MOBILISE Determinants of ‘Mobilisation’ at Home and Abroad: Analysing the Micro-Foundations of Out-Migration & Mass Protest

• Applicants: Professorin Dr. Olga Onuch, Ph.D.; Professorin Dr. Gwendolyn Sasse, Ph.D.; Professorin Dr. Jaquelien van Stekelenburg; Dr. Sorana Toma, Ph.D.
• Subject Area: Political Science ; Empirical Social Research
• Term: from 2018 to 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 396856214

The MOBILISE project asks: When there is discontent, why do some people protest while others cross borders? Connecting theoretical expectations from the migration and protest literatures, we examine: a) whether similar factors drive the choice to migrate and/or protest at the individual level; b) how the political, social and economics context affects this mobilisation; c) whether these choices are independent of each other or mutually reinforcing/ undermining. MOBILISE employs a multi-method (nationally representative face-to-face panel surveys, online migrant surveys, protest participant surveys, focus groups, life-history interviews, social media analysis) and a multi-sited research design. It covers Ukraine, Poland, Morocco and Brazil, which have recently witnessed large-scale emigration and protests. It follows migrants from these countries to Germany, the UK and Spain. The project offers four key innovations: 1)it combines protest and migration; 2)it captures all the relevant groups for a comparative study (protesters, migrants, migrant protesters and people who have not engaged in migration or protest); 3)it tracks individuals over time by employing a panel survey; 4)it includes the use of social media data providing real time information on the role of networks and political remittances. These features allow the project to generate an unprecedented amount of empirical data on the issues at stake, to make a major contribution to theory development in both migration and protest studies, and to offer key insights to policy makers that are of central importance for political and economic stability.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: France, Netherlands, United Kingdom