Understanding Individual Commitment to Collective Action

Through variety of empirical case studies and theoretical contributions and beginning with the individual as the entity through which activism can best be understood, this book considers the ways in which social and political participation can be approached on the scale of the subject and his or her biography.

When speaking colloquially of political participation or civic action, one thinks, in the first instance, of groups and organizations such as political parties, social movements or various types of voluntary associations. The perspective of individuals is not the first thing that comes to mind when seeking to understand their functioning. In contrast to this vision, understanding the dynamics of participation requires taking a closer look at the individual, that is, at his or her moral dispositions and projects, his or her multiple and simultaneous identities, the breaking points in his or her biographical trajectory, the roles he or she adopts in an organization or the styles of communication which he or she uses. The book comprises a variety of case studies and theoretical and methodological contributions that, independent of rational choice theories, seek to understand collective action at the level of the individual and, in doing so, to articulate the various fields of study in this regard with the singularity of biographies and the reflective personal identities that characterize contemporary individualism.

Autorentext

Carlos Ramírez is a Colombian political scientist and philosopher from the Universidad de los Andes and holds a PhD in Philosophy from the University of Heidelberg. He is currently Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science and Global Studies at the Universidad de los Andes. His research interests are political and social theory, qualitative research methods, and religion and politics.

Inhalt

Introduction

Carlos Ramírez

Individual engagement in social activism: an interactionist account

Paul Lichterman

The ogre and the activist. The sociology of activist careers in a structural interactionist perspective Oliver Fillieule

Thinking the engagement: dispositionalism, contextualism, and observation scales

Bernard Lahire

The commanders-educators of the FARC-EP and the links between their biographical trajectories and the guerrillas' organizational plans.

Ingrid J. Bolívar and Sergio F. Lizarazo

Individual activism in collective dynamics: some methodological approaches to the practices of political resistance

Virginie Laurent

The (Ambivalent) Lives of Others. Reconstructing the Trajectories of Egyptian Revolutionaries Through Social Media Traces and Biographical Interviews.

Youssef El Chazli

Individual and collective dimensions of the Parisian revolution of 1789. Historiographic reflections and research strategies

Haim Burstin

QCA and radicalisation

Carlos Ramírez

Conclusion: building bridges

Carlos Ramírez