GL05 Social Movements and Interest Groups

Since the protester became Time’s person of the year, we have witnessed how protest movements have regained notoriety to draw attention to racial and social injustices, but also to taunt ethnic and political supremacies all around the world. Both, autocratization threats and democratic resilience efforts have been accompanied by social mobilization and interest groups’ support and resistance—either because calls for suppressing or defending minority rights have come from the citizenry, or because they have been elite orchestrated. This General Track welcomes proposals that analyze the role that social movements and interest groups are playing (or have played) in autocratization and democratic resilient processes, and the potential virtuous or detrimental consequences of social mobilization within political polarization.