In their „Radicalization and deradicalization in transnational social movements: a relative and multi-level model of repertoire change“ (International Dissidence Working Paper 1/2016),  Priska Daphi and Felix Anderl present a new model for researching repertoire change in transnational social movements:

While repertoires are a common concept in social movement studies, little is known about how changes in repertoires occur. When do activists change protest tactics? Why do some innovations stick and others do not? This conceptual paper proposes a relative and multi-level approach to analysing changes in repertoires addressing shortcomings in existing research on radicalization and social movement repertoires. Focussing on transnational activism we propose, on the one hand, to define radicalization and deradicalization as processes of change relative to existing repertoires, which do not necessarily include violence. On the other hand, we argue drawing on examples from the Global Justice Movement that these processes are crucially shaped by the interplay of different factors at the local, national, and transnational level.  Processes of radicalization and deradicalization depend on the combination of factors such as opportunity structures, protest cycles, relational dynamics, and political learning at these three levels.

Download here.

© EISA 2015

At the 9th Pan-European Conference on International Relations: The Worlds of Violence, organized by the European International Studies Association (EISA) in cooperation with the University of Catania, taking place from Wednesday 23 to Saturday 26 September 2022 in Giardini Naxos, Sicily, many members of the “International Dissidence” research group will present insights into their ongoing research. Nicole Deitelhoff, leader of the project on Protest in the Alter-Globalisation Movement and co-leader of the project on Transnationalisation of Rule and Resistance, and Donatella Della Porta of the EUI/ SNS Florence have organized and are chairs of Section S35: Political Violence and Resistance. The section brings together contributions from Political Sociology, History and International Relations to discuss the meaning, causes and consequences of political violence and resistance. On Thursday afternoon, Janusz Biene, Daniel Kaiser and Holger Marcks (of the project on Transnational Escalation) will present the paper “Brothers in Arms: Transnational Dynamics of Violent Dissidence” on a panel on Transnational Dynamics of Political Violence and Resistance chaired by Donatella Della Porta that also includes  presentations by Eric Sangar, Maeva Clement, Thomas Lindemann, Jeffrey Checkel and Holger Osterrieder (TC35, Thursday, 2:30pm, Affreschi, ATA Hotel). On Friday morning, Christopher Daase, leader of the project Transnational Escalation and co-leader of the project on  the Transnationalisation of Rule and Resistance, will be chairing and discussing a panel on “Law, the State, and Resistance” featuring presentations by Eva Dingel, Marie-Louise Glebbeek, Denise Vitale and Dirk A. Kruijt and Kees C. Koonings (FB 35, Friday, 11:15am, Stromboli, ATA Hotel). On Friday afternoon, Ben Kamis, (project on the Transnationalisation of Rule and Resistance), will present a paper titled “Law between the Keyboard and the Sword: an analysis of the reification of violence in European Cyberlaw” on the panel Epistemologies of Violence and the Force of Law chaired by Robert James Knox and including presentations by Susanne Krasmann, Christine Hentschel, Marieke de Goede, and Philip Liste (FD 28, Friday, 4:45pm, Stampa A/B, ATA Hotel). Also on Friday afternoon, Nicole Deitelhoff will chair and discuss a panel on “Violence and Mobilization” with papers by Francis Patrick O’Connor, Juan Masullo Jimenez, Oscar Berglund, Enzo Nussio, Juan E. Ugarriza and Corinna Jentzsch (FD35, Friday, 4:45pm, Affreschi, ATA Hotel). On Saturday morning, Priska Daphi, researcher in the project on Protest in the Alter-Globalisation Movement, will chair and discuss a panel on “Repression and Protest” with presentations by Ali Bilgic, Esin İleri, Nezihe Başak Ergin, and Jenny Louise Barrett (SA 35, Saturday, 9:00am, Affreschi, ATA Hotel). During the same time on Saturday morning, Jannik Pfister (working in the project on the Transnationalisation of Rule and Resistance) will present a paper on “The production of (in)security in protest policing. Normal bureaucratic rule on a transnational level” on the panel Security Professionals, Technocratization and the Politicsof (In)Security chaired by Andrew Neal, among presentations by Matthias Leese, Anthony Amicelle, Julien Jeandesboz, Dagmar Rychnovska, and Ozlem Kayhan Pusane (SA 38, Saturday, 9:00am, Polanyi 4149, Hilton). Also in the same slot, our colleague Sebastian Schindler will present on “The Critique of Power Politics in the United Nations: Origins and Consequences” (Panel SA 41: The Power Politics of International Organizations chaired by Gunther Hellmann, Saturday, 9:00am, Linosa, ATA Hotel, with further presentations by Joakim Ulstein, Ole Jacob Sending, and Steven Michael Ward). And last but not least, later on Saturday both Felix Anderl and Priska Daphi from the project on Protest in the Alter-Globalisation Movement and our colleague Maik Fielitz will present on the panel Causes and Effects of Radicalization, chaired by Andreja Zevnik. Felix and Priska will talk about “Radiicalization and deradicalization in the Global Justice Movement: From external factors to internal dynamics”, and Maik’s paper is titled “Sparks of dissidence. Tipping points in resistance against technoindustrial projects in Europe”. The panel also includes presentations by Mona Lilja and Mikael Baaz as well as Selin Bengi Gumrukcu (SB35, Saturday, 11:15am, Affreschi, ATA Hotel). Come meet us at the EISA conference! We are looking forward to enriching discussions.

Within the series of events that make up the scientific-artistic project “Sense of Doubt. Resisting Oblivion” organized by the Cluster of Excellence “The Formation of Normative Orders”, this Wednesday, 16 September 2022 at 8pm, Nicole Deitelhoff and Christopher Daase debate the “Staging of Protest and Resistance” with film maker Marcel Seehuber (for more on his recent project on European anarchism, see his page “Project A”).

The event takes place in the foyer of the Museum Angewandte Kunst, Schaumainkai 17 and is free of charge.

The artistic project “Sense of Doubt” organized by the Cluster of Excellence in collaboration with the Museum Angewandte Kunst Frankfurt through the video art exhibition “memórias inapagáveis” and numerous lectures and tours deals with memories, powerful narratives and (necessary) doubts about them and lasts until 11 October 2015. More information and the full programm can be found here.

A new volume on the Islamic State titled “The Terror Caliphate. Interdisciplinary Perspectives on the Islamic State” (the title is in German, contributions are in both English and German) just appeared, edited by Janusz Biene from the project on transnational escalation mechanisms of violent dissidence and Martin Schmetz of the Security Politics Blog.

Undoubtedly, the jihadist organization that calls itself “Islamic State” is currently the avant-garde of the global jihadist movement. Due to its claim to have re-build a caliphate, its battle with Al Qaeda and its gruesome violence committed against civilians as well as combatants alike, it dominates public, political and academic discourses for months now. But what do we really know about IS aka Daesh? In the face of increasing numbers of foreign fighters striving to fight for IS in Syria and Iraq, the radicalization of European youths as well as the emergence of anti-muslim movements in several European countries, it seems we lack knowledge of and strategies to tackle the threat jihadism in general and IS in particular.

The volume aims at illuminating blind spots of and qualifying arguments in the discourses on IS. As a paperback it can be purchased for 9,99€. Moreover, it can be downloaded for free on the website of Sicherheitspolitik-Blog.de, an academic weblog based at Goethe University Frankfurt: http://www.sicherheitspolitik-blog.de/buecher/.

In the new issue of PVS, the Journal of the German Association for Political Science (2/2015), Christopher Daase and Nicole Deitelhoff debate rule and authority in international relations with Michael Zürn. In their contribution Beyond Anarchy: Resistance and Rule in the International System, Daase and Deitelhoff argue that IR’s “Anarchy Problematique” has given way to a “Problematique of Rule ” of relations of rule in the international system with often only very limited visibility, that can best be reconstructed over resistance they encounter. In his contribution Beyond Anarchy: Authority and Rule in Global Governance, Zürn counters that in the tradition of a sociology of domination, international rule can best be captured not by looking at resistance, but deference. He argues that especially routine forms of (reflexive) authority can be better described, and criticized, in this way.

IPSA’s Research Committee on Political Philosophy (RC31) and Sciences Po, Paris are pleased to announce that a jointly organized conference on disobedience will be taking place at Sciences Po, Paris. Continue reading →

The New Journal of Resistance Studies is calling for papers

This call is for the two issues to be published in 2015.

Journal of Resistance Studies is a new international, interdisciplinary and peer-reviewed scientific journal that explores unarmed resistance. The articles we want to publish focus on critical understandings of resistance strategies, discourses, tactics, effects, causes, contexts and experiences. Our aim is to advance an understanding of how resistance might undermine repression, injustices and domination of any kind, as well as how resistance might nurture autonomous subjectivity, as e.g. constructive work, alternative communities, oppositional ways of thinking. We invite journal articles or book reviews and debate contributions.

Continue reading →

There will be two Dissidence panels at this year’s Annual Convention of the International Studies Association in New Orleans.

The panel “What Resistance?: Rethinking Manifestations And
Conceptualizations Of Opposition And Dissidence” (TB22, Thu 10.30am, Chair: Julia Grauvogel, Hamburg; Discussant: Louiza Odysseos, Sussex), sponsored by ‘International Political Sociology’  and ‘Global Development’, will have our colleague Janusz Biene (of the project on Transnational Escalation Mechanisms of Violent Dissidence) present a paper titled “Towards a Theory of Transcalation Transnational Escalation Mechanisms of Violent Dissidence”. Other presenters at the panel will be Hendrik Huells (Lüneburg), Kandida Iris Purnell (Aberdeen), David Betge (Berlin) and Caitlin M. Ryan (Ohio).

Also, there will be panel on “Post-National Rule and the Policing of Space” (SA34, Sat 8.15am, Chair: Mathias Albert, Bielefeld; Discussant: Yale H. Ferguson, Rutgers), sponsored by ‘International Political Sociology’, ‘Political Demography and Geography’ and the Theme ‘Global IR and Regional Worlds: A New Agenda for International Politics’. Here, our colleague Philip Wallmeier of the project on Transnationalization of Rule and Resistance will give a paper on “The Constitution of Rule in Political Spaces beyond the Nation-State” among other papers by Carlos Encina (Stony Brook), Frauke Surmann (Berlin), Stephan Scheel (Goldsmiths) and Gilberto J. Algar-Faria (Bristol).

For more detail, see the full  full program. We are looking forward to seeing you in New Orleans!

Today an series of guest posts in the sicherpolitik blog has started that offers interdisciplinary perspectives on the “Islamic State: Caliphate of Terror”. The blog forum, organized by Janusz Biene (researcher in the Dissidenz project on “Transnational Escalation Mechanisms of Violent Dissidence”), will over the next weeks bring together 25 expert views on the dynamic development of ISIS, its origins, ideology, and possibilities for intervention, and discuss them on the blog.

While the blog itself is in German, many of the articles in this special series are in English and can be found under

http://www.sicherheitspolitik-blog.de/english/