Books
Francesca Polletta, Inventing the Ties that Bind: Imagined Relationships in Moral and Political Life (University of Chicago Press, 2020)
Francesca Polletta, It Was Like a Fever: Storytelling in Protest and Politics (University of Chicago Press, 2006)
Francesca Polletta, Freedom Is an Endless Meeting: Democracy in American Social Movements (University of Chicago Press, 2002)
Jeff Goodwin, James M. Jasper, and Francesca Polletta, eds. Passionate Politics: Emotions in Social Movements (University of Chicago Press, 2001)
Recent and selected articles
2021. Francesca Polletta, Tania DoCarmo, Kelly Ward, and Jessica Callahan, “Personal Storytelling in Professionalized Social Movements,” Mobilization 26 (1): 65-86.
2021. Francesca Polletta and Alex Maresca, “Claiming Dr. King for the Right.” Memory Studies
2020. Francesca Polletta, “Bridging America’s Divides Requires a Willingness To Work Together without Becoming Friends First.” The Conversation, 9 September.
2020. Francesca Polletta, “What I Did Not Expect To Learn From Old White Activists About Racial Solidarity,” Medium, 8 August.
2020. Francesca Polletta and Nathan Redman, “When Do Stories Change Our Minds? Narrative Persuasion About Social Problems.” Sociology Compass 14.
2020. Francesca Polletta, “Trump Supporters and the Boundaries of the ‘I’,” Contemporary Sociology, 49 (2): 115-118.
2020. Francesca Polletta,“What a Good Idea: Mobilization and Culture,” Mobilizing Ideas, 3 February,
2019. Edwin Amenta and Francesca Polletta, “The Cultural Impacts of Social Movements,” Annual Review of Sociology, 45: 279-299
2019. Jane Jenson, Francesca Polletta, and Paige Raibmon, “The Difficulty of Combating Inequality in Time,” Daedalus 148 (3): 136–163.
2017. Francesca Polletta and Jessica Callahan, “Deep Stories, Nostalgia Narratives, and Fake News: Storytelling in the Trump Era.” American Journal of Cultural Sociology 5 (3); 392–408.
2016. Francesca Polletta, “Social Movements in an Age of Participation.” Mobilization 21(4): 485-497.
2016. Francesca Polletta and Zaibu Tufail. “Helping without Caring: Role Definition and the Gender-Stratified Effects of Emotional Labor in Debt Settlement Firms.” Work and Occupations 43(4) 401–433.
2016. Francesca Polletta, “Participatory Enthusiasms: A Recent History of Citizen Engagement Initiatives,”Journal of Civil Society 12(3): 231-246.
2015. Eric P. S. Baumer, Francesca Polletta, Nicole Pierski & Geri K. Gay, “A Simple Intervention to Reduce Framing Effects in Perceptions of Global Climate Change,” Environmental Communication.
2015. Jacomijne Prins, Francesca Polletta, Jacquelien von Steklenberg, and Bert Klanderans, “Exploring Variation in the Moroccan-Dutch Collective Narrative: An Intersectional Approach,” Political Psychology 36 (2): 165-180.
2015. Zaibu Tufail and Francesca Polletta, “The Gendering of Emotional Flexibility: Why Angry Women Are Both Admired and Devalued in Debt Settlement Firms,”Gender and Society 29: 1-25.
2015. Francesca Polletta and Beth Gharrity Gardner, “Culture and Movements,” in Emerging Trends in the Social and Behavioral Sciences, edited by Robert A. Scott and Stephen M. Kosslyn. Wiley.
2014. Francesca Polletta, “Participatory Democracy’s Moment,” Journal of International Affairs 68(1): 79-92.
2014. Francesca Polletta, “Is Participation Without Power Good Enough?” Sociological Quarterly 55 (3): 453-466.
2014. Francesca Polletta and Christine Tomlinson, “Date Rape After the Afterschool Special: Narrative Trends in the Televised Depiction of Social Problems.” Sociological Forum 29(3): 527-548.
2014. Francesca Polletta and Zaibu Tufail, “The Moral Obligations of Some Debt.” Sociological Forum 29 (1): 1-28
2013. Francesca Polletta and Pang Ching Bobby Chen, “Gender and Public Talk: Accounting for Women’s Variable Participation in the Public Sphere.” Sociological Theory 31(4): 291-317,
2013. Francesca Polletta, Monica Trigoso, Britni Adams, and Amanda Ebner. “The Limits of Plot.” American Journal of Cultural Sociology 1(3): 289-320.
2013. Francesca Polletta, “Participatory Democracy in the New Millennium.” Contemporary Sociology 42(1): 40-50.
2013. Jacomijne Prins, Jacqueline Stecklenberg, Bert Klandermans, and Francesca Polletta. “Telling the Collective Story: Moroccan-Dutch Young Adults’ Negotiation of a Collective Identity Through Storytelling.” Qualitative Sociology 36 (1): 81-99.
2013. Francesca Polletta, Pang Ching Bobby Chen, Beth Gardner, and Alice Motes. “Is the Internet Creating New Reasons to Protest?” in The Future of Social Movement Research: Dynamics, Mechanisms, and Processes, edited by Jacquelien Van Stekelenburg, Conny Roggeband, and Bert Klandermans. University of Minnesota Press.
2013. Francesca Polletta, “Participatory Democracy,” “Narrative,” “The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee,” “Consensus Decision Making,” and “Free Spaces” (with Kelsy Kretschmer) in The Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Social and Political Movements, edited by David Snow, Donatella della Porta, Bert Klandermans, and Doug McAdam. Blackwell.
2012. Francesca Polletta, “Analyzing Popular Beliefs About Storytelling.” In Varieties of Narrative Analysis, edited by James A. Holstein and Jaber F. Gubrium, Sage Publications.
2012. Francesca Polletta, “The Civil Rights Movement.” In Contention in Context: Political Opportunities and the Emergence of Protest edited by Jeff Goodwin and James M. Jasper (pp. 133-152). Stanford University Press.
2012. Francesca Polletta and Pang Ching Bobby Chen, “Narrative and Social Movements.” In The Oxford Handbook of Cultural Sociology, edited by Jeffrey C. Alexander, Ron Jacobs, and Philip Smith. Oxford Univ. Press, 2012.
2012. Francesca Polletta, “Three Mechanisms by which Culture Shapes Movement Strategy: Repertoires, Institutional Norms, and Metonymy.” In Strategies for Social Change, edited by Gregory Maney, Rachel Kutz-Flamenbaum, Deana Rohlinger, and Jeff Goodwin. University of Minnesota Press.
2011. Francesca Polletta, Pang Ching Bobby Chen, Beth Gardner, and Alice Motes. “The Sociology of Storytelling.” Annual Review of Sociology 37:109-130
2009. Francesca Polletta, “How To Tell a New Story About Battering.” Violence Against Women 15: 1490-1508
2008. Francesca Polletta, Pang Ching Chen, and Christopher Anderson, “Is Information Good for Deliberation? Link-Posting in an Online Forum.” Journal of Public Deliberation 5(1) article 2.
2008. Francesca Polletta, “Storytelling in Politics.” Contexts 7(4): 20-25.
2008. Francesca Polletta, “Culture and Movements.” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 619: 78-96.
2008. Francesca Polletta, “Just Talk: Public Deliberation after 9/11.” Journal of Public Deliberation 4 (1), article 2.
2006. Francesca Polletta, “Awkward Movements.” Introduction to special section edited by Polletta in Mobilization 11(4): 475-8.
2006. Francesca Polletta and John Lee, “Is Telling Stories Good for Democracy? Rhetoric in Public Deliberation after 9/11.” American Sociological Review 71 (5): 699-723.*
2005. Francesca Polletta. “How Participatory Democracy Became White: Culture and Organizational Choice.” Mobilization 10 (2): 271-288.
2004. Francesca Polletta, “Culture In and Outside Institutions.” In Research in Social Movements, Conflicts, and Change 25: 161-183.
2001. Francesca Polletta and James Jasper, “Collective Identity in Social Movements.” Annual Review of Sociology 27: 283-305.
2001. Francesca Polletta, “The Laws of Passion.” Law and Society Review 35 (2).
2001. Francesca Polletta, “’‘This is What Democracy Looks Like’: Decisionmaking in the Direct Action Network.” Social Policy 31: 25-30
2000. Francesca Polletta, “The Structural Context of Novel Rights Claims: Rights Innovation in the Southern Civil Rights Movement, 1961-1966.” Law and Society Review 34: 367-406.
1999. Francesca Polletta, “Free Spaces in Collective Action.” Theory and Society 28: 1-38.
1998. Francesca Polletta, “Legacies and Liabilities of an Insurgent Past: Remembering Martin Luther King, Jr., on the House and Senate Floor.” Social Science History 22: 479-512.
1998. Francesca Polletta, “‘It Was Like a Fever..’: Narrative and Identity in Social Protest.” Social Problems 45 (2): 137-159.