A Multilevel Study of Social Movement Activity in the European Union

• In Event: 463 - Section on Collective Behavior and Social Movements Roundtables (one-hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 17. Social Movement Participation and Civic Engagement

Abstract

Scholars have long been interested in the factors that determine social movement activity, both at the individual and regional level. Numerous theories have emerged over the years to explain how and why people come to participate in social or political activism, but there are currently three main shortcomings in the literature. First, most examinations of social movement activity focus on one or a small handful of movements in one national context, so our understanding of social movements in a comparative framework is limited. Second, activism is clearly affected both by the individual characteristics of people and the regional context in which people reside. Studying both of these simultaneously requires a multilevel approach, which is not common the study of social movements. Third, few studies have considered how urban status affects this process at both the individual and regional level. This paper starts to address these shortcomings with a multilevel analysis of the determinants of social movement activism in the contemporary European Union, the site of major protest activity in recent years. Using the 5th wave of the European Social Survey, I test competing theories of social movement activism in a sample of 20 countries. Results indicate that the level of resources and urban status best predict individual activism. Cities provide a better environment for social movements, even in areas that should otherwise struggle to produce activism. I conclude with a discussion of the implications for urban theory and future social movement research.

Author

• Matthew Schoene, The Ohio State University