result of urban renewal projects. It is in this way that conflicts and social movements evolve. The big question remaining then is: Does the institutional architecture of cities also evolve along the way or does it resist to these socio-political pressures? Urban conflicts must be examined in order to understand their causes, dynamics, and consequences. This analysis may offer ways of resolving conflicts that benefit not only a small interest group but the majority of the people, i.e., “the common interest”—something which is becoming more difficult to define with each day (Ascher, 2004). This raises another interesting question: Do policymakers and local politicians act according the abstract (but crucial) concept of the “common interest” of local or regional communities or do they proceed according to private or particular interests?
The purpose of this paper is to explore these questions through a comparative analysis of urban conflicts that took place in two different cities located in two different countries. We study and compare two different local contexts and their urban conflicts—Montreal, a large metropolis in North America, and Valencia, a middle-sized metropolitan area in Spain—in order to deal with the questions of metropolitan and urban governance concerning territorial conflicts in these urban areas. Is conflict management in these two cities comparable? Are the institutional architectures in these cities prepared to deal with the increasing number of conflicts arising in their social environments? To address these critical issues, we perform a comparative analysis of conflict activity in two districts undergoing redevelopment: The Sud-Ouest in Montreal, and Poblats Maritims in Valencia. These two neighbourhoods have a similar socio-economic background regarding their poverty, high unemployment rate, and social exclusion, in addition to featuring significant built heritages. Our comparative analysis of urban conflicts in these two districts is based on a data set of urban conflicts, the data source of which is print media. We used four newspapers, two for each urban area: the daily regional newspapers La Presse and Le Devoir for Montreal, and the regional edition of El País and El Levante in Valencia. From these four newspapers, we compiled and analyzed all articles related to urban conflicts that took place in the two districts under study between 1995 and 2010. In all, we analyzed 40 urban conflicts in Valencia and 58 conflicts in Montreal. First of all, we show, by means of a statistical analysis, that despite the social, cultural, economic, and geographical differences that exist between an American and an European city, these cities nevertheless experience the same types of urban conflicts: claims and demands for improved amenities, urban services, infrastructures, and facilities; protests against undesired land uses (e.g., NIMBY and LULU conflicts); and especially large contestations around mega-projects that seek to restructure the cities’ respective economies around tourism, advanced services, innovation, and design and that encourage a high level of gentrification and segregation processes. Our analysis led us to propose a typology of urban conflicts that is applicable to both cities. In the second part of the paper, we compare institutional structures, especially the local governance mechanisms in both cities, and conclude that the main difference between them is that Montreal has a more deliberative metropolitan governance whereas Valencia has a representative democracy with less participation mechanisms. The comparison is also made with regard to urban-based movements in Valencia and Montreal. We show that although these movements in both cities share common goals (e.g., the right to the city, environmental and heritage protection, quality of life improvement), their strategies of resistance, and the effectiveness of these, are quite different. In other words, we analyze to what extent the contentious dynamics in these cities differ. We end the paper with a theoretical framework that seeks to portray conflict activity as experienced by the two cities from the point of view, in broader terms, of the contradictions of the capitalist system in the production of new spaces, here more specifically with regard to the roles played by urban-based movements, interest groups, and local elites concerning the emergence and evolution of urban conflicts. Local governance is a key point to understanding how these conflicts arise and evolve and how they are managed and solved…or not.

6.4.2. Migrants and “outsiders” in the urban political arena: cross insights from French and African research fields

Olivier Legros

Abstract: In researches on urban governance, the emphasis is often placed on the role of elites and interest groups in the “urban regimes”. Does it mean the exclusion from political arenas that shape the city of other social groups, especially the migrants and “outsiders” which are often labeled as marginal or victims ? This paper is based on a comparative analysis of the process of politicization and/or of authorities interpellation in slums inhabited by Roma from Central Europe and the Balkans and in social housing in France (mainly Tours, Vendome, Paris suburbs, ongoing investigations), and in irregular areas in Dakar and Tunis (surveys conducted between 1999 and 2008). It aims to show that things are more complicated than they appear. Even if they are sometimes asked by local authorities and associations, migrants and outsiders are often absent of participatory processes established by the authorities and absent of discussions organized by the civil society. Does it prove the "political incompetence" of those groups? Could we consider this non-participation in local affairs as a lack of participatory culture among many immigrants or migrants? The analysis of the repertories of collective action and of politicization process shows that it is not the case. Indeed migrants and outsiders act when it is in their interest. Like other groups, they are trying shots, by doing a "continuous pressure" on authorities. They can also mobilize some allies within the civil society, or better, within the politico-administrative sphere through " informal networks”, unless they prefer to resort to blackmail and violence as it has been observed in some districts of Tunis. In any case, migrants and outsiders develop strategies in the margins of the classical policy. They use the "art du faible" that is to say the “tactics” according to Michel de Certeau, which allows them to "catch in flight opportunities for profit ”, usually by activating logics of mediation that belongs to the very broad field of “clientele” relationships. Of course these remarks have implications on social studies as well as on action. On a scientific level, they stress the role of mediation logics in social and political regulation, especially in poor neighborhoods but not only, and to compare versions of brokerage and clientelism in contemporary urban societies. On an operational level, these remarks lead to relativize the contribution and the effects of the participatory policies in urban governance: if they can be manipulated by the authorities as tools for the management of local controversies and for the social regulation, they are just an additional resource for individuals and groups faced to institutions. The question is now to know the basis on which to rely and the technologies to use in order to identify and build the social demand of migrants and outsiders, especially those in vulnerable situations. The question is also to know how to involve outsiders and migrants in public decisions affecting them.

6.4.3. The mutations of urban and regional disorders in the last 30 years in France and the U.K.: the irruption of new actors

Sophie Body-Gendrot

Abstract: In most countries, the social question, relabelled the urban question and the management of risks, are currently at the top of the political agenda. The transformation of cities submitted to phenomena of globalization is indeed linked to global issues of conflicts and insecurity. Conflict is such a powerful instrument of politics that all regimes are of necessity concerned with its management. Dominant conflicts involving larger numbers displace, submerge, erase subordinate albeit intense conflicts. But there has been little in-depth analysis of the social implications of urban globalization regarding concerns for urban disruptions at various levels. There is indeed a gap between how problems generating insecurity - in particular regarding contentious dynamics in certain areas - are perceived and defined politically (for instance in the criminalization of high risk youth) and how it is understood socially and felt by residents and other citizens testing density, diversity and (un)safety on a day-by-day basis. It seems to me that the relationship between policies, local mechanisms of control and potential disturbances is best understood in a comparative approach. While there is a convergence of social and economic forces at work due to globalization, dynamic trends of violence and their management vary indeed from country to country, region to region, city to city. The presentation will deal with two European countries, the United Kingdom and France, which have experienced recurrent forms of urban disorders in the last quarter of the 20th century. However, the nature, the mutations and the dynamics of such disorders reveal divergences. Disembedding conflicts allows to grasp how they fit in a whole set of discourses and practices. National and local contexts display divergences. Lots of misunderstandings were revealed, for instance, in the explanations linked to race either explaining the British urban disorders in the 1980s and in the 2000s and those of 2005 in France. In this qualitative paper, attention will first be paid to the use of words which look alike in the British and French contexts but actually hide more than they reveal. Elusive terms like riot, community, race, ethnicity should be clarified. Then, I will look at the evolving types of contenders and sites of unrest and at the different logics of context, all of which are not static but have their own dynamics, according to circumstances, outer forces and interactions on various scales. This dimension will allow to grasp why some routine disorders starting with the usual flashlights expand to a whole region, even to a national territory as was the case for three weeks in France and why others simply terminate after two days of rampage, as in Sheffield in 1980. In my second point, I will show that over the last thirty years, mutations have occurred in the nature and evolution of police interventions during violent interactions with mobilized young residents. Institutional responses to incidents also differ from one country to the other and according to time. Yet what is common in both countries is that frequently, local elites have no other choice but to find innovative solutions to repair the damages caused by national, top-down policies. Some of them work, in particular when mayors are surrounded by a diversity of experienced mediators, while others remain useless and here, cross-national case studies bring stimulating ideas (i.e. police behaviour, commission reports, vertical linkages with the apparatus of decision-making). In my third point, just as important, come the choices made by citizens, in reaction to feelings of insecurity generated by certain areas and certain groups of residents in regional areas. The principle of precaution has become a dominant paradigm in most of metropolises' governance, since 9/11, 2001 but it seems obvious that new architectural and defensive forms of surveillance (locking oneself in) and measures of repression (locking others out) have consequences on new marginalities (in contrast with new centralities). Here differences between large metropolises and mid-sized localities are worth studying. I will show in the end that all the news are not negative. Some of the pathologies created by rapid macro-changes generate indeed long-term internal dynamics within urban regimes. In frequent cases, they reveal how much larger cities are ahead of states to deal with challenges and conflicts. For this qualitative presentation, I call upon my research experience in Europe (as President of the European society of criminology and the chair of various networks) and in France (where I just conducted a two-year survey in two marginalized areas in Paris). A member of the French civilian/police review commission, I also conduct regular hearings on civil grievances, violence and police issues and I am required to make recommendations to the powers that be. I am in a privileged position to grasp insiders' antagonistic perceptions. As a political scientist, I am used to conduct comparisons on urban disorders and as a partner in the program Urban Age at the London School of Economics, my research focuses on (in)security in public spaces.

6.4.4. “Our club, our ground”: Proteste contro la delocalizzazione e la privatizzazione degli impianti sportivi tra Italia e Gran Bretagna

Arianna Sale

Abstract: Lo stadio costituisce uno dei contesti conflittuali più ansiogeni ed ambivalenti della città contemporanea: oggetto di “topofobia” nel discorso politico e mediatico sulla violenza calcistica, esso è al contempo destinatario di un sentimento di vera e propria “topofilia” da parte dei suoi più fedeli “abitanti”. Si tratta di un attaccamento emotivo al luogo che, da mero teatro di uno spettacolo sportivo, diventa “il tempio”, il referente simbolico di una identità collettiva, la “casa” in cui godere di libertà e benessere, fortezza da proteggere e difendere dalle minacce esterne. Una di tali minacce è rappresentata dai recenti progetti di privatizzazione e delocalizzazione degli impianti in aree periferiche delle città italiane, progetti che hanno incontrato le accese resistenze di molti tifosi. Un caso emblematico della dinamica descritta coinvolge il destino dello stadio Ferraris di Genova, particolarmente caro alla tifoseria rossoblu, attualmente di proprietà comunale e situato in un quartiere densamente popolato della città. La campagna “Il Ferraris non si tocca” ha unito ultrà e club in una protesta concertata contro i progetti di delocalizzazione, le cui dinamiche, poste in gioco ed esiti provvisori costituiranno il cuore del mio intervento. D'altro canto, la proprietà privata degli impianti ed i tentativi di trasformazione degli stadi più antichi del mondo in polivalenti strutture di consumo poste ai margini delle città costituiscono due degli elementi alla base del mito italiano sul “modello inglese”, implementato (pur con notevoli elementi di discrepanza tra retorica e realtà) nei primi anni Novanta. Nuovamente, i confini tra urban regeneration e misure di controllo si confondono nel dibattito pubblico sulla questione hooligans, mentre i piani di delocalizzazione e privatizzazione incontrano pratiche di resistenza da parte dei frequentatori abituali degli impianti. Alcune proteste riusciranno nell'obiettivo di difesa del “tempio” cittadino dai progetti speculativi (come nel caso dell'attivismo dei tifosi del Fulham); in altri casi, gli investimenti di ristrutturazione dell'impiantistica sportiva privata si traducono in aumenti esponenziali dei prezzi dei biglietti, che di fatto escludono gran parte del tifo popolare delle origini. Si verificano così “exit strategies” dai risvolti particolarmente interessanti, come quella di alcuni tifosi del Manchester United che decidono di fondare un proprio autonomo club calcistico, il Manchester FC, al riparo dalle velleità speculative, dagli imperativi commerciali e dalle imposizioni del controllo. Il paper presenterà, in chiave comparativa, le strategie di resistenza ai progetti di “urban regeneration” che riguardano gli impianti sportivi in due contesti, al centro di una più ampia ricerca etnografica sulle pratiche del tifo e sulle dinamiche interattive nella gestione dell'ordine pubblico negli stadi: il caso, dagli esiti ancora incerti, delle proteste dei tifosi contro la delocalizzazione del Ferraris a Genova; la vicenda che ha portato alla fondazione del Manchester FC come forma di boicottaggio al cosiddetto “calcio moderno”.

6.4.5. Comparative analysis of mosque establishment and regulation of conflicts in French and Canadian mid-sized cities

Aude-Claire Fourot

Abstract: The renewal of religious pluralism is one of the most sensitive and challenging issues currently facing local governments in the West. The transformation of urban spaces, notably by the creation of more visible places of worship, has contributed to an increased interest in the consequences of ethno-cultural and ethno-religious diversity in urban centers. This is particularly the case for Islamic places of worship, which are often the center of both public and academic attention. This interest is understandable given the number of conflicts surrounding the creation of mosques; how urban spaces will be shared is a crucial aspect of disputes between ethno-religious minorities, civil society and local governments. Moreover, Muslim places of prayer in Western countries are often feared as breeding grounds for terrorism; given this suspicion, the creation of new mosques is often met with open hostility. There are now a number of studies about the reasons for such conflicts, including the cultural bias in urban planning criteria (Sandercock 2000); NIMBYism regarding what it is considered as nuisances (noise, traffic, etc.) associated with the creation of mosques (Qadeer and Chaudhry 2000) as well as reactions of Islamophobia (Helly and Oueslati 2007). However, recent studies about the establishment of Muslim places of worship have emphasized a lower frequency of conflict than in the past (de Galembert 2006; Frégosi 2006; Hoernig 2006). How can we explain this new trend? What are the different processes for establishing places of worship and the mechanisms of regulation that shape this phenomenon? More generally, should we consider this trend as one towards decreased conflict or rather as a transformation in these conflicts? I answer this question by comparing two processes for establishing Muslim places of worship in two mid-sized cities, the Parisian suburb of Créteil and the Montreal suburb of Laval. Despite that the two cities have different institutional designs, the processes for creating the mosques reveal important similarities. In both cases, the projects for creating the mosques were presented during public municipal council meetings and triggered significant hostility as well as numerous questions asked by residents of the neighborhood. However, in the end, both mosques were established and the conflict surrounding their creation seems to have vanished. Using a hypothesis I previously applied exclusively to Canadian cities, I argue that the mechanism of personalization of mediation channels between ethno-religious authorities and municipal officials leads to different processes of institutionalization. As such I propose that the personalization of these channels leads to a political process, whereas non-personalization leads to an administrative one (Fourot 2010). I demonstrate that, despite the institutional differences in Laval and Créteil, the personalization of channels of mediation and the ensuing political processes have contributed to a reduction in open conflicts, and have furthered the projects supported by both municipal bodies and ethno-religious groups. Beyond this reduction of open conflicts, I show that the personalization of mediation mechanisms structures local Muslim communities, a strategy prized by both ethno-religious and local political elites in order to gain power and control over a community, especially during public debates and conflicts associated with Islam in Western cities.

6.4.6. Regulating clusters in French and Italian regions: a comparative study of the role of cluster policies since 2000

Sabine Menu

Abstract: The paper aims to present the results of a comparative research on the political regulation of clusters in French and Italian regions since 2000. According to the American economist Michael Porter, “a cluster is a geographically proximate group of interconnected companies and associated institutions in a particular field, linked by commonalities and complementarities” (Porter, 1998). Since the seminal work of the English economist Alfred Marshall (1919) and thanks to the long-standing sociological tradition on Italian districts (Bagnasco, 1977; Trigilia, 1986; Becattini, 1991), we have come to learn more about the role of geographical proximity in economic activities, in particular in sustaining innovation processes. Political scientists such as Le Galès (2003) have studied the transformation of states and local or regional contentious dynamics. However, although cluster policies have been launched since 2000 with the aim of supporting the innovation activities and the aggregation of firms in a particular field and territory, they remain studied by few scholars in political science, at least in France and in Italy. In both countries, the regional level has become the policy focus in supporting clusters (Courlet, 2008; Messina, 2005), and some studies have been made on the governance of clusters (Ehlinger et al., 2007; Cresta, 2008; Coro’, Micelli, 2006). But we know few things about how this support is organized between heterogeneous actors, how conflicts are solved, and the results in terms of cluster governance. In other disciplines, European comparative studies were led: on the one hand, there has been a comprehensive theoretical work on the governance of local productive systems in Europe (Crouch, Le Galès, Trigilia, Voelzkow, 2001; 2004) around five ideal types (market, state, leading firm, association, community); on the other, Borràs and Tsagdis (2008) reviewed cluster policies in European countries and outlined innovation learning processes. Goal of the paper is to focus on the mobilizations that have taken place in the frame of cluster policies since 2000 and to see whether we can observe the emergence of modes of governance of clusters in French and Italian regions. The methodology is based on the analytical framework of my doctoral dissertation on “the role of regional identity in shaping economic mobilizations in European regions – Bavaria, Brittany and the North-East of England (1980-2006)”. In this work, I was interested in studying the transformation of policies at the regional level less in institutional terms and more as “bottom-up” dynamics. My definition of economic mobilizations is based on social movements and interest groups literature (Balme et Chabanet, 2002; Grossmann et Saurugger, 2006; Neveu, 2000). I define economic mobilizations as the gathering of élites (decision-makers and actors) from the public and the private sector aiming at defining and structuring a collective action on economic development in the region. I compared through time and space the shaping of such economic mobilizations in the automotive and the electronic sector. I chose to study three very different European regions as the economic, institutional and political aspects are concerned, but where the sense of belonging to the region has been stronger than in the average of the regions in their respective country. To a certain extent, regional identity was a resource in shaping a new representation of the region as a place to act collectively and in generating adhesion to it, building social capital and contributing to stabilize regional industrial networks between private and public actors (Menu, 2010). In this paper, I focus on the political regulation of clusters and on the comparative, empirical and qualitative study I am conducting now on French and Italian regions, in particular on the regions Ile-de-France, Bretagne, Veneto and Marche. The comparison of these countries and regions allows again studying cluster policies in very different institutional, political and socio-economic contexts, so as to give general answers on the political regulation of clusters in European regions and on the role of regional and national context (Smith, 2000). Cluster policies have been launched at different levels or/and have seen the cooperation between them. They intend to develop new ways of regulating clusters as well as new ways of conducting economic support based on central control and private coordination (Menu, forthcoming). In the French case, the De Villepin Government decided in 2005 to invest in research and development (R&D) projects led by 71 “pôles de compétitivité”, with additional support given by local or regional authorities and by the private sector (firms, research centres). In Italy, the Berlusconi Government launched a policy dedicated to technological districts in 2001, and adopted a strategy “Industria 2015” in 2005. Goal is to support R&D projects in strategic technological areas, in cooperation with local and regional authorities, as well as the private sector. The competence in economic support has also been transferred increasingly to Italian regions (regional laws on industrial districts since 1993; 2001 Constitutional reform) and, as a result, additional policies at the local/regional level aiming at supporting clusters or/and R&D projects have been launched. Based on in-depth fieldwork and on the analysis of primary documentation and of semi-structured interviews led in France and in Italy, the paper presents the mobilizations of public and private actors that have emerged in the frame of cluster policies, and the results in terms of the regulation of the distretti and the pôles de compétitivité. It shows what types of actors have mobilized; what resources have been used; what rationales have been developed to justify a collective action in favour of the distretti and the pôles; and what modalities have been used to prevent or solve conflicts. It draws general conclusions on the limitations of the political regulation of clusters both in terms of public-private mobilizations to define common R&D projects and in terms of the stabilization of modes of governance in the regional cases studied.

6.4.7. A Comparative Study on the Role of Participatory Democracy In Urban Administration: Kolkata Municipal Corporation and Salt Lake Municipality

Maitreyee Bardhan Roy

Abstract: Calcutta Municipal Corporation, one of the oldest Local Self Government in West Bengal, India, had been severely unsuccessful in offering effective civic services to its citizens. Its failure in running a standard civic administration resulted in the repeated superseding of the civic body in the pre-independent era .Also its inability during the post independent era caused a severe cholera epidemic in the city in 1960. The situation was handled by the World Bank` s intervention .The Calcutta Metropolitan Planning Organisation (CMPO) was set up to thoroughly survey the city and to detect the cause of the epidemic . The dilapidated city slums were marked as the root cause of the epidemic and immediate intervention was urgently felt. The policy planners` mistrust towards the civic body led to the creation of Calcutta Metropolitan Development Authority (CMDA now KMDA) in 1970 to work on slum improvement out of the International Development Agency fund. The record of inactivity of the civic body in Kolkata, West Bengal not only gave way to the involvement of the Government in the development decision in Kolkata Metropolis .The Salt Lake City ,a planned city of the then Chief Minister Dr. Bidhan Ch. Roy bears a similar history of administrative intervention . The Management of Salt Lake City at the beginning was entrusted to the Irrigation Department of the Government of West Bengal (1970s) and then shifted to Notified Areas Authority .It was only in 1995 the Municipality took up the responsibility of the Salt Lake City . Similarly, Kolkata Municipal Corporation also revived its power. Backed by the 73rd Amendment (1991 )of the Constitution of India and the West Bengal Municipal Act 1993 the municipal authorities were asked to officially adopt participatory democracy at the municipal level. The present paper while talking on the impact of constitutional as well as of the statutory provisions of he constitution ( both in Kolkata and in Salt lake City) will report on the impact of participatory democracy in Municipal Corporation and in Salt Lake Municipality and also the stories of their success and failure in the policy implementation field .Since the evaluation of the activities of the civic bodies demand an overall information on the role the people in relation to the Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority in the Kolkata Municipal Corporation area and the Irrigation Department and the Notified Areas Authority in Salt Lake City, the preset paper will make a passing reference to he success and failure of the administrative bodies in their respective field and then will try to analyse its impact on the people in comparison to the role of the civic bodies in the era of participatory democracy. The methodology adopted under the present study has been partly historical and partly empirical and evaluative in nature. However the Salt Lake part of the present study , has been done through an empirical analysis made by the researcher in 2005 (Case Study-Salt Lake ,West Bengal published as an article in the book entitled `Ward Power ,Decentralised Urban Governance ` editor. Parth, J ,Shah and Makarand Bakore ; Centre for Civil Society. New Delhi 2006.Pg181-205)For theoretical studies the researcher proposes to go through the following documents 1. Roy ,Maitreyee Nov.2002,Local participation and Development –Changing Role of Kolkata Municipal Corporation in Public Policy Decision. Fifth Annual Conference: West Bengal Political Science Association .Ibid, `A study of Public Policy Intervention in the Slum Areas in the City of Calcutta ` Urban Management: A Journal of the Institution of Local Government and Urban Studies. Kolkata 11the Sep2005 Pg 52-62.; Ibid: Calcutta Slums :Public Policy in Retrospect, Minerva Associates Pvt. Ltd 1994. Calcutta , Ghosh Archana and Mitre Madhulika Decentralization of Urban Governance in West Bengal, Role of Ward Committees; Urban Management; A Journal of Institute of Local Government and Urban Studies 11, Sep 2005 29-51. Mukhapadhayay Amartya (Edt) Civil Society and Global Governance UGC-DRS (Phase I) Program . Department of Political Science. University of Calcutta.Kolkata-27 ,2009 also Maitreyee Bardhan Roys article Development and Participation- Role of Ward Committee in Salt Lake City
The present paper aims at collecting and discussing comparative research by stressing in the ddifferences between large metropolis and mid-sized towns. Since the present paper intends to talk on the stories of success and failure of the Municipal Bodies in both the Big Size Metropolises and Small Municipal Town ,the present topic is very much at per with the topic of the workshop.

6.4.8. The political production of insecurity.The influence of electoral competition on the fate of local conflicts

Audrey Freyermuth

Abstract: Protests of organized groups of citizens complaining about increasing insecurity leads the elected to politicize the topic of insecurity. Many analyses show that process. But as the statistics about delinquency and the media contents, the claims force a mayor and his team if (and only if) these protests can be used in the electoral competition. In plain language, the analysis of the main influence of the electoral confronting doesn’t prevent to see how groups of citizens can force the elected. But simply, the fact that the elected perceive the discontents of some groups of citizens as a constraint follows from the way they see their own position in the political competition and their possible shots. If protests of groups of citizens can contribute to produce a controversy about insecurity, they are not a sole and sufficient factor. The media diffusion of claims about delinquency or about facts that are considered as deviant does not necessarily lead to a salient political issue of insecurity. In spite of the claimings of an organized group of shopkeepers, inhabitants or bus drivers, a public debate about insecurity can be neutralized when political struggles lead the elected to refute the protests or to hush them up. The fall of a political problem of insecurity doesn’t mean that protests of groups of citizens about delinquency are not expressed. Their discontents appear in the local press but the elected don’t appropriate the protests and, therefore, they don’t set them up as a political issue.
The mobilization of clockmakers and jewellers in Rennes in 1983, the protests of an association of inhabitants in Rennes in 1990 or in Nice in 1983 and 1989, the “fed up” of many shopkeepers in Lyon in 1990 are not used by the local elected and in particular the members of a muzzled and powerless opposition. Without any political continuation, the protests don’t damage the apparent political agreement about the absence of any local problem of insecurity. We are not denying that protests of organized groups of citizens can influence the elected, but in this contribution we want to specify that their influence is contingent and conditional. Their constraining effect depends on a particular state of the political local competition.
In an asymetrical and stabilized local political configuration, the protests unused by the elected remain singular and atomized and have no effect on political agenda. In an unstable and highly competitive configuration, the criticized mayor and his team are led to intend to be interested in the protests considered as many attacks they have to defuse and as many votes they have to conquer or not to loose. In that case, the organized groups exercise an influence on the agenda. Our contribution is based on a double comparative research (geographic and historic) of Lyon, Nice, Rennes and Strasbourg between 1983 and 2001. We selected these four cases according to their political color and the state of the municipal political competition. On one hand, we chose Nice and Rennes as two cases distinguished by a certain electoral stability in favour of the Right for the first and in favour of the Left for the second. On the other hand, we chose Lyon and Strasbourg as two cases distinguished by a political alternation (from the Right to the Left for the first and from the Left to the Right for de the second). Crossing these variables on twenty years and four municipalities made us multiply the political configurations to compare. That comparative method shows how, in spite of protests of organized groups of citizens, a lowly competitive political configuration neutralizes the construction of insecurity as a political problem. It shows also, at the opposite, how in a highly competitive configuration, the elected, by representing the claims as coherent, justified and attesting the reality of insecurity, make possible the construction of insecurity as a local political issue.

6.4.9. Neighbourhood Movement and Municipal Candidacies: the urban and municipal side of the Local Movement.

Pedro Ibarra i Güell, Mercè Cortina i Oriol e Gemma Ubasart i Gonzàlez

Abstract: If we look at the results of recent municipal elections in Spain we can see how, especially in small and medium-sized municipalities, have emerged a significant number of alternative candidacies, that is, candidacies result of different processes of stabilization and structuring of local social movements. In parallel, we are witnessing a resurgence of neighbourhood movements in most large cities of the peninsula. They are not new phenomena although in the last years they are taken special relevance. In several towns and cities yet since the Spanish political transition, the proximity that offers the local scale has been used by collectives and social networks to open spaces of participation within the representative system, but now these experiences take place in a context of politization of the local arena fleshing out what we call the alternative municipalism. When we talk about alternative municipalism we refer to two related but different realities, as if we think the concept of municipal in a broad or in a narrow sense. The broad sense includes the repertoire of actions, analysis and strategies that social movements involved in the arena of local government, including such varied interventions such as protest, collaboration in the design of public policies at local level through participatory processes, the right to petition, the relationship with elected representatives and political parties. The narrow sense of the term means the articulation of electoral candidacies by different local social movements in order to gain representation in municipal governing bodies and influence in local government. Both are initiatives that are born within social movements and gather elements that characterize them: the horizontal structure, the centrality that takes de politics as opposed to the management, or its roots in the territory. Thus, they are diverse experiences that take as a common starting point the centrality of political work based on the territory (district or municipality), the willingness of influence upon public policies, and the commitment to build community despite the plurality of its participants. Is from these premises, that raises the two different possibilities for action in “the here and now” we want to present. Firstly, from a broad understanding of municipalism, we will point the existence of an organized neighbourhood movement, which enjoys the experience that gives the 40 years of life, but with a renewed determination to innovate from an organizational point of view and a strategic and generational perspective, especially in the metropolitan areas. Especially relevant is the action of the neighbourhood movement in metropolitan cities like Bilbao, Madrid and Barcelona, but also in medium-sized cities. Secondly, from a restricted conception of municipalism, taking into account the various alternatives and popular candidacies especially relevant in a small and medium municipalities context.
In our article we intend to lay the theoretical and methodological tools to approach this phenomenon based on the idea that in these territories the map of local political actors is getting redrawn. So, beyond the trio consisting of the political party, interest group and social movement, we find a fourth actor who escapes from the classical political actor typology defined by a double-entry table constituted by the logic of power from which they operate, and the situation towards the institution. The experiences to which we look at are either candidacies that come from the stabilization and the structuring of social movements and operate from within the institution, but they do not share the logic of power, roles, or relationships of the political parties themselves or social movements looking for being present in the public policies decision making spaces.
In the work that takes us up we want to focus on that area of political action of those political actors: the interaction with the (local) institution and their presence in the political, economic and communicative level and, thus, their impact in the local governability. In order to do this we will use the literature on social movements, public policy and local government focusing on two debates: the institutionalization processes of the social movements and their impacts on the public policies taking for both the space as the framer of the organizational reality of each context, large cities or small and medium-sized municipalities, as a structure of opportunity for such interaction. To achieve this goal we will take as case study different citizen and “municipalistic” movements. For the first case, it will point to the reality of Barcelona, Madrid and Bilbao; for the second, different municipalities in Catalonia and the Basque Country (two Autonomic Regions in Spain).

6.5.1. Partecipazione Politica dei Musulmani in Italia

Maria Bombardieri

Abstract: Questo studio ha come oggetto la partecipazione politica dei musulmani in Italia, in particolar modo l’analisi della presenza dei musulmani all’interno dei partiti politici italiani in rapporto alla loro identità religiosa. La tesi di fondo del lavoro considera la partecipazione politica all’interno dei partiti e il diritto di voto importanti mezzi per favorire l’integrazione dell’immigrato musulmano in Italia.
Il diritto di voto rappresenta anche in Italia la più alta espressione della partecipazione politica, un segno del pieno godimento di diritti politici subordinato all’acquisizione della cittadinanza italiana. La presenza musulmana nel Paese è ancora relativamente giovane, non sono molti coloro che hanno la cittadinanza e quindi che hanno la possibilità di esprimersi e di incidere politicamente con questo mezzo. Nonostante ciò sono molti i musulmani che iniziano un percorso politico all’interno di associazioni, di sindacati, organizzando gemellaggi culturali e promuovendo opere di investimento economico nei paesi d’origine.
È interessante inoltre costatare come i musulmani siano largamente presenti anche all’interno dei Consigli per Stranieri, la nazionalità che prevale è quella marocchina, ma una buona presenza è data anche dai pakistani e dai senegalesi. I Consigli per stranieri rappresentano un primo passo verso una piena partecipazione politica degli immigrati, ma diversi documenti internazionali invitano ad aprire le porte della partecipazione anche attraverso il voto amministrativo, almeno per i long-term settled residents.
I Consigli per Stranieri e i Consiglieri degli Stranieri Aggiunti nati per ovviare al gap legislativo nazionale cercano di far fronte a quello rappresentativo degli stranieri almeno a livello locale, ma diversi studi rivelano una effettiva incapacità dei rappresentanti di incidere sulle istituzioni, nella società in quanto assumono solo un ruolo di “consulenza” e di fatto impossibilitati nell’esprimere un proprio parere attraverso il voto. La presenza dei musulmani all’interno di questi organismi contribuisce a migliorare i rapporti con la comunità islamica locale, favorisce la sua partecipazione civica e sociale, permettendo così una maggiore apertura sia dei musulmani che degli autoctoni. Figure ponte che traccia un percorso d’integrazione.
Il cuore della mia ricerca qualitativa è dato dall’ analisi dei candidati e eletti di origine musulmana presentati alle elezioni amministrative 2009, politiche 2008 ed europee 2009. Nel considerare gli unici musulmani seduti ad oggi nel Parlamento italiano: Khaled Fouad Allam, ‘Ali Rashid e Soaud Sbai sono state fatte considerazioni sui loro interventi politici con oggetto la comunità islamica italiana, e l’attivazione di politiche d’integrazione in suo favore.
L’ analisi dei candidati e eletti ha dato i seguenti punti:
- Profilo del musulmano che partecipa all’interno dei partiti, quali partiti, chi viene eletto
- Interpretazione della domanda dei partiti politici secondo i musulmani
- Motivazioni e Finalità dell’offerta politica dei musulmani
- Chi rappresentano i musulmani nei partiti e quale funzione hanno
- Cosa fanno i musulmani in politica per la comunità islamica locale
- Quale posizione occupano nella lista elettorale: casi di loss candidate e token migrant
- Considerazioni sulla visibilità e azione politica dei candidati in relazione all’identità islamica
- Casi di discriminazione e strumentalizzazione politica di candidati musulmani
Considerazioni finali sulla partecipazione dei musulmani nella politica italiana, sulla possibilità di un partito islamico e sulla nuova formazione di partiti di immigrati nell’ottica di favorire il processo d’integrazione dell’immigrato musulmano. Voci dei leader musulmani delle organizzazioni islamiche nazionali.

6.5.2. Social integration of Sub-Saharan immigrants: the case of subsaharan associations in Bizkaia (Basque Country, Spain).

Maria Giulia Di Carlo

Abstract: Until the end of the Nineties the Basque Country was mainly a region of internal immigration, however since 1998 in the Basque Country the foreign population has been growing exponentially.
For what concerns foreign immigration, Sub-Saharan population in Bizkaia has significantly increased within the last few years (even if it still represents a minor percentage of the immigration flux). Sub-Saharan immigration is characterized to be mainly masculine and with an outstanding tendency to associativism. The integration of Sub-Saharan immigrant groups is an important step in the host society and the associativism could make the difference in social integration, although it could be also an exclusion factor. This paper presents results produced during my thesis that relevant to this topic. The objective of my study focused on how sub-Saharan immigrants are seen in the society of acceptance (here the Basque Country) and how they are integrated in this society. For this study, interviews were conducted with immigrants from different sub-Saharan origin but with a similar profile. In addition, from the interviews it can be concluded that all immigrants arrive in Europe to improve their life style and economic conditions. However, they soon realize these are false expectations and the need of integration in the host society is of utmost importance. This integration process implies the need to establish social relationships, to embrace local culture and to explore opportunities and resources. In the facilitation and support of these activities, associations of immigrants play a fundamental role.

6.5.3. Les associations italiennes en Suisse dès l’après-guerre. Continuités et discontinuités de mondes, visions, pratiques de citoyenneté

Morena La Barba

Abstract: Dans cette intervention, à partir d’une recherche de sociologie visuelle de plusieurs années, nous analysons l’évolution de l’associationnisme italien dans la Suisse de l’après-guerre à aujourd’hui. Confrontant la présence italienne en Suisse avec celle d’autres pays européens, nous pouvons affirmer que l’associationnisme italien en Suisse est un phénomène historique et social, quantitativement et qualitativement considérable, encore insuffisamment étudié.
Dans la Suisse de l’après-guerre, la haute conjoncture économique entraîne un afflux massif de main-d’œuvre étrangère, surtout italienne. Conçue initialement comme transitoire et contingente, elle évolue en phénomène permanent, impliquant des changements sociaux majeurs. À la fin des années 1950, d'importantes structures associatives fondées par les réfugiés antifascistes, notamment les Colonie Libere Italiane (ci-après CLI), sont investies et reprises par les immigrés économiques. Ces militants restent porteurs de visions de société et de valeurs liées à l’expérience de l’antifascisme, de la résistance, de la solidarité ouvrière. A travers l’éducation à la conscience de classe, ces associations se structurent autour de pratiques qui mènent à l’affirmation de droits sociaux et politiques. Les activités sportives, culturelles, récréatives, la formation professionnelle et linguistique des ouvriers favorisent aussi le recrutement des membres. Au cours des années 60, les militants des CLI mettent en place une stratégie de pénétration dans le monde syndical suisse, manifestement xénophobe car préoccupé par le dumping salarial. Ils fondent aussi des partis politiques clandestins, des sections du Parti Communiste Italien, ce qui provoque l’expulsion du territoire suisse de certains militants. L’abolition du statut de saisonnier, qui empêche la stabilisation des migrants, la scolarisation des enfants, etc., est une des principales revendications. Pendant les « années Schwarzenbach » (1970), du nom de l'initiateur d’un mouvement xénophobe qui a fortement marqué les relations Suisses-immigrés pendant une dizaine d’années, la force associative et le pragmatisme des dirigeant-e-s produisent une prise de conscience accrue des droits à la citoyenneté des migrants. La réaction à la xénophobie se manifeste à travers des manifestations politiques et la réorganisation de toutes les associations autour d’un organisme représentatif unitaire. A la même époque, l’émancipation des femmes immigrées et la lutte contre les discriminations scolaires des jeunes apparaissent aussi dans l’agenda des CLI. L’institutionnalisation des structures issues de ce mouvement connaît des succès différenciés. Dans les années 70 se réalise l’intégration progressive de la population italienne dans les structures syndicales suisses, de premières politiques d’intégration apparaissent, surtout au niveau local, ainsi que des manifestations publiques de solidarités envers les migrant-e-s . La crise économique des années 1970, qui renforce le discours xénophobe, provoque aussi parmi les migrant-e-s le développement de groupes communautarisés autour d’un espace géographique d’origine. En forte cohésion avec le précédent associationnisme, se développe l’associationnisme régional, essentiellement pour gérer le phénomène du retour causé par les contingences économiques négatives. Au même moment, pour ceux qui restent en Suisse, désorientés par les poussées xénophobes, les associations régionales deviennent des lieux à forte référence symbolique. La revendication de l’identité culturelle exprime une solidarité ethnique mais aussi un capital culturel qui devient économique à travers l’« ethnic business » transnational des années 80 et 90.Au tournant du 20ème siècle, quelques associations de jeunes issus de la migration, les « secondos », voient le jour. Entre continuités et discontinuités avec l’associationnisme des parents, ils refusent le régionalisme, ils inventent une autre façon d’être Italien ; leur italianité contemporaine devient un plus-value identitaire. « Ni l’une ni l’autre », « une chose tierce », la recherche identitaire s’affirme, se lie avec des luttes pour la revendication de la naturalisation facilité et l’affirmation du pluralisme identitaire. Grâce à leur condition de « secondos » et leur capacité de médiation, ils sont, entre autre, présents parmi les leaders syndicaux, dans les institutions de l’intégration ou comme dirigeants d’associations de nouveaux migrants.
Cette contribution vise à montrer comment se déclinent les engagements paradoxaux de migrants qui pratiquent une citoyenneté associative dans un pays dont ils ne sont pas les citoyens, avant que le temps des naturalisations et des générations nées en Suisse ne fasse naître des ponts entre cultures. De l'antifascisme aux secondos, les engagements des citoyens s'agrègent et se structurent selon la double temporalité de la réaction à l'environnement et d'une histoire de pratiques associatives, entre continuités et adaptations.

6.5.4. Migrants, Locals: the Power of Narrative Moments in the Public Arena

Donatella Schmidt

Abstract: For decades Europe has been experiencing profound transformations which fall under the rubric of contemporary globalization: new multicultural contexts that have forced the redefinition of national narratives; the substitution of hopes and the inclusion of new histories as the iron curtain was lifted across the Continent. Often overlooked, however, is that this large scale dynamism has deep repercussions on local realities often struggling not to become strange to themselves; such repercussions are particularly visible in the public sphere and in public debates where conflicts are displayed, where migrants become the new actors on the public scene, and where new images of selfhood of both migrants and locals are constructed. Reading the ethnographical data, which draw from a north eastern Italian town and its attempts to include migrants as agents on the local scenario, in the frame of reference of citizenship no doubt clarifies some of the ways through which public debate finds expression. This framework is the visible part, where argumentation likes to linger; however, as with the tip of the iceberg, what lies beneath the surface is of equal or greater importance. Thus the framework of citizenship alone is incapable of giving us the full sense of what is happening: a reality in the process of becoming, the sense of its unfolding, political identities in construction. We believe that the performative and processual model offered by Victor Turner’s social drama concept (1974), and in particular the two phases of crisis and redressive action, allows us to tackle these questions.

6.5.5. La celebre immigrazione

Oscar Ricci

Abstract: L’obiettivo di questo intervento è analizzare come la stampa popolare e di gossip italiana (composta da giornali come Chi, Oggi, Novella 2000), rappresenti il fenomeno delle celebrità immigrate e come il pubblico percepisca e reagisca a tali rappresentazioni.
Il mondo delle celebrità ha sempre compreso star che provengono dall’estero, ultimamente però questo fenomeno si è non solo ampliato, ma ha conosciuto un interessante cambio di prospettiva da quando alcuni vip hanno iniziato a rendere il racconto della loro esperienza di immigrati una delle principali caratteristiche, se non la principale caratteristica, per cui sono conosciuti.
Il caso di Ferdi, concorrente di etnia Rom vincitore del grande fratello del 2009, è forse il più evidente, ma lo stesso fenomeno si trova nei casi di Ramona Badescu, valletta romena diventata consigliere sull’immigrazione della giunta Alemanno a Roma, o Kledi Kadiu, ballerino albanese del programma Amici.
Una delle conseguenze più rilevanti di questo fenomeno è il diffondersi di tematiche considerate importanti in una sfera culturale solitamente considerate bassa e superficiale. Ciò fa sì che questi discorsi riescano, almeno potenzialmente, a raggiungere diversi pubblici, anche non necessariamente particolarmente interessati alle questioni riguardanti l’immigrazione.
Il mondo delle celebrità è stato infatti individuato da diversi studiosi proprio come quel settore in grado di aprire forme alternative di azione collettiva. Il discorso delle celebrità è infatti spesso l’unico caso in cui certi tipi di pubblico si accostano a argomenti altrimenti totalmente ignorati.

6.5.6. Religiosity and Political Participation of Muslims in Switzerland: The Role of Civic Skills and Group Consciousness

Matteo Gianni, Marco Giugni e Noémi Michel

Abstract: This paper looks at the impact of religion on the political participation of Muslims. More specifically, it examines the impact of various indicators of religiosity on different forms of participation. We distinguish between two aspects of religion: religious practice and religious membership. Religion has been found to impinge upon political participation in different ways. The civic voluntarism approach and the social embeddedness approach both focus on the individual resources available to members in religious institutions that have a positive impact on political involvement. Other approaches focus on collective resources such as identity and group consciousness to explain the link between political involvement and religious institutions. We consider the civic skills and group consciousness as two types of resources that may arise from religious practice and membership. We model these two types of resources as two potential mechanisms linking religious practice and membership, on one hand, and political participation, on the other.
Path analysis (AMOS) is used to assess the role of civic skills and group consciousness as intervening variables between religiosity and political participation. We build three models: one for political participation (index of political activities), one for protest activities, and one for voting intention. We include in our models indicators of religious practice and membership, civic skills, group consciousness, and a number of control variables.

6.5.7. Considering the expected: weak associations, long ties and fragment access. How and why local migrant associations are prevented to be a lever for social integration

Matteo Bassoli

Abstract: The general theoretical question that inspires the article is why migrant local organisations are not capable to foster social integration and political participation in non-ethnicised societies such as Italy? In particular, Italian migrant associations have always been considered unable to play a crucial role in the field of social integration because of the crowding-out effect of autochthonous pro-migrant organisations (Caponio 2006; Pilati 2007). The general hypothesis, building on the well-known governance literature, is that in the last decades public authorities while shifting towards more participatory decision making processes in other fields (Denters and Rose 2005; Geddes 2005; Jessop 1995), did not follow the same approach for the migrant policies. In other words, we shall expect to observe a pronounced mutual isolation of public authorities and migrant organisations, for mere political will (Zincone 2006).
The article, using a network analysis approach, will depict the general situation created by the migrant associations in Milan to show that more factors are at game in the process of reciprocal isolation. Indeed, if the political support is completely absent, as characteristic of non-ethnicised societies, the associational weakness has to be tracked back to two different aspects: on the one hand the geografic sub-networks – clique-like – of migrants associations themselves, on the other hand the multiple and confunding accesses that public authorities grants to these associations. The migrant civil society as a whole is thus isolated from public authorites unable to fully empower its constituency and to promote politic activation in a context of small political opportunities structure.

6.6.1. The Failure of the Participatory Democracy in the Czech Republic

Magdaléna Hadjiisky

Abstract: Following the breakdown of the Soviet system, the new East-European elites faced the problem of defining and building democratic institutions. This problem was not a purely institutional one, however. During the transformation process, different conceptions of democracy appear and often become critical issues for political competition. Based on the Czech case, this article aims to understand how and why one particular conception of democracy becomes dominant during a process of regime change.
Personified by the two ‘Vaclavs’ in the Czech political arena (Havel and Klaus), divergent perspectives on democracy exist in the Czech Republic, having concrete consequences for the practice of politics. These conceptions (referred to here as ‘participatory’ and ‘majoritarian’) dramatically differ in their perception of the role of the citizen in a liberal democracy.
Based on an in-depth field research, this contribution will explore the sociological conditions of the emergence of these two different conceptions of democracy in order to understand the failure of the participatory model of democracy with respect to the alternative, majoritarian, one. The particular (even if contradictory) part played by the local activists of the Civic Forum as agents of the majoritarian conception of democracy will be shown and related to what I find to be the oligarchic tendencies of the openness of the organization to “every citizen of willingness”.

6.6.2. The “Asamblea Popular de los Pueblos de Oaxaca” (APPO). Hegemonic crisis, corporatism, authoritarianism, resistance, and the dispute for democracy in Mexico today

Berenice Ortega Bayona

Abstract: In 2006, a broad popular social movement developed in Oaxaca, Mexico to demand the resignation of the state’s Governor. Although the movement revolved around this specific demand, its old and new forms of protest and political proposals evidenced more profound and historical demands against authoritarianism and social and economic marginalisation in the state. Originally it was sparked by a teacher’s strike, but it expanded into diverse sectors of society from peasant and labour unions; human and indigenous rights, alternative media, and feminist NGOs; catholic base solidarity groups; popular neighbourhood associations; to youth anarchist and graffiti artist collectives. The emergence of APPO –and its eventual repression- can be explained in the context of neoliberal policies that have transformed and reduced the post-1910 revolutionary social pact established with popular sectors throughout the country over the past 20 years. However, the various characterisations of APPO (rebellion/social movement/autonomous movement/commune/class conflict/anti-authoritarian movement/movement of movements/network) led me to explore more historical questions such as: the continuity and adaptation of corporatist and clientelist relationships between Oaxacan popular sectors and authorities amidst a questioned “transition to democracy” process in recent years; and how structural/institutional inequality and marginalisation in Oaxaca -preceding neoliberal reforms- have shaped these historical complex contentious relationships as well. This paper is based on my PhD research on APPO, which associates this case to the national context of a crisis of legitimacy, the historical development of hegemonic relationships and corporatism in Mexico and Oaxaca over the past 30 years, and the role that social movements have and are playing in these transformations. A social history and brief life history approach was taken to explore the influence that traditional forms of political organisation (i.e. class and community solidarity, political parties and unions) continue to have for social protest reflected in APPO’s organised sectors and demands. But it allowed me to find how APPO challenged this dynamic as well, through the distinct and newer experiences of protest that evolved seeking alternative political practices and spaces of autonomy and horizontal democracy. Furthermore, I will discuss how these different visions, objectives and forms of political organisation -that later sparked important and determining divisions within APPO- have reflected the different expectations of democracy within popular struggles; the survival of authoritarian, clientelist and conservative reactions; and a disputed hegemony in Mexico today.

6.6.3. Political Crisis and Intra-Movement Competition: The Three Ruptures of the Spanish Anarchist Movement

Eduardo Romanos

Abstract: This paper seeks to expand our view of the relationship between political crisis and social movements through a comparison of the most important ruptures in the Spanish anarchist movement in the 20th century: 1931, 1945 and 1979. The three ruptures occurred during transitional processes in the context of an opening of political opportunities coming after a period of repression. The first rupture took place a few months after the foundation of the Second Spanish Republic (April 14th, 1931), the second occurred in France among Spanish anarchists exiled after the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) and the third took place during the process of political change referred to as “the Spanish transition to democracy” (1975-1982). The advent of the Second Republic, the liberation of Paris from the Nazis in the summer of 1944 and the death of the dictator Francisco Franco on November 20th, 1975 opened new, previously unknown opportunities for political and social mobilization in their respective contexts. These “transformative events” represented turning points in the structure of political opportunities which produced a dramatic increment in the level of mobilization. The transitional processes activated brought with them contentious waves in which various social and political groups perceived new opportunities for collective action and as a result intensified their mobilization, expanded their demands, and recruited more participants for their campaigns and protests. Political crises coincided with the transition of the anarchist movement from a period of latency to one of greater visibility that resulted in increasing intra-movement competition and eventual ruptures.
For the purpose of its comparative analysis, this paper employs a multi-level perspective which relates the internal dynamics of the movement with its evolution over time and broad social change. It does this by examining the relationship between cycles of mobilization, phases of latency and visibility and the impacts the movement had on itself. Observing the evolution of strategic conflict over time, some scholars have located it in phases of reduction in mobilization potential, a decline that internal ruptures may themselves accelerate. The history of Spanish anarchism partly contradicts this argument as two of the three ruptures examined in this paper, those of 1931 and 1945, took place in phases of growth in the movement and intensification of mobilizations. A number of studies have also looked at the importance of latency phases in the continuity of social movements, but insufficient attention has been paid to the transition from these phases to those of visibility, and even less to the relationship between this transition and what occurs outside the movement, at the level of the political context. Furthermore, while the model of alternation between latency and visibility has usually been applied to new social movements, this paper analyzes it in what might be described as a movement of “the old sort”, as well as its relationship with the structure of political opportunities. Finally, this paper sees the ruptures in the Spanish anarchist movement as internal political effects arising from power struggles between factions during transitional processes, but also in cultural terms as a consequence of changes to values, sensibilities and interest during the period of latency.
The principal conclusions of this comparative analysis are: i) the delocalization of the intensification of strategic competition between radicals and moderates in a specific phase of the life of the social movements, and ii) the diverse range of factors which at a variety of levels flow together in the processes of factionalism. Although the three ruptures occurred during the transition from a period of latency to one of visibility their localization in time is different. It is also important to stress the role played by internal tensions in periods previous to and very different from those of the split as well as the intervention of factors external to the movement in the acceleration of the conflicts.

6.6.4. Political Regimes and the Trajectory of Labour Movements

Andrew Richards

Abstract: “It is not that labor movements were such marginal actors in the politics of democratic transition, but rather that they were subsequently marginalized under the new democratic regimes” (Collier 1999: 197).
The end-point of Ruth Collier’s critical reappraisal of the literature on transitions to democracy in Western Europe and South America forms the point of departure for my own study: what happens to workers’ movements when authoritarianism gives way to democracy? While Collier raises a highly pertinent issue, I differentiate my approach from hers in two ways. First, I contest the implied inevitability of labour’s marginalization - in fact, the fate of post-authoritarian labour movements varies considerably. Second, in the vast bulk of the transitions literature, labour is treated as one amongst several other possible actors (social movements, political elites, parties, the military) which may or may not play a role in the demise of an authoritarian regime and the subsequent transition to democracy. I am interested in the reverse relationship; that is, how political regimes (authoritarian and democratic) affect the behaviour and power – or what I term the “trajectory” – of labour movements. Specifically, I argue that authoritarian regimes differ greatly in their strategies towards labour movements, and that the varying nature of relations between the authoritarian state and labour will affect the latter’s trajectory in post-authoritarian conditions.
I develop and defend this argument by, first, reviewing the contrasts between, on the one hand, the decline and stagnation of organized labour in the contemporary advanced capitalist democracies and, on the other hand, the upward trajectory of labour movements in certain developing countries where – precisely as a result of the struggle against authoritarianism – the concept of “social movement unionism” has become the object of considerable scholarly attention (see, for example, Adler and Webster 1995; Buchanan and Nicholls 2003; Keck 1992, Koo 2001; Lambert 1990; Lee 2007; Silver 2003; Von Holdt 2002; West 1997). Under authoritarianism, in the absence of political parties, organized labour may potentially emerge as the leading source of opposition to the regime both within and beyond the workplace, often assuming in the process the characteristics of a broad and popular social movement rather than a traditional trade union (COSATU in South Africa is a prime example). Yet it is clear that authoritarian strategies of containment have varied considerably, from outright repression of any form of independent labour organization to more, or less, subtle attempts at cooptation. I therefore examine authoritarian regimes’ possible strategies towards organized labour, and how exactly the configuration of state-labour relations under authoritarianism affects both the role of labour in the struggle for democracy and its trajectory once the transition to democracy has taken place. I do so by presenting a three-fold typology of state-labour relations under authoritarianism: 1) Totalitarian systems in which organized labour is essentially a part of the state apparatus; 2) Regimes which repress outright any form of independent labour organization and activity; 3) Hybrid cases of state-backed labour movements in competition with independent labour movements. In empirical terms, I examine the effects of these different configurations of state-labour relations under authoritarianism on the post-authoritarian trajectory of workers’ movements via an analysis of the Communist regimes as a whole, apartheid-era South Africa, and the authoritarian regimes of Park Chung Hee and Chun Doo Huan in South Korea.

6.6.5. Politics as dialectical movement of democratization and de-democratization. Reflections on Etienne Balibar

Pierre Sauvetre

Abstract: The aim of this intervention is to propose a definition of politics understood as a relation or relational process between social movements – more exactly popular politics – and State. Our conclusion would be to characterize this relational process as a dialectical movement of democratization and de-democratization, underlying both the indispensable role of popular politics for the democratization of the State and the contingency and precariousness of this effect due to external and internal contradictions that popular politics as to deal with. We will try to describe this movement through Etienne Balibar’s thought, picking up examples among French social movements of the twentieth century.
We shall first recognize the democratic impact of popular politics on States, whose functioning is in itself oligarchic (Balibar, 2010b, and Rancière, 2005). Popular politics is consequently a condition to the democratization of the State and its absence or its withdrawal engenders the de-democratization of it. Balibar, who is agree on this point with Nicos Poulantzas, thinks that popular class struggles are inside the State – and not outside, as Althusser may have thought – and determine its strategic configuration (Balibar, 2010b, and Poulantzas, 1978). It has always existed therefore an historical link between the intensity of popular class struggles and the degree of development of political democracy, including representative democracy, but with especially the construction of the Welfare or social State, for which the struggles of the Popular Front of 1936 could be a paradigmatic example. That being said, the problem becomes to understand why the link between popular fights and the democratization of the State has been broken since approximately thirty years. Balibar formulates this problem in terms of the crisis of the national social State (Balibar, 1992 et 1997a) suggesting that the democratic effect of popular politics on States was before inscribed and determined in the specific political form of the nation. Under the consequences of the new phase of overexploitation corresponding to the process of globalisation, massive social inequalities are reproduced not only between centre and its periphery but within the national States. The context of a structural violence affects the possibility of organizing popular politics, except under the form of nationalist movements excluding immigrant workers, who are perceived as threatening social equilibrium (Balibar and Wallerstein, 1988). That reveals the contradictions of the national social State, the nation being in the same time the condition of the democratization of the State by providing a framework for the inclusion of popular politics but also its limit by causing effects of de-democratization (nationalism and racism) according to the variable historical context. Popular politics is therefore determined by its heteronomy and its contingency (Balibar 1997b), i.e. the external conditions in which it emerges and which explain the democratic or undemocratic effects on States. These are doubled by the difficulties to contain violence which appears not as an external but this time as an internal contradiction in the exercise of popular political action, producing undemocratic effects too (Balibar, 2010a). The different workers movements since 1995 to defend public services and the uprising of the French “banlieues” in 2005 would be examples of such difficulties. The invention of a transnational citizenship capable to overtake the difficulties of national social State becomes urgent to redefine the democratic conditions of popular politics. Politics, as a relation between popular politics and States is thus marked by a dialectical movement of democratization and de-democratization, for which the analysis of conjunctures is always necessary for being able to consider the characteristics of the various, precarious and contingent consequences of popular politics.