Jeremy Menchik – författare

This Element provides the first large-scale inquiry into the 'Reopen' protest movement against COVID-19 public health shutdowns. We synthesize digital ethnography inside the movement with text analyses of an original data set spanning more than 1.8 million Facebook comments and posts from over 224,000 online activists. We characterize the movement's origin, growth, and evolution as it interacted with public policies and offline protests. We explain individual- and group-level dynamics of radicalization over time, across topics, and, paradoxically, in response to content moderation. We extend existing theories of contentious politics to suggest that movements that fail to maintain their connection to offline organizations are especially prone to mutability, radicalization, and exhaustion. Together, our findings offer a powerful theoretical framework for understanding social movements in the digital age, while updating and extending classical social movement theory.

This Element provides the first large-scale inquiry into the 'Reopen' protest movement against COVID-19 public health shutdowns. We synthesize digital ethnography inside the movement with text analyses of an original data set spanning more than 1.8 million Facebook comments and posts from over 224,000 online activists. We characterize the movement's origin, growth, and evolution as it interacted with public policies and offline protests. We explain individual- and group-level dynamics of radicalization over time, across topics, and, paradoxically, in response to content moderation. We extend existing theories of contentious politics to suggest that movements that fail to maintain their connection to offline organizations are especially prone to mutability, radicalization, and exhaustion. Together, our findings offer a powerful theoretical framework for understanding social movements in the digital age, while updating and extending classical social movement theory.

Indonesia's Islamic organizations sustain the country's thriving civil society, democracy, and reputation for tolerance amid diversity. Yet scholars poorly understand how these organizations envision the accommodation of religious difference. What does tolerance mean to the world's largest Islamic organizations? What are the implications for democracy in Indonesia and the broader Muslim world? Jeremy Menchik argues that answering these questions requires decoupling tolerance from liberalism and investigating the historical and political conditions that engender democratic values. Drawing on archival documents, ethnographic observation, comparative political theory, and an original survey, Islam and Democracy in Indonesia demonstrates that Indonesia's Muslim leaders favor a democracy in which individual rights and group-differentiated rights converge within a system of legal pluralism, a vision at odds with American-style secular government but common in Africa, Asia and Eastern Europe.