Books by Jeroen Van Laer
The basic, underlying question in this book, therefore, is whether the Internet is expected to ha... more The basic, underlying question in this book, therefore, is whether the Internet is expected to have a positive or negative impact on the democratic character of participation and mobilization in Western democracies. This book develops a more comprehensive assessment of the democratic potential of ICT, by incorporating individual level, organizational level, and political system level perspectives. The book consists of a series of substudies tackling each of these three levels: (1) An overview of inequalities with regard to individual Internet use and its consequences for political participation (micro); (2) An analysis of the way social movement organizations use ICT to develop coalitions and to reach out to potential participations (meso); (3) A study on Internet as a campaign tool for political parties (micro); (4) A study on the effectiveness of Internet mobilization for social and political organizations (micro); (5) A comparative study on the way social movements use ICT for transnational mobilization (meso); (6) A policy oriented study on the organization of e-government as a way to support the communication flow between citizens and the political system (macro). In term of approach, the study is internationally innovative through the conceptualization of both the independent variable, i.e. ICT use, and the dependent variable, i.e. frequency/ kind of Internet use, across different levels. Together with the comparative approach the researchers are able to give a comprehensive answer to the question how ICT has an impact on democratic participation and mobilization.
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Papers by Jeroen Van Laer
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The Zapatista uprising, which started in 1994, and the ‘Battle of Seattle’ in 1999 are but two ic... more The Zapatista uprising, which started in 1994, and the ‘Battle of Seattle’ in 1999 are but two iconic examples that are so often used to illustrate how the internet has shaped and is shaping social movements and the tactics they use to pursue their claims. In this ar ticle, we present the ‘state-of-the-art’ literature on action repertoires of social movements in an internet age. We build a strong case in favour of the internet as it has given social movements new and improved opportunities to engage in social and political action. At the same time, a naive internet-optimism is avoided, by pointing out several limitations. There is the ‘classical’ problem of digital divide. In some cases, the internet has made collective action still not easy enough, while in others it has made it perhaps too easy reducing the final political impact of a certain action. In addition, it seems that the new media are loosing their newness quickly, and more fundamentally are unable to create stable ties between activists that are necessary for sustained collective action. With the internet, social movements have not become a more powerful force in society. But, as political and economical power has gradually moved to the international level, the internet has enabled social movements to follow that transition and operate more globally.
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Using individual-level data of actual protest participants in nine different protest demonstratio... more Using individual-level data of actual protest participants in nine different protest demonstrations in Belgium, this article compares activists using the Internet and activists not using the Internet as an information channel about an upcoming demonstration. We find that “online” and “offline” activists differ significantly in terms of socio-demographic and political backgrounds, formal network and organizational embeddedness, and to some extent motivational aspects. The findings suggest that using digital communication channels likely extends, but at the same time narrows the mobilizing potential to a public of experienced, organizationally embedded activists. The Internet is principally used by “super-activists:” highly educated, with a lot of experience and combining multiple engagements at the same time. The article then discusses these results in light of two focal problems: that the Internet reinforces participation inequalities, and that the Internet might prove insufficient for sustained collective action participation and the maintenance of future social movement organizations.
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On February 15, 2003 more than a million people took to the streets worldwide to protest against ... more On February 15, 2003 more than a million people took to the streets worldwide to protest against the impending Western invasion of Iraq. These protests were the result of intensive international coordination and mobilisation efforts among peace movements. According to various authors and activists the internet played a key role. Yet, it was not the first time peace movements collaborated internationally. In the 1980s, for example, a European network of organisations agreed on a better coordination of the fight against mid-range nuclear missiles. In this article we select three instances of massive, worldwide protest and examine in what way the Flemish peace movement tried to cooperate internationally with other movements. We also try to assess the impact of changing information and communication opportunities. We successively examine the big anti-missile demonstrations (1979-1985), protests against Gulf War I (1990-1991) and protests against Gulf War II (2002-2003).
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Based on three series of protest surveys across nations, issues and time, the study examines to w... more Based on three series of protest surveys across nations, issues and time, the study examines to what extent the use of digital media permits multiple engagements in different protest events and different movement organizations. Departing from social movements’ need for internal and external linkage, the paper’s main claim is that digital media stimulate multiple activism defined as participating in several protest events and several movement organizations. Through ICT, activists manage to maintain their multiple engagements and to uphold weak ties with diverse protest communities. Core activists even more than peripheral participants rely on ICT. This basic pattern systematically holds across eight nations, across several issues, and across time.
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Surely everybody agrees that ‘peace’ is important. Without peace – certainly in the most elementa... more Surely everybody agrees that ‘peace’ is important. Without peace – certainly in the most elementary sense of peace being the absence of war – life as a societal or social expression is not possible. But how exactly do people think about or interpret peace? In a region such as Flanders, where for decades war has been an alien and absent feature, do people think of peace as a prime aspect of life, in other words, as a priority? Does the average Flemish citizen consider peace as a self-evident fact of life? Is peace something that one really should not have to worry about? And how do the Flemish people define the concept of ‘peace’? Does it pertain, in effect, only to the peace that reigns amongst states, to the absence of war amongst nations: something that might be defined as ‘International Peace’? Or is there, likewise, such a thing as ‘Inter-personal Peace’, which might be defined as peaceful co-existence? And do this ‘International Peace’ and this ‘Inter-personal Peace’ touch upon common ground?
These questions form the starting points for this survey report. The report contains the results of a systematic and expansive survey of more than 1,000 inhabitants of Flanders about their perception of peace, their attitudes vis-à-vis peace, and their active and potential commitment to the cause of peace. Aside from organising a broad public survey, the study also includes a number of focus groups consisting of people active in the field of peace.
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… . University of Antwerp. Media, Movements & …, Jan 1, 2008
Is activism located at a transnational level any diff erent from activism located at the national ... more Is activism located at a transnational level any diff erent from activism located at the national or even local level? More concrete: is there any diff erence in terms of backgrounds, attitudes, or behaviour among activists that are active on a transnational level and activists that restrict their activities to a national level? While the question may seem trivial, the answers to it are important to understand the apparently spreading transnational activism phenomenon and its repercussions for local grassroots activism. Moreover, the question of whether national and transnational activism is diff erent and whether activists active on one of these levels differ from each other remains largely unresolved and heavily debated. Some scholars claim that transnational activism is a distinct type of activism (e.g., Anheier, Glasius and Kaldor 2001), while others maintain that transnational activists are in the fi rst place just common national or local activists rooted in their local settings (Fisher et al. 2005: 105; Tarrow 2005a).
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Books by Jeroen Van Laer
Papers by Jeroen Van Laer
These questions form the starting points for this survey report. The report contains the results of a systematic and expansive survey of more than 1,000 inhabitants of Flanders about their perception of peace, their attitudes vis-à-vis peace, and their active and potential commitment to the cause of peace. Aside from organising a broad public survey, the study also includes a number of focus groups consisting of people active in the field of peace.
These questions form the starting points for this survey report. The report contains the results of a systematic and expansive survey of more than 1,000 inhabitants of Flanders about their perception of peace, their attitudes vis-à-vis peace, and their active and potential commitment to the cause of peace. Aside from organising a broad public survey, the study also includes a number of focus groups consisting of people active in the field of peace.