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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.

       

      Session 1. Research in Political Participation: An Introduction

       

      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.

       

      Session 2. Interviewing Activists: Semi-structured interviews

       

      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. 

       

      Session 5: Surveying Activists: Individual attitudes and behaviour

       

      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.

       

      John A. Noakes and Hank Johnston, Frames of Protest: A Road Map to a Perspective, John A. Noakes and Hank Johnston (eds.), Frames of Protest, Lanham, Rowman and Littlefield, 2005, 1-32.

      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.

      Ruud Koopmans et al., Contested Citizenship, Minneapolis, The University of Minnesota press, 2006.

       
       

      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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