Party in the Street explores the interaction between political parties and social movements in the United States. Heaney and Rojas model this interaction as taking place among individual actors in a decentralized organizational environment. Individuals and organizations that identify with both a political party and a social movement make up the party in street. When these identities are compatible with one another, they fuel both the party and the movement. But when these identities are in tension with one another, they may reduce political mobilization. Heaney and Rojas argue that partisan identities tend to trump movement identities in the contemporary political era, which means that the party in the street is often of greater benefit to the party than to the movement.

The book focuses on the case of the antiwar movement and the Democratic Party after 9/11. It demonstrates that the antiwar movement demobilized more directly in response to the electoral success of the Democratic Party in 2006 and 2008 than as a result of antiwar policy shifts. The empirical analysis draws upon surveys of activists in the antiwar movement and the Democratic Party, networks of social movement organizations, and legislative activity in the United States Congress. The book concludes by considering party-movement interaction beyond the antiwar movement – especially regarding the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street – as well as the implications of the party in the street for other parties and movements in an era of partisan polarization.

BIO: Michael is a political sociologist working at the intersection of the disciplines of political science and sociology. His research focuses on how social networks, social movements, interest groups, and political parties shape organizational processes and policy outcomes. His first major line of work focuses on the politics of interest groups, with an emphasis on how they construct identities, form alliances, work in coalitions, and navigate informal networks. His second major line of work examines how the mobilization of social movements depends on the partisanship of political actors, the blending of organizational identities across movements, and the interactions of grassroots activists through informal networks and coalitions. With Fabio Rojas of Indiana University, he is co-author of Party in the Street: The Antiwar Movement and the Democratic Party after 9/11 (publication expected in 2015).

Michael received a Ph.D. in Political Science and Public Policy from the University of Chicago in 2004. Before joining the University of Michigan, he held a postdoctoral fellowship at Yale University in 2004-2005 and was Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Florida from 2005 to 2009. In 2007-2008, Michael was the William A. Steiger Congressional Fellow of the American Political Science Association, during which time he worked on the staff of the U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Energy and Commerce under Chairman John D. Dingell, Jr.