Spreading Protest
Social Movements in Times of Crisis

Which elements do the Arab Spring, the Indignados and Occupy Wall Street have in common How do they differ What do they share with social movements of the past This book discusses the recent wave of global mobilisations from an unusual angle, explaining what aspects of protests spread from one country to another, how this happened, and why diffusion occurred in certain contexts but not in others. In doing this, the book casts light on the more general mechanisms of protest diffusion in contemporary societies, explaining how mobilisations travel from one country to another and, also, from past to present times. Bridging different fields of the social sciences, and covering a broad range of empirical cases, this book develops new theoretical perspectives.



'This rich, punchy volume is the best overview yet of the extraordinary wave of movements that began in Iceland in 2008 and exploded around the world in 2011. It goes at the protests from many angles, but it especially shows how the movements are both transnational and yet very national at one and the same time, learning from each other and yet inventing their own paths.'

James M Jasper

City University of New York



'In the wake of the Arab revolutions', write Jrme E Roos and Leonidas Oikonomakis in their contribution to this book, 'a wave of popular protest washed across the globe: from the leafy squares of the Mediterranean to the concrete heart of the global financial empire at Wall Street, and later from the Bosphorus to Brazil, people suddenly started taking to the streets everywhere.' Was this an integrated social movement with expressions in different places A set of unconnected campaigns that only appeared to be integrated because they occurred around the same time Or were they something in between In this rich and challenging volume, Donatella della Porta, Alice Mattoni and their collaborators interrogate the transnational dimensions of the events of 2011 and find a high degree of coherence in them, despite their broad diversity and the heterogeneity of their settings. There were striking similarities in these movements: their response to the global financial and economic crisis; the degree to which they directly challenged elites; their common use of the tactic of the camp-out in public space. Most enticing was what della Porta, in her contribution, calls 'Learning Democracy - the transnational and cross-time diffusion of organisational repertoires'. The heady days of the indignados, the Arab Spring, and Occupy Wall Street are gone, but the lessons those movements pose to theories of contentious politics are advanced in this important book.'

Sidney Tarrow

Department of Government, Cornell University

Author of The New Transnational Activism



'This empirically rich and theoretically innovative comparative volume interrogates the recent transnational wave of anti-austerity and pro-democracy mobilisations, reflecting thoughtfully on the nature of the transnational dimension in these current mobilisations in relation to the former wave of protests against global capitalism. The chapters shed light on the complex and multi-levelled mechanisms of protest diffusion - what were the ideas that travelled, how and why the protests occurred in such different contexts across time and space, and why they did not occur in other contexts. The volume makes a major contribution to the literature on diffusion in social movements, inviting readers to critically assess the traditional models of diffusion. Essential reading for social movement researchers, students and general readers interested in the phenomenon of transnational protest.'

Abby Peterson

Department of Sociology and Work Science

University of Gothenburg