Protests and protestors in times of financial crisis in Italy

Our comparison of protestors’ attitudes in marches traditionally classified as belonging to old versus new movements stressed, at least in times of austerity, a strong convergency on concerns with economic inequality and demands for social justice. The financial crisis and the related political crisis seem to have indeed produced a shared agreement on the defense of the attacked social rights. Differences between participants in our old and new social movements disappear when addressing the issues of mistrust in in representative institutions, which was indeed – contrary to expectations derived from social movement studies – extremely high in both. In contrast, and to a certain extent paradoxically, both types of activists converged in showing, nevertheless, a high confidence in their own capacity to affect social and political changes through collective and, possibly, transnational forms of protest.