Le monde des militants d’extrême droite en Belgique, en France, en Allemagne, en Italie et aux Pays Bas

À partir d’une enquête comparative menée à l’aide d’histoires de vie dans cinq pays (Allemagne, Belgique, France, Italie, Pays-Bas), auprès de militant(e)s d’extrême droite, cet article montre que le trait commun, qui structure leur identité politique, est la stigmatisation dont ils font l’objet. Prenant l’exemple des Pays-Bas, où celle-ci atteint son paroxysme, les auteurs montrent comment les stratégies de réponse des militants, qui vont de la négation au retournement du stigmate, varient en fonction de leurs trajectoires d’entrée dans le mouvement, selon qu’elles sont vécues sur le mode de la continuité, de la conversion ou de la dépendance.Based on a comparative survey of the personal experiences of far-right activists in five countries (Germany, Belgium, France, Italy, and the Netherlands), this paper shows that the common factor structuring their political identity is the stigmatization to which they are subjected. The case of the Netherlands, where this has reached its paroxysm, is used by the authors to show how the activists’ response strategies, which range from denial to reversal of the stigma, vary according to the trajectories along which they joined the movement and on whether they perceive it in terms of continuity, conversion, or dependence

Revolutionaries, wanderers, converts, and compliants: Life histories of extreme right activists

Life-history interviews were conducted with thirty-six extreme right activists in the Netherlands (1996-1998). Becoming an activist was a matter of continuity, of conversion, or of compliance. Continuity denotes life histories wherein movement membership and participation are a natural consequence of prior political socialization; conversion to trajectories wherein movement membership and participation are a break with the past; and compliance to when people enter activism, not owing to personal desires but because of circumstances they deemed were beyond their control. Stories of continuity in our interviews were either testimonies of lifetimes of commitment to extreme right politics (labeled revolutionaries) or lifelong journeys from one political shelter to the other by political wanderers (labeled converts). Activists who told us conversion stories, we labeled converts and those who told compliance stories, compliants. The article presents a prototypical example of each type of career and suggests each prototype to hold for different motivational dynamics. © 2007 Sage Publications

A Survey Experiment on Citizens’ Preferences for ‘Vote–Centric’ vs. ‘Talk–Centric’ Democratic Innovations with Advisory vs. Binding Outcomes

Previous research on public support for participatory decision-making fails to distinguish between vote-centric (referendums and initiatives) and talk-centric (deliberative-style meetings) instruments, despite a deliberative turn in democratic theory suggesting that political discussion among ordinary citizens improves decision-making. In an online factorial survey experiment conducted among a sample of 960 Americans recruited on Amazon’s Mechanical Turk, we compared support for the use of referendums and public meetings, arguing that attitudes towards these instruments depend on whether they are used to inform legislators or take binding decisions. Public meetings were rated considerably lower than referendums and initiatives, especially when the outcomes were binding. Contrary to expectations, we did not find a preference for binding (over advisory) referendums and individuals from referendum and initiative states, where these instruments are legally binding, expressed less support for binding participatory reforms than individuals from non-direct democratic states. Despite the many critiques of direct democracy, public debate in the US has not considered whether advisory outcomes might appease some of these concerns. The results also demonstrated that individuals expressing concerns about the inability of ordinary citizens to understand politics and about the welfare of minority groups were not as negative about participatory decision-making when legislators had the final say

Continuous real-time cow identification by reading ear tags from live-stream video

In precision dairy farming there is a need for continuous and real-time availability of data on cows and systems. Data collection using sensors is becoming more common and it can be difficult to connect sensor measurements to the identification of the individual cow that was measured. Cows can be identified by RFID tags, but ear tags with identification numbers are more widely used. Here we describe a system that makes the ear tag identification of the cow continuously available from a live-stream video so that this information can be added to other data streams that are collected in real-time. An ear tag reading model was implemented by retraining and existing model, and tested for accuracy of reading the digits on cows ear tag images obtained from two dairy farms. The ear tag reading model was then combined with a video set up in a milking robot on a dairy farm, where the identification by the milking robot was considered ground-truth. The system is reporting ear tag numbers obtained from live-stream video in real-time. Retraining a model using a small set of 750 images of ear tags increased the digit level accuracy to 87% in the test set. This compares to 80% accuracy obtained with the starting model trained on images of house numbers only. The ear tag numbers reported by real-time analysis of live-stream video identified the right cow 93% of the time. Precision and sensitivity were lower, with 65% and 41%, respectively, meaning that 41% of all cow visits to the milking robot were detected with the correct cow’s ear tag number. Further improvement in sensitivity needs to be investigated but when ear tag numbers are reported they are correct 93% of the time which is a promising starting point for future system improvements

Of “raisins” and “yeast”: mobilisation and framing in the East German revolution of 1989

There is no shortage of literature on the social movements that arose in East Germany in 1989. Numerous studies have shed light upon the nature, scale and dynamics of the uprising of that year. But on certain issues questions remain. No consensus exists, for example, on the relationship between the “civic groups” (New Forum, Democratic Awakening, etc.) and the street protests of the autumn of 1989. Were these simply two facets of a single movement? Or are they better characterised as two distinct streams within the same movement delta? Did the street protests push the civic movement activists into the limelight? Or is it more accurate to say, with Reinfried Musch, that “the civic movement brought the people onto the streets”?1 This paper considers two contrasting interpretations of these issues, and finds both wanting. An alternative interpretation is offered, one that draws upon Marc Steinberg's “dialogical” development of frame theory

Political values and extra-institutional political participation: The impact of economic redistributive and social libertarian preferences on protest behaviour

Previous studies have found that left-wing and libertarian individuals are more likely to engage in extra-institutional political activism. However, due to a lack of suitable data, studies to date have not analysed the relative influence of economic redistributive and social libertarian values for the intensity of protest participation. By analysing data from a unique cross-national dataset on participants in mass demonstrations in seven countries, this article addresses this gap in the literature and provides evidence of the relative impact of economic redistributive and social libertarian values in explaining different degrees of protest participation. We show that there are divergent logics underpinning the effect of the two value sets on extra-institutional participation. While both economically redistributive and libertarian social values support extra-institutional participation, economically redistributive protesters are mobilized to political action mainly through organizations, whereas the extra-institutional participation of social libertarian protesters is underpinned by their dissatisfaction with the workings of democracy

How group identification helps to overcome the dilemma of collective action

According to the basic assumption underlying this article, people are more likely to participate in protest the more they feel that a group they identify with is treated unjustly. Depersonalization and the politicization of group identification are discussed as two processes that mediate the relationship between group identification and protest participation. Empirical evidence from three studies is discussed. In a study among people older than 55, participation in unions for the elderly appears to be correlated strongly with identification with the elderly. In a study of participation in peaceful protest among South African citizens, indicators of identification appeared to be correlated with protest participation, and finally, Dutch farmers were more likely to participate in farmers' protest the more they identified with other farmers. Results from the latter, longitudinal study suggest a recursive relationship between identity and protest participation: Group identification fosters protest participation and protest participation reinforces group identification

Going underground: Resort to terrorism in mass mobilization dissident campaigns

© The Author(s) 2018. When and why do groups participating in mass dissent choose to initiate terrorist campaigns? I argue that groups involved in civil wars and mass civil resistance might face similar organizational pressures, which encourage the initiation of terrorism due to higher tactical effectiveness. Internal organizational pressure might depend on leaders’ expectations of a decline in followers’ commitment with protracted use of mass tactics. This is likely to motivate leaders to initiate terrorist campaigns to secure organizational survival. External organizational pressures might depend on increasing dissident campaigns’ fragmentation. This intensifies competition making leaders more likely to initiate terrorism so as to establish themselves at the forefront of their movements. The findings provide empirical support consistent with my claims and indicate no significant difference between civil wars and mass civil resistance movements with regards to these effects. Contrary to the common idea that the use of conventional violence should entail a higher willingness to engage in illegal violence against non-combatants, this finding suggests that conflict dynamics affect the decision to initiate terrorism and that terrorist campaigns have a coherent strategic logic across different types of mass dissent.Economic and Social Research Council (1511095

Telling the collective story? Moroccan-Dutch young adults’ negotiation of a collective identity through storytelling

Researchers taking a social constructionist perspective on identity agree that identities are constructed and negotiated in interaction. However, empirical studies in this field are often based on interviewer–interviewee interaction or focus on interactions with members of a socially dominant out-group. How identities are negotiated in interaction with in-group members remains understudied. In this article we use a narrative approach to study identity negotiation among Moroccan-Dutch young adults, who constitute both an ethnic and a religious (Muslim) minority in the Netherlands. Our analysis focuses on the topics that appear in focus group participants’ stories and on participants’ responses to each other’s stories. We find that Moroccan-Dutch young adults collectively narrate their experiences in Dutch society in terms of discrimination and injustice. Firmly grounded in media discourse and popular wisdom, a collective narrative of a disadvantaged minority identity emerges. However, we also find that this identity is not uncontested. We use the concept of second stories to explain how participants negotiate their collective identity by alternating stories in which the collective experience of deprivation is reaffirmed with stories in which challenging or new evaluations of the collective experience are offered. In particular, participants narrate their personal experiences to challenge recurring evaluations of discrimination and injustice. A new collective narrative emerges from this work of joint storytelling