Workshop on Contentious Politics at Columbia University

In one form or another, what now operates as Columbia's workshop on contentious politics has been running weekly during the academic year at Michigan, then the New School, and then Columbia during most years since 1969.The usual format: paper (one-page memo plus maximum 50 pages including notes and end matter distributed via the website one week prior to the session; two critics volunteer for each session; the critics open each session with ten-minute critiques of the paper, author replies briefly, question-and-answer
session ensues.

The weeks paper is ordinarily available at least one week in advance through
the workshop website: http://www.iserp.columbia.edu/news/calendars/contentious_politics.html
(You can also reach it by clicking your way through the Columbia sociology website: www.sociology.columbia.edu.) You can communicate with other workshop members (and a few hundred kindred spirits elsewhere) by sending messages to amsoc@columbia.edu. (We bar advertisements, petitions, and forwarding of third parties statements.) To subscribe to that list, send a one-word message  subscribe to amsoc request@columbia.edu. If you weary of the conversation, you can later send another one word message unsubscribe to the same address.
For more information please visit: http://www.iserp.columbia.edu/news/calendars/contentious_politics.html

International Center on Nonviolent Conflict (ICNC)

The International Center on Nonviolent Conflict develops and encourages the use of civilian-based, non-military strategies that lead to the establishment and defense of democratic self-rule and human rights. Acting as a catalyst to stimulate the choice of nonviolent conflict, the Center collaborates with likeminded institutions, nongovernmental organizations and selected agencies to: educate the global public; inspire policy debate and media coverage; and provide field assistance to deepen the conceptual knowledge and practical skills of applying nonviolent strategies by movements engaged in struggles against authoritarian governments, for self-determination, and for rights and justice.
For more information please visit: http://www.nonviolent-conflict.org

Global Affairs Institute

The Global Affairs Institute (GAI) was established in 1993 to extend, integrate, and focus the Maxwell School's commitment to exploring current international and global concerns. Its central mission is to facilitate research among faculty and graduate students regarding the issues raised by an interdependent world of diverse cultures, economies, and political systems.  The Institute focuses on broadening our knowledge concerning challenges to the quality of governance globally.

GAI fulfills its mission by (1) supporting multidisciplinary and collaborative research projects among teams of faculty and graduate students, (2) sponsoring a variety of lecture series, (3) providing research fellowships and internship opportunities to graduate students, (4) publishing the products of its working groups, and (5) organizing conferences, credit bearing seminars, and workshops on its core themes. GAI currently provides an institutional base for seven problem-focused working groups and four regionally focused research institutes.  It also houses the editorial team for the International Studies Review, a journal of the International Studies Association, as well as serves as the "home away from home" for visiting scholars and practitioners from
around the world.
For more information please visit: http://www.maxwell.syr.edu/gai

GRACE ( Research Group on European Collective Action )

The research of the Group for Research on Collective Action in Europe (GRACE) focuses on social and political mobilizations and on topics of citizenship, with particular attention to Europe. By the second half of the twentieth century, some fundamental civil, political and social rights had already been acquired. However, in Western Europe, beginning in the 1960s, different types of social movements have appealed for new rights and new freedoms, elaborating a conception of democracy that privileges the principles of participation over those of representation. Student movements, youth movements, women, ecologists, and pacifists, and movements of solidarity with the peoples of the South have developed in the succeeding decades, calling for the extension of existing rights to previously excluded groups, but also formulating new claims.

During several campaigns and cycles of protest, collective identities have emerged and been consolidated; unconventional repertoires of collective action have spread among different social groups; and new associative formulas and public institutions have been created. The protests are addressed to national governments, but also, more and more, to the subnational and supranational levels of governance. As its competences have broadened, the European Union has become the source and the object of new claims. As economic globalization has weakened the enjoyment of social rights and new mobilizations have emerged to defend the welfare state, the increasing immigrant presence has opened a debate on the extension of citizenship rights and on the concept of citizenship itself. Urban movements have been interwoven with global movements and  dissatisfaction with the functioning of the representative democracies has intensified the search for new forms of democracy, variously defined as deliberative or participative. Reticular organizational structure, multiform identities, and strongly mediated forms of protest seem to characterize social movements in the contemporary world.

The work of the researchers of GRACE has focused on the study of these political actors--their historical evolution and cross-national differences, the individual motivations of activists and structures of collective mobilization, and their interactions with society and institutions--combining quantitative techniques of survey and protest event analysis with such qualitative techniques as in-depth interviews and historical-comparative investigations. For further information, contact Professor Donatella della Porta, director, at donatella.dellaporta@iue.it.or  visit: http://www.unifi.it/grace/inglese.htm#.

Do Participatory Development Projects Help Villagers Manage Local Conflicts? A Mixed Methods Assessment of the Kecamatan Development Project, Indonesia

Patrick Barron (World Bank), Rachael Diprose (World Bank), Claire Smith (LSE), and Michael Woolcock (World Bank and Harvard University)

Since the fall of Soeharto in 1998, violent conflict has become more widespread in Indonesia. This destructive conflict has not only been played out in high profile conflict regions, but also across the archipelago at large. It is less clear, however, how this plays out at a local level, and how "everyday" forms of conflict are addressed. Why do some communities experience violence and others not despite many similar structural and external factors across Indonesia? What, then, are the local factors that matter in determining whether a conflict takes violent or non-violent form?

This research seeks to identify the factors that affect local level capacity to manage conflict. In particular, the project will evaluate the extent to which local level organizational and civic skills—especially civic interaction and the existence and capacity of local institutions—are important in determining whether communities suffer from violent conflict. Additionally, it will examine the extent to which the Kecamatan Development Project (KDP)—which is the World Bank’s primary community-driven development project in Indonesia—helps villagers build such skills, and seeks to test empirically if this accounts for higher conflict management capacity.

If the KDP does account for this, then it will be seen that this type of project might have a broader development impact than alternative delivery mechanisms. If it does not, then the study will still yield important insights regarding the capacity of external project interventions to instill basic "grassroots" democratic procedures and conflict resolution skills in poor, rural communities. For further information about the project, please contact Michael Woolcock at mwoolcock@worldbank.org

The Center for Communication and Civic Engagement (CCCE)

The Digital Election is here.

    How does the Howard Dean campaign work?

    Can the Web be used to mobilize young voters?

How were global protests against the war in Iraq --the largest coordinated demonstrations in history -- organized with the help of digital technologies?
 

What's new in social technologies that may help citizens participate more effectively?

CCCE is tackling these and other challenging questions.

The Center for Communication and Civic Engagement is also pleased to announce a new advisory board, a new associate director, and a newly designed and expanded Web site.

Details on these developments are provided in the Winter 2004 CCCE newsletter along with descriptions of innovative research projects examining the Internet, civic engagement and the 2004 elections.

Get the headlines at

http://depts.washington.edu/ccce/events/winter_04_news.html

And check out the new site at http://www.engagedcitizen.org

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