In December I travelled to Copenhagen for the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP). I did not attend any of the ocial meetings in the Bella Center, where the conference was based, but rather participated outside the conference in a range of protest activities directed against the actions (and more importantly the inactions) of the ocial parties. ere is much to be said about the protes...

Theories on the establishment and propagation of political movements through mobilization have emerged and evolved over the last half century. Among the major theoretical frameworks that have been advanced are resource mobilization theory, political process theory, and culture theory. However, despite these developments, relatively few methodological approaches have applied bottom-up computatio...

Humans are a coalitional, parochial species. Yet, extreme actions of solidarity are sometimes taken for distant or unrelated groups. What motivates people to become solidary with groups to which they do not belong originally? Here, we demonstrate that such distant solidarity can occur when the perceived treatment of an out-group clashes with one's political beliefs (e.g., for Leftists, oppressi...

The last two centuries have produced, transformed and destroyed a myriad of political symbols of a linguistic, visual and ritual form. Between, say 1790 and 1990 the political sphere witnessed both an explosion in the generation of symbols and a radical decline of symbols. This calls for explanations. Mary Douglas and Serge Moscovici have provided insightful reflections on the theory and histor...