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Cultures of Resistance provides new insight on a long-standing question: whether government efforts to repress social movements produce a chilling effect on dissent, or backfire and spur greater mobilization. In recent decades, the U.S. government’s repressive capacity has expanded dramatically, as the legal, technological, and bureaucratic tools wielded by agents of the state have become increasingly powerful. Today, more than ever, it is critical to understand how repression impacts the freedom to dissent and collectively express political grievances. Through analysis of activists’ rich and often deeply moving experiences of repression and resistance, the book uncovers key group processes that shape how individuals understand, experience, and weigh these risks of participating in collective action. Qualitative and quantitative analyses demonstrate that, following experiences of state repression, the achievement or breakdown of these group processes, not the type or severity of repression experienced, best explain why some individuals persist while others disengage. In doing so, the book bridges prevailing theoretical divides in social movement research by illuminating how individual rationality is collectively constructed, mediated, and obscured by protest group culture.

Radicalization is a major challenge of contemporary global security. It conjures up images of violent ideologies, “homegrown” terrorists and jihad in both the academic sphere and among security and defense experts. While the first instances of religious radicalization were initially limited to second-generation Muslim immigrants, significant changes are currently impacting this phenomenon. Technology is said to amplify the dissemination of radicalism, though there remains uncertainty as to the exact weight of technology on radical behaviors. Moreover, far from being restricted to young men of Muslim heritage suffering from a feeling of social relegation, radicalism concerns a significant number of converted Muslims, women and more heterogeneous profiles (social, academic and geographic), as well as individuals that give the appearance of being fully integrated in the host society. These new and striking dynamics require innovative conceptual lenses. 

Radicalization in Theory and Practice identifies the mechanisms that explicitly link radical religious beliefs and radical actions. It describes its nature, singles out the mechanisms that enable radicalism to produce its effects, and develops a conceptual architecture to help scholars and policy-makers to address and evaluate radicalism—or what often passes as such. A variety of empirical chapters fed by first-hand data probe the relevance of theoretical perspectives that shape radicalization studies. By giving a prominent role to first-hand empirical investigations, the authors create a new framework of analysis from the ground up. This book enhances the quality of theorizing in this area, consolidates the quality of methodological enquiries, and articulates security studies insights with broader theoretical debates in different fields including sociology, social psychology, economics, and religious studies.

In this pair of essays, award-winning journalists Hrvoje Šimičević and Barbara Matejčić expose the turn in Croatia’s political trends, showing how “moderate” pro-European governments have opened the floodgates for far-right radicalism and fascism to transition from the societal fringes into the mainstream. Šimičević weaves these histories around a chilling turning point: a Thompson concert in which hundreds of thousands chanted the Ustaše salute. Matejčić then reveals the civic response and defiant resistance to the politics of fear and escalating attacks against Serbians and other minorities. At the heart of these texts is a struggle over the meaning of Croatia itself: will it belong to the loudest voices or to all who live there?

U ova dva eseja, nagrađivani novinari Hrvoje Šimičević i Barbara Matejčić opisuju političke promjene u Hrvatskoj, pokazujući kako su samozvane umjerene proeuropske vlade imale ključnu ulogu u pomicanju fašizma i krajnje desnog radikalizma s društvenih rubova u političku srednju struju. Šimičević plete povijest te pojave oko jezive prekretnice: Thompsonovog koncerta na kojem su stotine tisuća posjetitelja izvikivale ustaški pozdrav. Matejčić zatim prikazuje odgovor građana i prkosan otpor politici straha i eskalaciji napada na Srbe i druge manjine. U srži ovih tekstova leži borba za značenje Hrvatske: hoće li zemlja pripadati onima koji najglasnije viču ili svima koji u njoj žive?