James Jasper's book on social movements is not only simple to read, but also introduces the central concepts of social movement research. As it is a ‘cultural introduction’, the book is not meant to provide comprehensive coverage of the current research on social movements. Instead it complements the work of recent encyclopaedias and companions of social movements (e.g. Della & Diani, 2015; Snow, Della Porta, Klandermans, & McAdam, 2013; Snow, Soule, & Kriesi, 2004). The author's addition of sidebars in the book highlights various dilemmas that activists face during the mobilisation process, which are helpful to students of social movements.
Protest: A Cultural Introduction to Social Movements provides numerous empirical examples of such movements all around the world: for example, Dalit rights in India, Egypt's uprising, Occupy movements, women's rights movements in the United States and in the UK, and the Wilkes movement in eighteenth-century England. Due to space constraints, the author does not go into details; however, Jasper has nevertheless included an informative list of recommended readings and websites, which will be useful for those interested in further research.
Protest could be seen as a journey through social movement mobilisation and brings forward many important milestones that movements face during this process. The book starts with the example of the Occupy Movement and a typical problem for activists – should they focus foremost on their collective identity or interact with external players to attract powerful allies (Janus dilemma, p. 3)? There are many other dilemmas which activists need to face in this journey: the organisation dilemma, the naughty or nice dilemma and the powerful allies dilemma, to name but a few. The dilemmas come forward when Jasper explains several important processes of social movement development.
First, we learn how attributing meanings to different words, visual images, music and performances, myths, historical narratives and emotions helps us to answer ‘what’ meanings are ascribed to social movements – what do they care about or what are they repelled by (pp. 66–67)? It is important to recall that not only students of social movements, but also activists themselves give and interpret various meanings, which can change over the course of mobilisation. Secondly, recruitment of activists and sustaining the mobilisation are essential to social movements. In addition to the aforementioned meanings, identities, leaders, as well as the movements’ infrastructure arguably play an important role here. With infrastructure Jasper refers to a broad set of concepts from citizens’ rights to social networks, formal organisation and globalisation. This particular section (Chapter 3) could have been even longer and further elaborated, because at this point, the role of infrastructure and institutions in shaping meaning, recruiting, deciding, sustaining, and winning or losing of the movements is not fully clear.
The third process described by Jasper is the engagement of other players (Chapter 7), which also involves decision-making over tactics and internal organisations (Chapter 6). In addition to describing common dilemmas for choosing different tactics (see especially the naughty and nice dilemma, p. 105), Jasper emphasises the particular importance of persuasion that has been neglected by scholars of social movements. This emphasis on how the audience is targeted, as well as how the activists feel and think, arguably has a great significance for studying the effects of social movements, or as he writes – on winning or losing or creation of new moral sensibility (p. 170). Considering that the majority of research on the consequences of social movements tends to focus on political achievements, it is refreshing that Protest pays more attention to how movements influence each other and their larger cultural outcomes (see e.g. the moral impact, pp. 179–180). It also reminds us that movements do not just disappear after achieving some of their goals, but rather their actions might be a starting point for other (counter-) movements or that the related societal changes, as well as their failures might encourage further mobilisation. Hence, the journey does not end with this last chapter but continues as the reader is most likely looking for further readings about social movements.
In sum, Protest: A Cultural Introduction to Social Movements is a useful book for those who are interested in learning more about social movements and wish to place them into the broader societal and cultural perspective. Considering that James Jasper has argued for the inclusion of culture, emotions or agency into the research of social movement for a long time, this book might also be seen as his on journey through social movements.