PROTEST ON UNEMPLOYMENT: FORMS AND OPPORTUNITIES*

Donatella della Porta

The "return" of poor people movements encourages reflection on the impact of changes in the social structure, the availability of organizational resources, and political and discursive opportunities for collective action. Based on a quantitative and qualitative claim analysis in six European countries, this article maps unemployment-related protest actions in three areas: (a) long-term unemployment; (b) massive dismissals; and (c) unemployment and labor policies within more general cycles of protest. The article discusses the actors, the forms and claims of the protests, and the social and political opportunities for their development. Protests on unemployment tend to assume some similar forms, each oriented to stress the "absolute injustice" of the position of the unemployed. The framing of the issues of both labor changes and the evolution of the labor market restates the importance of social dynamics for political protest. Unions as well as other social movements and political actors play an important role in the protest against unemployment.

In the mid-nineties, France saw the return of the social question, with an (uneasy) alliance between public sector workers, the unemployed, and the marginally employed. In 1995, the extended strike of the cheminots (public transport workers) unexpectedly gained large support in the public opinion, as it
brought millions into the street in remarkable demonstrations of solidarity across the country, and forged direct organizational and symbolic links between the labor movement and various groups of excluded, including illegal immigrants, unemployed workers, and the homeless, as well as the lyce and university students and an intelligentsia that had been widely dismissed as apathetic and uninterested (Fantasia and Stepan-Norris 2004: 556).

Various marginal groups mobilized in the so-called mouvements de sans on behalf of the have-nots: migrants without legal residence permits, homeless people, and the unemployed. Analysts described a coalition between the moral left of the middle class that defended human rights, and the social left that mobilized the workers. In particular, the unemployed protested in 1997 against a reform that reduced the funding for unemployment compensation and centralized its management. Already in 1994, the group Agir contre le Chomage (AC! Act against Unemployment!) organized five marches converging on Paris from the provinces, asking for a reduction in work hours in order to create new jobs, as well as more investments against exclusion. During and after the marches, the unemployed mobilized at both the local and national levels. In the winter of 1995-96, groups of the unemployed staged a campaign of
* This analysis is based on data collected by the members of a project entitled The Contentious Politics of Unemployment in Europe: Political Claim Making, Policy Deliberation and Exclusion from the Labor Market. The project includes the following countries: Britain (Paul Statham, University of Leeds), Switzerland (Marco Giugni, University of Geneva), France (Didier Chabanet, University of Lyon), Italy (Donatella della Porta, University of Florence), Germany (Christian Lahusen, University of Bamberg), and Sweden (Anna Linders, University of Cincinnati and University of Karlstad). The project is financed by the European Commission (HPSE-CT2001-00053 UNEMPOL) and the Swiss Federal Office for Education and Science through the Fifth Framework program of research of the European Union. We thank all the members of the UNEMPOL research consortium for their contributions to the project.A previous version of this report was presented at the conference on The Contentious Politics of Unemployment, Geneva, April 1-2, 2005. Donatella della Porta is Professor of Sociology at the Department of Political and Social Science at the European University Institute in Florence. Please direct all correspondence to donatella.dellaporta@eui.eu.

Mobilization: An International Journal 13(3): 277-295

278

Mobilization

job requisitions: with well-publicized blitz actions, they marched into factories and commercial enterprises having job vacancies and left their rsums. The following winter there were weekly demonstrations and a series of occupations of local employment agencies , the ASSEDICS, as well as of the Ecole Normale Superieure, the Banque de France, various town halls, and the headquarters of the Socialist Party, demanding the special Christmas doles that a new law had abolished. In 1997 the unemployed also protested at the European level: French, German, Spanish, and Italian unemployed converged in the European marches against unemployment, job insecurity, and exclusion. Two years later, thirty thousand people mobilized on the same issues at the European Union (EU) summit in Cologne, united in the European Network of Unemployed (ENU). During this cycle of protest, the French unemployed formed collective resources for mobilization. Although the unemployed are considered politically apathetic, with a very low propensity for collective action, the movement organizations succeeded in modifying, at least for a certain period, the unemployed perception about their own mobilization potential. They encouraged the unemployed to express collective claims and convinced thousands of them to mobilize (Royall 1998: 362). In fact, they provided a space for aggregation, socializing often-isolated people (Mauer 2001), and increasing their relational skills and savoir faire (Maurer and Pierru 2001). Mobilization provided a challenge to both the image of unemployment as an individual problem and, consequently, to the social stigma attached to it. Moreover, the unemployed gained broad social support. While the unemployed have traditionally found supporters on the left of the political spectrum, in the French case they mobilized against what was perceived as treason by the leftin particular by the Socialist national government elected in May 1997, which was accused of having shifted from a socialism with a human face to liberalism with humanitarian undertones (Bourneau and Martin 1993: 172). Nevertheless, the unemployed succeeded in winning the support of public opinion: not only were the Christmas doles reintroduced, but sympathetic media coverage changed the public image of the unemployed from poor people queuing for charity to rebels struggling for their rights (Salmon 1998; Maurer and Pierru 2001: 388). Acting within an institutionalized field, with welfare state institutions focusing on the issue of unemployment (Fillieule 1993b), the protestors addressed the issue of the political recognition of the unemployed themselves, winning a symbolic battle when their organization was invited to meet President Francois Mitterrand. This account of a protest campaign on unemployment in France and beyond points to some of the factors structuring the debate over the interaction between societal characteristics and social movements. To begin with, it indicates that a social group that is economically weak and politically isolated can still be mobilized for protest. In American social movement studies criticism of the breakdown theory has for a long time (and with few exceptions, cf. Piven and Cloward 1977, 1992) reduced the attention to structural grievances (Buechler 2004). Likewise, since the 1970s, European social movement scholars have focused on new conflicts in Western democracy: the ecological movement and the womens movement being the typical object of this stream of research. Social movements have been considered the bearers of post-materialistic values, while the class cleavageon which labor movements had mobilizedwas declared to be pacified. However, there is no denying that the socioeconomic structure of a society still influences the types of conflicts that develop in it. The return of poor people movements thus pushes towards more reflection on the relationship between changes in the social structure and collective action. Social change may affect the characteristics of social conflict and collective action in different ways. It may bring about the emergence of social groups with a specific structural location and potential specific interests, and/or reduce the importance of existing ones, as the shift from agriculture to industry and then to the service sector suggests. As the account of the French protest on unemployment indicates, however, structural tensions do not directly translate into mobilization. The misery of the unemployed does more to deter protest than

Transcending Marginalization

279

facilitate it, and the unemployed are usually not easily mobilized. Societal conditions also have important influences upon the distribution of resources that are conducive to participation in collective action (such as education). The specific characteristics (gender, age, social position, educational background, etc.) of the unemployed strongly affect their potential to mobilize and their subsequent forms of mobilization. Notwithstanding these difficulties in mobilizing the unemployed, protest on unemployment can and does develop when opportunities and resources are available. First of all, movement organizations are important actors for protest, especially when faced with social bases that are more difficult to mobilize. The resource mobilization approach has considered social movement organizations as often formed by committed activists that take up the concerns of social constituencies to which they do not belong (McCarthy and Zald 1977), but towards which they act out of a sense of solidarity (Giugni and Passy 2001). Given the lack of material and symbolic resources of the unemployed constituency, we might expect that protests on related issues require broad networks of different social movement organizations. Unions have often been mentioned in previous research as the most important promoters of protest on issues of employment and unemployment. For instance, waves of dismissals or cuts in the state budget for the unemployed (as in the French case) tend to produce reactive, unionled waves of protest. However, different collective actors (voluntary associations, social movement organizations, etc.) might support different types of mobilization on unemployment. We might also expect that protest will take different forms according to the characteristics of the actors who promote it. As a political resource for the powerless (Lipsky 1965), protest should be a preferred form of mobilization, especially for those actors who are less endowed with institutional channels of access to policy makers. More resourceful movement actors should be able to attract the attention of the mass media using less disruptive forms of protest, while the claims of the most powerless are likely to be covered only if they resort to the most disruptive forms of protest. Finally, protest has been linked to political opportunities, both in terms of institutional assets and the availability of allies (see della Porta and Diani 2006, ch. 8 for a summary). Degree and forms of protest at different territorial levels (local, national, and transnational) can be influenced by the opening (either real or imagined) of windows of opportunities: for instance, laws increasing public spending in specific areas (such as the laws addressing the emergence created by a dramatic earthquake in Naples) can stimulate hope for changes, and therefore mobilization. Framing political opportunities as conducive to the claims of the unemployed should also facilitate the emergence of protest, especially through the mobilization of allies. In this article, I shall mainly rely upon the data on claims making collected within the UNEMPOL project, as well as on a secondary analysis of existing research, in order to single out the forms of, and opportunities for, protest on the issue of unemployment. For the empirical data collection, the project used the methodology of political claim analysis (see Koopmans and Statham 1999), a quantitative method that takes individual political claims as units of analysis and uses newspapers as a source for the publicly visible part of this claim making. A claim is defined as an instance of strategic action in the mass media. It consists of the expression of a political opinion by physical or verbal action, regardless of the form this expression may take (statement, violence, repression, decision, demonstration, court ruling, etc.), and regardless of the nature of the actor (media, governments, civil society actors, etc.). The claim analysis approach aims at integrating the two methodological traditions of social movement research: protest event analysis (quantitative) (Tarrow 1989; Franzosi 1994) and frame analysis (qualitative) (Snow et al. 1986; Gamson and Modigliani 1989). By systematically coding discursive dimensions, claim analysis broadens the scope of attention from protest to all forms of claim making in the public domain, including conventional and verbal actions. Also, it locates social movement organizations within a larger multiorganizational field by including institutional and noninstitutional actors. The main actors of claim analysis are no longer protesters but claimants, namely the subjects of a strategic action

280

Mobilization

(whether verbal or not) in the mass-mediated public discourse. Selecting one quality newspaper per country, the UNEMPOL project covered Italy, France, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Germany, and Sweden for the eight years between 1995 and 2002. The sampled issues were read and searched for claims on unemployment that were then coded along dimensions including the claimant, the form of the claim, its target, the issue addressed, and the way in which this was framed. The use of the daily press as the source of information on protest or public discourse has been criticized on the basis of the selection biases introduced by the rules of journalistic coverage.1 The weaker the actors, the more protest tends to remain bounded at the local level, sometimes reaching the regional press, but much more rarely receiving national coverage. Of the weekly marches of the Neapolitan unemployed, only a couple of the most radical ones gained the attention of the national public opinion (Baglioni 2003). While some of the selection biases (such as greater coverage for events that involve large numbers, use violence, or adopt innovative means) are systematic, and can therefore be taken into account in interpreting the results, others are instead more related to the cycle of issues. Taking all these caveats into account, we shall limit the risk of selection bias by explicitly focusing on public claim making. This means that we shall not consider the protest we find in our newspapers as a reflection of actual existing conflicts, but as an image of those that succeeded in overcoming the threshold of media attention. Focusing on public discourse as represented in printed media does not imply that this is considered to be the only arena where claims are presented. In particular, some actors are less dependent upon mass media, as they enjoy direct access to decision makers; others are less able to influence the mass media and therefore need to resort to alternative communication channels. However, I assume that the printed media is one of the most important arenas of public claim making, and that most actors will, at one stage or another, try to use it in order to make their views public. Given the mentioned biases, as well as the relatively low number of protests in our database, I will use the data mainly in a descriptive way. My objective here is in fact mapping, more than causally explaining. Given the valuable but scattered information on the protest of the unemployed, I aim at: (1) conceptualizing the different forms that these protests can take; and (2) developing hypotheses on their specific characteristics. In fact, I shall triangulate the information coming from the claim analysis with that coming from different sources. First, I will refer to the small but significant social science literature on this mobilization. Additionally, I present details coming from a qualitative reading of the articles we have coded in the UNEMPOL project. Other information gathered for the UNEMPOL project is presented throughout the paper, including data collected from interviews with actors active at the local and national levels on issues of labor and employment policies, as well as from case studies of some mobilization campaigns. Finally, I refer to some interviews carried out in Milan with social movement organizations focusing on precarious workers (della Porta and Mosca 2006). This emphasis upon triangulation is also related to the aforementioned methodological choice in the use of the data. Although dealing with a quantitative database, I tend not to use causal modelingor statistical explanations in generalinstead relying on more interpretive forms of understanding (della Porta 2008). This is due in part to the characteristics of the data: although the database is large, the number of protest claims is too limited for multivariate analysis. Additionally, I thought this was a better strategy in order to control for the shortcomings of a source that is quite limited, especially with regard to information on the most powerless actors. In what follows, I shall focus on the protest on unemployment. The categories for action forms have been aggregated into the following broad categories: political decision/executive actions, verbal actions (e.g., communication events such as press releases), and protest/direct democratic actions that were, in turn, distinguished according to their degree of disruptive-

Transcending Marginalization

281

ness. I will look first at the actors involved, followed by the forms and content of claims, and finally at the political opportunities for the development of protest on unemployment.

WHO PROTESTS AGAINST UNEMPLOYMENT? The French wave of protest on unemployment can be taken as an illustration of the complex nature of protest on unemployment, which involves various actors, takes various forms of action, and targets different institutions. The resources for the mentioned European marches came from a heterogeneous, transnational coalition involving Trotskyite and Catholic groups, new social movements, and trade unionsamong the latter, the French Confederation General du Travail (CGT), the Italian Confederazione Generale Italiana del Lavoro (CGIL), and the German Deutsche Gewerkschaftsbund (DGB)). Notwithstanding the high costs of mobilization, this coalition perceived the emerging debate on the social dimension of the EU as a window of opportunity. Additional illustrations of the broad range of actors mobilized against unemployment can be found in our UNEMPOL database. Focusing on the first months of the most recently covered year, 2002, in Italy we recorded: 20,000 Fiat workers marching in Rome against dismissals Six casual workers in Termini Imerese occupying a Fiat building, asking to be hired Fiat workers in Melfi picketing the factory in order to protest against dismissals 150,000 workers marching in Naples against the proposed reform of a labor rights law that would make dismissals in small factories easier (article 18) Demonstrators, holding hands (girotondi), encircle the Fiat buildings in Turin in order to protest against the dismissals of Fiat workers A representative of the Italian union CGIL marching in Barcelona with other European unionists against a proposal that would increase flexibility in the labor market The Disobedients, a coalition of self-managed youth centers in squatted spaces marching in Rome, side-by-side with Fiat workers, against dismissals The Neapolitan No Globals marching in solidarity with the Fiat workers Fiat-Mirafiori workers blocking the Tangenziale road of Turin The Disobedients launching a boycott campaign named Robin Hood against Fiat The European metal workers proclaiming a Fiat European Day of Action The Committee of Fiat workers wives occupying the Termini railway station in Rome The mayor of Termini Imerese starting a hunger strike, to be continued until Fiat will rehire the fired workers The Ivrea bishop calling for a vigil of praying and fasting in order to avoid the dismissals at Fiat Workers of Termini Imerese blocking the activities of the Melfi Fiat factory In these events, different actors (from workers against dismissals to the long-term unemployed, from the mayors to the bishop) use various forms of action (from traditional union strikes to boycotts, from the moderate vigils to the road blocks) to put forward the cause of different categories of the unemployed (from the long-term unemployed to those at risk of dismissal). Our quantitative data (see table 1) report on a small percentage of proteststhe most radicalorganized by the unemployed themselves, or at least by groups that represent the unemployed. A low number of protests led by the unemployed themselves is no surprise. As mentioned in the presentation of the French protest against unemployment, the mobilization of the unemployed is traditionally considered particularly difficult. First, the unemployed are said to have low self-esteem, and therefore to be less inclined to build a collective identity around a condition perceived as stigmatized. As Olivier Fillieule (1993: 128) reminds us, most research converge in indicating that the loss of a job is translated into a perception of a

282

Mobilization

personal identity considered as shameful, and this jeopardizes the possibility of a collective identification with unemployment (individualizing strategy) as well as the political representation of unemployment (fatalism, sense of guilt, sense of being powerless). Being that the status of the unemployed is stigmatized and stigmatizing, they lack that positive self-definition of the us that facilitates the development of a collective identity (Galland and Louis 1981: 177). The mobilization of the unemployed thus requires the development of a collective identity that is based exclusively on the symbolic and cognitive work developed during the mobilization, lacking previously existing schemes (Maurer 2001: 39). In order to mobilize, an injustice frame has to be created, and responsibility for unemployment has to be assigned to a political authority. Mobilization, as noted by one unemployed individual, then becomes an instrument to transform desperation and anger into action:
This is what the movement gave me. I was angry, but did not know what to do with it and there I saw other angry people that put their anger together, well, you could do both . . . and even if we were unemployed, that they told us again and again, had nothing to do in the society, well we showed them that we exist . . . and that we could organize a movement (Maurer 2001: 101).

In this sense, activism offers an occasion for not only occupying the empty time, but also giving a sense to it: participation has indeed been defined as more social than political (Maurer 2001). The representation offered by the organized unemployed group has a direct impact on the conditions for the formation of collective action, and this is even more true for unemployed for whom the question of identity stays at the heart of their social situation, social relations in their environment, of their sociability (Galland and Louis 1981: 175). The difficulty in constructing resources for mobilization among the unemployed accounts for the important role played by potential allies. First of all, our data indicate a strong presence of unions, especially in protest against mass dismissals versus protest against longterm unemployment or even juvenile or female unemployment. Unions have been an important actor in some waves of protest on unemployment. In a comparison of protests in the United States and the United Kingdom in the 1930s, the very existence of those protests has been explained by the willingness of the unions to mobilize (Richards 2002). Usually, however, unions have an ambivalent attitude towards the unemployed, who are perceived as an element of weakness of the occupied labor force, if not as potential strikebreakers. Unions, therefore, are potentially more available to mobilize against mass dismissals and factory closings than in favor of the long-term unemployed, who have a low propensity to join unions. Nevertheless, when unions do get involved, it is usually in periods of sudden massive unemployment that they appear more active on the issue. For instance, in France in the 1930s the union CGTU (Confdration Gnerale du Travail Unitaire)which claimed to organize 10% of the French unemployedcalled in 1933 for the 60,000 people hunger march from Lille to Paris (Tartakowski 1997). The Comits chomeurs of the union CGT, founded in 1978 in Marseille after a wave of dismissals of harbor workers, took part in the mentioned wave of protest in the 1990s. Marginal until 1989, the CGT unemployed committees numbered 500 in the beginning of the 1990s, after the wave of protest against the closure of the docks of the Bouche-du-Rhone. During these struggles there was often a change in the unions strategy, with a return to door-to-door mobilization as well as actions beyond the factory. Indeed, even in groups of the unemployed, former unionized workers play an important role by promoting a work ethic. Not only in France (Maurer 2001), but also in Argentina, leaders of the unemployed were often former industrial workers with experience organizing (Petras 2003). In these cases, the unemployed perceive themselves to be virtual workers, identifying with their previous condition as workers (Fillieule 1993). Also our database shows that coverage of unemployment protest peaks when there are waves of mobilization against dismissals, especially from large factories or important companies. In 2002 it was especially the Italian Fiat workers that made news by blocking traffic to a number of locations (the harbor, highway, airports, etc),

Transcending Marginalization

283

occupying factories, and organizing mass sit-ins (for instance, in the Colosseum in Rome). Similar examples emerged in our coverage of other countries as well. Unions are not the only actors that mobilize in solidarity with the unemployed, or that help to mobilize them. Another important organizer of protest against unemployment is nonstate welfare organizations and groups. Third-sector organizations, NGOs, and charities are often involved in the support of marginal groups: immigrants, the poor, single mothers, etc. Traditionally, these groups preferred helping poor people through charity. With the welfare state restructuring, however, much first-help relief to poor people has been contracted out (or, simply, left) to a more and more organized third sector. Squeezed between the needs of their constituency and the frustration of budget cuts, these organizations have increasingly resorted to advocacy, even in the vocal forms of protest. An example of this type of organization is the French Syndacat Chomeurs, founded in 1982 by Maurice Pagat, himself unemployed and with experiences in religious associations, such as Emmaus. In the beginning, this group had the support of various charity-based and depoliticized religious groups.2 Nevertheless, in the 1990s, the organization would join the more politicized AC! AC! represents the emergence of yet another type of actor on unemployment issues, namely, other civil society organizations mobilized by left-wing social movement organizers. Since the 1960s, New Left groups started to focus on powerless groups, among which are migrants, living at the periphery of the large city.3 Later, left-libertarians started to mobilize against xenophobia as well as various forms and degrees of marginality in the large cities. In the example quoted earlier, the shift to the left is present especially in AC!, a group founded in 1993 by CFDT unionists that had been expelled by or left that union after its recentrage in 1986 (Broud, Mouriaux and Vakaloulis 1998; Mouchard 2000). By 1996 AC! had 150 local collectives. Asking in the beginning for a reduction of working time (to a weekly 32 hours), AC! moved toward a claim for a guaranteed salary after the entrance of the group CARGO (Collective dAgitation pour une Revenue Garantie Optimal), coming from the autonomous groups of the 1970s and rooted especially among the precariously employed youth. Activists of the New Left parties and groupings have indeed often offered resources of militancy to the mobilization of the homeless (Pechu 1996) and migrants (Simeant 1998). In our research, these types of actors emerged especially in the 2000s. The list of the Italian protest around the Fiat controversy in 2002 points to the convergence, during the wave of protest, of the traditional union-led anti-dismissal mobilization with protests led by the activists of the global justice movement, in particular the youth squatted centers that had indeed networked with the Disoccupati organizzati (groups of the long-term unemployed) in and around Naples (see Baglioni 2003). The activists of the movement for another globalization brought into the protest on unemployment the demand of a guaranteed salary, presented as a way to adapt to a new phase of production characterized by high levels of unemployment, but reflecting also a positive attitude towards creative work and nonworking time. Members of the Italian group The Disobedients would indeed subscribe to the declaration of one of their French counterparts: We know some lazy people, more or less allergic to the capitalistic productive discipline, capable of strongly committing themselves to associational, militant, artistic, intellectual activities . . . Jobs are not the only source of social existence (quoted in Mouchard 2000: 103). In this area, political mobilization is motivated by political consciousness, not generic solidarity (see also Maurer 2001).

FORMS AND CONTENT OF CLAIMS: HOW DO PEOPLE PROTEST? There is the expectation thatin protests of the powerlessthe forms of action tend to be quite disruptive. The Italian protesters in 2002 blocked railways and highways, as well as occupied harbors and airports, imitating the piqueteros of Argentina where, in August 2001,

284

Mobilization

100,000 unemployed shut down 300 highways (Petras 2003). Mobilization of the unemployed follows in part the tradition of direct-action unionism (Chopart et al. 1998: 72): they chain them-selves to the gates of major institutions, conduct flash interventions against eviction, hold demonstrations, and occupy public buildings. As for Germany, it has been noted the main form in which unemployed actors enter the debate compared to other actors is via protest (Zorn 2004: 6). All these forms tend to break with the tradition of modern industrial action by bringing the conflicts outside the factory and involving the community in solidarity strikes and boycotts (Piven and Clowards 2000). The more symbolic forms of protest are also quite innovative, in order to capture the attention of distracted mass media, but also to build upon a long past tradition. In fact, our activists also mimic some repertoires of action of a quite distant past. As mentioned by Herbert Reiter (2002) in his analysis of the protest of the Florentine unemployed after the Second World War, the protestors resorted to a self-creation of jobs (or collocamento simbolico), entering into factories and firms and starting to work. This form of action copied by the French unemployed who distributed their rsums in the FNAC, asking to be hiredfollows the tradition of land occupation by jobless peasants. The star marches of the French unemployed and the Europe-wide marches, converging on Paris from the provinces, are reminiscent of the hunger marches of the pre-war period: processions walked long distances, symbolically representing the hardships of the unemployed and at the same time sensitizing people at the local level. While the data do indicate that most of the action on unemployment is quite conventional, protest on unemployment should not necessarily be considered as a rare eventat least not in all countries and in all periods. As can be observed in table 1, protest accounts for 9.1% of all claim making: 4.3% in the form of conventional protest, 3.4% as disruptive protest, 1.3% as confrontational protest, and only 0.1% as violent forms of protest. While they represent the minority of claims (the majority being verbal statements), protests on unemployment are still more prominent than protest events in other domains. If we look, for instance, at an Italian database with a similar research design but comprised of different topics (Europub. com), it can be seen that claim makers used protest very rarely on European integration (1.2% of the coded claims), monetary policy (1.5%), and pension (1.6%), with a slightly higher 3.9% of the events coded on agricultural policy and 3.5% of those on Table 1. Forms of Action by Type of Actor (%)
Action State Actors Parties Labor Employers Political Decisions Verbal Statements Conventional Protests Demonstrative Protests Confrontational Violent Protests Total Protests (all forms) Total N 16.0 79.7 3.6 0.5 0.1 4.3 3380 2.3 91.2 5.7 0.8 0.0 6.5 1023 0.7 78.8 5.7 9.3 5.5 20.5 1473 0.2 96.5 3.1 0.2 0.0 3.3 1840 Actor Unemployed 1.2 23.2 3.7 56.1 15.8 75.6 82 Welfare Other Civil Total Associations Society Groups (all actors) 1.6 64.6 10.2 15.7 7.9 33.9 127 0.1 88.5 4.0 5.4 1.9 11.3 890 6.7 84.3 4.3 3.4 1.4 9.1 8930

Cramers V = 0.26*** (*** = significant at 0.001 level)

Source: UNEMPOL database on claim making

Transcending Marginalization

285

immigration with a more significant jump (11.2%) on education (della Porta and Caiani 2005). Thus, we can say that, in comparison with other policy issues, there is relatively significant protest. Moreover, protest takes different forms: conventional (such as petitions, referendums, and judicial action), demonstrative (such as marches or sit-ins), confrontational (such as occupations), and even violence. A quick look at table 1 shows that different actors tend to use different forms of actions: the correlation coefficient (Cramers V = 0.26***) testifies to a statistically significant and relevant association between the two variables. Additionally: The contention on unemployment reported in the press is mainly symbolic: verbal statements dominate with 84.3% of all claims; More powerful actors do not need to protest in order to have their claims covered in the press (see business associations, but also parties): employers and parties focus almost exclusively on verbal statements (respectively, 96.5% and 91.2% of their claims have this form); Unions are very relevant actors in protest on unemployment (20.5% of their claims are of this type), using forms of action with different degrees of radicalism; Third-sector associations often act as advocates for the unemployed (33.9% of their reported claims are made as protest), and also use disruptive forms of action; Although protests conducted by the unemployed are rarely covered in the media, protest accounts for by far the most important part of their claims (75.6%); moreover, they also use the most disruptive forms of action (at least among the covered events). We can add that the form of claim making changes together with the specific issues addressed in the claims. As we can see in table 2, issues of welfare and social benefitsthat is more those issues that are more directly related with the unemployed constituencyare those on which protest forms are more widespread (12.8% and 33.3%, respectively). Demonstrative forms of protest especially address issues that relate more directly to the constituency of the unemployed: claims for doles, housing, and transportation are often voiced during protest marches or sit-ins; although, protests by the unemployed are far from only mentoring only mentioning the material well-being of the unemployed (Zorn 2004: 18, on Germany; Baglioni 2003, on Naples). Issues of individual insertion into the labor market (active measures, training, formation, etc.), as well as the very broad field of socioeconomic issues, are Table 2. Forms of Claim Making by Issue of Claims (%)
Form Issue SocioIndividual Issue Related to economic Welfare and Insertion into the Unemployed Issues Social Benefits Labor Market Constituency 4.6 87.0 3.8 3.1 1.5 8.4 6718 15.0 72.3 6.8 4.2 1.7 12.8 949 12.8 81.5 4.2 1.0 0.4 5.7 989 3.0 63.0 4.2 25.5 3.6 33.3 165

Others 8.3 80.7 4.6 5.5 0.9 11.0 109

Total (all issues) 6.7 84.3 4.2 3.4 1.4 9.0 8930

Political Decisions Verbal Statements Conventional Protests Demonstrative Protests Confrontational and Violent Protests Total (all forms) Total N

Cramers V = 0.12*** (*** = significant at 0.001 level)

Source: UNEMPOL database on claim making

286

Mobilization

are more often addressed though verbal statements. The correlation between forms of action and issues of claims is, however, weak, even though statistically highly significant (Cramers V = 0.12***). The French campaign presented above confirms that the content of claims represents difficult strategic choices in the mobilization against unemployment. First of all, there is a tension between long-term perspectives of economic reform and the needs for immediate relief. In AC! a fracture emerged between the more politicized founders, who demanded a 32hour workweek, and the long-term unemployed, who later joined the organization, demanding immediate relief programs. For instance, one unemployed individual addressed AC! activists, stating: You are kind, but reducing working time, finding a job, thats too longterm of a perspective (quoted in Mouchard 2000: 97). Sentiments such as these pushed the organization to reorient their strategy towards demands for urgent interventions on costs of transportation and lodging. Another difficulty for the development of collective actions by the unemployed is in the process of the cognitive restructuring of the action fields: as the conditions of the unemployed vary, so also do the experiences of the unemployed, with strong tensions in the definition of a collective identity. Indeed, the unemployed cannot struggle in order to defend their collective identity: the most active among them would indeed refuse it, and those who adapt to it, they would not want to struggle for a job (Durand 1981). As observed in the Italian case, while the unemployment of male adults is more likely to mobilize attention, especially in welfare states that privilege the breadwinners, the unemployment of young people and women rarely generates social alarm (or protest), being mainly compensated for within the family (Reyneri 1996; Pugliese 1993). Additionally, there is a bureaucratic fragmentation of the category of the unemployed on the basis of the specific policies addressed to them: gender, age, ethnicity, previous labor experience, etc. In fact, the presence of different agencies and policies facilitates splits in an already weak community. As Reiters research indicates (2002), the Florentine unemployed protest of the post-war period weakened when the former soldiers parted ways with the common unemployed in the hope of getting some special treatment. Regarding these characteristics, the previously employed are those who are usually more protected, especially by welfare states that tend to privilege the male adults as family breadwinners. The first task for those who organize protest on unemployment is indeed offering to all these groups a common collective identity as the unemployed. The success of the French protests was signaled by the capacity of the unemployed, beyond the diversity of their situations of unemployment, to be able to form a social group capable of challenging any government and break the consensus that dominates the French scene (Combesque 1998: 187). On the framing of the mobilization, there are also often splits within the protest milieu between the previously employed, looking for reinsertion into the labor market, and a new generation, often of juvenile unemployed, who refuse the work ethic. A provocative case is represented by the Glcklichen Arbeitslosen (happy unemployed) in Berlin who, at a union march, stressed: On the occasion of the visit of the Rhenish fundamentalists from Cologne we planned together a coup against the Prussian working morale. In the afternoon our unit placed desk chairs in a strategically important point. With drinks and music we started immediately our program: well-being (information from tageszeitung, May 22, 1998, and www.diegluecklichenarbeitslosen.de; quoted in Zorn 2004: 4). Also in the French wave of protest, the younger activists were often characterized by casual work experiences, but also by strong political identities, that helped them avoid the frustration coming from unemployment: working is, for sure, not my passion; working . . . is just a way to pay for your food and a roof; me, the less I work, the better it is (quoted in Maurer 2001: 75). A similar tension between struggling against unemployment and refusing the traditional ethic of work is present in the mobilization of the young, casual workers organized in the Italian campaign of San Precario, the mock saint protector of precarious people, symbol of the protest, as well as the international campaign on May Day (della Porta 2005).

Transcending Marginalization

287

It is especially in this type of protest that the symbolic relationship with labor as a basis for identity building is challenged. Although this type of approach toward unemployment might affect only a minority, it seems more and more influential, especially in protest that demands rights for the precarious, casual workers (Mattoni 2006). This is particularly visible in the organizations that emerge from within the global justice movement, framing labor issues within an emerging discourse on another possible world, involving deep societal changes. As noted by a representative of the Italian Chainworkers, who mobilize on the condition of precariousness with the diffusion of temporary work in the commercial chains (Blockbuster, McDonalds, etc.):
We started to talk about social temporariness. . . . The message was extended to all working categories because we realized that this process of increasing job insecurity was involving not only the commercial chains but also the other types of companies, in the sense that the new workers were not hired, but signed Co.Co.Co. [Collaborazioni coordinate e continuative coordinate and continuous collaborations] contracts, etc. Generally speaking, the persons were between 25 and 30 years old and did not say I have been hired, I found a job, but I have a temporary contract (int. 8, p. 1, quoted in della Porta and Mosca 2005).

The action on temporary work spread from labor issues to everyday life: Saint Precario has five axes of security, which are income, housing, love and friendship, access, and services. So within these five themes there is always a kind of affinity with others, not only in Milan (della Porta and Mosca 2005: 11). The challenge to the conception of labor is perceived in more traditional organizations as well. For example, as the representative of the Italian metallurgic union Fiom observes, meeting with the temporary workers challenges the traditional approach to labor:
We used to say that some parties represented the working class or the workers from the point of view of their social rank. Today we must ask ourselves what workers really are. Do they constitute a homogeneous social entity or are they something less than a social entity, a variable status throughout time? . . . So there is this big problem of what labor is, and this problem is reflected in both labor organization and in trade-union activities. . . . Many of our reference points, especially young people, with whom we are working on these issues, have a different opinion. For them the main question is not fighting temporary work and having a stable job, but rather stable security in a temporary situation, so income becomes even more important than the work (int. 1, p. 3, quoted in della Porta and Mosca 2005).

PROTESTING WHERE AND WHEN? POLITICAL OPPORTUNITIES FOR UNEMPLOYMENT PROTEST In the different forms of protests highlighted above, the strength of the mobilization comes from the networking of the various groups and forms of action, made possible especially during the cycle of protest (Tarrow 1989). In fact, many and various organizations bring to the mobilization the culture of collective action and the knowledge of the militant rituals and practices (Mauer 2001), they have themselves to mobilize resources for action. More than from single organizations, the protest on unemployment in France in the 1990s or in Italy in 2002 rose from the networking of different, heterogeneous groups (see also Hannigton 1973, on the British unemployed in the 1920s). In France, the peak of the struggle of unemployment followed two waves of mobilization on the social question: the massive strikes of 1995 against the restructuring of the welfare state (followed by the cheminot strike in 1996-1997), and the wave of mobilization of the mouvement de sans with the sans-papiers (migrants without documents) protest, as well as those of the homeless in various moments during the nineties (sans-logis and mal-loge, see Maurer and Pierru 2001; Agrikoliansky, Fillieule, and Mayer 2005). In Naples, the first peak in the struggle of the organized unemployed coincides

288

Mobilization

with the urban movement of the early seventies, while another wave followed the recent mobilization of the global justice movement (Remondino 1998). In Argentina, the piqueteros allied with the Madres de la Plaza de Mayo (the mothers of those who were killed during the dictatorship), collectives of university students, and public employees unions (Petras 2003: 133). Considering these examples of collective action on unemployment by heterogeneous groups, it is important to address the question of how opportunities for the development of such networks come to exist. Research on social movements has usually linked the cycle of protest with the opening of windows of opportunity (Tarrow 1989; Kriesi et al. 1995; della Porta 1995). The stress upon political opportunity challenges the breakdown approaches that link protest to grievances, assuming instead thatin a complex society in which discontent is always alivemobilization occurs when resources and opportunities for the aggrieved groups are available. On specific issues such as unemployment, historical research has indicated that, although the amount of protest is not directly correlated with unemployment rates (on the United Kingdom in the 1920s and 1930s, see Bagguley 1991: 85; on the United States between 1890-1940, see Kerbo and Schaffer 1992),4 mobilization for the unemployed is indeed sensitive to labor market cycles. A first wave of mobilization on unemployment developed during a time of economic depression between the two world wars (see Richards 2002). After the Second World War, there was no mobilization on unemployment in France, as there was a large demand for workers (see Tartakovsky 1997), while the unemployed did mobilize in Italy where unemployment was massive (Reiter 2002). In periods during which unemployment is a major social problem, the degree and forms of mobilization are, however, influenced by the openness of political institutions towards protestors, as well as their capacity to mobilize political allies. Although transnational and local conditions are expected to be more and more relevant due to the phenomena of globalization and Europeanization on the one hand, and of political decentralization and regionalism on the other, national political opportunities are still expected to play the most relevant role. That protest (at least, reported protest) does not much address the supranational level is no surprise. Research on protest events, usually based on newspaper sources, stresses the scarcity of actions that directly target European institutions on such different issues as migrant rights (Giugni and Passy 2002) or environmental protection (Rootes 2002). Within this background, it is thus remarkable that, compared with other forms of claim making, protest is even more frequently reported at the supranational level (16.8%) that at the national (11.8% see table 3). Demonstrative forms of protest are especially present at the supranational level where we have found instances of protest in both of our narratives on France and Italybut other forms of protest are also present. It is, however, at the regional level that protest is covered the most, but only by a slim margin. Here as well, the statistical association is highly significant, but substantively weak (Cramers V = 0.11***). Given the low EU competency on employment issues, this attention paid by the protestors to the EU level can be interpreted as a sort of preemptive Europeanization. The Europeanization of protest has often taken the form of domestication: pressure on national authority in order to redress policies at the supranational (EU) level (Imig and Tarrow 2001).5 In our case, instead, a form of externalization dominates, since the mobilizations and communications of national actors target the EU directly in an attempt to place pressure on the groups own governments (Chabanet 2002; also in this isses). As Didier Chabanet (2002) suggests, protest on unemployment is indeed an example of externalization: the EU is called upon as an additional level of opportunity, in order to address issues that are perceived as no longer under the control of the nation state (see also della Porta 2003; and della Porta and Caiani 2005). With few exceptions, the organizations participating in the march did not reject European integration, but instead asked for a different social and political EU (Chabanet 2002). AC! declared: A social France was never given spontaneously by capitalists and gov-

Transcending Marginalization

289

Table 3. Forms of Claim Making by Scope of the Target (%)

Form Supranational Political Decisions Verbal Statements Conventional Protests Demonstrative Protests Confrontational and Violent Protests Total (all forms) Total N 6.8 76.4 5.2 8.4 3.2 16.8 250 National 5.9 82.3 4.6 4.8 2.4 11.8 2683 Scope of Target Regional/Local 14.9 66.0 4.6 7.1 7.5 19.1 282 Unknown 2.3 95.7 0.3 1.3 0.3 2.0 300 Total 6.4 81.7 4.3 4.9 2.7 11.9 3515

Cramers V = 0.11*** (*** = significant at 0.001 level) Source: UNEMPOL database on claim making

ernors. . . . In a similar way, a social Europe will come only from an active and united intervention of European workers (Salmon 1998: 218). Our data confirm, first of all, that protest is still mainly oriented towards the nation state. As can be seen in table 3, protest is, in absolute terms, a rare event at the supranational level, while it is more frequent at the local and, especially, the national levels. While conventional forms of protest are concentrated at the national level, more disruptive forms of protest target instead the local level, where we also find a relevant number of protest events. This can be explained by the fact that, as was already noted, the most disruptive forms of action are those of the unemployed themselves, who have fewer resources to invest in the construction of national organizations. Moreover, our case studies on the protest of the unemployed indicate the important role of local specific conditions (e.g., the special law for the reconstruction after the earthquake in Naples) in the construction of community-specific organizational resources for the unemployed. In France, notwithstanding the star marches converging upon the capital, the Comit de chomeurs organized at the local level. In Italy, most of the disruptive protest by the unemployed comes from committees of the organized unemployed that are deeply rooted as their very names often indicatein specific neighborhoods (such as the historical Comitato di Vico Cinquesanti). Also, research on the unemployed movement in Argentina stresses the role of local communities in supporting the road blocks and city camps organized by the piqueteros in quasi-segregated, relatively homogeneous barrios hit by the massive firing of factory workers and the privatization of mineral and energy centers, accompanied by closures (Petras 2003: 128).6 Our narratives provide some, not mutually exclusive, explanations for this tendency towards a communitarization of unemployed struggle. First of all, as Fillieule (1993) observes, protest on unemployment develops in a field that is highly structured by public institutions. And, welfare institutions are indeed decentralized at the local level, to where in a dual state the distribution of subsidies and services is often devolved. In France, the local ASSEDICs have indeed been targets and stages for the protest of unemployment associations with a focus on immediate needs (Bourneau and Martin 1993: 172). But, as the hunger strike of the Termini Imereses mayor illustrates, local politicians can offer support to unemployment protest within the community, using them in a double-level game to put pressure upon national authorities. Successes at the local levels (the rehiring of fired workers, the issuing of special programs for underdeveloped areas, etc.) are important for maintaining and building organizational momentum by showing that protesting helps to achieve material results. This is all the

290

Mobilization

more important for poorly endowed groups. In Naples, the hiring of the first groups of the organized unemployed as public employees in the local administration, of other groups in the public health sector, the organization of courses for professional training, as well as the reform of the mechanism of job distribution (Pugliese 1998), all contributed to the framing of protest as a successful strategy. The mobilizing slogan of the protest has in fact long been the struggle pays off. According to a Neapolitan activist, in the families, it is quite common that fathers tell their children that to get a job you have to join the unemployed organizations (Baglioni 2003: 8). Also, in France, local actions on immediate relief policies have often been successful: in 1994, the occupations of local ASSEDICs resulted in the allocation of a special Christmas dole (Salmon 1998: 206). As Royall (1998: 362) observes, the association in defense of the unemployed . . . was able, at least for some time, to modify the perception of the unemployed about their mobilization potential. They encouraged the unemployed to struggle for their rights, and convinced thousands of them to mobilize. In order for this to happen, it was necessary to show the unemployed that they had real chances for success. At the national level, which is by far the most common target of protest on unemployment, we can assume that national opportunities are indeed going to explain the degree and forms of mobilization. A cross-country comparison of protest on unemployment confirms (see Table 4), in fact, the relevance of national institutions in orienting the strategies of collective actors (with a highly significant, but not particularly strong, correlation coefficient: Cramers V = 0.14***). We can observe, first of all, that the degree of attention to the issue of unemployment does not directly affect the coverage of protest in the press. Indeed, even though Germany in the period we cover is a country with dramatically increasing rates of unemployment and strong political controversies on the reform of the welfare state, protest of all types remains limited in a public sphere where verbal declarations are by far the dominant form of claim making. Since at least the 1980s, unions have intervened among the unemployed, but usually in the form of training and other types of help more than of protesting (WolskiPrenger 1998). Similar to that in Germany, although with less dramatic rates of unemployment, is the situation in Sweden. In both countries, neocorporatist assets in industrial relations might have discouraged politics in the streets. Protest is also low in the United Kingdom, where not only the unemployed appear as politically isolated (Bugguley 1998), but also in the period covered the dynamics of the labor market are quite different from those dominating Continental Europe. Table 4. Forms of Claim Making by Country (%)
Form UK Political Decisions Verbal Statements Conventional Protests Demonstrative Protests Confrontational Protests Violent Protests Total (all forms) Total N 5.2 90.3 2.0 1.9 0.3 0.4 4.5 750 Switzerland France 10.6 76.1 7.5 5.1 0.7 0.0 13.3 2019 11.9 65.1 8.6 9.0 5.3 0.1 23.0 790 Country Italy 12.0 77.9 2.2 2.7 4.9 0.2 10.1 950 Germany 2.0 92.9 2.7 2.0 0.3 0.0 5.1 3837 Sweden 9.4 85.1 3.1 2.4 0.0 0.0 5.5 583 Total 6.7 84.3 4.2 3.4 1.3 0.1 9.0 8930

Cramers V = 0.14*** (*** = significant at 0.001 level)

Source: UNEMPOL database on claim making

Transcending Marginalization

291

We find instead much more reported protest in the other three countries. France and Italy are those countries characterized by the highest rates of confrontational protest, while France and Switzerland have the highest rates of conventional and demonstrative protest. The presence of a fragmented union scene in all three countries, with left-wing trade unions especially visible in France (Gallie 1985) and Italy (della Porta 1996), might well explain why protest finds more opportunities to develop in these countries, thanks to the alliance with part of the union movement. While in Switzerland the tradition of inclusiveness moderates the forms of protest (Kriesi et al. 1995), the higher disruptiveness in Italy and France reflects instead the more polarized, exclusive tradition in both countries. Political opportunities can also be considered in terms of the availability of alliances. Traditionally, the parties of the left have supported the mobilization of the unemployed. Although the unemployed have often been stigmatized as lumpenproletariat in some left-wing orthodoxy, left-wing parties have offered resources and support in several waves of protest following mass dismissals and economic depression. This was the case, for instance, in the 1930s in the United States, where protests were organized by Unemployed Councils supported by the Communist Party, the Socialist Party, and the Musteites Committees, and declined after the desertion of these important allies (Kerbo and Schaffer 1992; Valocchi 1990). In Naples, the temporary decline of the movement of the organized unemployed in the mid-1970s has been explained by the failure to mobilize support on the Left: There was the need of more stringent forms of collaboration with the labor movements and its organizations as well as other skills in order to negotiate with the institutional counterpart (Pugliese 1998: 196). A few decades later in Italy, Rifondazione Comunista, the left-wing splinter faction founded after the demise of the Italian Communist Party, supported a reduction of the working day as well as a guaranteed salary. In the French mobilization of the 1990s, a visible role was played by the Association pour lEmploi, lInformation et la Solidariet, supported by the PCF, that offered material support to the unemployed in their interactions with the welfare institutions (Bourneau and Martin 1993). The hypothesis, present in social movement literature (della Porta and Diani 2006, ch. 8), that mobilization against unemployment would be stronger under right-wing governments (perceived as opponents, and thus weaker) than under left-wing governments (perceived as allies), does not always hold for the mobilization of the 1990s and the 2000s. In fact, protesters often target attempted reforms even by left-wing governments, reacting to a perceived betrayal. This was indeed the case for the protest in France, oriented against a left-wing government (elected in 1997) that wanted to reduce the budget for urgent relief policies. If the Socialist-led government was indeed accused of a neoliberal turn (Bourbeau and Martin 1993: 172), this is by far not the only example. As protestors often stress, a left-wing government in Italy was likewise responsible for introducing the reform that increased flexibility in the labor market. In fact, more than by the support of left-wing party alliances, the opportunity for protest on unemployment seems more and more related to public opinion support. Again in the French case, a success during the first struggle by the unemployed came from their capacity to address, and convince, public opinion. The appeal to public opinion through a strategy of scandalization is indeed visible in the French illustration, as well as in the Italian one. In France, a leaflet of the organization Partage reads, against misery, loneliness, desperation that produce suicides always more numerous among unemployed (in Fillieule 1993: 142), while later an AC! banner would read, how can you sleep when an unemployed commits suicide?7 In Italy, the involvement of the wives of the dismissed Fiat workers in the protest against unemployment points to the disruptive effect unemployment has on the moral bases of the society. Community (and public opinion) support has been noticed in the evolution of the Argentine piqueteros from passive sufferers of poverty and social disorganization and clientelistic manipulation [into] activists in a powerful solidarity movement, engaged in autonomous grassroots social organization and independent politics (Petras 2003: 130).

292

Mobilization

Media coverage also helps in synchronizing local actions, changing the multitudes of initiatives in a movement with national amplitude (Maurer and Pierru 2001: 388). CONCLUSION Although rare, protest on unemployment nevertheless does exist. This article focused on the existence and the heterogeneity of protest on unemployment, from the more sporadic and disruptive outbursts of the long-time unemployed, to the better-structured protest against dismissals. It also focused on the intertwining of protest on unemployment with other issues during cycles of protest. Linking observations made in different parts of this article, three different constellations emerge that future research can address more systematically: Protest actions on long-term unemployment: these are community-based forms of protest that involve NGOs (secular and religious) and left-wing political activists, that make use of direct action (road blocks, etc.) and highly symbolic forms of protest (hunger strikes, etc.), and that are oriented towards obtaining policies of immediate relief for their constituency; Protest actions against massive dismissals: these tend to involve the unions, to use a mix of mass protest (marches) and traditional forms of industrial action (from strikes to occupations), and to be oriented towards political exchange (ad-hoc solutions); Protest actions on unemployment (and labor policies) within more general cycles of protest: these are forms linked to general cycles of protest (at national or local levels), that involve left-wing social movement organizations, but also unions and parties, and that use a variety of direct forms of action to push for political solutions to labor market problems (reduce flexibility, reduce working time, etc.). Organizations of the unemployed might collaborate in different forms in the different constellations. I have stressed, in particular, that protest is the only resource through which the unemployed themselves occasionally enter the public sphere. Moreover, protest on unemployment is often carried out by unions (especially on dismissals), welfare organizations, and voluntary associations, as well as by allied social movements. I have also pointed at some peculiarities of these different forms vis--vis protest on other issues, as well as actions other than protest on the issue of unemployment. Organizationally, protest on unemployment involves loose local alliances of unemployed organizations with unions, left-wing political groups and social movement organizations, or various types of voluntary associations. As for their repertoires, protest on unemployment tends to assume some typical forms: occupations of working places; occupations of welfare institutions dealing with unemployment; long marches; hunger strikes; and other forms of action with high symbolic impact, oriented to stress the absolute injustice of the position of the unemployed. Additionally, the framing of the issues of labor changes, together with the evolution of the labor market, restates the importance of social dynamics for political protest. Opportunities for protest on unemployment are influenced by some political characteristics as well. In general, the status of unions, as well as the traditional assets of industrial relations, will affect the chances of protest. Finally, as left-wing parties move decisively to the centerright, the unemployed turn to public opinion as a potential ally for their cause. Other allies do emerge, however, especially during cycles of protest. NOTES
1 Protest event analysis is also criticized because of its description bias (McCarthy et al. 1996). In order to reduce this bias, in addition to focusing on quality newspapers (that have to protect their reputation), we based our coding only on the factual coverage of events in newspaper articles, without taking into consideration any potential comments or evaluation made by the journalist. 2 Notably, these same groups had helped with the creation of a Comit chrtien de solidarit avec les chomeurs (Fillieule 1993).

Transcending Marginalization
3 4 5

293

The role of the activists of the social movements of the 1970s was also noticed in Germany (Rein 1997). Im grateful to Herbert Reiter for this information. The typology of Europeanized protest, proposed by Doug Imig and Sidney Tarrow (2001), combines the nationalinternational dimension both in terms of the actors engaging in protest and their targets. 6 An example is the wave of road blocks and camps organized in Salta following the closure of the petrol company General Mosconi, where not only 5,000 of the 15,000 inhabitants were employed, but which also had built a sort of semi-private welfare state (Dinerstein 2001). 7 Indeed, in France in 1995, as many as 62 % of people asked wanted a greater investment in the struggle against exclusions, and the media coverage of the wave of protest in 1997-98 will help to further change the public image of the unemployed: from poor souls waiting in front of the Restos du Coer to demonstrators holding flagsthe rebellious unemployed (Salmon 1998).

REFERENCES
Agrikoliansky, Eruc, and Isabelle Sommier, eds. 2005. Radiographie du mouvement altermondialiste. Paris: La Dispute. Baglioni, Simone. 2003. Bridging Local and Global: Experiences of Transnational Social Alert From the Organizations of the Unemployed Movement in Italy. Paper prepared for the conference on Transnational Processes and Social Movements, Villa Serbelloni, Bellagio, Italy, July 22-26. Broud, Sophie, Ren Mouriaux, and Michel Vakaloulis. 1998. Le movement social en France. Essai de sociologie politique. Paris : La Dispute. Bourneau, Francois, and Virginie Martin. 1993. Organiser les sans emploi? Lexprience de lApeis dans le Val-de-Marne. Pp. 157-180 in Sociologie de la protestation, Olivier Fillieule, ed. Paris: LHarmattan. Buechler, Steven M. 2004. The Strange Career of Strain and Breakdown Theories of Collective Action. Pp. 47-66 in The Blackwell Companion to Social Movements, Davis A. Snow, Sarah H. Soule, and Hanspeter Kriesi, eds. Oxford: Blackwell. Bugguley, Paul. 1998. Collective Action and Welfare Recipients in Britain. Pp. 39-57 in Beyond Marginality? Social Movements of Social Security Claimants in the European Union, Rik van Berkel, Harry Cohen, and Ruud Vlek, eds. Aldershot: Ashgate. Chabanet, Didier. 2002. Les marches europennes contre le chmage, la prcarit et les exclusions. In L'action collective en Europe, Richard Balme, Didier Chabanet, and Vincent Wright, eds. Paris: Presses de Sciences Po. Chopart, Jean-Noel, Bernard Eme, Jean Louis Laville, and Rene Mouriaux. 1998. The Collective Action of Welfare Recipients in Europe: The Situation in France. Pp. 59-94 in Beyond Marginality? Social Movements of Social Security Claimants in the European Union, Rik van Berkel, Harry Cohen, and Ruud Vlek, eds. Aldershot: Ashgate. Combesqua, M.A. 1998. Ca suffit. Histoire du mouvement de chomeurs. Paris: Plon. della Porta, Donatella. 1995. Social Movements, Political Violence and the State. Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press. . 1996. Movimenti collettivi e sistema politico in Italia, 1960-1995. Bari: Laterza. . 2003. The Europeanisation of Protest: A Typology and Some Empirical Evidence. Working Paper, European University Institute, Florence. . 2005. Studying the First of May in Cross-National and Historical Comparison: Between Longue Dure and Eventful Sociology. Positional paper prepared for presentation at the workshop on The First of May Between Routine and Contestation: A Cross-National and Historical Comparison of Labour Day in Europe, European University Institute, Florence, November 11-12. .2008. One or Two Logics? Case Selection in Case-Oriented Versus Variable-Oriented Research. In Methods and Approaches in the Social Sciences, Donatella della Porta and Michael Keating, eds. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (forthcoming). della Porta, Donatella, and Manuela Caiani. 2005. Quale Europa? Europeizzazione, identit e conflitti. Bologna: Il Mulino. della Porta, Donatella, and Mario Diani. 2006. Social Movements, 2nd ed. Oxford: Blackwell . della Porta, Donatella, and Lorenzo Mosca. 2005. In Movimento, Contamination in Action and the Italian Global Justice Movement. Paper presented at the conference on The Origins of the Global Justice Movement, Paris, September. Demazire, Didier, and Maria Teresa Pignoni. 1998. Chmeurs: du silence la rvolte. Paris: Hachette.

294

Mobilization

Dinerstein, Ana C. 2001. Roadblocks in Argentina. Capital and class 74: 1-7. Durand, Claude. 1981. Presentation de numero special RFS sur Politique de lemploy et action collective, n. 23. Fantasia, Rick and and Judith Stepan-Norris, 2004, The Labour Movement in Motion, in David A. Snow, Sarah A. Soule and Hanspeter Kriesi (eds), The Blackwell Companion to Social Movements, Oxford, Blackwell, 555-575. Fillieule, Olivier. 1993. Conscience politique, persuasion et mobilisation des engagements. L'exemple du syndicat des chmeurs, 1983-1989. Pp. 123-155 in Sociologie de la protestation. Les formes de l'action collective dans la France contemporaine, Olivier Fillieule, ed. Paris: L'Harmattan. Franzosi, Roberto. 1994. From Words to Numbers: A Generalized and Linguistics-Based Coding Procedure for Collecting Event Data From Newspapers. Pp. 263-298 in Sociological Methodology, Clifford Clogg, ed. Oxford: Blackwell. Galland, O., and M.V. Louis. 1981. Chomage et action collective. Sociologie di travail 23: 173-191. Gallie, Duncan. 1989. Social Inequality and Class Radicalism in France and Britain. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gamson, William A., and Andre Modigliani. 1989. Media Discourse and Public Opinion on Nuclear Power: a Constructionist Approach. American Journal of Sociology 95: 1-38. Giugni, Marco, and Florence Passy, eds. 2001. Political Altruism? Solidarity Movements in International Perspective. Laham: Rowman and Littlefield. Giugni, Marco, and Florence Passy. 2002. Le champ politique de limmigration en Europe: opportunits, mobilisations et hritage de lEtat national. Pp. 433-60 in Laction collective en Europe, Richard Balme, Didier Chabanet, and Vincent Wright, eds. Paris: Presses de Sciences Po. Hannigton, W. 1973 [1936]. Unemployed Struggles, 1919-1936: My Life and Struggles amongst the Unemployed. Wakefield: EP Pub. Imig, Doug, and Sidney Tarrow. 2001. Mapping the Europeanisation of Contention: Evidence from a Quantitative Data Analysis. Pp. 27-53 in Contentious Europeans: Protest and Politics in an Emerging Polity, Doug Imig and Sidney Tarrow, eds. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield. Kazepov, Yuri, and Giustina Orientale Caputo. 1998. No Organization, no Services, no Money. The Poor and the Excluded from Welfare in Italy. Pp. 119-155 in Beyond Marginality? Social Movements of Social Security Claimants in the European Union, Rik van Berkel, Harry Cohen, and Ruud Vlek, eds. Aldershot: Ashgate. Kerbo, H. R., and R. A. Shaffer. 1992. Lower Class Insurgency and the Political Process: The Response of the U. S. Unemployed, 1890-1940. Social Problems 39: 139-154. Koopmans, Ruud, and Paul Statham. 1999. Ethnic and Civic Conceptions of Nationhood and the Differential Success of the Extreme Right in Germany and Italy. Pp. 225-251 in How Movements Matter, Marco Giugni, Doug McAdam, and Charles Tilly, eds. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Kriesi, Hanspeter, Ruud Koopmans, Jan-Willem Duyvendak, and Marco Giugni. 1995. New Social Movements in Western Europe. Minneapolis/London: The University of Minnesota Press/UCL Press. Lipsky, Michael. 1965. Protest and City Politics. Chicago: Rand McNally. McCarthy, John, Clark McPhail, and Jackie Smith. 1996. Images of Protest: Estimating Selection Bias in Media Coverage of Washington Demonstrations, 1982-1991. American Sociological Review 61: 478-99. McCarthy, John, and Mayer Zald. 1977. Resource Mobilization and Social Movements: A Partial Theory. American Journal of Sociology 82: 1212-41. Maurer, Sophie. 2001. Les chomeurs en action (dcembre 1997 mars 1998). Mobilisation collective et ressources compensatoire. Paris: LHarmattan. Maurer, Sophie, and Emmanuel Pierru. 2001. Le mouvement des chomeurs de lhiver 1997-1998. Retour sur un miracle social. Revue Francaise de Science Politique 512: 317-407. Mouchard, Daniel. 2000. La reconstruction du sujet politique. Mobilisations de chomeurs at revendication de revenue garantie. Raisons politiques 4: 91-111. . 2002. Les sans emplois. In La France Rebelle, Xavier Crettiez and Isabelle Sommier, eds. Paris: Edition Michalon. Pechu, Cecile. 1996. Quand les exclu passent a laction. Politix 34. Petras, James. 2003. The New Development Politics. The Age of Empire Building and New Social Movements. Aldershot: Ashgate. Piven, Frances F., and Richard Cloward. 1977. Poor Peoples Movements. New York: Pantheon. . 1992. Normalizing Collective Protest. Pp. 301-25 in Frontiers in Social Movement Theory,

Transcending Marginalization

295

. 1992. Normalizing Collective Protest. Pp. 301-25 in Frontiers in Social Movement Theory, A. Morris and C. McClurg Mueller, eds. New Haven: Yale University Press. . 2000. Power Repertoires and Globalization. Politics and Society 28: 413-30. Pugliese, Enrico. 1998. Postfazione a Fabrizia Remondino, Ci dicevano analfabeti. Il movimento dei disoccupati napoletani degli anni 70. Lecce: Argo. . 1993. Sociologia della disoccupazione. Bologna: Il Mulino. Rein, Harald. 1997. Wir kaempfen um das, was wir brauchen. Forschungsjournal NSB 10 (2): 70-75. Reiter, Herbert. 2002. The Unemployed in Florence. University of Florence (manuscript). Remondino, Fabrizia. 1998. Ci dicevano analfabeti. Il movimento dei disoccupati napoletani degli anni 70. Lecce: Argo. Reyneri, E. 1996. Il mercato del lavoro in Italia. Bologna: Il Mulino. Richards, Andrew. 2002. Mobilizing the Powerless: Collective Protest Action of the Unemployed in the Interwar Period. Working Paper 175, Instituto Juan March, Madrid. Rootes, Christopher A. 2002. The Europeanisation of Environmentalism. Pp. 377-404 in Laction collective en Europe, Richard Balme, Didier Chabanet, and Vincent Wright, eds. Paris: Presses de Sciences Po. Royall, Frdric. 1998. Le mouvement des chomeurs en France de lhiver 1997-1998. Modern and Contemporary France 6 : 351-65. Rucht, Dieter. 2002. The EU as a Target of Political Mobilization: Is there a Europeanisation of Conflict. Pp. 163-194 in Laction collective en Europe, Richard Balme, Didier Chabanet, and Vincent Wright, eds. Paris: Presses de Sciences Po. Salmon, Jean Marc. 1998. Le dsir de societ. Des restaurants du coer au mouvement des chomeurs. Paris : La dcouverte. Simeant, Johanna. 1998. La cause des sans-papiers. Paris: Presses de Sciences Po. Snow, David A., Burke E. Rochford, Steven Worden, and Robert Benford. 1986. Frame Alignment Processes, Micromobilization, and Movement Participation. American Sociological Review 51: 464-81. Tarrow, Sidney. 1989. Democracy and Disorder: Protest and Politics in Italy, 1965-1975. Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press. Tartakovsky, Danielle. 1997. Les manifestations de rue en France. Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne. Valocchi, S. 1990. The Unemployed Workers Movement of the 1930s: a Reexamination of the Piven and Cloward Thesis. Social Problems 37: 191-205. Wolski-Prenger, Friedhelm. 1998. Projects for the Unemployed in Germany. Pp. 95-117 in Beyond Marginality? Social Movements of Social Security Claimants in the European Union, Rik van Berkel, Harry Cohen, and Ruud Vlek, eds. Aldershot: Ashgate. Zorn, Annika. 2004. Entering the Unemployment Debate: From Unemployed Observers to Unemployed Participants. Paper prepared for the conference: Public Employment Action and Unemployed Movements, Lyon, November 19-20.