Protest is frequently analysed through eventful moments (demonstrations, strikes, occupations, sudden waves of contention) yet contentious politics also unfolds through longer temporal trajectories that shape what actors can do, what they remember, and how they persist. This special issue invites contributions that place temporality at the centre of protest analysis, examining how mobilisation is embedded in sequences, durations, and rhythms that extend beyond the “peak”. We welcome work that theorises and empirically traces how movements are made over time: through organisational reproduction, cycles of learning, intergenerational transmission, and the gradual reworking of repertoires. The aim of this issue is to strengthen the dialogue between social movement studies and historical sociology. Contributions with explicit temporal references (such as archival research, longitudinal designs, and comparative-historical approaches) that can shed light on the longue durée of conflict in different regions and political histories are particularly encouraged.
A focus on temporality also helps address what event-centred perspectives often overlook: abeyance and latency, the maintenance of networks and infrastructures between cycles, and the slow, cumulative processes through which claims, identities, and tactical capacities are sustained or transformed. We encourage papers that treat “between-cycle” periods not as empty time, but as analytically consequential phases where resources are conserved, solidarity is reproduced, and organisations adapt to shifting political opportunities and constraints. Submissions may explore how memory, commemoration, forgetting, and activist archives operate as mechanisms of continuity and change; how repression, surveillance, and counter-mobilisation reshape trajectories; and how diffusion and sequencing connect protest episodes across places and generations. Comparative contributions that broaden the geographical scope beyond the well-trodden cases of Western Europe and North America are particularly welcome, as are studies that examine how different institutional temporalities (elections, political cycles, regime transitions, economic crises) intersect with the timing of movements to produce distinct patterns of emergence, persistence, and subsequent repercussions.
Finally, the most recent transformations of protest arguably hinge on digital contention and the hybridisation of online and offline repertoires. This special issue therefore explicitly includes digital media and digital sociology within its scope, inviting research on phenomena such as hashtag campaigns, platform-based mobilisation, online boycotts, coordinated “X protests”, collective digital action, and the contentious dynamics surrounding cancel culture and public accountability campaigns. We welcome methodological innovation that connects archival materials, event datasets, life histories, ethnography, and digital trace data, as well as work that reflects on the epistemic opportunities and limits of each approach for studying temporal processes. In general, we seek theoretically ambitious and empirically grounded articles that explain how protests change over time—through mechanisms such as learning, conversion, coalition, and institutionalisation—without losing sight of the multiple temporal scales at which movements operate. Contributions should be addressed to the broad readership of Sociology Lens, offering clear conceptual benefits, comparative advantages, and insights into the perennial question of how time shapes conflict politics.
Topics for this call for papers include but are not restricted to:
- Long-term trajectories of movements across cycles, including abeyance, suspension, and reactivation.
- Archival research on protest organisations, repertoires, and infrastructures of continuity.
- Comparative-historical analyses of protest fields beyond Western Europe and North America.
- Intergenerational transmission of activist identities, skills, and organisational know-how.
- Collective memory, commemoration, forgetting, and activist archives as temporal mechanisms.
- Diffusion and sequencing of repertoires across waves of contention and transnational spaces.
- Outcomes, legacies, and post-peak organisational recomposition in movement afterlives.
- Digital contention: hashtags, online boycotts, platform campaigns, and hybrid online-offline mobilisation.
- Temporalities of repression, surveillance, and counter-mobilisation across protest cycles.
- Interactions between protest, institutions, and political time in democratisation, authoritarianism, and regime change.
Guest Editors:
Dr. Gomer Betancor Nuez
Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia
Spain
Prof. Guya Accornero
Instituto Universitário de Lisboa
Portugal
Keywords: archival research; collective memory; diffusion; digital contention; historical sociology; longitudinal methods; protest cycles; protest; social movements; Temporality
Call for Abstract Instructions
Interested contributors should submit an abstract to the guest editors via email by 01/07/2026. Abstracts (300–400 words) should outline the proposed paper, its empirical basis, and its theoretical contribution. Submissions based on ongoing studies are also welcome, provided that the manuscript is expected to be completed by the submission deadline. The guest editors will respond to the letters of intent within one month after submission, allowing for a quick potential invitation to submit the full manuscript (around 7,000 words). Only the authors whose abstracts are selected by the guest editors will proceed to full submission.
Following peer review, authors will be expected to return their revised manuscripts by 1 December 2026, after which the complete set of papers will be submitted to the journal. Final versions will be submitted by 1 September 2027. On this basis, we anticipate a possible publication window in late 2027 or early 2028.
Abstract submission deadline: 1 July 2026
Full paper submission: 1 September 2027