The Mobilization of the Unemployed in Europe From Acquiescence to Protest?

by Chabanet, Didier; Faniel, Jean

• ISBN13: 9780230619395
• ISBN10: 0230619398
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2011-12-15
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Summary

In the face of high unemployment in Europe for the past thirty years, the unemployed have organized themselves and mobilized at levels ranging from the local to the transnational. These contentious movements invite us to revise traditional analyses that conclude that the unemployed are not able to get mobilized. Through long-term analysis of movements of the unemployed in ten countries (Belgium, Britain, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Poland, Spain and Switzerland), this work explores why, when, and how the unemployed move from acquiescence to protest.

Author Biography

Didier Chabanet is Marie Curie Fellow at the European University Institute in Florence and a senior research fellow at the Triangle Research Centre of the École Normale SupÉrieure de Lyon. He is a well-known international scholar in the field of collective action, social exclusion, and poor people's movements. Recent publications in this area include European Governance and Democracy: Power and Protest in the EU (with Richard Balme, 2008), Mobilising against Marginalisation in Europe (ed. with FrÉdÉric Royall, 2010) and Les mobilisations sociales à l'heure du prÉcariat, a special issue of Lien social et politiques (ed. with Pascale Dufour and FrÉdÉric Royall, 2011).

Jean Faniel is a researcher at the Centre de Recherche et d'Information Socio-Politiques (CRISP) in Brussels. He has published a number of articles on Belgian trade unions, mobilization of the unemployed, and the relationshipbetween trade unions and the unemployed. He is co-editor of L'Europe du chômage, a special issue of Politique europÉenne 21 (with Didier Chabanet, 2007), and of SolidaritÉ en mouvement. Perspectives pour le syndicat de demain (with Carl Devos, Corinne Gobin and Kurt Vandaele, 2009).

Table of Contents

The Mobilization of the Unemployed in a Comparative Perspective--Didier Chabanet and Jean Faniel * The Long History of a New Cause: The Mobilization of the Unemployed in France--Didier Chabanet * The Mobilization of the Unemployed in Germany (1998-2004)--Britta Baumgarten and Christian Lahusen * Inside or Outside Trade Unions? The Mobilization of the Unemployed in Belgium--Jean Faniel * The Movement of the Jobless in Finland--Eeva Luhtakallio and Martti Siisiäinen * The Mobilization of the Unemployed in Italy: The Case of Naples--Simone Baglioni * The Organization of the Unemployed in Spain: Local and Fragmented Dynamics--Sophie Béroud * Contention over Unemployment in Britain: Unemployment Politics vs. the Politics of the Unemployed--Manlio Cinalli * Organizing the Unemployed in Ireland--Frédéric Royall * Political Opportunities and the Mobilization of the Unemployed in Switzerland--Michel Berclaz, Katharina Füglister, and Marco Giugni * The Mobilization That Was Not: Explaining the Weak Politicization of the Issue of Unemployment in Poland--Catherine Spieser and Karolina Sztandar-Sztanderska