Paul Almeida

Research Interests

Almeida’s research centers on the efficacy of collective action at the local, national and global levels of social and political life. He has empirically examined the timing and distribution of dozens of large-scale campaigns whereby ordinary citizens and excluded social groups mobilized to protect themselves from the loss of vital necessities such as health care, pensions, water services/utilities, environmental quality, and social citizenship rights. These studies are driven by a concern for explaining the conditions under which disadvantaged populations engage in defensive social movements to impede economic, environmental and political threats.

His articles have appeared in the American Journal of Sociology, Annual Review of Sociology, Social Forces, Social Problems, Mobilization, and other scholarly outlets. Almeida’s books include: Social Movements: The Structure of Collective Mobilization (University of California Press, 2019); Mobilizing Democracy: Globalization and Citizen Protest (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014); Waves of Protest: Popular Struggle in El Salvador, 1925-2005 (University of Minnesota Press, 2008); Handbook of Social Movements across Latin America (co-edited with Allen Cordero, 2015); and Latin American Social Movements: Globalization, Democratization and Transnational Networks (co-edited with Hank Johnston, 2006). His research has been funded by the World Society Foundation, UC MEXUS-CONACYT, UC Pacific Rim, and the Fulbright Faculty Fellowship Program. He teaches courses on globalization, organizational behavior, political sociology, sociological theory, environmental sociology, and social movements.

Honors And Awards

2018 - Author of the Month (November). UCA Editores (Central American University Press), San Salvador, El Salvador.
2016 - American Sociological Association, Best Book Award (Honorable Mention), Section on the Sociology of Development, for Book: Almeida, Paul. 2014. Mobilizing Democracy: Globalization and Citizen Protest. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
2015-2017 - Fulbright Scholar Award, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Honduras
2015 -Pacific Sociological Association, Distinguished Scholarship Award, for Book: Almeida, Paul. 2014. Mobilizing Democracy: Globalization and Citizen Protest. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
2014 - American Sociological Association, Best Article Award, Section on the Political Economy of the World-System (PEWS), for: Almeida, Paul D. 2012. “Subnational Opposition to Globalization.” Social Forces 90(4): 1051-1072.
2009 - American Sociological Association, Distinguished Contribution to Scholarship Article Award, Section on Labor and Labor Movements, for: Almeida, Paul D. 2008. “The Sequencing of Success: Organizing Templates and Neoliberal Policy Outcomes.” Mobilization 13(2): 165-187.
2008-2009 - Fulbright Scholar Award, Universidad de Costa Rica
2008 - Ray A. Rothrock ’77 Fellowship, College of Liberal Arts, Texas A&M University
2004 - American Sociological Association, Best Published Article Award, Section on Collective Behavior and Social Movements, for: Almeida, Paul D. 2003. “Opportunity Organizations and Threat Induced Contention: Protest Waves in Authoritarian Settings.” American Journal of Sociology 109(2): 345-400.

Blogs

Almeida, Paul. 2014. “Mobilizing Democracy: from Dictatorship to Neoliberalism”. Johns Hopkins University Press.
Almeida, Paul. 2019. “Encroaching Threats and Twenty-First Century Social Movements”. University of California Press. Publisher's Version

*U.S. copyright law prohibits reproduction of the articles on this site “for any purpose other than private study, scholarship, or research” (see Title 17, US Code for details). If you would like to copy or reprint these articles for other purposes, please contact the publisher to secure permission.

Featured Publications

Mora, Maria De Jesus, Rodolfo Rodriguez, Alejandro Zermeño, and Paul Almeida. 2018. “Immigrant rights and social movements”. Sociology Compass 12 (8):e12599. Abstract
mora_et_al-2018-sociology_compass.pdf
The disciplinary fields of immigration and social movements have largely developed as two distinct subareas of sociology. Scholars contend that immigrant rights, compared to other movements, have been given less attention in social movement research. Studies of immigrant‐based movements in recent decades have reached a stage whereby we can now assess how immigrant movement scholarship informs the general social movement literature in several areas. In this article, we show the contributions of empirical
studies of immigrant movements in four primary arenas: (a) emergence; (b) participation; (c) framing; and (d) outcomes. Contemporary immigrant struggles offer social movement scholarship opportunities to incorporate these campaigns and enhance current theories and concepts as earlier protest waves advanced studies of collective action.
Almeida, Paul, and Chris Chase-Dunn. 2018. “Globalization and social movements”. Annual Review of Sociology 44:189–211. Publisher's Version Abstract
A growing body of scholarship acknowledges the increasing influence of global forces on social institutions and societies on multiple scales. We focus here on the role of globalization processes in shaping collective action and social movements. Three areas of global change and movements are examined: first, long-term global trends and collective action; second, research on national and local challenges to economic globalization, including backlash movements and the types of economic liberalization measures most associated with inducing oppositional movements; and third, the emergence of contemporary transnational social movements. In each of these arenas we address debates on diffusion, intervening mechanisms, and the outcomes of collective mobilization in response to global pressures.
Almeida, Paul D. 2018. “The role of threat in collective action”. Pp. 43–62 in The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Social Movements, edited by D Snow, S Soule, H Kriesi, and H McCammon. Oxford: Wiley Blackwell. Publisher's Version
almeida_2018_threat.pdf

Recent Publications

Almeida, Paul. 2019. Social Movements: The Structure of Collective Mobilization. Berkeley: University of California Press. Publisher's Version Abstract

almeida_social movements

collective_mobilization_.pdf

The work outlines the fundamental properties of social movements, including chapters focusing on: classification and methods of study; dominant and alternative theoretical frameworks; movement emergence; movement framing and messaging; individual recruitment/participation; movement outcomes/conditions associated with success; and social movement struggles in the global South as well as transnational movements. The book emphasizes the critical role of joint action by ordinary people to confront major economic, political and environmental threats in the twenty-first century. More specifically, Almeida examines how and when people mobilize against economic inequality, racism, environmental injustice, climate change, gender discrimination and other major issues and the likelihood of achieving desired social change.

Almeida, Paul, and Chris Chase-Dunn. 2018. “Globalization and social movements”. Annual Review of Sociology 44:189–211. Publisher's Version Abstract

A growing body of scholarship acknowledges the increasing influence of global forces on social institutions and societies on multiple scales. We focus here on the role of globalization processes in shaping collective action and social movements. Three areas of global change and movements are examined: first, long-term global trends and collective action; second, research on national and local challenges to economic globalization, including backlash movements and the types of economic liberalization measures most associated with inducing oppositional movements; and third, the emergence of contemporary transnational social movements. In each of these arenas we address debates on diffusion, intervening mechanisms, and the outcomes of collective mobilization in response to global pressures.

Almeida, Paul. 2012. “Subnational opposition to globalization”. Social Forces 90 (4):1051–1072. Publisher's Version Abstract

almeida_2012.pdf

Using a unique dataset on the geographic distribution of reported protest events from local sources, the study explains the variation in community-level mobilization in response to neoliberal reforms in two countries in the global periphery. Building on insights from macro, cross-national studies of protests related to market reforms, this article highlights local structural conditions that more likely generate popular contention in poorer countries. Count regression models show that localities with greater levels of state and community infrastructure (highways, administrative offices, universities, NGOs and local chapters of oppositional parties) were associated with heightened collective action opposing the privatization of health care and public utilities. These state and community infrastructures were shaped by national contexts in the era of state-led development preceding the current epoch of accelerated globalization.

Almeida, Paul D. Forthcoming. “Waves of Protest”. in Oxford Handbook of Latin American Social Movements, edited by Federico Rossi. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Almeida, Paul D, and Amalia Perez Martin. Forthcoming. “Economic Globalization and Social Movements in Latin America”. in the Oxford Handbook of Latin American Sociology, edited by Xochitl Bada and Liliana Rivera. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Almeida, Paul. 2020. USA-Country Report. Pp. 247-253 in Joost de Moor, Katrin Uba, Mattias Wahlström, Magnus Wennerhag and Michiel De Vydt (Eds.). Protest for a future II: Composition, mobilization and motives of the participants in Fridays For Future climate protests.

de Moor, Joost, et al. 2020. “Introduction: Fridays For Future - an expanding climate movement”. Pp. 6-33 in Protest for a future II: Composition, mobilization and motives of the participants in Fridays For Future climate protests on 20-27 September, 2019, in 19 cities around the world.

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