Transcending marginalization: The mobilization of the unemployed in France, Germany, and Italy in a comparative perspective

Abstract

Mobilization by the unemployed has traditionally been considered a highly improbable phenomenon. However, recent observations challenge such a supposition. Our article compares protest waves in France, Germany, and Italy, where the unemployed successfully organized themselves and acted on their own behalf for several months. We argue that mobilization of the unemployed- although it empirically proved to be a possibility-remains very fragile, particularly depending on beneficial "windows of opportunities." Our analysis is above all interested in deciphering macrostructural conditions and opportunity structures, arguing that the unemployed benefited from external developments causing changes in potential mobilizing resources, and brought about new allies and political entrepreneurs. At the same time, however, these opportunity structures were actively exploited and, at the same time, their opening was fostered by the mobilization itself.