United in Opposition?

Abstract

This article examines the role of contentious collective action directed toward the European Community by citizens of three member countries—Belgium, France, and the Federal Republic of Germany—over a 16-year period from 1980 to 1995. Specifically, it looks at whether contentious collective action that is directed at the policies or the institutions of the European Union occurs independently of other collective action in the three member countries under focus, or whether diffusion or contagion effects within the countries and across country boundaries are present. The article uses time-series of protest events with a generalized event-count model to test for the presence of cross-national contagion effects. Results show the presence of both spatial and temporal diffusion effects among the three countries, indicating the adaptation of protesters to new, evolving forms of governance.