florence passy

University of Lausanne, Institute of Studies in politics and international relation, Faculty Member

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Florence Passy is professor at the Institute for Political and International Studies at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland. She has extensively written on social movements and contentious activism, with a specific focus on social networks. Her most recent work focuses on altruism and pro-social behavior, as well as the role of individuals’ mindset on diverse forms of political activism. She recently published with Gian-Andrea Monsch ‘Contentious Minds. How Talk and Ties Sustain Activism’ (Oxford University Press, 2020, open access) stressing how the mind and conversational interaction enable to sustain activism.

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For a Better Living-Together: Ongoing Meaningful Conversations at Play

Nonprofit and civil society studies, Nov 8, 2022

This chapter provides two contributions. On the one hand, it argues that morality is a mine field... more This chapter provides two contributions. On the one hand, it argues that morality is a mine field for sociologist as they lack the analytical tools to judge what is moral and what is not. Yet, historical sociology has shown that morality is bound to culture, and accordingly culture and cultural practices should gain the center stage of the sociological work on morality. Further on, we claim that social movements scholars can show that specific contentions directly relate to major political cleavages where major debates about moral issues are staged. Our second contribution offers an empirical example of such a research agenda. Using original survey and interview data on pro-migrant's rights activists and environmentalists, we show that activists from these two groups form a common community-the moral voicing community. They share an understanding of the social problems they are committed for. Activists from both groups judge as immoral when specific social or cultural groups lack basic rights or suffer from environmental devastations and interpret these assessments through a prism of injustice. Finally, we show that these shared meanings on our living-together are continuously constructed through a specific relational mechanism. Indeed, ongoing and direct conversations are necessary to maintain those shared views and to ultimately sustain their activism. Lisa, a woman of 30, is highly committed to the defense of migrants' rights. For almost 10 years, she has been involved in an association of jurists who offer legal aid to new arrivals. She also participates in other pro-migrant groups to fight what she perceives as an "obscene injustice" on a political level. "They encounter so many problems when they try to acquire a right to remain or to work elsewhere than in their home country. […] If I compare my situation to theirs, it's clear that there is an obscene injustice: basic rights are denied." Nathan, a 30-year-old man, mobilizes to promote environmental sustainability. Nathan became passionate about

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Politics and Intentionality

Contentious Minds, Mar 19, 2020

We are not simply to bandage the wounds of victims beneath the wheels of injustice, we are to dri... more We are not simply to bandage the wounds of victims beneath the wheels of injustice, we are to drive a spoke into the wheel itself. Dietrich Bonhoeffer Moral voicing activists, Christian aid volunteers, and workers' voicing activists possess various understandings of common good, but they also perceive politics differently, as shown in Chapter 3. But how do they really perceive politics? How do these perceptions set their intentionalities? Are they concerned with politics, and consequently, are they strong citizens in terms of their relation to politics? When it comes to their understanding of politics, the core questions dealt with in Chapter 4 return. The relation to politics is the second crucial dimension to underline when we depart from the idea that meaning is important for setting an activist's intentionality. We argued that the notion of identity and Gamson's action frames are insufficient cognitive conditions when it comes to understanding how activists sustain contention. A specific understanding of common good is insufficient, too. In this chapter, we show how activists understand politics and how these understandings enable them to construct specific cognitive components, which in turn set their intentionality toward specific forms of collective action. By understanding activists' relation to politics, we seek to apprehend the cognitive mechanisms that orient them toward specific forms of action. An in-depth analysis of the activist's mind allows us to understand why activists committed in different communities make use of specific forms of collective action. For example, activists in Greenpeace and Solidarity across Borders are committed to different issues: environmental protection and the defense of migrants' rights, respectively. However, they defend these different causes with the same form of action: contentious politics. Despite the range of issues for which they mobilize, activists perceive politics in a similar way, and this common understanding of politics directs them toward protest

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Different issues, same process: Solidarity and ecology movements in Switzerland

In the social science literature, altruism is often seen as a phenomenon sui generis which requir... more In the social science literature, altruism is often seen as a phenomenon sui generis which requires specific theoretical tools to be analyzed (e.g., Greven and Willems 1994; Olson 1965; Rucht, forthcoming). We do not share this view. Just as different forms of collective protests, from social movements to revolutions, can be brought under the same rubric of "contentious politics" (McAdam, McCarthy, and Zald 1996a), we think that individual participation in social movements follows similar processes, regardless of the type of movement and regardless of the beneficiaries of the action. In the end, the distinction between altruistic and "egoistic" behavior depends on the presence or absence of selfinterest. Political altruism, by definition, does not rely on private interest. The goal is not to provide individual benefits for oneself, but rather to improve the situation of others. As a consequence, if one admits that these two kinds of political behavior are different, the difference stems precisely from the self-interest involved and the possibility to achieve individual gains for oneself. As a great many authors have shown (e.g., Gould 1991; Klandermans 1997; Marwell and Oliver 1993; McAdam 1986), the process leading to participation in social movements is much more complex, involving a number of crucial factors and going through a number of stages. We reject a monocausal explanation of individual participation which focuses on one key decision based on self-interest. While rational decisions to take part in a social movement do play a role, other factors affect participation: above all, the activists' position in the social structure, their value system, and their embeddedness in social networks. If that is true, altruistic and ''egoistic" po

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Interactions sociales et imbrications des sphères de vie

Le Desengagement Militant. Paris. Edition Belin, 2005

Décembre 2002 (49'166 signes, notes inclues) 1 Je remercie Olivier Fillieule et Philippe Gottraux... more

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Chapitre IV. La solidarité, un problème de classe

Les militant-e-s de Caritas, des Citoyens comme les autres?

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The De-nationalization of Immigration Politics-Is It Happening and Who Benefits

Many scholars have recently argued that nation-state—centered approaches in comparative sociology... more Many scholars have recently argued that nation-state—centered approaches in comparative sociology and political science are obsolete. In this view, we have entered, or are about to enter, a new “postnational” or “transnational” era characterized by complex and qualitatively new patterns of multilevel governance, in which the nation-state still plays a role, though a drastically reduced one.1 This decline of the nation-state’s sovereignty is said to be accompanied by a growing importance of supranational and transnational actors, institutions, legal norms, and discourses, on the one hand, and increased local autonomy from national constraints, on the other. Given the inherently transnational nature of migration, it is not surprising that this critique of national approaches has been particularly prominent in this field of study.

Analyses des votations fédérales du 3 mars 1991

Annexe. Les Indicateurs

Travaux de sciences sociales, 1998

Chapitre VII. L'engagement individuel entre structures et intention

Travaux de sciences sociales, 1998

L'immigration dans les débats publics des années quatre-vingt-dix – Les étrangers, l'extrême droite et la question de l'intégration

Seismo eBooks, 2005

Social and Solidary Incentives

The Wiley‐Blackwell Encyclopedia of Social and Political Movements, Sep 27, 2022

Chapitre V. L'engagement, un processus relationnel

Travaux de sciences sociales, 1998

Chapitre VIII. Stabilité et fluctuations de l'engagement

Travaux de sciences sociales, 1998

For a Better Living-Together: Ongoing Meaningful Conversations at Play

Springer eBooks, Nov 8, 2022

This chapter provides two contributions. On the one hand, it argues that morality is a mine field... more This chapter provides two contributions. On the one hand, it argues that morality is a mine field for sociologist as they lack the analytical tools to judge what is moral and what is not. Yet, historical sociology has shown that morality is bound to culture, and accordingly culture and cultural practices should gain the center stage of the sociological work on morality. Further on, we claim that social movements scholars can show that specific contentions directly relate to major political cleavages where major debates about moral issues are staged. Our second contribution offers an empirical example of such a research agenda. Using original survey and interview data on pro-migrant's rights activists and environmentalists, we show that activists from these two groups form a common community-the moral voicing community. They share an understanding of the social problems they are committed for. Activists from both groups judge as immoral when specific social or cultural groups lack basic rights or suffer from environmental devastations and interpret these assessments through a prism of injustice. Finally, we show that these shared meanings on our living-together are continuously constructed through a specific relational mechanism. Indeed, ongoing and direct conversations are necessary to maintain those shared views and to ultimately sustain their activism. Keywords Morality • Conversations • Shared meanings • Culture • Pro-migrant • Environmental activism Lisa, a woman of 30, is highly committed to the defense of migrants' rights. For almost 10 years, she has been involved in an association of jurists who offer legal aid to new arrivals. She also participates in other pro-migrant groups to fight what she perceives as an "obscene injustice" on a political level. "They encounter so many problems when they try to acquire a right to remain or to work elsewhere than in their home country. […] If I compare my situation to theirs, it's clear that there is an obscene injustice: basic rights are denied." Nathan, a 30-year-old man, mobilizes to promote environmental sustainability. Nathan became passionate about

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Politics and Intentionality

Oxford University Press eBooks, Apr 9, 2020

Politics and Intentionality We are not simply to bandage the wounds of victims beneath the wheels... more Politics and Intentionality We are not simply to bandage the wounds of victims beneath the wheels of injustice, we are to drive a spoke into the wheel itself. Dietrich Bonhoeffer Moral voicing activists, Christian aid volunteers, and workers' voicing activists possess various understandings of common good, but they also perceive politics differently, as shown in Chapter 3. But how do they really perceive politics? How do these perceptions set their intentionalities? Are they concerned with politics, and consequently, are they strong citizens in terms of their relation to politics? When it comes to their understanding of politics, the core questions dealt with in Chapter 4 return. The relation to politics is the second crucial dimension to underline when we depart from the idea that meaning is important for setting an activist's intentionality. We argued that the notion of identity and Gamson's action frames are insufficient cognitive conditions when it comes to understanding how activists sustain contention. A specific understanding of common good is insufficient, too. In this chapter, we show how activists understand politics and how these understandings enable them to construct specific cognitive components, which in turn set their intentionality toward specific forms of collective action. By understanding activists' relation to politics, we seek to apprehend the cognitive mechanisms that orient them toward specific forms of action. An in-depth analysis of the activist's mind allows us to understand why activists committed in different communities make use of specific forms of collective action. For example, activists in Greenpeace and Solidarity across Borders are committed to different issues: environmental protection and the defense of migrants' rights, respectively. However, they defend these different causes with the same form of action: contentious politics. Despite the range of issues for which they mobilize, activists perceive politics in a similar way, and this common understanding of politics directs them toward protest Cognitive components Perceptions Intentionality Civil society actors Perception and evaluation Substitution State relatedness Complementary With which form of action? Volunteering Concern for politics Not concerned State actors Perception and evaluation Containment

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Altruism and Social Movements

The Wiley‐Blackwell Encyclopedia of Social and Political Movements, Sep 27, 2022

Le mouvement de solidarité en Suisse. Analyse de la mobilisation dans une perspective organisationnelle

Les militant-e-s de Caritas, des Citoyens comme les autres?

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Conceptions collectives de la nation et exclusion des migrants africains de l'espace public suisse

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