Spillover or Spillout? The Global Justice Movement in the United States After 9/11

2007 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 359-376 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer Hadden ◽  
Sidney Tarrow
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Movement ◽  
Global Justice ◽  
American Exceptionalism ◽  
Original Data ◽  
The United States ◽  
Transnational Activism ◽  
Global Justice Movement ◽  
General Decline ◽  
Justice Movements

This article focuses on a seemingly paradoxical sequel to the 1999 Seattle WTO protests: the weakening of the global justice movement in the United States. While the movement has flourished in Europe, it seems largely to have stagnated in the American context. This outcome cannot be explained by either American exceptionalism or by a general decline in activism in the wake of the tragedies of 9/11 and the Iraq War. First comparing expressions of the American and European global justice movements and then turning to original data on social movement organizing in Seattle after 1999, we argue that the weakness of the American global justice movement can be tied to three key factors: (a) a more repressive atmosphere towards transnational protest; (b) a politically inspired linkage between global terrorism and transnational activism of all kinds; and (c) what we call "social movement spillout." We further argue that the strongest movement since September 11th—the antiwar movement—exemplifies a broader trend in the United States towards the "spillout" of transnational activism into domestic protest.

Explaining Variation in Transnational Climate Change Activism: The Role of Inter-Movement Spillover

2014 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 7-25 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer Hadden
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Social Movement ◽  
Quantitative Data ◽  
Global Justice ◽  
Climate Justice ◽  
Transnational Activism ◽  
Global Justice Movement ◽  
Qualitative And Quantitative ◽  
Over Time

How can we explain variation in the volume and character of transnational collective action on climate change? This paper presents original qualitative and quantitative data to document how transnational activism on climate change has changed over time. The author draws attention to the role of transnational social movement spillover—a process by which ideas, activists, and tactics are diffused from one movement to another—in explaining this evolution. The article examines the spillover of the global justice movement to the climate justice movement from 2007 to 2009, linking this spillover to changes in the nature of activism. In contrast to previous approaches, this work shows that transnational social movement spillover can result in the expansion of contention without radicalizing those actors already involved. This case demonstrates the theoretical importance of the spillover process and offers lessons for future climate activism.

Deafness and Ethnic Identity: The Idea of a Deaf State and its Resonances with American Exceptionalism and Frontier Ideology

2019 ◽  
Vol 67 (1) ◽  
pp. 73-90
Author(s):  
Marion Rana
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Ethnic Identity ◽  
Nation Building ◽  
American Exceptionalism ◽  
Manifest Destiny ◽  
The United States ◽  
Culture Studies ◽  
Deaf Identity ◽  
American Nation

Abstract This article focuses on the nineteenth century as a pivotal time for the development of a Deaf identity in the United States and examines the way John Jacob Flournoy’s idea of a “Deaf-Mute Commonwealth” touches upon core themes of American culture studies and history. In employing pivotal democratic ideas such as egalitarianism, liberty, and self-representation as well as elements of manifest destiny such as exceptionalism and the frontier ideology in order to raise support for a Deaf State, the creation and perpetuation of a Deaf identity bears strong similarities to the processes of American nation-building. This article will show how the endeavor to found a Deaf state was indicative of the separationist and secessionist movements in the United States at that time, and remains relevant to Deaf group identity today.

scholarly journals Retirement Without God: Activism and Community Among Secular People Over 60

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. 441-441
Author(s):  
Joseph Blankholm
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Older Adults ◽  
Social Movement ◽  
Generational Differences ◽  
Crucial Role ◽  
National Level ◽  
The United States ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Vast Literature

Abstract There are more than 1,400 nonbeliever communities in the United States and well over a dozen organizations that advocate for secular people on the national level. Together, these local and national groups comprise a social movement that includes atheists, agnostics, humanists, freethinkers, and other kinds of nonbelievers. Despite the fact that retired people over 60 dedicate most of the money and energy needed to run these groups, the increasingly vast literature on secular people and secularism has paid them almost no attention. Relying on more than one hundred interviews (including dozens with people over 60), several years of ethnographic research, and a survey of organized nonbelievers, this paper demonstrates the crucial role that people over 60 play in the American secular movement today. It also considers the reasons older adults are so important to these groups, the challenges they face in trying to recruit younger members and combat stereotypes about aging leadership, and generational differences that structure how various types of nonbeliever groups look and feel. This paper reframes scholarly understandings of very secular Americans by focusing on people over 60 and charts a new path in secular studies.

Exploiting a Crisis: Abortion Activism and the COVID-19 Pandemic

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Kate Hunt
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Movement ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
The United States ◽  
Social Movement Organizations ◽  
Medical Procedure ◽  
Political Debate ◽  
Global Crisis ◽  
Opportunity Structures ◽  
Movement Organizations

How do social movement organizations involved in abortion debates leverage a global crisis to pursue their goals? In recent months there has been media coverage of how anti-abortion actors in the United States attempted to use the COVID-19 pandemic to restrict access to abortion by classifying abortion as a non-essential medical procedure. Was the crisis “exploited” by social movement organizations (SMOs) in other countries? I bring together Crisis Exploitation Theory and the concept of discursive opportunity structures to test whether social movement organizations exploit crisis in ways similar to elites, with those seeking change being more likely to capitalize on the opportunities provided by the crisis. Because Twitter tends to be on the frontlines of political debate—especially during a pandemic—a dataset is compiled of over 12,000 Tweets from the accounts of SMOs involved in abortion debates across four countries to analyze the patterns in how they responded to the pandemic. The results suggest that crisis may disrupt expectations about SMO behavior and that anti- and pro-abortion rights organizations at times framed the crisis as both a “threat” and as an “opportunity.”

City on a Hill: American Exceptionalism and the Elect Nation

2000 ◽  
Vol 36 ◽  
pp. 299-318
Author(s):  
J. R. Oldfield
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Elementary School ◽  
South Carolina ◽  
American Exceptionalism ◽  
The United States ◽  
National Anthem ◽  
Pledge Of Allegiance ◽  
American Flag

Some years ago I was invited to spend a day in an elementary school in Columbia, South Carolina. The day began, as I imagine every day began, with the national anthem and the pledge of allegiance to the American flag. The children then sang a song, a ditty really, which began as it ended with the simple refrain: ‘I am special’. Later I was shown some of the work the class had been doing. Across the back of the room were pinned up the children’s attempts to answer a question that had been exercising me, namely what was special about the United States. Some of the responses were fairly predictable. America was special, one seven-year-old wrote, because it was a democracy. Others singled out freedom or liberty as their country’s unique virtue. One brave soul boldly asserted that America was special because Americans were rich, while another thought the secret had something to do with happiness.

Proportionate Use

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mathias Risse
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Global Justice ◽  
Illegal Immigration ◽  
Civil Law ◽  
The United States ◽  
Physical Aspect ◽  
Collective Ownership ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Adverse Possession ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter examines the relationship between immigration and collective ownership of the earth, and whether the physical aspect of immigration provides constraints on immigration policy. The fact that the earth is originally collectively owned must affect how communities can regulate access to what they occupy. The chapter first considers an account of relative over- and underuse of original resources before discussing illegal immigration in the United States, using a parallel to the civil law notion of “adverse possession” to argue that, under certain conditions, illegal immigration is morally unobjectionable. It then formulates conditions under which it would be reasonable for co-owners to refrain from entering certain regions, even though they would violate no duties of justice by doing so. This proposal is part of the overall approach to global justice that pluralist internationalism develops.

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