scholarly journals Crossing Categorical Boundaries: A Study of Diversification by Social Movement Organizations

2019 ◽  
Vol 84 (3) ◽  
pp. 420-458 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dan J. Wang ◽  
Hayagreeva Rao ◽  
Sarah A. Soule
Keyword(s):  
Social Movement ◽  
Social Action ◽  
Organization Theory ◽  
Social Movement Organizations ◽  
The Core ◽  
Movement Organization ◽  
Organizational Activity ◽  
The Social ◽  
Movement Organizations ◽  
Do So

When do protest organizations borrow issues or claims that are outside their traditional domains? Sociologists have examined the consequences of borrowing claims across movement boundaries, but not the antecedents of doing so. We argue that movement boundaries are strong when there is consensus about the core claims of a social movement, which we measure by cohesion and focus. Cohesion and focus enhance the legitimacy of a movement and impede member organizations from adopting claims associated with other movements. Analyzing movement organizational activity at U.S.-based protest events from 1960 to 1995, we find that a social movement organization is less likely to adopt claims from other movements when the social movement in which it is embedded exhibits high cohesion and focus. However, when movement organizations do borrow claims, they are more likely to do so by borrowing from movements that themselves exhibit high cohesion and focus. We describe the application of our findings to organization theory, social movements, and field theoretic approaches to understanding social action.

Mobilizing in Black Boxes: Social Networks and Participation in Social Movement Organizations

2000 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 241-257 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Kitts
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Social Movement ◽  
Two Dimensions ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Social Movement Organizations ◽  
Black Boxes ◽  
The Social ◽  
Movement Organizations ◽  
Movement Participation

Recent research has focused on the role of social networks in facilitating participation in protest and social movement organizations. This paper elaborates three currents of microstructural explanation, based on information, identity, and exchange. In assessing these perspectives, it compares their treatment of multivalence, the tendency for social ties to inhibit as well as promote participation. Considering two dimensions of multivalence—the value of the social tie and the direction of social pressure—this paper discusses problems of measurement and interpretation in network analysis of movement participation. A critical review suggests some directions for future research.

scholarly journals Words at Work: Constructing a Labour Conflict

2016 ◽  
Vol 71 (2) ◽  
pp. 247-273 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yonatan Reshef ◽  
Charles Keim
Keyword(s):  
British Columbia ◽  
Social Movement ◽  
Social Movement Organizations ◽  
Archival Material ◽  
The Core ◽  
Mobilization Theory ◽  
Union President ◽  
The Government ◽  
Movement Organizations ◽  
Core Issues

Summary We use the 2011-12 conflict between the British Columbia Teachers’ Federation (BCTF) and the British Columbia (BC) government to explore how the union president, Susan Lambert, used language to bring the conflict into being and mobilize union members in opposition to the government. We use newspaper articles and archival material from mid-2011 to June 2012 to explore how Lambert identified the core issues and actors, prescribed roles, relationships and actions, and, importantly, inspired a will to act in union members and supporters. To explore how she constructed the conflict, we adopt a mobilization theory developed by scholars of social movement organizations (SMO). Snow and Benford (1988: 200-202) conceptualize three core pillars of conflict: 1- diagnostic framing identifies a problem, attributes blame or causality, and identifies the key actors; 2- prognostic framing offers a solution and identifies strategies, tactics and targets; 3- motivational framing provides a call to arms, or rationale for action while inspiring an urge to act among members and supporters. In exploring how she urged action among members, we use the four archetypal legitimation strategies identified by Van Leeuwen (2008) and Van Leeuwen and Wodak (1999): authorization, rationalization, moralization and mythopoesis. McAdam (1982: 48) argues that before collective action can begin people must come to view their situation as unjust and subject to change. We use the above framework to structure our exploration of how the union president used language to frame members’ understanding of the conflict. Through language she ushered the reality of labour conflict into being and constructed a reality in which union members could identify themselves as agents of protest and change.

The Missionaries of Francis: The Theology of the People and the Unification of the Argentine Piquetero Movement (2014–2018)

2020 ◽  
Vol 47 (5) ◽  
pp. 35-48
Author(s):  
Pablo Forni
Keyword(s):  
Social Movement ◽  
Social Movement Organizations ◽  
Social Movement Organization ◽  
Informal Workers ◽  
The Poor ◽  
The People ◽  
Movement Organization ◽  
Movement Organizations ◽  
The Unemployed ◽  
Movimientos Sociales

Founded in 2014, the Missionaries of Francis is a small social movement organization made up of activists from several other social movement organizations representing informal workers and the unemployed. Its goal was to promote the message of the newly appointed Pope Francis among the poor and excluded. Drawing inspiration from the theology of the people, the movement is contributing new repertoires of contention based on popular religious images and icons to Argentine social movements. Starting in 2016, it has occupied a key role, bringing together ideologically and politically heterogeneous social movement organizations to resist the neoliberal social policies of President Mauricio Macri. Fundados en 2014, los Misioneros de Francisco son una pequeña organización formada por activistas de varios movimientos sociales que representan a los trabajadores informales y a los desempleados. Su objetivo fue promover el mensaje del recién nombrado Papa Francisco entre los pobres y excluidos. Inspirado en la teología del pueblo, el movimiento está aportando nuevos repertorios de protesta basados en imágenes e íconos de la religiosidad popular a los movimientos sociales argentinos. Ha jugado un papel clave a partir de 2016, reuniendo organizaciones de movimientos sociales ideológica y políticamente heterogéneos para resistir las políticas sociales neoliberales del presidente Mauricio Macri.

“The Moral Equivalent of Rosa Parks?” The New Christian Right’s Framing Strategy in the Latest Chapter of the Culture Wars

2019 ◽  
Vol 68 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marie Gayte
Keyword(s):  
Social Movement ◽  
Culture Wars ◽  
Social Movement Organizations ◽  
Theory Approach ◽  
The Public ◽  
Religious Conservatism ◽  
The Social ◽  
Cultural Themes ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
Movement Organizations

In evaluating recent developments in the New Christian Right (NCR), this paper uses the social movement theory approach of framing. Social movement organizations try to gain advantages with authorities and the public by framing their demands in ways intended to persuade people that their cause is valid. The most effective way of doing this is to align their specific issues rhetorically with larger cultural themes and values, which makes the frame accessible to larger audiences. After debating as to whether a conservative religious crusade can be considered a social movement, this paper examines the NCR as a collective movement whose influence on society and capacity to mobilize are heightened by resorting to the ‘discriminated minority’ framing strategy. I argue that viewing the NCR as a social movement allows us to deepen our understanding of both religious conservatism and of the culture wars. 

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.

Collective Life and Social Change in The GDR

1997 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 207-225 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. Deess
Keyword(s):  
Social Movement ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Marked Effect ◽  
Social Movement Organizations ◽  
The West ◽  
The Social ◽  
Archival Documents ◽  
Political Exclusion ◽  
Movement Organizations ◽  
Opposition Movement

Research into East Germany's 1989 collapse often uses models developed for Western social movements which emphasize social movement organizations and activists. This approach may neglect important aspects of the social organization of everyday life in repressive contexts and how these affect social movement processes. Unlike the West, East Germany built social life around state-sponsored groups, called collectives, and these had a marked effect on the development of the opposition. Research presented here, based on interviews and archival documents, shows how collective discussions, although never oppositional in the fullest sense, facilitated grievance construction and an awareness of common political exclusion. Over the course of time, especially after Gorbachev's reforms, these practices laid the groundwork for mobilization in the relative absence of an opposition movement. Without understanding the concealed social movement processes operating within collective groups, the state's sudden, and peaceful, collapse is not easily explained.

Reinvigorating The Study of Organizational Processes in Social Movements

2005 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 289-308 ◽  
Author(s):  
Debra Minkoff ◽  
John McCarthy
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Social Movement ◽  
Systematic Research ◽  
Social Movement Organizations ◽  
Organizational Analysis ◽  
Organizational Fields ◽  
Organizational Decision Making ◽  
Theoretical Perspectives ◽  
The Social ◽  
Movement Organizations

We draw upon diverse theoretical perspectives in organizational analysis to identify four areas where a more serious interface between this "cognate" field and social movement research promises to deepen our understanding of social movement organizations (SMOs). These areas include conceptualizing social movements as organizational fields, thinking of activists as part of a labor market situated in the social movement sector, analyzing SMOs in terms of entrepreneurship and organizational change, and finally, looking more closely at processes of organizational decision making. We discuss studies by social movement scholars that implicitly or explicitly engage the cognate scholarship with an eye to identifying those areas where systematic research is lacking. We close by sketching some methodological approaches for addressing each of the lacunae we identify.

A Theory of Practice for Social Movements: Environmentalism and Ecological Habitus*

2008 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 205-218 ◽  
Author(s):  
Randolph Haluza-DeLay
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Social Movement ◽  
Incidental Learning ◽  
Social Space ◽  
Social Movement Organizations ◽  
Practical Action ◽  
Sociological Approach ◽  
Theory Of Practice ◽  
The Social ◽  
Movement Organizations

This article draws on Bourdieu's sociological approach to expand social movement theory, while offering sociologically robust direction for movements themselves. In Bourdieu's theory, practical action is produced by the habitus. Generated in its social field, habitus conveys cultural encoding yet in a nondeterministic manner. In a Bourdieusian approach, environmental social movement organizations become the social space in which a logic of practice consistent with movement goals can be "caught" through the informal or incidental learning that occurs as a result of participation with social movement organizations. I compare Bourdieu's theory of practice with Eyerman and Jamison's view of social movements as cognitive praxis. I argue that the environmental movement would be better served by conceptualizing itself as working to create an ecological habitus which would underpin ecological lifestyles and environmental social change

scholarly journals The Existence of Social Movement Organization(SMO) &Comparison of Collective and Connective Action in the Digital Era ---- an Analysis of 15-M Movement in Spain

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
YuTong Sun
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Social Movement ◽  
Social Movement Organizations ◽  
Action Logic ◽  
Digital Era ◽  
Movement Organization ◽  
Brick And Mortar ◽  
Common Interests ◽  
Connective Action ◽  
Movement Organizations

Social movement organizations (SMOs) have been performing a significant role in terms of gathering like-minded civil individuals with common interests during social movements. Stepping into the digital era, the social media becomes prevailing in transforming people’s lifestyles. This essay will discuss the 15-M Movement in Spain to explore the transition of SMO’s position from conventional social movements to those in the digital era in the light of collective action logic and connective action logic. With the phenomenon that SMO itself sometimes is the original source of problems to trigger social movements, it is reasonable to see the decreasingly important SMO with the successful example of the 15-M Movement to engage over 60 cities in Spain and avoid the “free ride” problem via completely excluding brick and mortar organizations.

Combining Powers

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claudio Sopranzetti
Keyword(s):  
Social Movement ◽  
Political Conflict ◽  
The State ◽  
Institutional Power ◽  
State Security ◽  
The Core ◽  
Military Forces ◽  
The Social ◽  
Political Figure ◽  
Do So

This chapter follows the association of motorcycle taxis after the end of the Red Shirts protest. It explores the attempt by military forces to cut off the drivers from the social movement and include them into the state security apparatus. The chapter shows how the association was divided between two conceptions of power—barami and amnāt—and positions this tension at the core the Thai political conflict in the last decade. We are not facing a binary, but rather the unresolved tensions and the failed attempts to combine two conceptualizations of power that need to coexist, even with their contradicting features. To govern Thailand, one needs to needs to have both amnāt and barami, both to claim moral charisma and institutional power, juggling both of them. The conflict, this chapter argues, emerged because, since 2006, no political figure has been seen able to do so.

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