Overview

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.

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9781978823747

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Clear and accessible, her scholarship sound and comprehensible, Cultures of Resistance reflects the lived experiences of dealing with state repression with depth and nuance. Reynolds-Stenson does an excellent job of discussing the costs of repression. --Mike King author of When Riot Cops Are Not Enough: The Policing and Repression of Occupy Oakland Cultures of Resistance makes a major contribution to a black box in the study of social movements, namely the effects of state repression, by emphasizing the subjective experience of repression and how certain dynamics of groups and individuals affect whether repression stimulates further activism or stops it. To my knowledge, this book is indeed the first significant work to have this emphasis, and it should shape this area of social movement research for years to come. --Steven E. Barkan author of Race, Crime, and Criminal Justice: The Continuing American Dilemma

Author Information

HEIDI REYNOLDS-STENSON is an assistant professor of sociology and criminology at Colorado State University-Pueblo. Her research focuses on social movements, repression, and policing. Her academic work has appeared in Mobilization, Social Movement Studies, American Behavioral Scientist, Social Currents, and Social Science Quarterly.

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