Marco Giugni - Political altruism?: solidarity movements in international perspective

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Political Altruism?

Solidarity Movements in International Perspective

Edited by Marco Giugni and Florence Passy

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ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD PUBLISHERS, INC.

Published in the United States of America
by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
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Copyright 2001 by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Political altruism? : the solidarity movement in international perspective / edited by
Marco Giugni and Florence Passy.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8476-9880-7 (alk. paper)ISBN 0-8476-9881-5 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Social Movements. 2. Solidarity 3. Altruism. I. Giugni, Marco. II. Passy,
Florence.
HN17.5 .P627 2001
303.484dc21
00-055294

Printed in the United States of America

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information SciencesPermanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

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This books main title ends with a question mark. This is a deliberate choice. It represents the exigency not to determine ex ante something which must at best be assessed at the end, once we have gone through theoretical ideas and empirical analyses that put us in a more comfortable position to draw some conclusions. Political altruism and solidarity are analytical categories that capture both social reality and human desires. Our task as social scientists is to put our desires aside and thus avoid proceeding from a normative point of view in favor of a sane skepticism which must inform scientific analysis. This is the spirit that has guided our inquiry into the world of altruistic and solidary behaviors.

The concrete object of the discussions offered in this book is represented by the solidarity movement as a form of collective action and civic participation. In spite of being one of the most substantial and active areas of participation, it has largely been neglected in previous work on social movements. With this book we hope to shed some light on this movement and, above all, to encourage further work in this field. In order to do so, we have asked leading scholars of social movements and contentious politics to address certain aspects of solidary action, both from a theoretical and from an empirical point of view. They all deserve our gratitude for having accepted our invitation and put their intellectual skills to the benefit of this enterprise.

The volume divides into three parts. The two chapters in part I introduce us to the subject matter by stressing its relevant theoretical aspects. Florence Passys (chapter 1) is the actual introduction to the book insofar as she addresses definitional issues, retraces the historical development of the solidarity movement, shows its various areas and levels of intervention, provides a brief overview of its mobilization in the European context, and finally opens up the discussions to follow in the other chapters by pointing to certain paradoxes and theoretical challenges related to the concept of political altruism. Charles Tilly (chapter 2) locates altruistic behavior in a larger context and discusses in particular altruism (i.e., a situation in which an actor sustains harm while another actor gains benefits) and destruction (i.e., an actor sustains harm while another actor likewise sustains harm). His effort is aimed at

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identifying mechanisms that set altruism or destruction in operation and therefore help us to explain these forms of collective action.