15251

SoSe 21: (METH) Protest and democracy: New tensions in times of pandemic

Philippe Joly

Comments

There is a fundamental tension between protest and democracy. On the one hand, democracies benefit from an engaged citizenry. On the other hand, protest has the potential to destabilize democratic institutions. This seminar explores this tension from different angles. In the first part of the seminar, we will get to know important texts in the fields of social movements and political participation. We will start our journey by going back in history to look into the common origins of Western democracies and contemporary forms of protest. We will also cover different theoretical approaches that relate protest to democratic institutions and discuss different methods to collect protest data. In the following weeks, we will move on to more specific topics such as protest and democratic breakdown, the normalization of protest, radicalization, and the interaction between protest and parties. In the second part of the seminar, we will apply the tools acquired in the previous weeks to examine recent protests during the COVID-19 pandemic. These protests present democracy with new challenges. We will focus on demonstrations against lockdowns in Germany that have brought together a heterogeneous coalition of actors flanked by right-wing extremists. This part of the seminar will revolve around more applied activities, combining survey and protest event data, to analyze recent protests during the pandemic. close