Documents Andretta, Massimiliano 4 results

"This book analyses protests against the Great Recession in the European periphery. While social movements have long been considered as children of affluent times - or at least of times of opening opportunities - these protests defy such expectations, developing instead in moments of diminishing opportunities in both the economic and the political realms. Can social movement studies still be useful to understanding these movements of troubled times? The authors offer a positive answer to this question, although specify the need to bridge contentious politics with other fields, including political economy. They highlight differences in the social movements' strength and breadth and attempt to understand them in terms of three sets of dimensions: a) the specific characteristics of the socio-economic crisis and its consequences in terms of mobilization potential; b) the political reactions to it, in what we can define as political opportunities and threats; and c) the social movement cultures and structures that characterize each country. The book discusses these topics through a contextualized analysis of anti-austerity protest in the European periphery."

" Drawing both on social movement studies and labour studies, this article investigates the kind of people who join trade union-staged marches during the current crisis, looking at the presence of (politicized) grievances, collective identity and the embeddedness of mobilization. Data were taken from surveys conducted during 13 marches organized by the main trade unions in five European countries. They show that participants in union-staged demonstrations in countries in which a corporatist model dominates and trade unions have a tradition of business unionism (Belgium and the Netherlands) are characterized by higher political trust, more moderate positions on the left–right continuum and stronger organizational ties. On the other hand, in countries in which unions are less institutionally recognized and with a tradition of oppositional unionism (Italy and Spain), participants in union-staged demonstrations are more mistrustful of politics, located more to the left and rely more upon informal social networks to mobilize. The United Kingdom falls between these two poles."

"This article aims to shed light on the processes and conditions that enable workers to maintain employment stability and wage security while reorganizing production to effectively address the ongoing climate crisis. By thoroughly analysing a case of workers' mobilization within the automotive sector at the GKN plant in Campi Bisenzio (Florence—Italy), we underline the conditions under which workers may support a transformative ecological transition. Their campaign has rapidly become emblematic of a national movement that integrates social and environmental concerns. Through qualitative analysis of social media content, self-produced documents, and in-depth interviews, we illustrate how these workers, by stepping into a gap left by both the state and the market, have advocated for a credible and radical bottom-up transition plan. This plan challenges the power imbalances within the production system and positions workers and the local community as key stakeholders in plant management, as well as guardians of the local territory and its environment. Their organizational model and identity, strategic alliances, and the specific territorial context in which they operate are conducive to this endeavour."