The Street and the Ballot Box

 

This interdisciplinary book panel examines the connections between social movements and political parties, and their contribution to democratizing electoral outcomes, an emerging field of study in political science and sociology. Authors of two recent books on this theme—political scientist Lynette Ong on Malaysia, and sociologist Yoonkyung Lee on South Korea—draw on their in-depth studies to contribute to the theoretical debate. They will be joined by David Meyer (political sociologist at UC Irvine), Meredith Weiss (political scientist at SUNY, Albany) and Myungji Yang (sociologist at U Hawaii, Manoa) as discussants.

 

 

The two books are Lynette H. Ong's The Street and the Ballot Box: Interactions Between Social Movements and Electoral Politics in Authoritarian Contexts (Cambridge University Press, Elements in Contentious Politics Series, 2022), and Yoonkyung Lee's Between the Streets and the Assembly: Social Movements, Political Parties, and Democracy in Korea (University of Hawaii Press, 2022).

 

 

Yoonkyung Lee is Professor in the Department of Sociology. She is a political sociologist specializing in labor politics, social movements, political representation, and the political economy of neoliberalism with a regional focus on East Asia. She is the author of Militants or Partisans: Labor Unions and Democratic Politics in Korea and Taiwan (Stanford University Press 2011), Between the Streets and the Assembly: Social Movements, Political Parties, and Democracy in South Korea (University of Hawaii Press 2022), and numerous journal articles that appeared in Politics and Society, Globalizations, Studies in Comparative International Development, Asian Survey, Journal of Contemporary Asia, and Critical Asian Studies.

 

 

David S. Meyer is professor of sociology and political science at the University of California, Irvine. He’s written extensively on social movements and social change, and is author or editor of ten books, most recently How Social Movements (Sometimes) Matter. The 2017 recipient of the John D. McCarthy Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Scholarship of Social Movements and Collective Behavior, he holds a Ph.D. in political science from Boston University, and an undergraduate degree in literature from Hampshire College. He is the lead editor of the Cambridge University Press book series on Contentious Politics, and founding co-editor of the Cambridge University Press Elements series on Contentious Politics.

 

 

Lynette H. Ong is Professor of Political Science, jointly appointed at the Department of Political Science and the Asian Institute at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy. She is an expert on China, having conducted on-the-ground research in the country since the late 1990s. In addition, she has also published on the broader Indo-Pacific region, including Southeast Asia and India. Her research interests lie at the intersection of authoritarianism, contentious politics, and development. She has delivered expert testimonies before the US Congress and the Canadian House of Common. She frequently offers expert commentaries to international and Canadian media. Professor Ong is the author of Outsourcing Repression: Everyday State Power in Contemporary China (Oxford University Press, 2022), The Street and the Ballot Box: Interactions Between Social Movements and Electoral Politics in Authoritarian Contexts (Cambridge University Press, 2022), and Prosper or Perish: Credit and Fiscal Systems in Rural China (Cornell University Press, 2012).

 

 

Meredith L. Weiss is Professor of Political Science in the Rockefeller College of Public Affairs & Policy at the University at Albany, SUNY. In books—most recently, The Roots of Resilience: Party Machines and Grassroots Politics in Southeast Asia (Cornell, 2020), and the co-authored Mobilizing for Elections: Patronage and Political Machines in Southeast Asia (Cambridge, 2022)—edited volumes (most recently, Routledge Handbook of Civil and Uncivil Society in Southeast Asia, available March 2023), and articles, she addresses issues of social mobilization and civil society, collective identity, electoral politics, governance, and institutional reform in Southeast Asia. She co-edits the Cambridge Elements series on Southeast Asian Politics & Society.

 

 

Myungji Yang is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Hawai‘i-Mānoa. Her research on development and democracy in South Korea appeared in Sociological Inquiry, Urban Studies, Mobilization, and Politics and Society. She is the author of From Miracle to Mirage: The Making and Unmaking of the Korean Middle Class (Cornell University Press, 2018).