Mission Statement

The Program for the Study of Contentious Politics at Cornell University brings together activities both at Cornell and elsewhere relating to the study of various forms of contentious politics. Cornell is richly endowed with faculty members who deal in their research and teaching with the general area we call “contentious politics”: especially in Development Sociology, City and Regional Planning, the NY State School of Industrial and Labor Relations, and Arts and Sciences. The Cornell libraries also possess a rich array of materials, both historical and contemporary, relevant to social movements, rebellions, strike waves, feminism, nationalism, and democratization. The Program for the Study of Contentious Politics aims to provide a mechanism to facilitate communication and joint activities among these various nodes of activity.

            The problem of academic segmentation in the study of contentious politics is not limited to Cornell. This area of research and activism has remained divided among specialists on terrorism, social movements, revolutions, strike waves, feminism, nationalism, nonviolence, and “conflict studies” -- all of them involving contentious politics, but with little synthesis among them. Events in the “real world” in recent years make it particularly urgent to bring together knowledge and perspectives from different specialties to the study of contentious politics:

• Transnational Contention: The national frontiers that once delimited the activities of social movements have become more permeable, with “global” social movements, NGOs, civil groups and international institutions intervening beyond boundaries to both mobilize claimants and resolve festering domestic conflicts
• A particularly ferocious type of contentious politics – terrorism – has recently come onto everyone’s screen. Scholars have quickly responded with courses, conferences and research activities, but seldom applied our vast stock of knowledge about contentious politics to political violence
• Religious conflict is often seen at the core of terrorism, but the expertise of scholars of religion is seldom put to use in studies of religious-based conflict, where stereotypes of “fundamentalism” often take the place of serious analysis
• In the rush to oppose terrorism and attack regimes that are suspected of collusion with terrorists, a major area of contentious politics – nonviolent resistance – has lost ground, both as an alternative to terrorism and as a field of study
• Both in Central and Eastern Europe and in the Third World, democratization has involved intensive contentious politics, but its study has often been carried out as if it were purely an elite pact-making exercise.
• Finally, in the last few years, both the global justice movement and the more recent antiwar movement are demonstrating a surprising capacity of activists to cross national borders and create transnational social movements.

Cornell’s goal in establishing the Program for the Study of Contentious Politics is to address these issues through a program of conferences, workshops, graduate student field research and bringing activists and practitioners into our activities on campus. Professor Sidney Tarrow, who currently directs the program, holds appointments in the Departments of Government and Sociology (see http://falcon.arts.cornell.edu/Govt/faculty/Tarrow.pdf). An advisory group representing several Cornell programs and departments advises the director on current and future activities (please click here). Graduate students associated with the program come from a variety of Departments, ranging from Sociology to Government to City and Regional Planning to Science and Technology Studies and Development Sociology. We also hope to draw upon the expertise of activists and other practitioners, bringing them to campus as speakers or for short periods of study, including them in our workshops and conferences, and asking them to serve as informal advisers for graduate students going off to do field research.

Current resources

            The program enjoys the support of both the College of Arts and Sciences and the Cornell Provost. It currently administers two outside research grants: a grant from the National Science Foundation for research on transnational collective action; and a grant from the Ford Foundation for the study of the linkages between domestic social movements and international institutions (please click here).  Cornell graduate students cooperate in these projects and are preparing dissertation research on topics such as: the role of the internet in social movement mobilization; local climate change networks in the United States and Canada; the transnational spread of both nationalism and indigenous rights movements; religious human rights networks in the UN system; and transnational labor mobilization. 

External Links

            The program has also established cooperative relations with cognate programs at other universities and research centers, both in the United States and in Western Europe, notably: The Group for Research on European Collective Action at the University of Florence (see http://www.unifi.it/grace/inglese.htm ); the Contentious Politics Workshop at Columbia University (see http://www.iserp.columbia.edu/initiatives/workshops/workshops/contentious_politics.html), the Global Affairs Institute at Syracuse University (see http://www.maxwell.syr.edu/gai), and the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict in Washington, D.C. (see http://www.nonviolent-conflict.org).  

Workshop on Transnational Contention

With the support of the Ford Foundation, the program organizes a research workshop on transnational contention that brings scholars and activists to Cornell for short visits (For information on the organization of the workshop (see http://falcon.arts.cornell.edu/sgt2/contention/default.htm). In A/Y 2003-4, the workshop will be held at Syracuse University under the sponsorship of the Global Affairs Institute, led by Professor Hans Peter Schmitz of the Department of Political Science (see http://faculty.maxwell.syr.edu/hpschmitz).

Other Activities

In the first year of its existence (A/Y 2002-3), the program offered support and advice to graduate students for their field research and to other Cornell units and neighboring institutions for joint support of their activities. The Tri-Campus Workshop on Contentious Politics, a joint endeavor of Cornell, Binghamton, and Syracuse Universities, brings together academics and graduate students interested in the study of contentious politics;  “Crossing Borders”, an initiative of the Cornell Program on International Studies in Planning,  brings scholars and practitioners of NGOs to Cornell for short visits; and the research program on Incarceration and Prisoners’ Rights examines the defects of our incarceration system and examines prisoners’ rights activism. We hope to continue support for these activities in the future.

Activities for A/Y 2003-4 supported by the Program for the Study of Contentious Politics include:

• International Studies in Planning Colloquium: This year's colloquium, under the leadership of Professor Lourdes Beneria, CRP, will center on the theme "labor and work in a globalized world." Its objective is to bring academics and activists together to discuss trends, points of tension, policy and action linked to increasingly global and flexible labor markets, including those associated with labor market informalization and poverty across countries and regions. While we expect that some speakers will address issues relevant to a specific country, the emphasis will be on tracing transnational linkages, both in terms of the analysis of labor/work and of policies, action and networks operating beyond national boundaries.  Our objective is to invite about 5-6 speakers from Cornell and 7-8 from outside. For further information, contact Professor Beneria at lb21@cornell.edu or at: Department of City and Regional Planning, 209 W. Sibley Hall, Cornell University, 607-255-2148.

New initiatives are: nationalism and inter-ethnic conflict, democratization and constitution-building in Africa, peace-making and peace-building in ethnically-divided societies, the international legal cascade against torturers and dictators, non-violent contention and the role of non-profit groups organizing among the poor, including ex-prisoners, families and communities affected by incarceration.

For further information, please contact Jennifer Gómez, Program Administrator, at jkg24@cornell.edu.