Transcript Social Movements

PART II:
The Nation-State and its Challengers
State Formation
Nationalism
Social Movements
What are they doing wrong?
Myth #1: The Spontaneity Myth
Andrea
"The need for a preexisting communications network or infrastructure within the social base of a
movement is a primary prerequisite for 'spontaneous' activity" (Freeman, p. 14 in Goodwin and Jasper)
"There is no question that the original spaces of resistance were formed on the Internet, as traditional
forms of protest were met with utmost ferocity by a police that had been torturing with impunity
(occasionally subcontracted by the CIA for anti-terrorist operations) for as long as the thugs could
remember. It is also clear that the calls to demonstrate on January 25, and then on successive dates
were sent via Facebook, to be received by an active following made up of youth for whom social
networks and mobile phones were a central part of their way of life." (Castells, p. 46-47 in Goodwin and
Jasper)
Many of the authors we read this past week emphasized the importance of a communications network
in the formation of a social movement. Because of the ease of worldwide communication today thanks
to the Internet and social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, ideas and information can be
disseminated at a rate never seen before. Thus, it seems that social movements can be started and
spread more quickly than ever before, as evidenced by the integral role social media played in the Arab
Spring and Occupy movements. However, in a world where instigating a social movement is as easy as
putting a hashtag in front of a key phrase or buzzword, I question whether the expansion of
communication networks through the Internet translates into more effective social movements. If you
look at something like Occupy Wall Street or Black Lives Matter, you see that while the ease of
communication helped spread these movements enough for them to garner national attention, they
don't seem to effect much change (perhaps it's still too early to say this for Black Lives Matter, but that
movement already seems to be fading away from public consciousness). In fact, one of the principles of
the Occupy movement was to specifically not make demands in order to generalize the movement for a
greater number of people. Is there a tradeoff between the volume of people that can be reached and
having specific, attainable goals in a social movement, and does the Internet and the ease of
communication exasperate this dichotomy?
Kate
“To sum up, if a co-optable communications network is already established, a crisis
is all that is necessary to galvanize it. If it is rudimentary, an organizing cadre of one
or more persons is necessary. Such a cadre is superfluous if the former conditions
fully exist, but it is essential if they do not.” –Goodwin & Jasper, pg. 14
The idea of a “co-optable communications network” is interesting in the
context of modern social media networks. Social media can connect people around
the world and as a result can create communications networks on much larger
scales. This is helpful for modern movements because they can reach more people,
but because these networks are so spread out, it also means their connections to
people are weaker. It reminds me a lot of the “hashtag activism” label a lot of the
movements get, criticizing them for getting many followers who will support them
on the surface but aren’t committed – they’ll tweet about issues but won’t engage
in actual activism. Goodwin and Jasper recognize the impact that social media had
on the OWS and Egyptian protests, but don’t explicitly apply the same analysis and
criteria they had for the women’s movement to these modern protests. One of
OWS’s main points was that they had no organizing cadre, for example, yet the
authors still declare that OWS was a “success”. Additionally, if social media allows
supporters to become more easily connected, doesn’t it also make it easier for
opponents to speak out, too? Numerous feminist activists on Twitter or Facebook
need to block thousands of people a day who can easily and anonymously send
threats over the internet. I suppose that Simmel would argue that opposition to
such forces would only unite those feminist activists more.
Myth #2: The Leadership Myth
Myth #3: The Failure Myth
Myth #4: The Underclass Myth
Vivian
“ . . . these scholars agree that movements do
passionate ‘framing work’: shaping grievances into broader
and more resonant claims. Framing not only relates to the
generalization of a grievance, but defines the ‘us’ and
‘them’’ in a movement’s conflict structure” (Tarrow, 21).
I thought I would look at this quote in light of the
Occupy Wall Street movement. While OWS definitely set
up an “us” and “them” dynamic with the slogan the
participants united under: “We are the 99%,” I would like to
question whether the type of “framing work” Tarrow
mentions actually occurred. In the Social Movements
Reader, the point was made that there was an absence of
specified demands and that there were a wide range of
issues that people who joined the OWS movement were
concerned with. There was such a range of concerns that I
don’t believe they can be synthesized to be
a “generalization of a grievance” as Tarrow states.
Even more complex!
Myth #5: The (State or Movement)
Benevolence Myth
Myth #6: The Novelty Myth?
Social movements
change with the
times.
But are the changes
fundamental or
superficial?
Ben
"In another sense, unconventional is not defined by novelty per se, but by movement
outside the normal routines of politics. All forms of direct action are thus
unconventional...Unconventional means in this sense are particularly likely in a
movement of people who have few resources other than their public actions."
(Calhoun, pg. 405-6)
On reading this quote, I was reminded of movements such as the American civil rights
movement of the 60's, and even more broadly, to the struggle to extend constitutional
rights beyond white, wealthy, males in the United Sates. For an unfortunately long
time, the laws of the United States restricted political participation to a small subset of
the population. Blacks, women, and even poor whites could not vote, and so any
agitation by these groups to gain constitutional equality was almost by definition
"outside the normal political routines".
Even after they nominally gained suffrage, African Americans were kept from the
ballots by discriminatory legislation, barring them access to the political process.
Without any significant political presence, the civil rights movement's most powerful
resource was truly its public actions: marches, boycotts, sit-ins all helped it in gaining
national attention, putting pressure on politicians to bring about equity and justice.
What I think is very intriguing, in short, is how dominant groups can exclude others
from the conventional channels of politics, and by doing so, establish conditions
whereby any attempt by other groups to enter the "normal routines of politics" will
perforce have to be unconventional.
NSMs: How “New” Are They?
So-called new social movement (NSM) theory has expanded the
scope to movements after the 1960s, emphasizing supposed postindustrial particularities. It contrasts its subject matter with that of
the older (mostly working class) movements of interest to Marxian
theory.
 Emphasis was placed on the constructed nature of
collective identity and consciousness, including those of class, ethnic,
gender, sexual orientation, youth and antiwar activist categories.
 The NSMs are characterized by politicization of spheres
traditionally thought to be apolitical, the prominence of cultural and
symbolic demands and ways of forging identity, and their greater
emphasis on participatory and non-hierarchical organizational forms.
Critics (like Calhoun) have argued that the allegedly new movements
do not differ significantly from older ones (reminding that traditional
movements did indeed rely on symbolism and non-material,
cultural construction of collective identity), and that the few
differences between traditional and new movements are explained
well by older theories (including the differences between pre- and
post-industrial movement organization).
Ted
"The communitarian visions that predominated in the movements of the era
generally minimized class divisions. They offered a new kind of social relations-egalitarian and cooperative to replace the old; they expected the beneficiaries
of the old system to resist most, but they argued that the benefit of the new
order would flow to everyone" (Calhoun 403).
I found the foundation of his argument about New Social Movements (NSM) to
have a large foundation on this idea of "classless" mobilization, which
contradicts Marx's theory of social revolution. For NSMs to foster an egalitarian
approach to change, practice what they wanted to see in society, to politicize
"everyday life", and to open the doors to identity politics, overcoming the idea
of class-boundaries seems rather required.
Yet, when the movement becomes class-based, can this type of mobilization
still occur? Consider maybe a push for a higher minimum wage in America,
would the middle class avidly support such legislation? Even if they do, doesn't
the approach of more class-based labor movements still hold with it some form
of division along class lines, considering that elite/upper class individuals will
want to retain the status quo? If that's the case, the argument can be made
that a Marxist approach to social movements still has hints of economic
determinism when it comes to labor/class-based movements.
Julia
"The lesson to be learned for the purposes of studying social
movements is that since societies are rarely stable, in equilibrium, or without
strain because change is constant, the forces which have the potential of
producing social movements are always present in some degree. No great
upheavals are needed to bring about the conditions conducive to the rise of
social movements because certain tensions seem to be endemic to society"
(Wilson in McAdam, 11).
McAdam's quoting of Wilson connects with conversations we had at
the beginning of this class -- is society fundamentally stable or chaotic? Is
society in equilibrium or in perpetual crisis? McAdam points out that strain
cannot be the sole reason for social movements, since, in his opinion, society
is constantly strained, and yet social movements pop up irregularly. McAdam
critiques the classical theorists' views on the explanations for
social movement. We can compare and contrast McAdam's views to those of
Marx. Marx felt that the capitalists had created a system in which the strain
of the proletariat was actually so stable and continuous that only a revolution
could stop it. Contrary to McAdam, Marx seems to suggest that the intense
strain on the proletariat is what holds them back from a social movement.
Both authors refer to exploitation and alienation. Marx explained that
exploitation was at the core of the capitalist system -the bourgeoisie provided wages that were just enough to keep workers alive
in order to return to work.
McAdam’s Attack on the Classical Model
Punch Line: Classical (social-psychological) approach to social
movements is misleading and somewhat condescending.
Based on pluralist model of US politics: in America, political
power is widely distributed among a host of competing groups rather
than in the hands of few. No group exercises sufficient power to bar
others to enter the political arena. In this case, groups not using
regular political channels must be motivated by non-political aims 
not rational.
Three tenets: 1) social movements as responses to structural strain; 2)
individual discontent as the proximate cause of social movements; 3)
social movements represent a psychological rather than a political
phenomenon.
Mass Society Theory (the absence of structural integration; people
suffer social isolation which leads to alienation and anxiety);
Status Inconsistency Theory (objectively and subjectively severe and
widespread discrepancy between people’s ranking on a variety of
status dimensions, which leads to cognitive dissonance);
Collective Behavior Theory (structural constraint, which leads to
normative ambiguity).
Melvin
"Kornhauser tells us that 'social atomization engenders strong
feelings of alienation and anxiety, and therefore the
disposition to engage in extreme behavior to escape from
these tensions’” (McAdam pg. 7).
This theory made me think of the United States in the
19th century, when anti-Chinese sentiment was very strong,
and legislation such as the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 was
in action. The Chinese workers were indeed socially isolated
and also alienated by the rest of the American population.
However, I don’t know if any social movement or widespread
extreme behavior occurred in the US as a result. Were they
simply not alienated enough? Did they not have enough
people to create a social movement? Did the language barrier
prevent them from doing so?
Classical Model
(study pluralist power setup)
Better Models
(study political context)
…widely distributed, diffuse.
…concentrated, is redistributed only
by consistent, targeted pressure.
Elite powerholders are…
…highly responsive, constantly
seeking greater inclusion.
…generally unresponsive, exclusive
except when pressured.
Coercion is…
…a mistake, “political suicide.”
…routine, at the expense of
disadvantaged groups.
Movements
signify…
…disruption, disequilibrium.
…stabilization, balancing.
…extraordinary, abnormal.
…ordinary, normal politics.
….psychological.
…political.
Movement
activists are in it
for…
…emotional, irrational rewards.
…fulfilment of rational, pragmatic
demands.
Severe structural
strain is…
…sufficient condition for social
movements.
…necessary condition for social
movements.
Social movements
consist of…
…discontented individuals.
…coordinated, collective action by
mobilized groups.
Political power…
Social movements
are…
Movement
demands are…
Ian
“Collective behavior theory posited that movements
were little more than the most well-organized and selfconscious part of an archipelago of ‘emergent phenomena,'
ranging from fads and rumors to collective enthusiasms, riots,
movements, and revolutions… Society itself was seen to be
disoriented and mobilization resulted from the urge to
recompose it” (Tarrow p.16).
As soon as I saw the word collective, Durkheim’s idea
of collective effervescence came to mind. As I continued to
read, with this in mind, I found it odd that Tarrow did not
mention it. Instead, he mentioned Durkheim’s theory of
anomie. This is interesting to me because I never thought of
collective effervescence and anomie having to be related.
However, this makes sense if given the correct scenario. The
people could feel collective effervescence to the extent that
they were all “unhinged from traditional roles and identities”
and that, therefore, lead them to feel the same way. Does
collective behavior theory have a combination of Durkheim’s
ideas of collective effervescence and anomie intertwined in
it?
Sid Tarrow
Overall: interprets the rise and fall of social
movements as part of social struggle and as the outcome
of changes in political opportunity structure.
“[T]he collective action problem is social, not
individual. Movements are produced when political
opportunities broaden, when they demonstrate the
existence of allies and when they reveal the vulnerability
of opponents. By mounting collective actions, organizers
become focal points that transform external
opportunities, conventions, and resources into
movements. Repertoires of competition, social networks
and cultural frames lower the costs of brining people
together in collective action, creating a broader and more
widely diffused dynamic of movement” (p. 23).
P.O.S. and the Civil Rights Movement
Defeat of Nazi
Germany; global
human rights
discussion.
Dawn
of TV
age.
Cold War image
of “Land of the
Free” and leader
of “Free World.”
Changing Electoral
Base of Democratic
Party; Electoral
calculations pursuing
Black votes.
Civil Rights
Movement
Anti-colonial
struggles.
Marx, Lenin and Gramsci
What makes individuals engage in collective action?
– Marx: class  people will engage in collective action when their social
class is in fully developed contradiction with its antagonist. But why
members of a group who “should” revolt so often fail to do so? Marx’s
answer: “false” consciousness, and long-term class conflict and
solidarity would eventually solve the dilemma. [political opportunity
structure]
– Lenin: organization  an elite of professional revolutionaries as
vanguard, acting as the self-appointed guardian of the working class’s
“real” interest. [organization]
– Gramsci: collective intellectual  but why Lenin’s revolution failed to
spread in the West? To Gramsci, organization is not sufficient; workers
need to develop their own consciousness through a cadre of “organic
intellectuals” developed within the working class to complement the
“traditional intellectual” in the party (collective intellectual). The
process is slow and long. [consensus mobilization]
Among other problems: how do you prevent the cultural hegemony of
bourgeois society from dominating the party, rather than vice versa?
Individual and Collective Choice
In 1960s, scholarly attention focused on how collective action on
behalf of collective goods is even possible among individuals who are
guided by narrow self-interest?
– Mancur Olson (1965): only a large group’s important members have
sufficient interest in its collective goods to assume leadership; the
larger the group, the more people prefer to “free ride” on the
efforts of the individuals whose interest in the collective good is
strong enough to pursue it. To overcome the “free rider” problem,
would-be leaders must either impose constraints on their members
or provide them with “selective incentives”.
– MaCarty and Zald (1973, 1977): resource mobilization theory  the
organizations are not simply those who have the strongest interest,
but “professional movement entrepreneurs” to draw external
resources into social movement organizations (SMO). Also: the
heterogeneity of movement motivations, political structure, formal
and informal organizations.
Amalee
“For Olson, the problem of collective action was aggregative: how to
involve as high a proportion of a group as possible on behalf of its collective
good. …. Olson posited that, in a large group, only its most important members have
a sufficient interest in achieving its collective good to take on its leadership…. the
larger the group, the more people will prefer to “free-ride” the efforts of the
individuals whose interest in collective good is strong enough to pursue it” (Tarrow
15).
I think Olson’s contribution to collective behavior theory is an essential
step for the field. His clarification that, even if grievances are shared and a group
mobilizes, individuals do not engage/mobilize with the same investment is
interesting because it presents social movements as a spectrum of individuals’
motivations and level of investment. While it seems somewhat a small point, I think
ignoring the individual is where so many propositions and predictions about
collective behavior go wrong.
It is INTERESTING that when a group is so large (maybe too large to be
intimately personally connected?) individuals may stay involved but only lazily.
Thinking with this in mind might change how collective action occurs - if the few
who are invested enough to pursue the collective good organize in a greater
number of smaller groups instead of one too-large group, maybe the presence
of “free-riders” would be slimmer, and the movement stronger for its aggregate of
high investment. It could also provide both group identity and a larger feeling of
nationalism if each group knows that other groups are mobilizing similarly. A sort of
odd example of this could be when groups within one religious tradition take
collective action - each local church or group would be small but highly dedicated,
knowing there are multiple groups with shared identities that the local group is
acting “with”.
Tarrow’s Preferred Approach
Put the Social back into Social Movements
– Political opportunity structure: consistent
dimensions of political environment that
encourage or discourage people from movements;
most salient change in opportunity structure
results from the opening up of access to power.
– Contention by convention; mobilizing structures,
consensus mobilization.
– Module repertoires of contention: the same
collective actions widely diffused; cycles of
protest: more and more escalating protests may
lead to revolutionary outcomes.
Michael
“Social Movement analysts have also avoided addressing emotions,
perhaps for fear of associating with discredited accounts of mass
psychology. For present purposes, it is better to see social
movements as including all attempts to influence patterns of culture,
social action, and relationships in ways that depend on the
participation of large numbers of people in concerted and selforganized (as distinct from state-directed or institutionally
mandated) collective action.” – Calhoun, pp. 388
It is perplexing to me that social movement analysts had
ever thought it was appropriate to preclude emotional sentiments
and motivations from their analyses of social movements. Sure
enough, Calhoun does make note of how this was an error, but what
I would like to understand is where this aversion came from in the
first place. It seems counterintuitive to leave emotions out of the
equation in trying to understand social movements, which inherently
arise out of emotionally charged circumstances, whether they be
NSMs or old ones. Why is it that acknowledging emotional
causations seems to “taint” our understanding and observations of
social movements?
Simone
"We need to recognize that feeling and thinking are parallel,
interacting processes of evaluating and interacting with our worlds,
composed of similar neurological building blocks" (Jasper p.2).
The debate of whether or not humans are more "emotional" or
"rational" is, to me, a reductive one, and I agree with Jasper that it
serves us better to understand the duality, that humans are not
either/or with regard to their behaviors and decisions. Additionally, I
would actually take the point a step further and argue that the actual
terms in themselves are limiting; cannot rationality be an emotion
and cannot emotion be rational? Rather I believe that humans,
especially when they're protesting, cannot be defined by binary
terms such as are their goals "good" or "bad", are they behaving
"alone" or "together" (because when is one truly "alone" or acting
purely in isolation, yet how does one accurately define the concept
of "togetherness"?), etc; the complex vortex whirling inside of us
when we are moved to protest may as of now not yet have accurate
words to describe and it should not be such a radical idea that
opposing concepts can exist, rather comfortably, in the human
psyche. Once we stop trying to put everything into categorical little
boxes, we can start analyzing events more organically and with more
respect to their unique circumstances.
Jasper: Don’t Forget about Emotions
• Urges: urgent bodily needs (hunger, thirst, lust,
addiction.
• Reflex emotions: quick, automatic responses (anger,
fear, joy, surprise, shock, disgust).
• Moods: persistent energizing or de-energizing feelings
without direct objects (melancholia, apathy, anxiety,
contentment).
• Affective commitments/loyalties: stable feelings about
others (love/hate, trust/mistrust, respect/contempt).
• Moral emotions: feelings of (dis)approval based on
moral principles and intuitions (shame, pride, guilt,
outrage, compassion).
• Emotional energy: mood of excitement or enthusiasm
encouraging further action (generated through
interaction rituals).
Kirsi
"Means become goals, and goals - once attained become the means for further action." pg. 296
This reminded me of Tarrow's cycles of
contention and the idea that social movements
will become strengthened and have more people
join when the "starting group" has a success. I
know that recent social psychologists have thrown
out rational choice theory to explain social
movements, but Jasper's analysis of emotions
seems like a very rational choice argument. How is
this different from the rational choice theorists?
Clara
Regarding the Jasper reading specifically: he writes that “the emotions that maintain
energy and confidence will be undermined by too great a sense of accomplishment," explaining
that the “combination of positive and negative emotions…through their contrast, help energize
action”(291). I suppose this statement brings into question whether social movements are
a means to an end (in which case, “a sense of accomplishment” is the end goal and the
consequential decline in energy is the natural course of these movements) or if they are ends in
and of themselves. This latter idea, that social movements can be their own end, is really
interesting to me, as it helps answer my question of how certain physical spaces can become
important (and even integral) to movements. As Milkman, Luce and Lewis discuss, the physical
space of Zucotti park (which, the authors note, is home to a strong tradition of social
movements) was important to the OWS movement (as was Tahrir Square in the Arab Spring). I
also thought of Oranienplatz in Berlin and its role in social unrest and, particularly, the ongoing
refugee rights movement there. Are these spaces important on a purely symbolic level? Are they
just one factor in or consequence of a movement, or is there more that can be learned from
them?
Additionally, I thought it was interesting how readings generally approached social
movements on an individual level (often appealing to emotions or internal validation as social
catalysts). In the articles assigned from The Social Movements Reader, most authors took care to
(briefly) describe the individuals engaged in these movements; there seemed to be a trend of
young, educated adults involved in the core group of these movements. While this analytical
approach is important, I think it’s also important to consider the activist networks that form
(which most authors also discuss), within which the end (the goal of these networks) is activism
in and of itself. “Activist” becomes an identity, the goal is less to achieve policy changes than to
be heard, to express solidarity with other members of this activist community. To tie this into my
point about spaces, could spaces important to social movements be important because they
become the physical home for these ongoing activist networks? […] Perhaps what I’m really
asking is, what can we learn about social movements by looking at the physical spaces they
occupy and the particular activist networks that become rooted there?
Moral Shock
“Triggers” of movement mobilization tend to induce what Jasper calls moral
shock: they unsettle us into rethinking our folk sociology, our expectations and
our ethical principles.
Shame  Pride
Social movements deliberately seek to transform certain emotions into their
“opposites” on the moral battery.
Next Week:
Part II: CAPITALISM