Democratic Protests and New Forms of Collective Action (eBook)

Following a dialogic and interdisciplinary approach, this book highlights changes in the concept and action of disobedience, presenting a theoretical framework and applied case studies.

Disobedience has traditionally been played out through collective actions and protests which configure and propose alternative social scenarios to the status quo. Today, in a changing socio-historical context, disobedience represents a mode of political participation and a form of an active citizenship attempt to correct authoritarian drifts. Furthermore, it often highlights social problems and morally controversial issues. Disobedience is not only a right granted to the individual within democratic systems and/or duty imposed in the interest of society in a pro-social sense, i.e. defense of human rights and a tendency towards equalization, but it also became an alternative process, often symbolic, of construction of reality.

The book focuses on a) reconstructing the concept of social disobedience and the field's state of the art from an innovative, contemporary, theoretical, and conceptual perspective and b) analyzing its phenomenology within a specific territorial horizon, with the objective of uncovering social and pro-social aspects related to today's forms of disobedience. The book therefore will appeal to students, scholars, and researchers of contemporary political theory, political science, democratization studies, social movement studies, criminology, legal theory, and moral philosophy.

Liana M. Daher is a Full Professor of Sociology at the University of Catania (Italy), and Chair of the PhD program 'Educational Processes, Theoretical-Transformational Models and Research Methods Applied to the Territory'. Her main research fields are social movements and collective behaviour, migration, and multicultural citizenship. She has taken part, both as principal investigator and member, in several national and European research projects. Currently, she serves as a scientific coordinator for the Horizon 2020 Project PARTICIPATION. Daher is past-president of the research committee RC48 (Social Movements, Collective Action and Social Change) of the International Sociological Association and Editor-in-chief of two book series ('Disembedding', by Aracne, and 'Sociological Challenges', by Mimesis International). She has authored books, book chapters, and articles in Italian and international academic outlets.