German democracy has always faced enormous challenges related to world politics, from the post–World War II period to the Cold War to reunification. But other internal forces have been actively pushing to redefine and expand the German political landscape, social movement actors from both the Left and the Right who demanded more citizen participation and influence in politics. Roger Karapin's new book provides a valuable introduction to the role of social movements in contemporary German politics, covering the main protest groups during this time, from urban renewal and antinuclear campaigns on the Left to anti-immigrant efforts on the Right. But Karapin provides more than an introduction. The book's primary goal is to move beyond socioeconomic and institutional theories, which have been frequently used to explain the rise of both new social movements and the new Right.

Through a skillful comparative analysis of nine different cases, spanning differences in issues, tactics, locations, sizes, lengths, and outcomes, Karapin engages key questions of social movement theory. He makes a compelling argument for an interactive political process approach that stresses the importance of tactics, strategy, choice, and contingency. Such a model explains the emergence, size, and type of protests by analyzing three interrelated processes: alliances between activists and with elites, official concessions and reforms, and policing tactics. Importantly, each of these processes can be influenced—but never fully controlled—by the actions and choices of protesters, who seek the means to expand their political opportunities and maximize their outcomes, creating a dynamic process of political development.

One of the book's primary strengths is that it does not simply compare across issues but also within them. Karapin shows how other structural models fail to explain why some areas experienced protest while other similar or even more structurally inclined locations did not, as well as failing to explain differences in tactics and outcomes. For example, he demonstrates why the urban renewal protests in the Linden area of Hanover favored conventional and nonviolent disruptive tactics, while a “similar” movement in Berlin's Kreuzberg district combined these tactics with more militant actions, including violence. He achieves this by drawing on an impressive amount of research and detail to show that this variation was not due to structural differences between the locations, but rather different kinds of political interactions. Specifically, while protest in both locations was fueled by authorities agreeing to new spaces for political participation while still resisting reform, a combination of policing and political mistakes allowed Kreuzberg activists to develop broader and longer-lived alliances and to garner elite support, all of which legitimated their growing militancy.

Similar patterns emerge in the author's analysis of the anti-immigrant protests following reunification. While some differences between the East and West might be attributed to structural factors, variations rarely fell so neatly along this line, such as the examples of Riesa, with small, nonmilitant protests, and Rostock and Hoyerswerda, with large and violent demonstrations. All are located in the former East Germany with similar demographics. He argues that ethnic competition over material goods cannot explain the size or tactics of protests, as the sites with the most conflict by this measure never generated protests: “Rather, protests became large and militant where ill-conceived government policies increased cultural threats, militant youths and adult residences formed alliances, access to officials was limited and police were extremely passive” (p. 192).

While his primary interest is to show shared patterns of interaction across widely different cases, Karapin also offers insight into the differences in protest politics between the Left and Right in Germany. In particular, he seeks to explain why militancy and violence was so much more popular on the Right, while nonviolent disruptive tactics were practiced exclusively by the Left. This tactical divergence yielded different results when activists sought to forge alliances with other citizens or political parties, with violence frequently limiting such efforts. The author explains that right-wing activists devoted less energy to tactical innovation, since their violent militancy was less likely to be met with repression than that of the Left, and, given their aversion to democracy, they rarely aimed at expanding democratic participation. Here, Karapin underscores how ideology, context, and choices push movements toward very different outcomes.

As useful as his political process model is, it nevertheless provides only a partial explanation for social movements. While it is presented in a very systematic and clear fashion, complete with tables and charts, any work focusing so keenly on the role of contingency in political action is bound to leave remainders. Karapin cannot explain why certain decisions are made, why some alliances fail, or why police react poorly. Nor does he attempt such explanations, as he rightly recognizes the scope of the model and is careful not to overextend it. He also correctly notes that other structural theories fare no better in explaining such outcomes. Because many of the key moments of contingency in his analysis—forging alliances, innovating tactics, responding to policing—are subjective as well as objective, cultural as well as structural, ideological as well as practical, even his successful examination demands additional cultural analysis for a fuller understanding. This is not a critique of Karapin's book, which achieves the goals set out for it, but rather a cautious note about possible future applications of his work, which might be less careful in their use of the arguments here. The interpretative work of political actors must be a factor of any complete analysis of movements.

Because the book strikes an effective balance between the specifics of the cases and their German context and the general features of social movements, Karapin's readers learn a lot about Germany, but additionally learn a great deal about how politics and social movements work in general. His interactive political process theory, with a focus on significant points of contingency, reveals the complexity of social movement and the need for analyses to match this complexity. While remainders will always remain, Protest Politics in Germany makes significant contributions to the continuing development of social movement theory.