‍ Elin Jönsson and Isabel Schoultz presented research results from WP2 at the Swedish Sociological Association’s biannual conference The Sociology Days in Växjö 18-20th of March.

Drawing on biographical narrative interviews, the presented paper examined individual pathways within protests movements: how activists enter, experience, and sustain participation in collective action. The analysis traces recurring stages in activist trajectories from early motivations and formative encounters to navigating the realities of being an activist and maintaining long-term engagement (and possible disengagement). situating these in the broader Swedish sociopolitical context. The study explores how protest cultures are narrated and reinterpreted in response to social and political conditions.

Read more about the conference here.

Davide Rocchetti and Andrea L. P. Pirro, Turning the tide: Opposing challenges to democracy across contexts, European University Viadrina in Frankfurt (Oder), "Protesting for protest: countering illiberal restrictions to democracy in Italy"

Lia Tsuladze, British Association for Slavonic and East European Studies (BASEES) annual conference, University of Birmingham, "Facing an Authoritarian Turn: Polarization, De-Europeanization, and Anti-Regime Protests in Georgia" participation in the panel "Opening the Black Box of Authoritarian Dynamics: Empirical, Methodological and Ethical Challenges", charing a panel "Memory, Silence, and Moral Worlds in Post-Conflict and Post-Socialist Societies".

Sophia Hunger and Sebastian Haunss, European Political Science Society conference in Belfast, “Protesting for the cordon sanitaire: Mainstream Party Responsiveness to Anti-Radical Right Mobilizations in Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands”

Several ProTest project members have participated in the CES Conference held in Dublin. The following project members presented their research on their respective topics:

1. Piotr Kocyba, The Microstructure of Political Opportunity: Assembly Culture in a Polarized Local Context

2. Magdalena Muszel, Alicja Palęcka, Endurance as Strategy: Pro-Migrant Activism, the Far Right, and the Changing Opportunity Structures in Poland

3. Sonia Boulos, Between Norm and Practice: The EU's Legal Maneuvers on Self-Determination in Palestine and Western Sahara

4. Lia Tsuladze, Book panel/Roundtable, EU-Derived Rights: Shared Values Between Solidarity And Autonomy Across Wider Europe?

ProTest project teams from Hungary, Germany, Poland, and Romania, alongside other protest and social movement researchers, participated at the ECS conference in Gdańsk on 22–24 June for an interdisciplinary event exploring protest in its many forms - from traditional rallies and marches to visual arts, performance, music, and literature. The following team members participated with their respective research topics:

1. Magdalena Muszel, Alicja Palęcka: Protest under Political Change: Meanings, Repertoires, and Ideological Divides in Poland

2. Nina Krienke: The Empire Strikes Back. Practices of Protest Instrumentalization by Institutional Actors in Romania

3. Noémi Katona, Beáta Nagy, Atilla Melegh: Competing Narratives of Oppression in an Authoritarian Context: A Hungarian Case Study

In August, meet our team members in Warsaw participated at the 17th European Sociological Association Conference.

26 August, Magdalena Muszel (Polish Academy of Sciences):"From Protest to Practice: Women's Councils and the Everyday Work of Feminist Democracy in Poland"

27 August, Henry P. Rammelt (National University of Political Studies and Public Administration, Romania): "Transnational Advocacy Networks and Corporate Accountability: Visions, Divisions, and Convergences of a Global Cause"

28 August, Attila Melegh, Noémi Katona and Beáta Nagy (Corvinus University of Budapest): "Competing Narratives of Protest in Hungary"