Politics and Protest

Learning Outcomes

Subject Specific Intellectual and Research Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• Demonstrate an understanding of the major scholarly debates concerning social movement dynamics in political protests.
• Demonstrate a comparative understanding of the complex interplay between formal politics, social movements, beliefs, tactics and structures.
• Demonstrate an ability to understand, evaluate and critique the main schools and debates within social movement theory and apply them critically across a wide spectrum of empirical case studies.

Knowledge and Understanding

Having successfully completed this module, you will be able to demonstrate knowledge and understanding of:

• The definition of the types of protests and the explanations their motivations and consequences.
• The problems and challenges facing social movement networks

Transferable and Generic Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• Exhibit a capacity to develop empirical and normative research skills.
• Prove an understanding of the methodological problems surrounding the study of social movements, and in particular the application of social movement theory beyond its original focus (secular, non-violent protest movements in Europe and the USA) to explain religious movements, violent movements, movements in the ‘global South’ and/or transnational movements.

The module will be split into two distinct parts. The first half of the module will cover theoretical topics: the causes, strategies, and consequences of protest activity. The second half of the class will focus on typologies of protest through comparative case studies. These typologies will focus on specific attributes of protests such as their use of violence, their organizational structures, and their relationships with political parties. Case studies in lecture will be based on examples ranging from a series of geographically and thematically differentiated case studies: the US Civil Rights movement; The Women’s Liberation Movement, Transnational Islamists Movements (the Muslim Brotherhood), the Italian Left and the Red Brigades; the Lebanese Shi’a and Hizballah; the Global Justice or Anti-Globalisation Movement; and the Egyptian ‘25 January Revolution’ of 2011, and the Extinction Rebellion Environmental Movement. The course will explore the theories’ usefulness in explaining secular, peaceful social movements in ‘the global North’ (the field’s original focus) and then evaluate the theories’ applicability to studying other types of social movements: movements operating in ‘the global South’; religious social movements; violent, underground organisations; and transnational movements. Throughout, the module will look at the implications of modernisation, globalisation and changes in state, societal and economic structures on both social movements and social movement theory.

2 hours of lectures per week. All will be recorded and posted on Blackboard. Lectures will be delivered either face to face or online only depending upon University and Public Health England Guidance at the time. Total of 24 hours of lectures (2 hours per week X 12 weeks) per module.

Weekly student participation in online discussion boards. 1 hour per week delivered asynchronously. (1 hour X 12 weeks)

Summative

This is how we’ll formally assess what you have learned in this module.

Referral

This is how we’ll assess you if you don’t meet the criteria to pass this module.

Repeat

An internal repeat is where you take all of your modules again, including any you passed. An external repeat is where you only re-take the modules you failed.