Eight years after the start of the global wave of movements in 2011, the political and social landscape is far from the democratic hopes of the protesters.

On all continents, activists are heavily repressed by the power they sought to overthrow. Trump and Bolsonaro made their way to the presidency of the USA and Brazil. With such a balance, can we still consider social movements as major actors of the transformation of society? Yes, but as much as progressive actors, reactionary movements and “movements from above” are producers of meanings. They have transformed subjectivities and have been particularly efficient in their management of power. The path towards a better understanding of social movements and their contributions to the production of our society lies in our ability to bringing together research on these three sectors of movements and to paying more attention to their interactions and conflictive relations around political forces, cultural changes, transformations of subjectivities and worldviews.

Geoffrey Pleyers (@GeoffreyPleyers) is an FNRS (Belgian Fund for National Research) researcher at the CriDIS (Centre for interdisciplinary research: democracy, institutions, subjectivity) and a professor at the Université Catholique de Louvain. He is President (2014-2018) of Research Committee 47 "Social classes and social movements" at the International Sociological Association.

Armine Ishkanian (@Armish15) is Associate Professor and the Programme Director of the MSc in International Social and Public Policy (ISPP).  Her research examines the relationship between civil society, democracy, development, and social transformation.

The Department of Social Policy at LSE (@LSESocialPolicy) provides top quality international and multidisciplinary research and teaching on social and public policy challenges facing countries across the world.

Twitter hashtag for this event: #LSESocialMovements