Abstract
Recent studies on the impact of globalization on national politics have focused on the electoral arena as a central object of study. On the other hand, social movement scholars have become “movement-centric” and have neglected the broader political context of protests and mobilizations. This disparity has led to a division of fields in the study of political conflict and globalization. Swen Hutter manages to reach across this gap, demonstrating the importance of integrating both approaches in order to attain a fruitful explanation of political conflict in the context of globalization. In this sense, Protesting Culture and Economics in Western Europe is highly successful in building a common ground for social movements and electoral politics while at the same time making a compelling study of the changing structures of cleavages in Western Europe.
Hutter presents his research in the form of a cross-national study that encompasses six countries: Austria, Britain, France, Germany, the Netherlands, and Switzerland. These nation-states have been selected for their stability in liberal democracy throughout recent years, thus enabling the author to isolate the effect of traditional and new cleavages on institutionalized political structures. The author intelligently selected a time period—mid-1970s to mid-2000s—that allows him to explain how political actors at the national level have mobilized under the effects of globalization over time. It is worth highlighting the author’s modeling of how the left and the right engage in political opportunities in a context of economic, cultural, and political transnationalism.
In a creative yet thorough methodological approach, this study effectively uses protest-event analysis as the main method of study. Its strength lies in the combination of several different data sources: media, political parties’ programs, and secondary sources such as the Comparative Manifestos Project.
Although Protesting Culture and Economics in Western Europe is of special interest to scholars of social movements and political science, readers from every corner of the social sciences will find this study interesting and absorbing. Furthermore, it employs a clear and concise style that will walk the reader through an easy understanding of several political and sociological theories.