Shaping mnemonic opportunity: Remembering Iraq in American Sniper

2017 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 223-236
Author(s):  
Michael A Rancourt
Keyword(s):  
Social Movement ◽  
Collective Memory ◽  
Iraq War ◽  
Process Model ◽  
Public Memory ◽  
Political Process ◽  
Rhetorical Theory ◽  
The Political ◽  
Critical Reading ◽  
Rhetorical Model

This article contributes to scholarship on public memory by developing a rhetorical model of “mnemonic opportunity.” Scholars of collective memory, especially sociologists influenced by the political process model of social movement research, have conceived of mnemonic opportunity as a more or less objective set of circumstances that determine a group’s actions. I modify this view by calling on rhetorical theory which demonstrates the ways rhetors shape the apparent situation to which they ostensibly respond. The result is a view of rhetors shaping mnemonic opportunity by associating their version of events with resonant concepts in the culture and, thus, better influencing public memory. I offer a critical reading of the film American Sniper to examine how the text shapes and exploits opportunities to remember the Iraq War positively through the popular figure of the Navy SEAL as a masculine western hero.

Exploring the Crisis of the Reform Movement in Iran (1997–2005)

2016 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 386-409
Author(s):  
SEYED AMIR NIAKOOEE
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Collective Action ◽  
Social Movement ◽  
Process Model ◽  
Political Process ◽  
Reform Movement ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Opportunity ◽  
Framing Processes ◽  
Comprehensive Framework

AbstractThe Second Khordad Movement was a democratic social movement in contemporary Iran. Investigation of this movement revealed two images, of flourish and of decline, as the movement was first generally successful until early 2000 and thereafter began to regress from the spring of that year onwards. The purpose of this article is to provide a comprehensive framework in which to examine the reasons behind the movement's failure and regression. To this end, the study utilizes the literature on social movements, especially the political process model, and attempts to explain the initial success and subsequent decline of the movement based on elements such as political opportunity, framing processes, mobilizing structures, and the repertoire of collective action.

Reconsidering social movements in Turkey: The case of the 1968-71 protest cycle

2010 ◽  
Vol 43 ◽  
pp. 63-96 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emin Alper
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Process Model ◽  
Political Process ◽  
Political Elite ◽  
Economic Conditions ◽  
The Political ◽  
Power Balance ◽  
Social Protests ◽  
White Collar Workers ◽  
The Masses

AbstractThe years between 1968 and 1971 in Turkey were unprecedented in terms of rising social protests instigated by students, workers, peasants, teachers and white-collar workers. However, these social movements have received very limited scholarly attention, and the existing literature is marred by many flaws. The scarce literature has mainly provided an economic determinist framework for understanding the massive mobilizations of the period, by stressing the worsening economic conditions of the masses. However, these explanations cannot be verified by data. This article tries to provide an alternative, mainly political explanation for the protest cycle of 1968-71, relying on the “political process” model of social movement studies. It suggests that the change in the power balance of organized groups in politics, which was spearheaded by a prolonged elite conflict between the Kemalist bureaucracy and the political elite of the center-right, provided significant opportunities to under-represented groups to organize and raise their voices.

Mundane and Everyday Politics for and from the Neighborhood

2016 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
pp. 201-223 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pablo D. Fernández ◽  
Ignasi Martí ◽  
Tomás Farchi
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Social Movement ◽  
Buenos Aires ◽  
Political Process ◽  
The Political ◽  
Sustainable Change ◽  
Local Practices ◽  
Everyday Politics

Social movement scholars and activists have recognized the difficulties of mobilizing people for the long haul, moving from the exuberance of the protest to the dull and ordinary work necessary to produce sustainable change. Drawing on ethnographic work in La Juanita, in Greater Buenos Aires, we look at local actions for and from the neighborhood in order to resist political domination, taken by people who have been unemployed for long periods of time. We identified concrete and local practices and interventions—which we call mundane and everyday politics – that are embedded in a territory and go beyond the typical practices of social movements and the expected infrapolitical activity in allowing the disfranchised to engage in the political process.

The Duty of Diplomatic Dissent

2006 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 295-301
Author(s):  
John Brady Kiesling
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Real World ◽  
Iraq War ◽  
Political Process ◽  
State Department ◽  
Policy Impact ◽  
The Political ◽  
Poor Outcome ◽  
The Poor ◽  
The Us

AbstractThe poor outcome of the Iraq War has highlighted the usefulness of 'reality-based' foreign policy. Yet the personal and professional consequences of dissent remain high in the US (and every other) diplomatic service. The Dissent Channel, currently underutilized, was designed to protect both the US State Department and its employees from bureaucratic retaliation for unwelcome real-world expertise. It should be reinvigorated. However, the unimpressive policy impact of dissent, whether through institutional channels or public resignations, makes it clear that effective dissent requires mobilizing the domestic political process as a force multiplier. Good dissent raises the political price of foreign policy blunders, and only through turning a bureaucratic system painfully against itself can blunders actually be prevented.

Michael P. Hanagan, Leslie Page Moch, Wayne te Brake, eds., Challenging Authority: The Historical Study of Contentious Politics. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1998. vii + 284 pp. $54.95 cloth; $21.95 paper.

2000 ◽  
Vol 57 ◽  
pp. 137-139
Author(s):  
Ron Krabill
Keyword(s):  
Collective Action ◽  
Process Model ◽  
Political Process ◽  
Contentious Politics ◽  
Historical Study ◽  
The Political ◽  
University Of Minnesota ◽  
The Past ◽  
Charles Tilly ◽  
Daunting Task

To create a festschrift in honor of a scholar as important as Charles Tilly is a daunting task. To their credit, the editors and authors of Challenging Authority successfully provide a thoughtful and particularly readable glimpse into both the past and the future of the study of contentious politics, a field in which Tilly's contributions have been undeniably crucial. From more traditional interpretations of Tilly's work to innovations in chapters by Kim Voss and Marc W. Steinberg, this volume displays the wide array of applications and insights provided by the political process model for studying collective action, whether in medieval Spain or 1989 China. However, the volume moves only in fits and starts toward the new “relational structuralism” (xix) that the editors herald as coalescing around the study of collective action.

Bolivia and the Challenges of a Plurinational Democracy

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Waltraud Queiser Morales
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Social Movement ◽  
Political Process ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Political ◽  
Indigenous Autonomy ◽  
Progressive Reform ◽  
Political Agitation ◽  
Indigenous Organizations ◽  
Democratic Election

Bolivia is in the process of consolidating 36 years of democracy amid important reforms and challenges. Despite a history of colonialism, racist oppression of the indigenous majority, and a national revolution and military reaction, the democratic transition to civilian rule and “pacted” electoral democracy among traditional political parties was established in 1982. The governments of pacted democracy failed to fully incorporate all of Bolivia’s citizens into the political process and imposed a severe neoliberal economic model that disproportionately disadvantaged the poor and indigenous. The constitutional popular participation reforms of 1994–1995 altered the party-dominated pacted democracy and opened up the political system to the unmediated and direct participation of indigenous organizations and popular social movements in local and national elections. Grassroots political mobilization and participation by previously marginalized and excluded indigenous groups and social movements, and the election of their candidates into office increased significantly. Indigenous and social movement protests erupted in the Cochabamba Water War in 2000 against the multinational Bechtel Corporation, and in the Gas War in 2003 against the export and exploitation of Bolivia’s natural gas. These mass demonstrations resulted in the turnover of five presidents in five years. The social and political agitation culminated in the game-changing, democratic election in December 2005 of Juan Evo Morales Ayma, as Bolivia’s first indigenous-heritage president. In office for 14 years, longer than all previous presidents, Morales and the Movement Toward Socialism party launched the “Refounding Revolution,” and passed the new Constitución Política del Estado (CPE), the progressive reform constitution that established a multicultural model of plurinational democracy. The Morales-MAS administration provided unprecedented continuity of governance and relative stability. However, amid charges of interference, relations deteriorated with the United States. And disputes erupted over regional and indigenous autonomy, and extractive economic development in the protected lands of native peoples, especially over the proposed road through the Isiboro Sécure National Park and Indigenous Territory (Territorio Indígena Parque Nacional Isiboro Sécure, TIPNIS). These conflicts pitted highlanders against lowlanders, and divided indigenous organizations and social movements, and the government’s coalition of supporters. Contested term limits for the presidency created another acute and ongoing challenge. President Morales’s determination to run for re-election in 2019, despite constitutional restrictions, further tested the process of change and the resilience of Bolivia’s indigenous and social movement-based democracy.

scholarly journals Decentralization: Proliferation of Territories in Musi Rawas Regency, Indonesia

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zaman Zaini ◽  
Ahmad Hidayat
Keyword(s):  
Social Movement ◽  
Political Communication ◽  
Central Government ◽  
Political Process ◽  
Secondary Data ◽  
Local People ◽  
Internal Conflict ◽  
The Political ◽  
Autonomous Region ◽  
Political Network

Formation of new autonomous regions are meant to promote effective governance, by reducing the span of control of the previous more extensive area, improving the quality of public services, increasing the wealth of the local people, setting the fiscal balance between central and local government, increasing employment and capital inflow. However, the formation process of North MusiRawas as a new autonomous region took 11 years since proposed in 2002 until signed by the central government in 2013. This paper argues that the factors behind the long delay were mainly political factors, instead of administrative. Administrate, the region is eligible to be established as a new autonomous region. This study uses the NVivo Program as a tool for conducting primary and secondary data analyzed from direct interviews, meeting results and statements from related parties. From the research results obtained that the political process, however, involves a series of events in its history that generated constraints for establishing North MusiRawas as a new autonomous region. The historical facts include leadership contest between Governor of South Sumatera and Regent of MusiRawas, conflict over control of the natural gas resource in Suban 4, central government's moratorium policy to new autonomous region formation, leadership change, and internal conflict within the social movement to demand autonomy among local people. It argued in this paper that absence of political network and lack of organization of social mobility to demand freedom allows the recurring events that created constraints to the political process of establishing North MusiRawas as a new regency. The absence of political network to elites in the regional and national levels complicate the political communication to pursue autonomy. It explains why the conflict between Governor and Regent can halt the proposal. Weak organization of social movement allowed internal strife and complicated the resource mobilization to achieve the political goal.

scholarly journals Memory studies: from memory to oblivion

2020 ◽  
pp. 30-44
Author(s):  
V. Ilin
Keyword(s):  
Collective Memory ◽  
Historical Memory ◽  
Political Process ◽  
Memory Studies ◽  
Necessary Condition ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Past ◽  
Constant Change ◽  
Individual Memory ◽  
Cultural Construct

The article examines the concept of memory studies, which is a separate discipline that studies and analyzes memory issues. The phenomenon of memory is an important part of life, although not presented as a necessary condition of mental activity. Memory, the author notes, is a way for people to construct their past through books, movies, documents, ceremonies, and so on. In memory studies, memory arises in various aspects – collective, social, cultural, genetic, and historical. The reason for claiming a worldwide "memory age" is criticism of official versions of history, the return of memory to communities and peoples whose history has been ignored, the activation of various memorial events, and more. It is shown that a social and cultural construct collective memory retains the authentic past as its version and serves as a means to achieve certain goals. Collective memory is in constant change, which is nonlinear, irrational, and not always subject to logical analysis. New events and ideas affect the perception of the past, and patterns of interpretation of the past determine the understanding of the present. The relation between collective and individual memory appears as the relation between memory and history. The primary function of historical memory is to form an identity. The development of memory studies distinguishes the political, functional, cumulative memory that use the past to shape national identity. The context of historical memory includes the concepts of "oblivion", "custom" and "tradition" that help to identify the turning points of history as they are indicators of the emergence of a new society. Historical memory is a tool for using the past to achieve goals dictated by the current situation. Mobilizing memory and collective perceptions of the past has been an integral part of the political process in recent centuries.

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