Commissioned Book Review: Donatella Della Porta, Regressive Movements in Times of Emergency: The Protests Against Anti-Contagion Measures and Vaccination During the Covid-19 Pandemic
| Published date | 01 November 2024 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/14789299241257078 |
| Author | Piotr Marczynski |
| Date | 01 November 2024 |
Political Studies Review
2024, Vol. 22(4) NP13 –NP14
journals.sagepub.com/home/psrev
Commissioned Book Review
1257078PSW0010.1177/14789299241257078Political Studies ReviewCommissioned Book Review
research-article2024
Commissioned Book Review
Regressive Movements in Times of
Emergency: The Protests Against Anti-
Contagion Measures and Vaccination During
the Covid-19 Pandemic by Donatella Della
Porta. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2023, 208
pp., £70.00 (hardback), ISBN 9780198884309.
In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, a pleth-
ora of studies investigated individual determinants
of anti-vaccination attitudes. Simultaneously, anti-
vaccination movements received scant scholarly
attention despite featuring prominently in public
debate. Donatella della Porta addresses this
research gap by offering a meso-level account elu-
cidating how structural factors and individual
grievances interact to produce collective mobiliza-
tion against vaccination. The book captures this
dynamic by outlining how actors express their
claims (Chapter 2), how they organize to express
them (Chapter 3), and how they frame their
actions (Chapter 4).
Chapter 2 distinguishes between various pro-
test “waves.” The initial phase (April to December
2020) involved disputes over the arrangement of
specific lockdown measures by interest groups.
The subsequent wave (July to December 2021)
was marked by the prominence of far-right groups
and the emergence of an “anti-vax” identity cen-
tered on pandemic-related conspiracy theories.
Followingly, Chapter 3 zooms into the organi-
zation of anti-vax protests. The author asserts
anti-vax protests tend to follow the “disembedded
crowdsourced logic of organization” character-
ized by the lack of hierarchical structures and the
emphasis on obtaining support from open, loose,
and evolving groups of participants. This mode of
organization explains, simultaneously, the suc-
cess of the protests in rapidly mobilizing diverse
coalitions and its inability to sustain itself once
the infection rates flattened.
Finally, Chapter 4 describes the core innova-
tion of the anti-vax movement, namely, bring-
ing together vaccine skeptics, far-right
(anti-gender) activists, and New Age practition-
ers through conspiratorial framing. Della Porta
convincingly outlines how anti-vax movements
blended appeals to extreme individualism with
pre-existing conspiracy theories to mobilize
those otherwise heterogenous groups around
changing pandemic scenarios (p. 104). In por-
traying anti-COVID measures as initial steps of
“sanitary dictatorship,” anti-vax movements
fostered the creation of a novel political identity
centered around the shared feeling of “victim-
hood” and pride in “resistance” mobilized
around the goal of getting “back to normality.”
In bringing together insights about the tem-
porality, organization, and conspiratorial fram-
ing of anti-vax movements in Chapter 5, the
author summarizes the argument, leaving the
reader with a coherent understanding of how
anti-vax movements came about during the
pandemic. The concise presentation of the
analysis is facilitated by its integration within
the broader body of literature on social move-
ments. Indeed, the theory and methodology of
the volume draw heavily from the author’s
research and knowledge of the case, which pro-
vides space for the most extensive theoretical
discussion of anti-vax movements to date.
Simultaneously, the attention to detail that
adds to the depth of the volume limits the space
for the development of the comparative angle.
The bulk of the analysis concerns the “critical
case” of Italy, with cases of Germany and Greece
serving as reference points exhibiting, respec-
tively, high and low mobilizing capacities.
Although this research design neatly captures
the contextual dynamics of anti-vax movements,
the comparative analysis could elucidate distinc-
tive dynamics in Europe.
Similarly, future studies should explore how
social media facilitates anti-vax protests in
both critical junctures and “normal” periods.
Indeed, while the author highlights the role of
social media channels in coordinating protests
and communicating a shared sense of purpose,
the volume’s scope does not allow for a thor-
ough investigation. Further research could lev-
erage social media data to map a network of
anti-vax influencers, thereby contextualizing
Get this document and AI-powered insights with a free trial of vLex and Vincent AI
Get Started for FreeStart Your Free Trial of vLex and Vincent AI, Your Precision-Engineered Legal Assistant
-
Access comprehensive legal content with no limitations across vLex's unparalleled global legal database
-
Build stronger arguments with verified citations and CERT citator that tracks case history and precedential strength
-
Transform your legal research from hours to minutes with Vincent AI's intelligent search and analysis capabilities
-
Elevate your practice by focusing your expertise where it matters most while Vincent handles the heavy lifting
Start Your Free Trial of vLex and Vincent AI, Your Precision-Engineered Legal Assistant
-
Access comprehensive legal content with no limitations across vLex's unparalleled global legal database
-
Build stronger arguments with verified citations and CERT citator that tracks case history and precedential strength
-
Transform your legal research from hours to minutes with Vincent AI's intelligent search and analysis capabilities
-
Elevate your practice by focusing your expertise where it matters most while Vincent handles the heavy lifting
Start Your Free Trial of vLex and Vincent AI, Your Precision-Engineered Legal Assistant
-
Access comprehensive legal content with no limitations across vLex's unparalleled global legal database
-
Build stronger arguments with verified citations and CERT citator that tracks case history and precedential strength
-
Transform your legal research from hours to minutes with Vincent AI's intelligent search and analysis capabilities
-
Elevate your practice by focusing your expertise where it matters most while Vincent handles the heavy lifting
Start Your Free Trial of vLex and Vincent AI, Your Precision-Engineered Legal Assistant
-
Access comprehensive legal content with no limitations across vLex's unparalleled global legal database
-
Build stronger arguments with verified citations and CERT citator that tracks case history and precedential strength
-
Transform your legal research from hours to minutes with Vincent AI's intelligent search and analysis capabilities
-
Elevate your practice by focusing your expertise where it matters most while Vincent handles the heavy lifting
Start Your Free Trial of vLex and Vincent AI, Your Precision-Engineered Legal Assistant
-
Access comprehensive legal content with no limitations across vLex's unparalleled global legal database
-
Build stronger arguments with verified citations and CERT citator that tracks case history and precedential strength
-
Transform your legal research from hours to minutes with Vincent AI's intelligent search and analysis capabilities
-
Elevate your practice by focusing your expertise where it matters most while Vincent handles the heavy lifting