Where to meet us 📍
Lia Tsuladze joins the BASEES Annual Conference at University of Birmingham (10–12 April).
She will present on authoritarian turn in Georgia, join a methods panel on studying authoritarianism, and she will also chair a session on memory & post-socialist societies.
📣 Call for Papers
Only 2 weeks left to apply for ProtestEthnography: Ethnographies of Protests – Ethnography as Protest* (8–9 Oct 2026, University of Bremen).
What counts as protest? How to study it as an ongoing process?
Contact: ethnografie@dvpw.de
Website: www.dvpw.de/ak/ethnograf...
📣 Call for Papers
On 8–9 Oct 2026 at the University of Bremen: Protest*Ethnography. Ethnographies of Protests – Ethnography as Protest. A workshop co-organised by the DVPW Working Group Ethnographic Methods and the project ProTest
🗓 Submit by 1 April.
Info: politicalethnography.com/wp-content/u...
📚 New publication
Henry P. Rammelt & Ruxandra Gubernat analyze how memories of communism shaped the 2017 Romanian protests. Mobilizing narratives of failed transition, these frames delegitimized post-1989 elites and opened space for new actors (USR, AUR).
🔗 doi.org/10.3828/jrns...
How can right-wing violence be appropriately dealt with at a local level? A critical look at German remembrance work: www.transcript-verlag.de/978-3-8376-7...
📚 New publication
An edited volume by Piotr Kocyba and Ulf Bohmann examines how right-wing violence is confronted and remembered locally in Germany. Using cases such as the NSU murders, Halle, and Hanau, it situates these attacks within a longer history and assesses democratic.
We wish you all the best as we welcome 2026, and we would like to thank everyone who has followed our work. We hope that the coming year will bring greater public attention to protest as a democratic signal! Happy New Year!!! (the image is by kjpargeter from Freepik)
Our publications 📚
Power and Protest in Central and Eastern Europe (eds. Claudiu Crăciun & Henry P. Rammelt). The book analyses protest & civic mobilisation across 11 CEE countries, showing how grassroots action reshapes democracy, institutions, and power relations.
link.springer.com/book/10.1007...
Empirical Research on Protests & Social Movements in CEE Conference 2025 in Warsaw: Polish Team shared preliminary findings from in-depth interviews, highlighting shifting repertoires of action and evolving frames before and after 2023. Great discussions and inspiring insights!
🔎 In focus
Following the recent Polish Independence Day, we recommend the report on the demographics and motivations of Independence March participants from 2019 to 2024. It offers a detailed look at how the marchers’ profiles and motivations have evolved over time: demonstracjepl.wordpress.com
🗺️ In September, ProTest team members Lia Tsuladze (Center for Social Sciences in Georgia) and Henry P. Rammelt with Vlad Bujdei-Tebeica (Școala Națională de Studii Politice și Administrative - SNSPA) spoke about populism in authoritarian regime contexts at the University of Fribourg Switzerland.
Where to find us this week 🗓️ The ProTEST team joins the “Resistance and Opposition Beyond Institutions” workshop at the University of Fribourg 🇨🇭. Henry P. Rammelt & Claudiu Craciun (SNSPA) discuss ties between social movements and political parties in post-2024 Romania.
🔗 www.protestproject.eu
The #ProTestProject has officially launched with a vibrant two-day meeting in Budapest! Catch highlights from our kick-off meeting in Budapest, where researchers from across Europe gathered to explore the role protests play in testing—and transforming—democracy today!
The second day of the project kick-off meeting finished successfully in Budapest today. The day was filled with valuable discussions and plans for the duration of the project. On the second day the project members focused on planning the activities within each Work Package.
The project's kick off meeting is taking place on April 7-8 2025 in Budapest. The event had the project members reflect and discuss the dedemocratisation processes and protests in select countries in Europe. The discussions of the kick-off meeting will lay foundations this exciting research project.