Global Injustice Symbols and Social Movements examines our collective moral and political maps, dotted with symbols shaped by political dynamics beyond their local or national origin and offers the first systematic sociological treatment of this important phenomenon.

Traditionally, scholars have traced the origins and characteristics of social movements to purely local and national determinants. Until recently, the global dimension of such movements has been relatively neglected. This book takes the innovative step of linking social movements to international political and economic crises, identifying the general features of industrial and developing societies that predispose them toward social movements of particular kinds. The book consists of three parts. views the origins of the European working-class collective movement of 1848 from a variety of perspectives. reexamines the debate on the moral economy of the peasant in terms of "peasant nonrevolt" and global political economy. considers the emergence of fascist and populist movements in Western Europe and East Asia in their intersocietal dimensions. Each of the cases has been selected for its strategic contribution to an understanding of the occurrence of social movements in relation to large-scale societal crises. Collectively, the essays underscore the methodological utility of situating such movements in a global context.

Social movements around the world have used a wide variety of protest tactics to bring about enormous social changes, influencing cultural arrangements, public opinion, and government policies in the process. This concise yet in-depth primer provides a broad overview of theoretical issues in the study of social movements, illustrating key concepts with a series of case studies. It offers engaging analyses of the protest cycle of the 1960s, the women's movement, the LGBT movement, the environmental movement, right-wing movements, and global social justice movements. Author Suzanne Staggenborg examines these social movements in terms of their strategies and tactics, the organizational challenges they faced, and the roles that the mass media and counter-movements played in determining their successes and failures.

New Religious Movements (NRMs) can involve vast numbers of followers and in many cases are radically changing the way people understand and practice religion and spirituality. Moreover, many are having a profound impact on the form and content of mainstream religion. The Encyclopedia of New Religious Movements provides uniquely global coverage of the phenomenon, with entries on over three-hundred movement from almost every country in the world. Coverage includes movements that derive from the major religions of the world and to neo-traditional movements, movements often overlooked in the study of NRMs. In addition to the coverage of particular movements there are also entries on topics, themes, key thinkers and key ideas, for example the New Age Movement, Neo-Paganism, New Religion and gender, NRMs and cyberspace, NRMs and the law, the Anti-Cult Movement, Swedenborg, Jung, Teilhard de Chardin, Lovelock, Gurdjieff, al-Banna, Qutb. The marked global approach and comprehensiveness of the encyclopedia enable an appreciation of the innovative energy of NRMs, of their extraordinary diversity, and the often surprising ways in which they can propagate geographically. The most ambitions publication of its sort, the Encyclopedia of New Religious Movements is a major addition to the reference literature for students and researchers of the field in religious studies and the social sciences. Entries are cross-referenced with short bibliographies for further reading. There is a full index.

In light of increasing evidence demonstrating the irreparable damage humans have inflicted on the planet, some have adopted a defeatist attitude toward environmental crises. Local Environmental Movements: A Comparative Study of the United States and Japan illustrates how local groups in both Japan and the United States are refusing to surrender the earth to a depleted and polluted fate. Drawing on a series of case studies, a team of scholars from across the world discusses the efforts by grassroots organizations to promote sustainable development that respects the need for environmental protection and cultural preservation.

A long-standing characteristic of the series is publishing new theoretical and empirical work that connects previously disparate sub-fields. This volume continues that tradition as the papers join social movements research with organizational theory, new institutionalism, strategic action fields, and nonviolent action.

The two-volume Oxford Companion to Comparative Politics fills a gap in scholarship on an increasingly important field within Political Science. Comparative Politics, the discipline devoted to the politics of other countries or peoples, has been steadily gaining prominence as a field of study, allowing politics to be viewed from a wider foundation than a concentration on domestic affairs would permit. Comparativists apply various theories and concepts to analyze the similarities and differences between political units, using the results of their research to develop causalities and generalizations. Each of these theories and outcomes are thoroughly defined in the Companion, as are major resultant conclusions, those comparativists who have influenced the field in significant ways, and politicians whose administrations have shaped the evaluation of contrasting governments. Approximately 200 revised and updated articles from the Oxford Companion to Politics of the World would serve as a foundation for the set, while over 100 new entries would thoroughly examine the field in a lasting, more theoretical than current-event-based, way. New entries cover such topics as failed states, Grand Strategies, and Soft Power; important updates include such countries as China and Afghanistan and issues like Capital Punishment, Gender and Politics, and Totalitarianism. Country entries include the most significant nations to permit a focus on non time-sensitive analysis. In addition, 25 1,000-word interpretive essays by notable figures analyze the discipline, its issues and accomplishments. Collectively, entries promote deeper understanding of a field that is often elusive to non-specialists.

As the first and only book in any language on contemporary women’s movements in Hungary, this groundbreaking study focuses on the role of women’s activism in a society where women are not yet adequately represented by established parties and political institutions. Drawing on eyewitness accounts of meetings and protests, as well as first-person interviews with leading female activists, Katalin Fábián examines the interactions between women’s groups in Hungary and studies the unique brand of democracy they have forged in postcommunist Eastern Europe. Through her analysis, she demonstrates how democratization and globalization—with their attendant range of challenges and opportunities—have led women to redefine public-private divides.

The concept of networks and the techniques of social network analysis have each assumed increasing importance in social science in recent years, not least in relation to the analysis of collective action and particularly social movements. This timely collection offers a fascinating glimpse into the state of the art. Each chapter uses network analysis to tackle a different question regarding the nature and dynamics of social movement activity, and each reflects upon the advantages and limitations of the method for its purposes. The case studies focused upon are drawn from a variety of national contexts, both contemporary and historical, and both the methods used and the uses to which they are put are no less diverse. A must have book for anybody interested in social movement networks and contemporary ways of analysing them. This book was published as a special issue of Social Movement Studies.

Globalised neo-liberalism has produced multiple crises – social, ecological, political. In the past, crises of global order have generated large-scale social transformations, and the current crises likewise hold a transformative promise. Social movements become a crucial barometer, in signalling both the demise and rise of political formations and programs. Elite strategies, framed as crisis management, create their own disordering side-effects. Experiments in movement strategy gain greater significance, as do contending elite efforts at repressing, managing or displacing the fall-out. In this book we investigate both movements and management in the face of crisis, taking crisis and unanticipated consequences as a normal state-of-play. The book enquires into the winners and losers from crisis, and investigates the movement-management nexus as it unfolds in particular localities as well as in broader contexts. The book deals with some of the most pressing conflicts of our time, and produces a range of theoretical insights: the ubiquity of crisis is seen as not only a hallmark of social life, but a way into a different kind of social analysis. This book was published as a special issue of Globalizations.