Katrin Uba

Katrin Uba is Associate Professor (docent) in Political Science and Associate Editor of Social Movement Studies.

Her research interests are protest events, social movement outcomes, labour movement and climate activism. She is currently involved in projects studying the visions of climate activism, political outcomes of environmental movement and the use of threat in collective bargaining in Sweden.

Projects since 2007

2017- 2020 principal investigator and leader of the Swedish team in the EU H2020 project EURYKA, which examines youth political engagement at times of increasing inequalities

2017 worked for the EU H2020 funded project REMINDER (10%) in the Swedish team (led by Joakim Palme)

2016 worked for the VR project Civil Society and enlightened welfare-state (30%), led by Per Ola Öberg

2015- 2018 cooperates with Jenny Jansson in a RJ-funded infrastructure project "The Labour Movement Gone Digital: Preservation of organizational activities in the On-line Era". The project focuses on archiving digital material produced by the Swedish trade unions.

2013-2016 EU FP7 funded international collaborative project LIVEWHAT (Living with hard times). Prinicipal investigator of the Working Package 2 and leader of the Swedish team.

2012 -2015 FAS funded junior scholar project for setting up the Swedish Protest database. I am the prinicipal investigator, but the project also involves a great work of several research-assistants.

2010 - 2014 RJ funded project on the outcomes of protest against closing of schools in Swedich 290 municipalities since the early 1990s and until 2009. The project is in its final phase, first results are presented in several international conferences.

July 2008- June 2010: explaining the adoption of renewable energy policies in EU (Sweden, Spain and Italy) and India. In co-operation with Hans Blomkvist, funded by Energimyndigheten (Swedish Energy Agency).

June 2007- 2008: protest mobilisation against EU policies and its consequences during 1992-2007. Co-opearion with Fredrik Uggla, funded by Riksbankens Jubileumsfond.

Coordinator of the international network for social movement outcome research MOVEOUT: co-chair of the ESA Research Network on Social Movements; member of board of the ECPR Standing Group on Mobilisation and Participation

Research interests:

- the mobilisation and political consequences of social movements. The major empirical interest is related to local level mobilisation and its possibilities to achieve the stated goals (e.g., protests against school closures), but I am also interested in claims made during the protest action and protest mobilisation in general.

- individual level political participation in comparative perspective - methodological improvements (i.e. combining methods) for social movements' and political participation analysis

- the role of different interest groups in promoting the adoption of renewable energy policies or opposing the renewable energy projects (e.g., winfd-farms)

Education:

PhD, defended at the Department of Government, Uppsala University in June 2007. The thesis - "Do Protests Make a Difference?: The impact of anti-privatisation mobilisation in India and Peru" focuses on the outcomes of protests mobilised against privatisation in two developing countries.

The mobilisation of protests has become more visible during the last few decades and the amount of literature focusing on the links between protest and policy has significantly increased. Nevertheless, scholars acknowledge that there is a lack of theoretical advancements, careful empirical analysis and attention to developing countries regarding these links. In my thesis I endeavor to address the above described shortcomings. Thus, I elaborate on and evaluate existing theories on social movement outcomes by applying an event history analysis to my data on anti-privatisation struggles in India and Peru.

See more in Diva or ask a paperback from me.

- MA in Political Science ("The Determinants of the political participation in South America"), International program at Peace and Conflict Department, Uppsala University, 2002.

- BA in Political Science, Tartu University, Estonia 2001.