Handbook of Political Citizenship and Social Movements

Since the 1960s, social movements and political citizenship have become buzzwords not only in social and political life but also in social and political science. The impact of the environmental and women’s movements, and the advance of multicultural, European and cosmopolitan citizenship in modern history are cases in point. The study of citizenship traditionally refers to the individual dimension of social and political behavior. Social movement studies, however, refer to the collective dimension of such behavior. Despite distinct trajectories in their theoretical development, the social movement and citizenship paradigms converge where social movements are viewed as collective forms of political citizenship. This Handbook uniquely collates results of several decades of academic research in these two fields. The expert contributions successively address the different forms of political citizenship and current approaches and recent developments in social movement studies. Salient social movements in recent history are explored in depth, covering the environmental, women’s, international human rights, urban, Tea Party, and animal rights movements. Social movements and political citizenship in the ‘global South’: China, India, Africa, and the Arab World, are discussed, presenting a novel empirical insight into these fields of study. Social scientists, MA and PhD students conducting research in social movements and citizenship, at a theoretical and empirical level, will benefit from the authoritative assessment of forms of political citizenship and major developments in social movement studies.