Passionate Politics : Emotions and Social Movements

Rating:
Summary: Paradigm shift?
Review: Written by prominent scholars of social movements, this book explore the role of emotions in contentious politics. The first 3 chapters offer very interesting theoretical insights that somewhat lacked in previous accounts of emotions and social movements. The numerous case studies tackle a good variety of movements but I would argue that their theoretical and empirical quality varies greatly (emotions are not easily studied scientifically). Many argues that we are now witnessing a paradigm shift in social movements studies from rationality to culture and emotions; I am not convinced however that it is exactly what is going on. I would argue that if we are witnessing the dissolution of strong rationalist approaches, the resultant is not merely a return of pendulum toward the study of emotions but rather the emergence of numerous fields once muted by the dominant theories. One thing is sure however, the study of emotions in social movements is clearly one of the most interesting new avenues open to social scientists.