THE NATURE and significance of social movements have been the subject of considerable debate in recent years, with academics comparing and contrasting “newer” and typically identity-based social movements with “older” movements rooted in the class-based politics of the left.

[[{"fid":"14602","view_mode":"inlineright","fields":{"format":"inlineright","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":false,"field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":false},"link_text":null,"type":"media","field_deltas":{"1":{"format":"inlineright","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":false,"field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":false}},"attributes":{"class":"media-element file-inlineright","data-delta":"1"}}]]Are traditional class politics being superseded as some, such as French sociologist Andre Gortz, have been suggesting? Farewell to the working class and hello  to “middle-class ideological radicalism,” he has argued.

Or have class politics been re-energised in recent years in response to the politics of austerity, combining economic struggles with broad-based campaigns for equality and environmental justice?

In an attempt to provide answers, this book draws on interviews with over 20,000 demonstrators, generally supportive of left-wing and/or socially liberal positions, taking part in actions across 14 countries.

Thus the conclusions carry some weight not least because, as two of the  research team point out in the foreword, “some persisting myths about protest should now be discarded.”  

Since the economic crisis of 2008, there has been increasing focus on challenging the politics of austerity, including precarious employment although there have, of course, been mobilisations on issues of culture and identity as well.  

Far from bidding farewell to the working class, the research demonstrates that class and left-right issues are still central — unsurprising to Morning Star readers, even if others have needed more convincing in recent years.

But, as the authors point out,  this raises the question of the definition of class, including the Marxist understanding which includes those who work both by hand and by brain. The study actually identifies heightened class consciousness amongst those with relatively more education, including young professionals frustrated by precarious employment and zero-hours contracts.

Those who took part in demonstrations were not typically alienated from more conventional forms of political activity either, as some sociologists have suggested.

On the contrary, demonstrators tended to be highly interested in formal forms of politics too and more likely to be directly engaged with political parties. Nor were they generally likely to come from the most fragmented and disadvantaged sections of society — they tended to be members of organisations and/or informal networks rather than lone individuals.

There were variations as well as similarities between those participating in demonstrations across the countries covered by the research, which takes into account cross-national differences across western and southern Europe, recognising the importance of historical, economic, social, political, cultural and institutional contexts.

An  example is that anti-trade union legislation has impacted on the likelihood that demonstrators would have taken part in strikes in Britain, while the unemployed were less likely to demonstrate in most countries, although this pattern did not hold in Italy, Switzerland and Sweden.

The book’s strengths certainly merit a close reading, though its inherent limitation in focusing generally on progressive causes leaves a cross-national investigation of far-right mobilisation for a study in the future.

Street Citizens: Protest Politics and Social Movement Activism in the Age of Globalization by Marco Giugni and Maria T Grasso is published by Cambridge University Press, £28.99.