Professor Schock’s research interests are in social movements and peace and conflict studies. His research has spanned three areas, which are approached from comparative and cross-national perspectives: structural sources of violent political conflict; civil disobedience and unarmed resistance; and struggles for land in the Global South.
Current research addresses social movements struggling against capitalist land dispossession in Brazil and India. He examines how movements challenge the postcolonial state in their struggles for land rights, while simultaneously building direct democracy at the grassroots. Selected publications:
- Schock, Kurt. 2019. “Asserting Land Rights: Rural Land Struggles in India and Brazil.” Pp. 54-78 in Social Movements, Nonviolent Strategies, and the State, edited by Hank Johnston. London: Routledge.
- Schock, Kurt. 2017. “Gandhian Struggles for Land in India: The Bhoodan and Ekta Parishad Movements.” Pp. 208-229 in Nonviolence in Modern Indian History, edited by David Hardiman. New Delhi: Orient Blackswan.
- Schock, Kurt. 2015. “Rightful Radical Resistance: Mass Mobilization and Land Struggles in India and Brazil.” Mobilization 20(4): 493-515.
Previous research analyzed unarmed resistance in mass-based challenges to authoritarian regimes. Synthesizing literatures on political opportunity structures and nonviolent resistance, variation in outcomes of the challenges was addressed. He has also written on civil disobedience. Selected publications:
- Schock, Kurt. 2021. “Consequences of Civil Disobedience.” Pp. 407-428 in The Cambridge Companion to Civil Disobedience, edited by William E. Scheuerman. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Schock, Kurt. 2005. Unarmed Insurrections: People Power Movements in Nondemocracies. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
- Schock, Kurt. 1999. “People Power and Political Opportunities: Social Movement Mobilization and Outcomes in the Philippines and Burma.” Social Problems 46(3): 355-375.
Previous research examined cross-national variation in violent political conflict in relation to inequalities, economic exploitation, and political opportunity structures. Selected publications:
- Jenkins, J. Craig, and Kurt Schock. 2003. “Political Process, International Dependence and Mass Political Conflict.” International Journal of Sociology 33 (Winter): 41-63.
- Schock, Kurt. 1996. "A Conjunctural Model of Political Conflict: The Impact of Political Opportunities on the Relationship between Economic Inequality and Violent Political Conflict." Journal of Conflict Resolution 40(1): 98-133.
- Jenkins, J. Craig and Kurt Schock. 1992. "Global Structures and Political Processes in the Study of Domestic Political Conflict." Annual Review of Sociology 18: 161-185.