European University Institute

Department of Political and Social Sciences/ Department of History and

Civilization

Social Movements and Political Violence in Europe:

Contemporary Debates and Historical Developments
Donatella Della Porta and Heinz-Gerhard Haupt
(register with: Eva Breivik – eva.breivik@iue.it)

Tuesdays, 15-17 h.
Badia Fiesolana: Seminar room 2

This interdisciplinary seminar will address some of the central concepts of sociological and
historical research on social movements, focusing on collective repertoires of action. The ten
sessions are dedicated to different historical forms of political violence, but will also refer to
different concepts and approaches in the research on social movements. In particular, we
shall discuss the social and political context that moves movements’ strategic choices, their
ideological and organizational resources, as well as the activists values and motivations.
Each session will be opened by an introductory talk, followed by an open discussion which
will move from the assigned readings. Particular attention will be paid to the methods
available in research on social movements and political violence.

Session 1. October 12:

Social movements: state of the art and research agenda
Donatella Della Porta and Heinz-Gerhard Haupt

This introductory session will be devoted to the main approaches in the study of social
movements. The sociological approaches to movements and movements’ repertoires
(collective behaviour; resource mobilization; new social movement, political
opportunities) will be presented and illustrated with historical examples.

Readings:
Della Porta, Donatella and Mario Diani (eds.), Social Movements, Oxford, Blackwell,
1999, chapter 1.

Tilly, Charles, Social Movements as Politics, in Charles Tilly, Social Movements,

1768-2004, Boulder, Paradigm Publishers, 2004, pp. 1-15.

Session 2. October 19:

Political violence: approaches, debates and research agenda
Donatella Della Porta and Heinz-Gerhard Haupt
This session will be devoted to the development of unconventional forms of political
participation. Some main approaches to political violence shall be critically analysed:
from macro-sociological approaches, focusing on the political and social systems, to
„meso“-organizational approaches, singling out some characteristics of violent
groups , and „micro“-approaches, discussing militants’ identities and careers.

Readings:
Merkl, Peter H., Approaches to the Study of Political Violence, in Peter H. Merkl
(eds.), Political Violence and Terror. Motifs and Motivations, Berkeley, University of
California Press, 1986, pp. 19-58.
Mayer, Arno J., Violence, in: Arno J. Mayer, Furies. Violence and Terror in the
French and Russian revolutions, Princeton 2ooo,71-92.
Della Porta, Donatella and Mario Diani (eds.), Social Movements, Oxford, Blackwell,
1999, chapter 7.

Additional readings:
Eckstein, Harry. 1980. "Theoretical Approaches to Explaining Collective Political
Violence." In Ted R. Gurr, ed. Handbook of Political Conflict. New York: Free
Press:135-66.

Session 3. October 26:

Political violence as “bargaining by riots”
Heinz-Gerhard Haupt
This session will compare riots in various historical periods. Part of a pre-modern
action repertoire, food riots have developed also in recent time (for instance, against
the politics of global adjustment) as a form of pressure on specific aims.

Readings:
Tilly, Charles, From Mobilization to Revolution, Reading, Addison-Wesley, 1978,
chapter 6 and 7.

Eric Hobsbawm, The machine breakers, in: Past and Present 1,1952,57-70.

Additional readings:
Gamson, William A. 1975. The Strategy of Social Protest. Homewood, Ill.: Dorsey.

Walton, John and David Seddon, 1994, Free Markets and Food Riots. The politics of
Global Adjustment, Oxford, Blackwell, pp. 23-54

Piven, F. Fox, and Richard Cloward. 1977. Poor People Movements. When They
Succeed, How They Fail. New York: Vintage.

Session 4. WEDNESDAY November 3 NB! Note different day!! Same time/place

Protest policing and political violence
Donatella Della Porta and Herbert Reiter (Florence)
Political repression is a variable often used by historians and sociologists to explain
revolutions as well as less dramatic forms of political contention. In this session, we
shall present causes and effects of different strategies of protest policing, looking at
different historical periods (from post-war Italy to the global justice movement of the
years 2000).

Readings:
Della Porta, Donatella and Herbert Reiter, The Policing of Protest in Western
Democracies, in Donatella Della Porta and Herbert Reiter (eds.), The Policing of
Protest, Minneapolis, Minnesota University Press, 1998, pp. 1-32 (Introduction) and
pp. 228-52 (Chapter 10).

Reiter, Herbert, Police and Public Order in Italy, 1944-1948: The Case of Florence,
in Donatella Della Porta and Herbert Reiter (eds.), The Policing of Protest,
Minneapolis, Minnesota University Press, 1998, pp. 143-165.

Additional readings:
della Porta, Donatella and Herbert Reiter, Polizia e protesta, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2004.

Session 5. November 9:
Dynamics of political violence: the fascist violence in the inner war period
Sven Reichardt ( Konstanz)
Right-wing violence (from Nazi-period to contemporary racism) has been often
interpreted as an effect of social deprivation. Different historical examples will be
used to discuss the interaction of social strains and political dynamics in the evolution
of political violence from the extreme Right.

Readings:
Richard Bessel, Political Violence and the Rise of Nazism. The Storm Troopers in
Eastern Germany, 1925-1934, Yale 1984, chap.

Heitmeyer, Wilhelm, Right-wing Extremist Violence, in Wilhelm Heitmeyer and John

Hagan (eds), International Handbook of Violence Research, Dordrecht, Kluwer, 2003,
pp. 399-436 (also in German: Internationales Handbuch der Gewaltforschung,
Westdeutscher Verlag)

Additional readings:
Bjorgo, Tore (ed.), Terror from the Extreme Right, London, Frank Cass, 1995

Session 6. November 16:

Dynamics of escalation: patterns of radicalization in political activism
Donatella Della Porta and Heinz-Gerhard Haupt
Social movement studies stressed the role of the activists’ framing activities in the
“social construction” of the external reality. In this session, we will analyse the
collective history of the ‘68 movement in various European countries on the basis of
life histories of militants.

Readings:
Della Porta, Donatella, Social Movements, Political Violence and the State, New York,
Cambridge University Press, 1995, chapters 6 and 7.
Additional readings
Fraser, Ronald, ed., 1968. A Student Generation in Revolt. New York, Pantheon
Books, 1988.

Passerini, Luisa, Autoritratto di gruppo, Firenze, Giunti, 1988.

Session 7. November 23:

From movement organizations to underground sects: organizational dynamics and
terrorism in the 1970s
Donatella Della Porta and Heinz-Gerhard Haupt
Research on social movements has stressed the role of organizations in mobilizing
resources and making strategic choices. This session will focus on the organizational
dynamics that lead political groups in the underground, with particular attention to
left-wing political terrorism in Italy and Germany, but also USA and Japan.

Readings:
Della Porta, Donatella, Social Movements, Political Violence and the State, New York,
Cambridge University Press, 1995, chapters 4 and 5.

Additional readings:
Baeyer-Katte, Wanda von, Dieter Claessens, Hubert Feger, and Friedhelm Neidhardt,
Gruppenprozesse. Opladen: Westdeutscher, 1982.

Session 8. November 30:

Ethnic and religious movements and political violence
Donatella dellt Porta and Heinz-Gerhard Haupt
Ethnic identities are based on “imagined community”. The role of national myths will
be discussed in this session as a basis for the politicization of territorial cleavages, but
also for the escalation of some conflicts around ethnic and religious identities.
Research on the Basque and Irish cases will be taken as a point of departure for our
analysis.

Readings:
Waldmann, Peter, Ethnic and Sociorevolutionary Terrorism: A Comparison of
Structure, in Donatella Della Porta (ed.), Social Movements and Violence:
Participation in Underground Organizations, Greenwich, JAI Press, 1992, pp. 237-
254.

Bergmann, Werner et.al.,,Introduction, in: C.Hoffmann et.al. (eds.), Exclusionary

violence. Antisemitic Riots in Modern German History, Ann Arbor 2002, 1- 21

Bergmann, Werner, Exclusionary Riots: Some Theoretical Considerations, in: ibd.,

161-183

Additional readings:
White, Robert W., Provisional Irish Republicans. An Oral and Interpretative History,
Westport, Greenwood Press, 1993.
Wieviorka, Michel, Société et terrorisme, Paris, Fayard, 1988 (also available in
English, The Making of Terrorism, Chicago, the University of Chicago Press).

Session 9. December 7
Violence, non-violence and the global justice movement
Donatella Della Porta
Contemporary movements are mainly non-violent, relying however upon various
forms of direct action (including civil disobedience). In this session, we shall explain
the innovation in the repertoire and communication strategy of the global justice
movement, by looking in particular at the development of alternative “public spheres”.
The use of Internet will be discussed in this context.
Readings:
Della Porta, Donatella et al, No Global, New Global, Minneapolis, Minnesota
University Press, forthcoming, chapters 1 and 4.

Chickering, Roger, Imperial Germany and a World without War: The Peace
Movement and German Society, 1892-18914, Princeton 1975, chap.
Additional readings:
Jordan, Tim, Activism! Direct Action, Hacktivism and the Future of Society, London,
Reaktion Books, 2002 (also available in Italian, Elèuthera editrice, 2003).

Session 10. December 14

Research agenda for political violence and social movements
The concluding session will bring together, with the help of invited speakers, the
various streams of studies discussed during the seminar, designing an interdisciplinary
agenda for future research.

Readings:
Della Porta, Donatella, Social Movements, Political Violence and the State, New York,
Cambridge University Press, 1995, chapter 8.

Additional readings:
Della Porta, Donatella and Sidney Tarrow (eds.), Transnational Movements and
Global Activism, Rowman and Littlefield, 2004, forthcoming.