Italy’s LGBT Movement and Interest Groups

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Massimo Prearo
Keyword(s):  
Interest Groups ◽  
National Level ◽  
Social Movement Organizations ◽  
National Context ◽  
Political Events ◽  
History Of ◽  
Diachronic Analysis ◽  
Discontinuous Trajectory ◽  
Movement Organizations ◽  
Lgbt Movement

The Italian LGBTQI+ movement emerged in the 1970s in the context of the 1968 and post-1968 protests. Its history is characterized by a discontinuous trajectory, marked by several key moments of internal divisions and conflicts, related to political events, such as the alliance with the Radical Party, in the mid-1970s, or the approval of the same-sex Civil Unions Bill, in 2016. In the history of the Italian LGBTQI+ movement, three moments in particular can be identified that have led from the first revolutionary homosexual front (FUORI), an anti-institutional one, to the foundation of a structured and organized, and then institutionalized, movement both at a local and national level: 1974–1985, a founding moment; 1996–2000, a re-founding moment; 2016–2018, a reconfiguration moment. An intra-comparative diachronic analysis, within the Italian national context, shows how confrontations between different meanings and projects of what an “LGBTQI+ movement” is and has to be have led Italian activists to shape specific social movement organizations and practices.

Europe’s LGBT Movement: France

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Paternotte ◽  
Massimo Prearo
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Political Identity ◽  
The Political ◽  
Social Movement Organizations ◽  
General Will ◽  
Lgbt Activism ◽  
Movement Organizations ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Lgbt Movement ◽  
Limited Duration

Four moments can be identified in the development of LGBT activism in France: the tensions between private actions and acting publicly (1954–1974), the movement as an activist project (1974–1989), the first attempts of institutionalization (1989–1994), and the emergence of a space of LGBT activism (1994–2013). These moments are identified based on the nature of the collective action, the internal structure of the movement, the representativeness of national collectives, and the political plurality of the community of the LGBT movement. They show the nonlinear trajectory of the LGBT movement in France and confirm that the project of an LGBT movement, a structured and representative national organization, has never been fully achieved in the country. Two characteristics of the French political and social system contribute to explain this situation: a strong and inaccessible state that transcends civil society, and the impact of Republicanism. The closure of the French state, which restricts the opportunities available to activists, has had a significant impact on activism. It not only contributes to the individualization of protest, but also leads to a radicalization of activism, a limited duration of groups over time, and a lack of centralization, institutionalization, and NGOization of social movement organizations. This closure partly results from the Republicanist ideology, which requires the state to transcend civil society groups and the particular interests they would defend in favor of so-called general will. If the development of Republican ideas has historically facilitated the development of LGBT rights, Republicanism has more recently prevented LGBT activists from articulating a specific political identity.

Social Movements, Parties, and Political Cleavages in Morocco: A Religious Divide?

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adria Lawrence
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Authoritarian Regimes ◽  
Social Movement Organizations ◽  
Electoral Institutions ◽  
Muslim Countries ◽  
Electoral Authoritarianism ◽  
History Of ◽  
Opposition Group ◽  
Movement Organizations ◽  
Political Question

The primary political cleavage in predominantly Muslim countries often appears to reflect an Islamist-secular divide. This chapter considers cleavages in electoral authoritarian regimes. It argues that, in this setting, the Islamist-secular cleavage is neither as divisive nor as important as it seems to be. It makes three broad claims. First, it argues that ideology—whether secular or religious—matters less than the stance an opposition group takes toward the ruling regime. The primary political question is not whether religion should guide politics, but whether to adopt a more cooperative or confrontational approach to the regime. Second, this analysis stresses the need to consider both formal political parties and social movement organizations (SMOs) when analyzing cleavages under electoral authoritarianism. The most critical actors are typically opposition SMOs, not political parties who participate in authoritarian electoral institutions. Including both allows us to see the limited importance of ideology in authoritarian politics. Third, this chapter suggests that opposition groups do not need to choose between religious and secular frames, but can incorporate elements of both. In a predominantly Muslim society, secular organizations may justify and propose policies on religious grounds, and Islamist groups can support secular aims. Religious and secular frames are not mutually exclusive alternatives. This chapter draws on the history of politics in Morocco to illustrate these claims.

scholarly journals Strange Bedfellows: How an Anticipatory Countermovement Brought Same‐Sex Marriage into the Public Arena

2014 ◽  
Vol 39 (02) ◽  
pp. 449-473 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael C. Dorf ◽  
Sidney Tarrow
Keyword(s):  
Social Movement ◽  
Social Movement Organizations ◽  
Marriage Equality ◽  
Same Sex ◽  
Same Sex Marriage ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
The Public ◽  
Triangular Relationship ◽  
Movement Organizations ◽  
Lgbt Movement

Since the 1980s, social movement scholars have investigated the dynamic of movement/countermovement interaction. Most of these studies posit movements as initiators, with countermovements reacting to their challenges. Yet sometimes a movement supports an agenda in response to a countermovement that engages in what we call “anticipatory countermobilization.” We interviewed ten leading LGBT activists to explore the hypothesis that the LGBT movement was brought to the fight for marriage equality by the anticipatory countermobilization of social conservatives who opposed same‐sex marriage before there was a realistic prospect that it would be recognized by the courts or political actors. Our findings reinforce the existing scholarship, but also go beyond it in emphasizing a triangular relationship among social movement organizations, countermovement organizations, and grassroots supporters of same‐sex marriage. More broadly, the evidence suggests the need for a more reciprocal understanding of the relations among movements, countermovements, and sociolegal change.

The Strategy of Normalization in the South African Lgbt Movement

2010 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-62 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ashley Currier
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Social Movement ◽  
South African ◽  
Social Movement Organizations ◽  
The South ◽  
Ethnographic Interview ◽  
Bisexual And Transgender ◽  
Newspaper Data ◽  
Movement Organizations ◽  
Lgbt Movement

The article theorizes and presents normalization as a movement-level strategy available to social movements dealing with an internal threat. By defining themselves against an internal threat's abnormality through a process of normalization, social movement organizations assert how they and the movement operate within socially and politically respectable parameters. Drawing on ethnographic, interview, and newspaper data, I show how mainstream South African lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) movement organizations deployed normalization to marginalize and expel an internal threat, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance, between 1998 and 2006.

Sampling Social Movement Organizations*

2016 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 231-246 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenneth T. Andrews ◽  
Bob Edwards ◽  
Akram Al-Turk ◽  
Anne Kristen Hunter
Keyword(s):  
North Carolina ◽  
Interest Groups ◽  
Social Movement ◽  
Organizational Characteristics ◽  
Social Movement Organizations ◽  
Peak List ◽  
Single Source ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Using Data ◽  
Movement Organizations

Scholars of nonprofits, interest groups, civic associations, and social movement organizations employ samples of organizations derived from directories or other available listings. In most cases, we are unable to evaluate the representativeness of these samples. Using data on the population of environmental organizations in North Carolina, we assess the methodological strengths and weaknesses of widely used strategies. We find that reliance on any single source yields bias on theoretically important characteristics of organizations. We show that scholars can reduce bias significantly by combining sources, creating what we call a “peak list” compiled from different types of sources. Compared to any single source, our peak list differed less from the population on the thirty-one organizational characteristics including geographical coverage, issues, discursive frames, targets, and organizational demographics such as age, organizational form, and resources. From these analyses, we offer methodological recommendations for making better-informed decisions for constructing representative organizational samples.

SHIFTRY: WEB SERVICE FOR DIACHRONIC ANALYSIS OF RUSSIAN NEWS

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Kutuzov ◽  
◽  
V. Fomin ◽  
V. Mikhailov ◽  
J. Rodina ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Mass Media ◽  
Web Service ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Word Usage ◽  
Political Events ◽  
Before And After ◽  
History Of ◽  
Semantic Shift ◽  
Diachronic Analysis ◽  
Query Word

We present the ShiftRy web service. It helps to analyze temporal changes in the usage of words in news texts from Russian mass media. For that, we employ diachronic word embedding models trained on large Russian news corpora from 2010 up to 2019. The users can explore the usage history of any given query word, or browse the lists of words ranked by the degree of their semantic drift in any couple of years. Visualizations of the words’ trajectories through time are provided. Importantly, users can obtain corpus examples with the query word before and after the semantic shift (if any). The aim of ShiftRy is to ease the task of studying word history on short-term time spans, and the influence of social and political events on word usage. The service will be updated with new data yearly.

The Contextual Dependence of Movement Outcomes: A Simplified Meta-Analysis

2009 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 433-448 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katrin Uba
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Interest Groups ◽  
Direct Effect ◽  
Meta Analysis ◽  
Political Regime ◽  
Social Movement Organizations ◽  
Democratic Regime ◽  
Contextual Dependence ◽  
Movement Organizations ◽  
The Impact

This article investigates the empirical evidence for the statement that the impact of social movement organizations (SMOs) and interest groups on policy making is dependent on public opinion and the political system. A meta-analysis of articles published in eleven sociology and political science journals from 1990 to 2007 is used to test two hypotheses: 1) when public opinion is taken into account, SMOs and interest groups have no direct effect on policy; 2) the existence of a democratic regime is a necessary precondition for finding any policy impact of SMOs and interest groups. Results show that taking account of public opinion does not generally make any difference in the finding of direct effects. However, the role of public opinion varies across the measures of organizational resources and activity. I also find that a democratic regime is not a necessary precondition for the impact of SMOs and interest groups on public policy, but show that a direct effect of interest organizations is less likely to be found in the studies that take account of political regime.

A feminist and decolonial perspective on passing the test in activist ethnography

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 205-222
Author(s):  
Claire Jin Deschner ◽  
Léa Dorion
Keyword(s):  
Social Movement ◽  
Research Methodology ◽  
Design Methodology ◽  
The Political ◽  
Social Movement Organizations ◽  
Content Type ◽  
European Cities ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Movement Organizations

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to question the idea of “passing a test” within activist ethnography. Activist ethnography is an ethnographic engagement with social movement organizations as anti-authoritarian, anarchist, feminist and/or anti-racist collectives. It is based on the personal situating of the researcher within the field to avoid a replication of colonialist research dynamics. Addressing these concerns, we explore activist ethnography through feminist standpoint epistemologies and decolonial perspectives. Design/methodology/approach This paper draws on our two activist ethnographies conducted as PhD research in two distinct European cities with two different starting points. While Léa entered the field through her PhD research, Claire partly withdrew and re-entered as academic. Findings Even when activist researchers share the political positioning of the social movement they want to study, they still experience tests regarding their research methodology. As activists, they are accountable to their movement and experience – as most other activist – a constant threat of exclusion. In addition, activist networks are fractured along political lines, the test is therefore ongoing. Originality/value Our contribution is threefold. First, the understanding of tests within activist ethnography helps decolonizing ethnography. Being both the knower and the known, activist ethnographers reflect on the colonial and heterosexist history of ethnography which offers potentials to use ethnography in non-exploitative ways. Second, we conceive of activist ethnography as a prefigurative methodology, i.e. as an embedded activist practice, that should therefore answer to the same tests as any other practice of prefigurative movements: it should aim to enact here and now the type of society the movement reaches for. Finally, we argue that activist ethnography relies on and contribute to developing consciousness about the researcher’s political subjectivity.

Testing Theories about Advocacy and Public Policy

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Burstein
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Interest Groups ◽  
Value Added ◽  
Theory Testing ◽  
Weight Of Evidence ◽  
Social Movement Organizations ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Movement Organizations ◽  
Future Work ◽  
The Impact

One critical way that social scientists contribute to our understanding of policy change is developing and testing theories to explain the impact of advocacy efforts by nonparty organizations and activists to influence policy. What does the theory testing discover? To find out, this article analyzes all tests of such theories published in 25 major journals in political science and sociology between 2000 and 2018. Nineteen theories were tested and are generally quite similar, proposing that advocacy will affect policy and seeing electoral concerns as the basis of that influence. But they differ in terms of whose impact they seek to explain: there are different theories for interest groups, social movement organizations, and nongovernmental organizations. Predictions made by the theories are consistent with the data just over half the time. The theory-testing articles fail to show what their findings add to the weight of evidence for or against their theories, rarely test competing theories against each other, and seldom generalize or make specific suggestions for future work. This article highlights the most constructive suggestions for future work and argues for breaking down barriers between subdisciplines and systematically spelling out the value added by each new test of theory.

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