About

Ann Mische is Associate Professor of Sociology and Peace Studies. Her work focuses on processes of communication, deliberation and leadership in social movements and democratic politics.  Using a combination of interpretive and network-analytic approaches, she discusses the challenges to leadership and coalition building posed by the participation of activists in multiple institutional sectors, including partisan, civic, religious, corporate, labor and social movement networks. She has examined these dynamics in her study of Brazilian youth politics in the 1990s, and is currently extending this analysis to the dynamics of the recent wave of anti-regime protest in Brazil and elsewhere. In addition, she is interested in how the cultural construction of the future influences actions, relations and political process.  

Current Research

I am working on several related projects: 1) a study of partisan ambivalence and the rejection of institutionalized politics in the recent protests in Brazil; 2) a study of future-oriented discourse in the contentious debates over the “green economy” in the United Conference of Sustainable Development (Rio+20) and the accompanying “People’s Summit”; and 3) a new book project on how individual and collective projections of future possibilities influence deliberation and decision-making. This study will compare the discursive and relational dynamics of future-oriented deliberation in local communities, social movements, and policy arenas.

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Journal Articles

Books

Book Chapters

Others

Other Accomplishments & Recognitions
  • Awarded honorable mention for the Best Book Award of the American Sociology Association’s political sociology section (2009)