The Psychology of Radical Social Change
From Rage to Revolution

Develops a social psychological approach to revolutions through analyzes of cases from around the world and during different historical periods.

Brady Wagoner (Edited by), Fathali M. Moghaddam (Edited by), Jaan Valsiner (Edited by)

9781108431804, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 23 January 2020

308 pages, 13 b/w illus.
23 x 15.3 x 2 cm, 0.45 kg

'How do societies change? And how do they succeed in changing for the better? This volume addresses these critical concerns by analyzing the merits, achievements and failures of revolutions and the role these have played in altering human history. This volume makes required reading for anyone seeking to deepen their understanding of the forces that alter our societies in radical ways.' Gordon Sammut, University of Malta

Since 2011 the world has experienced an explosion of popular uprisings that began in the Middle East and quickly spread to other regions. What are the different social-psychological conditions for these events to emerge, what different trajectories do they take, and how are they are represented to the public? To answer these questions, this book applies the latest social psychological theories to contextualized cases of revolutions and uprisings from the eighteenth to the twenty-first century in countries around the world. In so doing, it explores continuities and discontinuities between past and present uprisings, and foregrounds such issues as the crowds, collective action, identity changes, globalization, radicalization, the plasticity of political behaviour, and public communication.

1. Towards a psychology of revolution Brady Wagoner, Fathali M. Moghaddam and Jaan Valsiner
Part I. Roots of Revolution: 2. The conservative crowd? How participation in collective events transforms participants' understandings of collective action John Drury and Stephen Reicher
3. Economic inequality and the rise of civic discontent: deprivation and remembering in an Irish case study Séamus A. Power
4. The globalization-revolution paradox: no revolution in capitalist democracies Fathali M. Moghaddam
5. From the age of the crowd to the global age Brady Wagoner
Part II. Evolution and Involution in Social Transformations: 6. Social engineering and its discontents: the case of the Russian Revolution Sierra Campbell and Fathali M. Moghaddam
7. Political plasticity and revolution: the case of Iran Fathali M. Moghaddam
8. The Velvet Revolution of land and minds Tania Zittoun
9. Wordworth's insurgency: living the French Revolution Duncan Wu
10. Between the guillotine and the Velvet Revolution: what is at stake? Jaan Valsiner
Part III. Representations of and in Revolution: 11. Image politics of the Arab Uprisings Sarah H. Awad and Brady Wagoner
12. Constructing cultural pathology: the December 2008 upheaval in the Greek press Nikos Bozatzis and Christina Teliou
13. Restoring cultural identity clarity in times of revolution: the role of historical narratives Roxane de la Sablonnière, Donald M. Taylor and Mathieu Caron-Diotte
14. The shark and the octopus: two revolutionary styles Fathali M. Moghaddam.

Subject Areas: Political activism [JPW], Social, group or collective psychology [JMH], Social issues & processes [JFF]