Internet activism, the 1960 Birmingham sit-ins, union organizing, John Kerry's presidential candidacy, transgenic crops, creationism. The new book "The Diffusion of Social Movements: Actors, Mechanisms, and Political Effects" touches on these and other subjects to illustrate how change is mobilized and spread.

ILR School faculty members Rebecca Givan, assistant professor of collective bargaining and an editor of the book, and Lance Compa, senior lecturer in collective bargaining, will discuss the Cambridge University Press book at 4:30 p.m. Oct. 27 in the Cornell Store.

The book grew out of a 2007 Cornell conference, "Contentious Knowledge: Science, Social Science and Social Protest," sponsored by Cornell's Institute for the Social Sciences, which drew on scholars' interests in studying diffusion of mobilizing tactics and frames across activist networks.

Compa wrote the essay "Framing Labor's New Human Rights Movement" about how human rights-based thinking influences the labor movement, which is traditionally motivated by wage and other economic arguments.

The Wednesday event is free and open to the public. Compa and Givan will be joined by other Cornell faculty members who contributed essays. Cornell essayists include Valerie Bunce, the Aaron Binenkorb Professor of International Studies and professor of government; Ronald Herring, professor of government; and Sidney Tarrow, the Maxwell Upson Professor of Government and Sociology.

Givan's co-editors were Kenneth Roberts, professor of government and the Robert S. Harrison Director of Cornell's Institute for the Social Sciences, and Sarah Soule of the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

According to its introduction, the book seeks "to promote a more integrated understanding of the diffusion process." Diffusion, it said, "often plays a central role in shifting the scope and scale of contentious politics. It can transform a local protest into a national movement, or a national movement into a transnational one."