Social Movement Campaigns: Mobilization and Outcomes in the Montreal Women's Movement Community

2009 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 163-180 ◽  
Author(s):  
Suzanne Staggenborg ◽  
Josée Lecomte
Keyword(s):  
Social Movement ◽  
Women's Movement ◽  
Contentious Politics ◽  
Community Resources ◽  
Collective Identities ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Agenda ◽  
Public Consciousness ◽  
Movement Organizations

Social movement campaigns help create the networks and collective identities needed to build social movement communities, which in turn support subsequent collective campaigns. This article examines the interactions between movement communities and campaigns using the case of the 2000 World March of Women in Montreal. We find that movement community resources and networks, mobilized by leaders in stable movement organizations and institutions, support campaigns. Centralization, diversity, and size of movement communities affect campaign mobilization. Movement campaigns alter movement communities by creating bonds that form the basis for subsequent campaigns and by keeping movement communities politicized. Prior campaigns generate public consciousness, put issues on the public agenda, create new frames and discourse, forge connections to new constituents, and leave behind new networks, coalition organizations, leaders, and activists. Our research contributes to an understanding of the connections between the submerged networks of social movement communities and the contentious politics of movement campaigns.

scholarly journals Valuing the Cause: A Theory of Authenticity in Social Movements

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edward T. Walker ◽  
Lina Stepick
Keyword(s):  
Social Movement ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Public Support ◽  
Contentious Politics ◽  
Social Movement Organizations ◽  
Cognitive Schemas ◽  
Collective Identities ◽  
Central Concept ◽  
Movement Organizations

Scholars of contentious politics expect that social movement organizations (SMOs) are valued according to their ability to craft resonant frames or to enact displays of worthiness. We offer an alternative, relational perspective highlighting the critical role of authenticity in shaping an SMO’s perceived value. Unlike frames and intentional displays, calculated efforts to proclaim authenticity often backfire. We distill two orthogonal types: grassroots (in)authenticity, based on idealized notions of civil society, and institutional (in)authenticity, rooted in cultural-cognitive schemas used to judge fit with established SMO categories. Grassroots authenticity benefits an SMO’s fundamental legitimacy, while lacking it entirely (i.e. “astroturfing”) severely harms public support. Institutional authenticity increases resources and survival chances, intelligibility to elite observers, and clarity of collective identities; still, lacking this (via hybridity) may assist in recruitment and outreach. We build propositions that elaborate these expectations and argue that authenticity should become a more central concept in social movement research.

scholarly journals VALUING THE CAUSE: A THEORY OF AUTHENTICITY IN SOCIAL MOVEMENTS*

2020 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-25
Author(s):  
Edward T. Walker ◽  
Lina Stepick
Keyword(s):  
Social Movement ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Public Support ◽  
Contentious Politics ◽  
Social Movement Organizations ◽  
Collective Identities ◽  
Central Concept ◽  
Relational Perspective ◽  
Movement Organizations

Scholars of contentious politics expect that social movement organizations (SMOs) are valued according to their ability to craft resonant frames or to enact displays of worthiness. We offer an alternative, relational perspective highlighting the critical role of authenticity in shaping an SMO's perceived value. Unlike frames and intentional displays, calculated efforts to proclaim authenticity often backfire. We distill two orthogonal types: grassroots (in)authenticity, based on idealized notions of civil society, and institutional (in)authenticity, rooted in culturalcognitive schemas used to judge fit with established SMO categories. Grassroots authenticity benefits an SMO's fundamental legitimacy, while lacking it entirely (i.e., “astroturfing”) severely harms public support. Institutional authenticity increases resources and survival chances, intelligibility to elite observers, and clarity of collective identities; still, lacking this (via hybridity) may assist in recruitment and outreach. We build propositions that elaborate these expectations and argue that authenticity should become a more central concept in social movement research.

scholarly journals Influence of the pandemic lockdown on Fridays for Future’s hashtag activism

2021 ◽  
pp. 146144482110265
Author(s):  
Jörg Haßler ◽  
Anna-Katharina Wurst ◽  
Marc Jungblut ◽  
Katharina Schlosser
Keyword(s):  
Social Movement ◽  
German Language ◽  
Social Movement Organizations ◽  
The Public ◽  
Twitter Activity ◽  
Movement Organizations

Social movement organizations (SMOs) increasingly rely on Twitter to create new and viral communication spaces alongside newsworthy protest events and communicate their grievance directly to the public. When the COVID-19 pandemic impeded street protests in spring 2020, SMOs had to adapt their strategies to online-only formats. We analyze the German-language Twitter communication of the climate movement Fridays for Future (FFF) before and during the lockdown to explain how SMOs adapted their strategy under online-only conditions. We collected (re-)tweets containing the hashtag #fridaysforfuture ( N = 46,881 tweets, N = 225,562 retweets) and analyzed Twitter activity, use of hashtags, and predominant topics. Results show that although the number of tweets was already steadily declining before, it sharply dropped during the lockdown. Moreover, the use of hashtags changed substantially and tweets focused increasingly on thematic discourses and debates around the legitimacy of FFF, while tweets about protests and calls for mobilization decreased.

Whatever Happened to The Women's Movement?

2005 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-52 ◽  
Author(s):  
Suzanne Staggenborg ◽  
Verta Taylor
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Collective Action ◽  
Collective Identity ◽  
Women's Movement ◽  
Contentious Politics ◽  
International Expansion ◽  
Movement Organizations

Analyses of the women's movement that focus on its "waves" and theories of social movements that focus on contentious politics have encouraged the view that the women's movement is in decline. Employing alternative perspectives on social movements, we show that the women's movement continues to thrive. This is evidenced by organizational maintenance and growth, including the international expansion of women's movement organizations; feminism within institutions and other social movements; the spread of feminist culture and collective identity; and the variety of the movement's tactical repertoires. Moreover, the movement remains capable of contentious collective action. We argue for research based on broader conceptions of social movements as well as the contentious politics approach.

Indigenous Movements in Latin America

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marc Becker ◽  
Richard Stahler-Sholk
Keyword(s):  
Economic Development ◽  
Latin America ◽  
Natural Resources ◽  
Social Movement ◽  
Indigenous Languages ◽  
Indigenous Movements ◽  
Buen Vivir ◽  
The Public ◽  
Living Well ◽  
Public Consciousness

Political developments in Latin America have driven academic interest in Indigenous movements. This phenomenon emerged most clearly in the aftermath of massive uprisings that led to a flood of publications framed as “the return of the Indian” to the public consciousness. Much of our understanding of the history and trajectory of social movement organizing is a result of publications in response to these protests. Contemporary political concerns continue to inform much of the cutting-edge research on Indigenous movements. These issues include relations between social movements and elected officials (often framed as debates over horizontalism versus authoritarianism) and whether the extraction of natural resources can lead to economic development, including intense discussions over neoextractivism and the sumak kawsay, the Quechua term for living well (with equivalent phrases in other Indigenous languages, often translated in Spanish as buen vivir).

Informal Organizations as Agents of Change: Notes From The Contemporary Women's Movement in India

1996 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 159-173 ◽  
Author(s):  
Manisha Desai
Keyword(s):  
Social Movement ◽  
Women's Movement ◽  
Low Cost ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Social Movement Organizations ◽  
Cultural Innovation ◽  
Agents Of Change ◽  
Cultural Goals ◽  
Survival Pattern ◽  
Movement Organizations

Some social movement scholars suggest a division of outcomes between bureaucratic and collective organizations. Bureaucratic organizations are more likely to achieve political and mobilization outcomes because of their ability to mobilize resources, while the structural flexibility of smaller collective organizations is more suitable for cultural goals. Others argue that women's movement organizations incorporate elements of both bureaucratic and collective structures. This article brings new empirical evidence from the women's movement in India to the debate. Based on an analysis of two informally structured movement organizations, it demonstrates that informal organizations can achieve both political outcomes as well as cultural outcomes. In India, they did so by working at two levels: the national or regional level, mobilizing action with other social movement organizations to achieve political goals; and the local level, mobilizing consensus to initiate cultural innovation. Low cost, informal structures also facilitated a punctuated survival pattern marked by periods of activity alternating with inactivity.

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.

Going rogue: Reconceptualizing government employees’ contentious politics on Twitter

First Monday ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fatima Espinoza Vasquez ◽  
Nicholas Proferes ◽  
Troy B. Cooper ◽  
Shannon M. Oltmann
Keyword(s):  
Social Movement ◽  
Scientific Information ◽  
Contentious Politics ◽  
Three Dimensions ◽  
Political Activity ◽  
Information Control ◽  
State Institutions ◽  
The Public ◽  
New Information ◽  
Shared Understandings

In 2016, following the election of President Donald Trump, dozens of Twitter accounts emerged, purporting to represent a network of resistance within the U.S. government. These alt- and rogue- Twitter accounts, known as Rogue Twitter, shared tweets aiming to rebuke the administrations new information restrictions on federal agencies. Using established social movement theories, we investigated if Rogue Twitter is an online social movement. We qualitatively analyzed 43,569 original tweets from 102 Rogue accounts. We evaluated the tweets on three dimensions: Their attempts to challenge state institutions (macro-level), their organizing and mobilizing strategies (meso-level), and their shared understandings (micro-level). We found that the Rogue Twitter Movement exemplifies how online social movements engage in coordinated contentious activity via an online platform. Members of this network collectively framed as their main grievance the State’s control of information. Accordingly, their mobilization repertoire focused on calling the attention of the State and the public by openly criticizing the new information control policies. They strategically released controlled scientific information and demonstrated dissent by satirizing Trump. Moreover, they supported off-line political activity by promoting protests like the Science March. This study shows how incorporating multidisciplinary approaches yields nuanced understandings of protest in Internet platforms like Twitter.

scholarly journals Beyond contention: urban social movements and their multiple approaches to secure transformation

2018 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 557-574 ◽  
Author(s):  
Diana Mitlin
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Social Movements ◽  
Social Movement ◽  
Global South ◽  
Contentious Politics ◽  
Social Movement Organizations ◽  
Alternative Strategies ◽  
Urban Social Movements ◽  
Poverty And Inequality ◽  
Movement Organizations

This paper explores the strategies of social movement organizations working in towns and cities of the global South to secure justice for their members and address poverty and inequality. The paper argues that there has been a false distinction between alternative strategies of resistance. Drawing on research in Kenya and South Africa, I argue that, rather than seeing strategies of contention, collaboration and subversion as separate approaches, they can best be understood as alternative strategies, adopted simultaneously and iteratively by urban social movements. Movements, I suggest, move among contentious politics, efforts at collaboration with the state, and subversion (often taking the form of encroachment), to address the survival imperatives of their members.

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