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2013 61: 525 originally published online 17 April 2013Current Sociology Tova Benski and Lauren Langman

The effects of affects: The place of emotions in the mobilizations of 2011

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Current Sociology61(4) 525 –540

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The effects of affects: Theplace of emotions in themobilizations of 2011

Tova BenskiThe College of Management-Academic Studies, Israel

Lauren LangmanLoyola University, USA

Abstract

We have recently seen the proliferation of a variety of progressive, democratic socialmovements across the globe. In the wake of various contradictions and implosions of

capitalism, from the meltdown of the US banks to the euro crisis, vast numbers of peoplehave challenged neoliberal globalization. In this article the authors offer a theoretical framefor the analysis of the most recent challenges posed to neoliberal social and economicpolicies as they were shaped in late capitalism. The authors first note Habermas’s thesisthat legitimation crises take place at both the macro and micro levels, and that they fostervarious understandings as well as emotional reactions. The authors focus on the emotionalaspects that are vital to social mobilizations. To do this they draw on theoretical framesfrom social movement and the sociology of emotion perspectives. More particularly theysee the process of ‘emotional liberation’ coined by Flam, as the equivalent of McAdam’s

‘cognitive liberation’ and both as part of the process of subjectivation as put forwardby Touraine. These formulations lead to considerations of the emotions that tie peopleto authorities and/or withdraw legitimacy from authorities, in order to understandwhich emotions need be mobilized in order to liberate people from their loyalty toauthorities. The authors found a constellation of incongruent emotions such as distrustand disrespect for authorities/elites or their perceived agents, indignation and righteousanger, humiliation, and in turn hope for an alternative future. The value of the authors’proposed structure of argument lies in the powerful combination of macro and microprocesses and the combination of cognition and emotions.

Corresponding author:

Tova Benski, School of Behavioral Sciences, The College of Management-Academic Studies, 7 Yitzhak RabinBlvd, Rishon Lezion 7502501, Israel.Email: [email protected]

CSI61410.1177/0011392113479751Current SociologyBenski and Langman2013

Article








526 Current Sociology Monograph 2 61(4)

Keywords

Emotional liberation, greedy capitalism, legitimation crisis, neoliberal ideology, protest,social movements, young adults

IntroductionThroughout the world we have recently witnessed the proliferation of counter-

hegemonic, democratic mobilizations in which vast numbers of people have challenged

neoliberal capitalist ideology and practices, and the legitimacy of the elites whose self-

interested loyalties to transnational capital have ill served the majorities. Most recently

these include Arab Spring, the Spanish M15, the Greek, Portuguese and Israeli summer

mobilizations, and the Occupy Wall Street movement, to mention just a number of these

mobilizations around the world.

While each of these movements is somewhat unique, each shaped by local cultures,

traditions, values, and organizations, they share some common characteristics: namely theadverse impacts of neoliberalism with its growing inequality, growing unemployment,

privatization of resources and services, etc., that elicit powerful emotional reactions such

as anger, fear, anxiety, and humiliation. The first actors to mobilize in many places were

the young adults aged 20–35, the employed, underemployed, underpaid or unemployed

members of the ‘precariat’ (Standing, 2011). Many of the participants have been ordinary

tax-paying citizens who have been in one way or another adversely affected by late capi-

talism neoliberal practices. In many of these mobilizations women are very prominent

both among the protestors and the leading figures of these ‘leaderless’ mobilizations. We

have also witnessed a proliferation of local and international teams of researchers andearly studies of these mobilizations, some of which are still in progress. This research is

being presented at a large numbers of local and international conferences. This wave of

mobilizations has invigorated the academic study of social movements and has encour-

aged new empirical studies and a critical reappraisal of our theories and research. Our

work is part of this new wave of theoretical and empirical interest.

The thesis that we present here offers a theoretical frame that can be applied to the

understanding of both democratic and authoritarian directions in the most recent waves

of mobilization. This article, however, is focused on one aspect of the democratic mobi-

lizations. It turns attention to the emotional processes that are an integral aspect of thesemobilizations. These processes have not been given enough attention in previous analy-

ses of social movements and protest cycles.

Why is it important to study the emotions of protest and to theorize the role of emo-

tions in oppositional mobilizations? The answer is simple. Even though emotions have

been absent from sociological accounts of protest and social movements for decades

(mainly due to the traditional duality of emotion vs. rationality in social research), during

the past 20 years, with more and more research and theory on the sociology of emotions,

it has been recognized that emotions and feelings provide fundamental stances to the

world, they are basic to our experiential responses to the ongoing events of the everyday

‘life world,’ and inherent to involvements with that world, relationships to others, and to

our very self (Barbalet, 2002), including protests (Jasper, 1998, 2011). Emotions moti-

vate people to join with others to mobilize (Benski, 2011; Flam, 2005). Emotions are

generated through and during protests and mobilizations (Benski, 2011; Jasper, 2011;







Benski and Langman 527

Ost, 2004) and shape the goals of the movement. Emotions can be both a means (Gould,

2002) and an end (Yang, 2000). As such, the study of emotions is highly instructive for

any attempt at understanding both present-day and past mobilizations.

This article has three parts. First we begin with a critical examination of the place of

emotions in social movement theory. We then present the general outline of our theoreti-cal argument concerning the place of emotions in the current mobilizations and finally,

we present the process of emotional detachment, the withdrawal of feelings of loyalty to

authorities. Based on the premise that there is no cognition without emotions (Melucci,

1995) and following McAdam’s (1982) ‘cognitive liberation’ concept, we present the

notion of ‘emotional liberation’ processes (Flam, 1993), which we further link to

processes of subjectivation – the formation of activist identity, whose agency can foster

social change (Touraine, 1995). It is on the bases of these theoretical arguments concern-

ing emotions and identities that we claim that a process of ‘emotional liberation’ is essen-

tial for the most recent mobilizations as it is for any process of mobilization. The contentof what one is liberated from might be different in different mobilizations but according

to our present theoretical knowledge and reasoning, the principle is the same.

Rethinking the paradigms: Social movements and

emotions

Theorizing social movements first began with the gradual appearance of the Collective

Behavior (CB) tradition, leaning heavily on Gustav Le Bon’s conceptualizations depict-

ing the protestors as ‘mass behavior’ which consisted of ‘emotional’ driven ‘irrational’crowds going berserk (Le Bon, 1960 [1895]). CB theories (Smelser, 1962) depicted the

masses, the dangerous classes, as out of control and/or duped by powerful, unscrupulous

leaders. Thus, for a number of reasons, the affective was considered irrational and unwor-

thy of study. This line of thought dominated the social sciences till the 1960s. Since the

1970s and 1980s, thinking about social movements has fallen into two broad camps,

Resource Mobilization (RM), and New Social Movement theory (NSM), that attempt to

explain the mediation processes between structural conditions and possible mobiliza-

tions (Klandermans and Tarrow, 1988).

RM theorists have stressed the rationality of activism (Zald and McCarthy, 1987).They depicted social movement leaders as shrewd entrepreneurs, rational actors coolly

calculating the costs and benefits of participation, and noted that people were mobilized

by incentives rather than by passionate anger or righteous indignation. The cognitive

emphasis is visible in the political process theory as well and is articulated in the ‘cogni-

tive liberation’ theme, even though McAdam (1982) acknowledged the importance of

grievances to the development of the definition of the situation as unjust along lines

parallel to Turner and Killian’s emergent norm theory of injustice (1972 [1957]). But he

focused exclusively on the cognitive definition of the situation.

Moreover, the cultural turn in the study of social movements that has evolved into the NSM theories in Europe and the framing approaches in the US have retained the cogni-

tive focus (with the notable exception of feminist studies of movements). Thus, Melucci

(1995: 45) incorporated the emotional element in the form of ‘emotional investment’

of participants and stated that ‘there is no cognition without feeling’. Yet beyond








‘investment’ he did not explore the emotions of protest and his view of collective identity

emphasizes its cognitive components (Goodwin and Jasper, 2006). Gamson (1992: 32),

whose experiments gave a push to framing theories and studies, argued that ‘the right-

eous anger that puts fire in the belly and iron in the soul’ is a necessary condition for

social mobilizing to get started.Despite these comments by Gamson and Melucci, in the 1990s, ‘culture’ was per-

ceived as made up of ‘customs, beliefs, values, artifacts, symbols, and rituals’ (Johnston

and Klandermans, 1995: 3), ‘ideas and beliefs’ (Mueller, 1992: 13), and ‘ideas, ideology,

[and] identity’ (McAdam, 1994: 36). Thus, culture was perceived as exerting an influ-

ence on potential members through shaping their cognitions rather than their emotions.

We hold that both RM and NSM perspectives fail to address the important role of

emotions and feelings in precipitance, emergence, and functioning of social move-

ments. We join the efforts of Flam (1993, 2005), Jasper (1998, 2011), Goodwin et al.

(2001), Goodwin and Jasper (2006), and Benski (2011) in the attempt at readdressingthe issue of emotions in analyses of social movements with a particular focus on the

most recent mobilizations.

A road map of the analysis of the most recent

mobilizations

In this article we argue that understanding the mobilizations of 2011 requires considera-

tions of the macro objective/structural conditions, their contradictions, and their conse-

quences at the micro level. As Habermas (1975) has argued, crises at the objective level,e.g., the economic system and/or the state, and/or the cultural system of legitimating

values can and do migrate to the subjective/micro-social levels and aspects of self, iden-

tity, and emotions. The neoliberal logic of global capital has led to a growing centraliza-

tion of wealth and power in the hands of the elites which has fostered greater inequality.

Moreover, neoliberalism has encouraged state retrenchments in the allocation of various

entitlements, from education and job training to unemployment benefits and retirement

pensions. Further, there has been a privatization of government services which has

eroded the sociopolitical contract between the state and its citizens and left the individual

on his/her own to cope with various adversities. This has in turn had devastating conse-quences for the careers and life plans for many but this has been especially the case for

young adults in the Middle East, in Southern Europe, and the United States, who have

increasingly become part of the ‘precariat’ (Standing, 2011). In some countries like Spain

and Greece, half of the young workers are unemployed and for many, their entering into

and/or remaining within the middle classes has become problematic.

These macro processes, especially structurally based under- and/or unemployment,

have interfered with the ability of the young adult generation to sustain themselves eco-

nomically and fulfill the modern expectations of financial independence, controlling

one’s own life, and the ability to lead a life that is self-sustaining, fulfilling, and produc-tive economically, socially and culturally (see Kalleberg, 2011; Standing, 2011).

Moreover, work generally provides a basis for dignity, recognition, and membership in

the community. As a result, many of the economically distressed see themselves politi-

cally marginalized and their interests disenfranchised and ignored by elites, and feel

humiliated, deprived of the basic requirements for a decent and dignified life.









As a result of these macro- and micro-social aspects of the political economy, legiti-

mation crises and emotional processes have especially impacted those in economically

vulnerable social locations who feel angry toward the elites, fearful and anxious abouttheir futures, and especially indignant about being ignored. These emotions prompted

many to engage in protests and mobilizations as an expression of contentious politics

that become mediated through interpersonal networks (Melucci, 1996) and/or access to

electronically mediated communication such as the internet and social media that has

enabled the rapid flows of information and communication and has enabled the prolifera-

tion of new framings of the situation in terms of both the cognitive (new citizenship

claims) and affective (anger, humiliation, and pride); eventually they have mobilized in

vast numbers (Langman, 2005). These claims are presented in Figure 1.

We now turn our focus to the place of emotions in fostering the most recent mobiliza-tions, the central box in Figure 1. We focus on the crises of legitimation in late capitalist

societies and their micro-level counterparts.

Legitimation crises – when capitalism hits the fan!

For Habermas (1975) legitimation crises take place when there is a failure of the ‘steer-

ing mechanisms’ of advanced capitalism at both the macro and the micro levels. The

objective macro-level crises include the economy, the state, and the cultural system. The

subjective moments of these macro-level crises infiltrate into the life world of individu-als where motivated identities are experienced and performed. Economic crises such as

structural problems, contradictions and implosions of the economy that create unem-

ployment or underemployment, sudden price hikes and/or shortages – especially of basic

commodities (food, oil, utilities) – retrenchments of entitlements, and so on, that threaten

survival or maintenance of living standards, or social status, undermine the legitimacy of

Figure 1. Visual outline of the theoretical argument.









political leadership and legitimating ideologies. But at the same time, these macro condi-

tions impact the ‘life world,’ the micro level of feelings, identities, and values.

Legitimation crises lead to crises of meaning (culture). They impact individual ‘life

worlds,’ they migrate to and affect motivation and identity. As people withdraw commit-

ments from the social order creating spaces for alternative views and understandings.While Habermas’s analysis shows how system crises elicit crises of motivation/identity,

what is overlooked is that these reactions are not only cognitive/evaluative, but when

people face threats to their very survival, as well as their dignity, they experience fears,

anxieties, and anger; such emotional reactions may act as threats to the very core of one’s

self-identity and self-esteem. This migration of system crises into the life world in the

form of rising prices, stagnant or declining incomes, or for many, often educated youth,

no incomes at all, means individual actors experience distress. And in face of these reali-

ties there have been a number of emotional reactions in the form of constellations of

anger and fear, anxiety and despair, and often hopelessness of the very viability of theself. In addition to these emotions, the humiliation and degradation that people experi-

ence when they are unable to work in ways that provide both substance and dignity, often

lead to what Durkheim called ‘fatalistic suicide’ as a last resort, an escape from the pains

of living. This is clearly shown by the suicides of rural farmers in India, or the case of

Mohamed Bouazizi, the Tunisian college student, turned vegetable peddler who set him-

self ablaze when harassed by the police. And these are not isolated incidents and these

feelings have been fundamental causes of the events that have ignited the Arab Spring.

Accepting Melucci’s warning that we need to remember that ‘there is no cognition

without feeling’ (Melucci, 1995: 45), our first and most basic argument is that some ofthe cognitive processes that we can identify, such as the attribution of blame and envi-

sioning alternatives, are also in effect, emotional. Thoughts, judgments, and perceptions

are not only cognitive but also rest on emotional constellations. This assumption under-

lies our thesis. Thus our article endeavors to locate the emotional processes that accom-

pany the withdrawal of commitment from authorities and indeed anger and indignation

toward these same authorities that have generally supported the economic elites – and

whose reactions to the implosions have favored elite interests, for example, the embrace

of austerity programs at times of growing unemployment. Given Habermas’s claim

about system crises migrating to the individual level of an actor’s subjectivity and iden-tity, especially the ways in which work provides adaptation, dignity, and self-esteem,

when crises of the economic system lead to massive unemployment/underemployment,

there are strong emotional reactions. Crises, especially those that affect people’s every-

day lives in ways that often humiliate and denigrate the self, lead to strong emotions of

the ‘anger–hate–humiliation’ family which form powerful emotionally based motives to

seek amelioration. As Scheff (1990) has long noted, anger is often a way of defending

against unconscious shame – and in many cases, people that either lose jobs or cannot

find them, notwithstanding the structural basis of such unemployment, nevertheless,

often blame themselves. Thus, emotional reactions dispose the person to accepting cer-

tain frames of explanation for their circumstances, envisioning alternatives, while the

anger and indignation toward the elites may not only motivate joining and participating

in social movements, but further protect the self from feelings of shame and humilia-

tion. Meanwhile, joining and participating in social movements can per se provide the








actor with a variety of more pleasant gratifications, from a sense of community to a

reaffirmation of an individual’s worth and dignity.

Second, we adopt the most recent insight that emotions are amorphous categories,

that they tend to merge into each other, and that in many cases, emotions tend to appear

as complex structures that include more than one emotion at the same time or in succes-sion in very close temporal proximity (Barbalet, 1998; Benski, 2005; Collins, 1990;

Flam, 2005; Scheff, 1990; Yang, 2000). Hence we suggest to adopt the concept of ‘con-

stellations of emotions’ coined by Benski (2011) to deal with the complex nature of the

emotional dimension. Benski (2011) suggested that complex situations give rise to com-

plex emotional experiences which quite often cannot be adequately accounted for by

focusing on a single emotion. She offered a basic distinction between congruent and

non-congruent constellation of emotions. Each such case will need to be studied in depth

in order to establish its characteristic behavioral responses, motivational direction, and

identities that are fostered. Constellations that are composed of congruent emotions areconstellations in which the different emotions work in a similar direction and thus

amplify the basic expected behavioral consequences, like for example disgust, contempt,

and outrage (Benski, 2005). Constellations composed of a mix of contradictory or non-

congruent emotions like the example of the mix of hope and contempt (Flam, 2005), or

the mixes of fear and anger, and shame and anger, in which again the behavioral conse-

quences were different from the emotion, rule expectations of each of these emotions

alone (Yang, 2000).

Third, following Westen (2007), Lakoff (2008), Ekman (1999), Barbalet (1998), Flam

(2005), Jasper (1998, 2011), and others, emotions and feelings dispose a variety ofthoughts and actions – and most importantly, emotional considerations help us under-

stand motivation (Barbalet, 1998, 2002) and identity (Reger et al., 2008). Thus we claim

that people generally seek positive emotional feelings such as love, dignity, pride, and

joy, and seek to avoid unpleasant emotions such as fear, anxiety, anger, shame, disgust,

humiliation, or depression. We are not suggesting a rational ‘felicific calculus’ a la

Bentham, but rather that most human behavior has an emotional underpinning – that is

often not conscious. More specifically, as some biologists and psychologist suggest, peo-

ple are born with an inherent affect system, but in the course of socialization and devel-

opment, these affects become socialized and transformed into emotions aroused by socialcues and expressed, or suppressed according to social norms. In turn, these are often

experienced as feelings. But the events that trigger emotional responses are often sym-

bolic events – we rarely fear attacks by a hippopotamus, but can and do fear the loss of a

job – rooted in fears of survival both of our physical being and indeed our very self-

identity which requires recognition from others to exist.

For the purposes of understanding the role of emotions in social mobilization, we sug-

gest that there are four basic desires to experience certain emotional states that help us

understand the hows and whys of social life. We are not offering a theory of personality as

such, but a sociological typology that helps us understand social mobilization. People need:

1. Attachments to others, a sense of belonging, and attempt to avoid loneliness and

the family of sad feelings that accompany loneliness (Berezin, 2001; Jasper,

2011; Kemper, 2001). While rooted in the helplessness and dependency of








infancy and its fears of abandonment if not annihilation, attachment behavior qua

ties to others is the basic way that fears are assuaged.

2. People need a sense of agency/empowerment, and attempt to avoid helplessness

and a feeling of powerlessness (Kemper, 2001).

3. People seek recognition and self-esteem, a sense of pride, dignity and worth, tofeel good about who one is and what one is doing. Conversely, people attempt to

avoid feelings of humiliation, degradation, and worthlessness (Kemper, 2001).

4. And finally, people seek alleviation of fear – threats to the self and/or one’s

attachments and agency; as scholars from Kierkegaard to Freud to Heidegger

have shown, emotions such as anxiety and uncertainty tap the deepest, most

archaic fears of death and annihilation and in turn, people seek to assuage such

feelings (Becker, 1973).

Every culture, and/or subculture, provides different cues, physical or symbolic, andcodes that arouse/evoke certain feelings or perhaps assuage negative feelings. It is clear

from a long tradition of research studies going back to the Great Depression that eco-

nomic and political crises are experienced by many as fears and anxieties that impinge

on one’s livelihood, one’s identity, status, and self-esteem (Elder, 1999). It is thus the

case that in many cases in democratic societies, crises of authority that migrate to the

subjective level evoke emotions that people usually try to avoid. Given the anxieties and

insecurities of jobs, together with the inequalities caused by neoliberal capitalist prac-

tices, people have strong emotional responses – from fear and anxiety about their sur-

vival, to feeling humiliated by actions, or non-actions of authorities and/or anger towardthe structure of the very society and/or the nature of its leadership.

According to Moghadam (this issue), democracy involves citizens’ obligations but

also rights. A more expanded definition of democracy ‘refers to a political regime in

which citizens enjoy an array of civil, political, and social/economic rights that are insti-

tutionalized, and [they] participate through the formal political process, civil society, and

social movements; it also refers to a society or culture governed by the values of toler-

ance, participation, and solidarity.’ These can be translated to the language of emotions

along lines suggested by Berezin (2002) as a basic agreement between democratic states

and their citizens, within which states are expected to provide security and various ser-vices and benefits, in exchange for loyalty and confidence from their citizens. In view of

these expectations on the part of the citizens, the adverse effects of neoliberal capitalism,

most particularly the increasing inequality, privatization, and the cutback of govern-

ments’ services, frustrate expectations that form the foundations of democracy. When

these frustrations are framed in terms of governmental corruption or indifference, many

law-abiding, tax-paying citizens begin to rethink the nature of the social contract and

consider it to have been broken by the government. As they rethink the social contract,

they also rethink the nature of citizenship and civil participation that they are practicing

– especially as citizenship changes from passive support of the nation, and loyalty and

acceptance if not blind obedience to its leaders, to more active critiques, contestations,

and mobilizations against elite power. And this can lead to resistance, challenges that

would seek to transform nations and change leaders. All this is highly evident in the

slogan that was chanted all over the world starting with Tahrir Square, Madrid, the USA,








and Israel: ‘The people demand social justice.’ Without entering into an analysis of what

kind of ‘social justice’ the ‘people’ demand, it is clear that by demanding ‘social justice,’

the protestors have framed the situation in terms of certain principles of justice, fair-

ness, and equality that have been violated, unjustly – perhaps without the consent of the

people – by authorities.

Getting there: Bringing emotions back into focus

Emotional liberation/detachment processes and their constellations ofemotions

As we turn to look for the emotional equivalent of the cognitive process of the with-

drawal of commitment from authorities that according to Habermas occurs at times of

crises of legitimacy, we need to examine the literature on the cognitive processes thatare seen as necessary for social mobilization. McAdam’s political process theory that

introduced the idea of ‘cognitive liberation’ seems to be a central concept for starting

our inquiry. This line of thought postulates that in order for movements to mobilize and

people to become social movement actors, some cognitive changes need to occur

(McAdam, 1982). In his analysis of the civil rights movement, McAdam (1982) sug-

gested that a process of ‘Cognitive Liberation’ was a precondition for mobilization into

oppositional movements. He claimed that ‘Before collective protest can get under way,

people must collectively define their situation as unjust and subject to change through

group action’ (McAdam, 1982: 51). These beliefs, based on certain notions of justiceand morality, and understandings, were instrumentally employed to interpret cues from

authorities to the protesting group. There was no discussion of the meaning of ‘libera-

tion.’ Goodwin et al. (2001) claim that whereas the word ‘liberation’ hints at emotion,

the word ‘cognitive’ immediately denies it. As noted below, hope is a powerful emo-

tion that can shape our ‘cognitive’ understandings of the world and motivate us to act

upon that world, and in the case of progressive movements, envision emancipation as

the belief in the ability to change the course of events. But the question of ‘what is one

liberated from?’ was not raised and/or dealt with. To deal with this issue of ‘what is one

liberated from?’ we turn to Touraine’s thesis of the subject (individual and collective)in which self-production is seen as the means to change the future and achieve

emancipation.

Touraine (1995) claims that in order to become a subject, an agent of change/a social

movement in late modernity, individuals and groups have to undergo processes of subjec-

tivation. To become a subject capable of change, to assert agency, individuals and collec-

tivities have to free themselves of constraining social norms and roles; in some measure,

they need to de-integrate themselves personally, socially, and culturally. The ability to

become a subject thus depends on one’s ability to problematize one’s internalized reality

and to inhabit the space at the seam between commitment and non-commitment.

It is the gesture of refusal, of resistance, that creates the subject. It is the more restricted ability

to stand aside from our own social roles, our non-belonging and our need to protest that allows








each of us to live as a subject. And subjectivation is always the antithesis of socialization, of

adaptation to a social role or status. (Touraine, 1995: 274)

Bridging these two different cognitive theoretical formulations, one can claim that

‘cognitive detachment/liberation’ is actually part of this process of subjectivation, it isthe prelude to the de-integration spelled out by Touraine (1995). In terms of content, it

means the liberation of the individual and groups from their total commitment to the

social system and the roles and rules that it imposes on them. However, both of these

formulations restrict their analyses to cognitive aspects of reality. Yet as Melucci and

other scholars of the sociology of emotions (Goodwin et al., 2001) argued, cognition

and emotions are intertwined. Hence it follows that this process of cognitive liberation

from roles and commitments is accompanied by a process of ‘emotional liberation/

detachment’ as suggested by Flam (1993, 2005), which means liberation from emo-

tions that tie us to the system. As Flam puts it, ‘one’s emotional transformation, relaxa-tion and cutting off the old emotional attachments, and the construction of new

emotional bonds’ (Flam, 2005: 31–32).

What are the emotions that tie us to the system and why are they so important? To

begin with, the system in democratic societies cannot function without inputs from and

the support and loyalty of the people. This support forges relationships among the indi-

vidual, society, and the polity. These are expressed in terms of the social contract which

specifies the rights and obligations that are at the basis of trust between the individual

and authorities and define their duties and expectations as citizens in a democratic soci-

ety. Jasper (1998: 402, 406) discusses trust and respect as examples of basic affects thathave important political implications. Both are ‘reflexive’ emotions and according to

Jasper (2011), belong to the category of ‘affective loyalties.’ They are attachments

(Jasper, 2011), deep tendencies to have faith in the other, in our case, the government,

since they are based on ‘an assumption that the government will fix things without public

pressure’ (Jasper, 1998: 402). Flam (2005: 21), following Simmel, discusses loyalty and

gratitude as the two emotions that cement and bind people and social relations. Loyalty

in particular is considered by Max Weber as the key emotion which links the powerless

to the powerful. Trust in and respect for authorities, loyalty to and gratitude toward

authorities, all have a dampening effect on protest. But when the expectations involved

in trust and respect are not met, then loyalty and gratitude diminish and the counterparts

of these emotions tend to appear in the form of disrespect, distrust, anger, and indigna-

tion. When people’s expectations are not only frustrated but, as is argued in all the arti-

cles in this monograph issue, when people suffer from anxieties about the future, and feel

betrayed, then humiliation needs to be added to this constellation. Such a constellation is

exactly the type of ‘emotional package’ that people try to avoid and has been discussed

earlier in this article.

This can now be linked back to Habermas’s structural/system crises ‘migrating’ to life

worlds at the micro level with ‘emotional liberation/detachment’ forming an important

manifestation of crises of legitimacy, leading to movement mobilization. Thus, these

emotional processes such as fear, anxiety, anger, and indignation can not only weaken

commitment to the social order, but as people experience strong emotions in face of

system dysfunction, hegemonic ideologies heretofore firmly anchored within collective








identities become subject to contestation and renegotiation. However, as Benski (2011)

and Langman (this issue) have shown, following Ernst Bloch (1986), hope is one of the

most fundamental human emotions and motives for seeking change. For Bloch, hope

was rooted in the Freudian notion of the dream as a wish fulfillment, especially the day-

dream in which through ‘anticipatory consciousness,’ we can imagine an alternativefuture free of the adversities of the present. For the various progressive social move-

ments, hope becomes one of the primary motivations for seeking other emotional grati-

fications when concerted action is envisioned as leading to benevolent social

transformations. These may include greater economic justice or dreams of democratic

governance that genuinely represents the interests of the majority of citizens rather than

the elites. Some may seek a world based upon social equality, toleration of difference,

and the inclusion of all within a caring and sharing community. If hope for a better world

and better life borders on the utopian – so be it.

In sum, what can be inferred from all of this is that the constellation of emotions thatare salient at the first stages of mobilization is what Benski labeled elsewhere the ‘con-

stellation of non-congruent’ emotions (Benski, 2011), such as: distrust of and disrespect

toward authorities/elites and/or their perceived agents, indignation and righteous anger

about conditions, and humiliation and hope for change (Jasper, 2011). Meanwhile, the

framing processes that are essential aspects of social movements (Benford and Snow,

2000) diagnose the situation and promote moral frames that denote injustice and desig-

nate enemies, villains, and the ‘good guys,’ provoke hope for an alternative social order.

At each moment of social mobilization, emotions such as humiliation and anger are

evoked when one’s very identity is denigrated and/or marginalized by authorities, whileindignation and anger are directed toward those deemed responsible for their adversities.

People refuse to pay the price for what they believe are irresponsible, unjust government

practices and the misconduct of global finance by its agents who are supported by

authorities and are designated as ‘greedy capitalist.’ The intensity of their feelings can be

seen in the picture taken from a demonstration in Tel-Aviv (Figure 2). The man in the

picture is holding a sign that says: ‘When the government is against the people, the peo-

ple are against the government.’

Concluding remarks

The mobilizations of summer 2011 were major news stories for a number of months. In

various societies, all over the globe, grassroots mobilizations of vast numbers of people

took to the streets to protest what they framed as ‘swinish capitalism,’ ‘government’s

neoliberal capitalism,’ demanding ‘social justice.’ In some societies the struggle is still

raging (Syria for example). In other societies, we have seen renewed efforts at mobiliz-

ing massive demonstrations, but such efforts have failed, for example in Israel. In still

other societies we are witnessing a reawakening of activism (Egypt, Greece), but it is not

yet certain that these will become a full blown second wave of global protests. Given the

fluidity of the scene, in this article we focused on the summer of 2011.

The thesis that we presented here offers a theoretical framework that can be applied to

the understanding of both democratic and authoritarian directions in the most recent waves

of mobilization. However, we focused on one aspect of the democratic mobilizations,








turning attention to the emotional processes that are integral aspects of these mobilizations.

These processes have not been given enough attention in previous analyses of social move-

ments and protest cycles. Indeed, both RM and NSM perspectives have failed to addressthe important role of emotions and feelings as precipitating factors in the emergence, func-

tioning, and course of social movements. Following on the work of many prominent soci-

ologist of social movements and of emotions, the theoretical outline that we sketch in this

article rests on the simple premise that cognitive processes always involve emotions.

Following this logic we adopted the concept of ‘emotional liberation’ as the emotional

aspect of ‘cognitive liberation’ processes as addressed by McAdam, and conceptualized

both as aspects of the process of subjectivation offered by Touraine as the route by which

individuals and social movements become active social agents of change. Given Habermas’s

theory of legitimation crises in which the structural intrudes into the life world, the microlevel of self, identity, relationships and values, crises foster the withdrawal of allegiance

from authorities and create the conditions for subjectivation. At this point, our analysis has

led us to identifying emotions which forge the bond between the individual and society/

authorities, and as a result we suggested that there is an emotional constellation in which a

number of emotions or affects, that have a unique combination of non-congruent emotions

that bring anger and indignation together with ‘hope,’ provide actors with the motivation to

mobilize to attain emotionally gratifying liberation from the current forms of distress.

The theoretical arguments presented here go beyond the RM and NSM theories in that

the economic factors that are essential for our theoretical formulation have generally

been excluded from the analyses of NSM theorists; at the same time, the concerns with

identity focus remain crucial, but not simply as the ‘identity politics’ implied by the new

social movements’ approach that would valorize the marginalized, without considering

the economic basis of marginalization.

Figure 2. Placard from demonstration in Tel-Aviv, Israel.









While this has been a theoretical presentation, the value of our proposed structure

of argumentation is in the powerful combination of macro and micro processes and the

combination of cognition and emotions that are both responses to the situations and

motivation for social change. It is not enough to simply understand that the situation or

actions of authority are unjust. One must be motivated to act, and this motivation usu-ally comes through emotional processes which accompany this cognition, particularly

among those who are most adversely affected by the crisis in ways that frustrate one’s

basic emotional needs. We contend that this is the initial step toward mobilization; this

is what impels joining or participation in a network of refusal, places where people can

renegotiate their subjectivities in hopes of realizing a different kind of society.

Funding

This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or

not-for-profit sectors.

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Author biographies

Tova Benski is a senior lecturer at the Department of Behavioral Sciences, the College of

Management-Academic Studies, Rishon Lezion, Israel. Her fields of academic interest and

research include: qualitative research methods, gender, social movements, peace studies, and the

sociology of emotions. She has been engaged in research on the Israeli women’s peace mobiliza-tions since the late 1980s and has published extensively and presented many papers on these top-

ics. Her co-authored book Iraqi Jews in Israel won a prestigious academic prize in Israel. The

former president of RC 48 of the International Sociological Association, currently she is a mem-

ber of the Board RC 48 and a member of RC 36 and RC 06, of the ISA.

Lauren Langman is a Professor of Sociology at Loyola University of Chicago. He received his PhD

at the University of Chicago from the Committee on Human Development and received psycho-

analytic training at the Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis. He has long worked in the tradition

of the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory, especially relationships between culture, identity, and

politics/political movements. He is the past president of Alienation Research and Theory, ResearchCommittee 36, of the International Sociological Association as well as past president of the Marxist

section of the American Sociological Association. Recent publications deal with globalization,

alienation, global justice movements, the body, nationalism, and national character. His most

recent books are Trauma Promise and Millennium: The Evolution of Alienation, with Devorah

Kalekin and Alienation and Carnivalization, with Jerome Braun.

Résumé

Nous avons vu récemment la prolifération d’une variété de progressiste, démocratique

mouvements sociaux partout dans le monde. À la suite de diverses contradictions etimplosions du capitalisme, de l’effondrement des banques américaines à la crise del’Euro, le grand nombre de personnes ont contesté la mondialisation néolibérale. Dansce document, nous proposons un cadre théorique pour l’analyse des plus récents défisposés à néolibéral politiques sociales et économiques comme ils étaient en forme decapitalisme. Nous avons d’abord remarque Habermas la thèse que crise de légitimationlieu, tant au niveau macro et micro-économique qui favorisent diverses ententes ainsique réactions émotionnelles. Nous allons nous concentrer sur l’aspect émotionnel quiest vital pour ces mobilisations sociales. Pour ce faire, nous devons nous inspirer de

cadres théoriques des mouvements sociaux et la sociologie des émotions. Pour ce faire,nous devons nous inspirer de cadres théoriques des mouvements sociaux et la sociologiedes émotions. Plus particulièrement nous voir le processus de ‘libération émotionnelle’,inventée par Flam, comme l’équivalent de la McAdam cognitive ‘libération’ et les deux,dans le cadre du processus de subjectivation comme présenté par Touraine.

Mots-clés

Le capitalisme avide, crise de légitimité, les jeunes adultes, l’idéologie néolibérale, lalibération émotionnelle, les mouvements sociaux, la protestation

Resumen

Recientemente hemos visto la proliferación de una variedad de movimientos socialesprogresistas y democráticos a lo largo del planeta. En la ola de diversas contradicciones








e implosiones del capitalismo, desde la fusión de los bancos americanos a la crisis deleuro, un gran número de personas ha desafiado la globalización liberal. En este artículoofrecemos un marco teórico para el análisis de los desafíos más recientes planteadosa las políticas social y económica del neoliberalismo como han sido formuladas en

el capitalismo tardío. Señalamos primero la tesis de Habermas de que la crisis delegitimación tiene lugar a nivel macro y micro que favorece diversas interpretacionesy reacciones emocionales. Nos centramos en el aspecto emocional que es vital paralas movilizaciones sociales. Para ello nos basamos en los marcos teóricos de losmovimientos sociales y la sociología de las emociones. En particular, vemos el procesode ‘liberación emocional’, acuñado por Flam, como el equivalente al de ‘liberacióncognitiva’ de McAdam, y ambos como parte del proceso de subjetivación propuesto porTouraine. Estas formulaciones nos han conducido a tener en cuenta las emociones quevinculan a las personas con las autoridades y/o retiran la legitimidad a las autoridades

de cara a entender qué emociones necesitan ser movilizadas para liberar a las personasde su lealtad a las autoridades. Hemos encontrado una constelación no congruentede emociones como desconfianza y falta de respeto a las autoridades o élites o susagentes, indignación y cólera, humillación y, al revés, esperanza en un futuro alternativo.El valor de la estructura argumentativa propuesta descansa en la fuerte combinaciónentre procesos macro y micro, y la combinación entre cognición y emociones.

Palabras clave

Capitalismo codicioso, crisis de legitimación, ideología neoliberal, jóvenes adultos,liberación emocional, movimientos sociales, protesta

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