Home > Session 1
European University Institute
Department
of Political and Social Sciences
How to Study
Political Participation, Social Movements, Parties, Unions and
NGOs
Donatella
Della Porta
Winter
term 2007
Tuesday 15-17
Seminar room
2
(Register with
Eva Breivik)
This seminar aims at presenting and discussing methods for the analysis of political participation, collective action, social movements, associations and the like. Each session will focus on a research project in which a specific method was used in order to discuss characteristics, strengths and weakness of each methodologies. The specific theoretical concerns that are at the basis of specific methods will be discussed. ��Raw�� empirical materials (transcripts of life histories, focus groups, judiciary documents, questionnaires, etc.) will be also presented during the sessions. Participants are expected to give short presentations, when possible linking the methodological discussion with their own research projects.
McAdam, Doug, Sidney Tarrow and Charles Tilly, 2001, Contentious Politics, New York, Cambridge University Press, chapters 1 and 2.
Donatella della Porta and M. Diani, Social Movements: An Introduction, Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 2006, chapter 1.
Interviewing is one of
the most widespread methods for collecting data in social sciences.
In this session, we shall focus on some main choices in the use of semi-structured
interviews, discussing the role of the interviewer, the selection of
interviewees, the phrasing of questions, etc..
Assigned readings
Blee, Kathleen
M. and Verta Taylor, ��Semi-Structured Interviewing in Social Movement
Research��, in Bert Klandermans and Suzanne Staggenborg (eds), Methods
of Social Movement Research, Minneapolis, the University of Minnesota
Press, 2002, pp. 92-117.
Donatella della
Porta and Lorenzo Mosca, Contamination in Action, in ��Global
Networks��, 2007, forthcoming.
Additional suggested readings
McAdam, Doug,
Freedom Summer, New York, Oxford University Press, 1988.
Session 3: Paths into Commitment: Life history and biographical materials
Although rarely used, life histories allows for in-depth analysis of the individual paths that leads towards various forms of political and social commitment. As will be discussed in this session, this method is particularly useful for analysing the social construction of reality.
Assigned readings
Donatella Della
Porta, ��Life Histories Analysis of Social Movement Activists��, in
M. Diani e R. Eyerman (eds.), Studying Social Movements, London,
Sage, 1992, pp. 168-193.
Donatella della
Porta, Social Movements, Political Violence and the State, Cambridge,
Cambridge University Press, 1995, chapters 6-7.
Additional suggested readings
Juergensmeyer, Mark, Terror
in the Mind of God. The Global Rise of Religious Violence, Berkeley,
University of California Press, 2000.
Session 4: Focus group and group interviews
The session addresses the trends
in research with focus groups, addressing issues referring to the composition
of the group, the preparation of the session/s, its conduct as well
as the analysis of transcripts.
Assigned readings
Bloor, Michael, Jane Frankland,
Michelle Thomas and Kate Robson, Focus Groups in Social Research,
London, Sage, 2001, pp. 19-72
della Porta, Donatella, ��Multiple Belongings, Flexible Identities and the Construction of Another Politics��: Between the European Social Forum and the Local Social Fora��, in
Donatella della Porta and Sidney
Tarrow (eds), Transnational Movements and Global Activism, Rowman
and Littlefield, 2004.
Additional suggested readings
Touraine, Alain
et al., Anti-nuclear Protest, Cambridge, Cambridge University
press, 1983.
Survey is the main technique
for the quantitative study of political behaviour. Traditionally focusing
on conventional behaviour, this research has now extended to unconventional
forms of participation.
Assigned
readings:
Klandermans,
Bert and Jackie Smith, Survey Research: A Case for Comparative Design,
in Bert Klandermans and Suzanne Staggenborg (eds), Methods of Social
Movement Research, Minneapolis, the University of Minnesota Press,
2002, pp. 3-31.
Donatella della Porta, Massimiliano
Andretta, Lorenzo Mosca and Herbert Reiter, Globalization From Below,
Minneapolis, The University of Minnesota Press, 2006, Chap. 1, 7.
Additional readings:
Stefaan Walgraave and Dieter
Rucht, 2007, Global Day for Peace, Minneapolis, The University
of Minnesota Press.
Pippa Norris, The Democratic Phoenix, Cambridge University Press.
Session 6. Framing conflicts:
Discourse Analysis
Texts are a basic source of
information for social science research. This session focuses on the
various (quantitative and qualitative) strategies to analyze documents
through different forms of content, discourse, claim analysis.
Suggested readings:
Franzosi, Roberto, 2004, Content Analysis, in Alan Bryman and Melissa Hardy (eds.), Handbook of Data Analysis, Beverly Hills, Sage, pp. 547-566.
Donatella della Porta and Gianni Piazza, Local Contention, Global Framing: The Protest Campaigns against the TAV in Val di Susa and the Ponte sullo Stretto, Paper presented at the ECPR Joint Sessions, Nicosia April 2006
Additional readings:
Hank Johnstons, Tales of
Nationalism, New Brunswick, NJ.: Rutgers University Press, 1991.
Session 7. Organizational
Studies and Network Analysis
Social movements are networks
of organizations and individuals; associations as well as parties form
social capital. This session will deal with network analysis as a main
technique for research on organizational structures.
Assigned readings:
Diani, Mario, 2002, Network
Analysis, in Bert Klandermans and Susan Staggenborg, Research
in Social Movements, Minneapolis, The University of Minnesota Press,
2002.
Diani, Mario, 2004, Cities
in the World: Local Civil Society and Transnational Issues in Britain,
in Donatella della Porta and Sidney Tarrow (eds), Transnational Activism
between the Local and the Global, Rowman and Littlefield, forthcoming.
Additional reading:
Diani, Mario, Green Networks,
Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press, 1995.
Session
8. Group norms and participant observation
Participant observation is
a main technique for the analysis of group norms and organizational
practices. This session focuses on participant observation of associational
democratic life.
Lichterman,
Paul, 2002, Seeing Structure Happen: Theory-Driven Participant Observation,
in Bert Klandermans and Suzanne Staggenborg (eds), Methods of Social
Movement Research, Minneapolis, the University of Minnesota Press,
2002, pp. 118-145.
Francesca Polletta,
Democracy is an Endless Meeting, chapt. @@
Additional readings:
Paul Lichterman,
The Search for Political Community. American Activists reinventing Commitment,
Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1996.
Session 9. The research
on political repertoires: protest events
and claims analysis
Protest events analysis has been the main methods developed for the research on the evolution of repertoires of collective action and cycles of protest. Claims analysis addresses the problems related with the media biased introduced trough the use of this method, focusing on media events.
Koopmans, Ruud
and Dieter Rucht, Protest Event Analysis, in Bert Klandermans
and Suzanne Staggenborg (eds), Methods of Social Movement Research,
Minneapolis, the University of Minnesota Press, 2002, pp. 231-259.
della Porta,
Donatella and Sidney Tarrow, 1986, Unwanted Children. Political Violence
and the Cycle of Protest in Italy. 1966-1973, in "European
Journal of Political Research", XIV (1986), 6, pp. 607-632.
Manuela Caiani and Donatella
della Porta, The Europeanisation of Public Discourse in Italy: A
top-down process?, in ��European Union Politics��, vol.
7 (2006), no. 1
Additional readings
Tarrow, Sidney, Democracy and Disorder, New York, Oxford University Press, 1989.
Session 10. Searching the Net: the Democratic Qualities of Internet
Internet is
a source of information, as well as an object of research. In particular,
political sociologists have tried to assess the democratic qualities
of the Internet through analysis of the characteristics of Internet.
Donatella della
Porta and Lorenzo Mosca, Searching the Net, Demos WP2 research
report, Introductory chapter.
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