Contentious Politics and Global Migration Lecture Notes

Flashcards covering key terms in contentious politics, social movements, revolutions, and migration theory from Weeks 10 through 14.

Contentious politics

Political activity that is at least in part beyond institutional bounds, including social movements, revolutions, and political violence.

Political opportunities

According to McAdams et al. 1996, these are changes in the institutional structure or informal power relations of a given political system.

Relative deprivation

The belief that one is not getting their share of something of value relative to their expectations of what others have.

Mobilizing structures

The collective vehicles such as organizations, leaders, or networks through which people engage in collective action.

Diagnostic frames

A type of collective action frame that identifies a problem and attributes blame.

Prognostic framing

A type of collective action frame that presents a solution to the problem identified in the diagnosis.

Motivational framing

A type of collective action frame that serves as a call to arms or action.

Moral shock

A sudden threat to deeply held values about fairness or justice that produces grievance and subsequent political action.

ACT-UP

A grassroots, queer-led movement that used nonviolent direct action and confrontational tactics to combat government inaction and homophobia during the AIDS crisis.

Political violence

The use of physical force by nonstate actors for political ends, such as riots, terrorism, and civil wars.

Terrorism

Deliberate political violence by a nonstate entity intended to create fear and far-reaching psychological impacts beyond the immediate victims.

Social revolution

According to Skocpol 1979, a rapid, basic transformation of a society’s state and class structures, partially carried through by class-based revolts from below.

Color Revolutions

Revolutions in societies with urban/commercial sectors where defecting elites mobilize supporters for nationalist and democratic goals without creating new armies or engaging in terror.

Radical Revolutions

Revolutions occurring in countries with great inequality where leaders seek radical class-based restructuring, often resulting in centralized and authoritarian rule.

Lump of Labor Fallacy

The idea that when one person takes on a new job, someone else loses one.

Brain Drain

The phenomenon where more educated people leave their countries of residence to seek work in more developed countries.

Necroviolence

A term used by De León to describe the destruction of migrant bodies by the environment, which erases evidence of violence and renders suffering invisible.

Hybrid Collectif

An emergent form of violence where migrant death is a combined effort of state agents and non-human agents like the desert landscape and heat.

Space of Exception

A region, such as a border, where human rights are suspended or ignored, allowing for legal and physical abuse of vulnerable individuals.

Nanny chain

A phenomenon where a migrant cares for a Northern family while leaving their own family behind, sending money back but potentially breaking their own family structure.

Kafala System

A system in Arab states that binds workers to employers, restricting their mobility and often creating an environment for abusive treatment.

Internally displaced persons (IDPs)

People forced to leave their homes to avoid conflict or disaster who have not crossed an international border.

Slow violence

The gradual environmental degradation that disproportionately affects poor people, often involving a racial element.

Resource nationalism

The demand for collective ownership of oil and minerals, often used by state actors to maintain control over strategic resources.

Anti-extractivism

A radical perspective that rejects resource extraction entirely and envisions a postextractive society.

political process theory

framework through mobilizing structures to engage in collective action, political opportunity through influences, and framing situations

color revolutions

defecting elites to seek mainly urban, student, white collar for nationalist and democratic goals for class mobilization

radical revolutions

countries with great status and economic inequality are class and ideology-based and target entire groups

revolutionary social movements

overthrowing an existing regime to transform/control relations

social revolutions

transformation of state and class structures through typically lower class revolts

political revolutions

regime overthrown and transformed by a popular movement in an irregular fashion

migration

in/voluntary person who changed their usual place of residence typically internally

favor of restricted borders

• lowers wages

• drains govt budget

• creates congestion

• keeps the rich richer through cheap labor benefits

favor of open borders

• reduced costs of goods & services

• increased productivity

• diversity

• access to resources, other countries, etc

asylum seekers

Individuals who have fled their home country and seek international protection in another country, often due to fear of persecution based on factors such as race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or membership in a particular social group

slow violence

gradual and out-of-sight delayed dispersed anonymous destruction

neoextractivism

A contemporary economic approach that involves the extraction of natural resources, particularly in Latin America, where the state plays an active role in promoting resource extraction as a means for economic growth.

hydrocarbons

major source of energy and contributor to co2 emissions

resource nationalism

Resource nationalism is a political and economic ideology that advocates for the collective ownership and control of a country's natural resources, particularly mineral and energy resources like oil and gas.