Flipping the “New Penology” Script: Police Misconduct Insurance, Grassroots Activism, and Risk Management–Based Reform

Through a multi-method qualitative case study, I examine the failed 2016 ballot campaign of the Committee for Professional Policing (CfPP), a police accountability group in Minneapolis, Minnesota. In attempting to make Minneapolis the first city nationwide to require police to carry professional liability insurance, the CfPP turned the logic of Malcolm M. Feeley and Jonathan Simon’s “new penology” paradigm onto police. Their thesis argues that a contemporary penal shift occurred away from rehabilitation toward managing aggregates of dangerous criminal categories through risk management approaches. I extend their thesis in a new direction by examining how—in the emerging age of “algorithmic risk governance”—social movement organizations, like the CfPP, are starting to invert the new penology onto criminal justice personnel. In flipping the script, the CfPP called for a new private insurance market using mandatory police misconduct insurance to manage aggregates of dangerous police officers. After highlighting how the CfPP developed new penological objectives, discourses, and technologies, I discuss the implications of grassroots groups adopting and redefining traditional penal logics and propose future research avenues.

Frenemies: Overcoming Audiences’ Ideological Opposition to Firm–Activist Collaborations

Collaborations between organizations from different sectors, such as those between firms and nonprofits or governments, can offer effective solutions to complex societal problems like climate change. But complications arise because organizations operating in different sectors rely on the approval of different audiences, who may not view these relationships positively, for resources and survival. I show how concerns about audience approval impede cross-sector collaborations forming between firms and social movement organizations (SMOs) despite their potential societal benefits. Firms wanting to signal their efforts in support of a movement’s cause may be eager to form collaborations with SMOs. But when SMOs’ supporters and/or peers define their identity in opposition to firms—when they are oppositional audiences—collaborations do not form. I argue and find that SMOs who cooperate, and don’t compete, with oppositional peers can better navigate the constraint of oppositional audiences. Firms, in contrast, aggravate the constraint of oppositional audiences. Firms’ inclination to seek collaborations to repair their reputations with their own audiences after being contentiously targeted by a movement compounds the challenge to SMOs of partnering with the enemies of their friends. My arguments on countervailing audience effects stifling collaborations are corroborated in 25 years of data on interactions between SMOs in multiple environmental movements and Fortune 500 firms.

Emotion, Efficacy, and Protest Intentions: Testing a Multilevel Dual Pathway Model of Collective Action

What are the causes of anger and efficacy, and their consequences for protest intentions? Here we propose a multilevel dual pathway model of collective action where anger and efficacy operate at multiple levels of analysis. To test our model, we administer a factorial survey experiment of student protest to a disproportionate stratified random sample of undergraduate students (N = 880). We find that the indirect effect of anger on protest intentions follows two routes—one dispositional and one situational—while the indirect effect of efficacy flows through a situational channel. We also find that the dual pathways of anger and efficacy are triggered by a broad set of situational conditions (incidental grievances, selective rewards and punishments, collective action frames, and size of the protest), while anger is also a function of a narrow set of dispositional factors (protest norms and attitudes). Our results imply that understanding the multilevel nature of anger and efficacy can help social movement organizations better coordinate collective action.

Activists Against Autocrats: TSMO Networks and Democratic Diffusion

Do transnational social movement organizations (TSMOs) promote the international diffusion of democracy? If so, how? Scholars of democratization have studied a plethora of international factors in the spread of democracy, including geographic or regional proximity, colonial history, trade and alliance networks, and joint inter-governmental organization (IGO) memberships. Few have studied the role of TSMO networks in democratic diffusion. We theorize that TSMOs empower and connect civil societies and thus promote democracy from the “bottom up.” Leveraging a new TSMO Dataset and data on the dimensions of democracy from the Varieties of Democracy project over the 1953–2013 period, we find that TSMOs promote democratic diffusion. TSMOs are strongest at diffusing participatory democracy. TSMOs also contribute to the diffusion of electoral democracy but do so by promoting the diffusion of freedom of association and freedom of expression rather than elections.

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

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.

Peer Production and Collective Action

A variety of social movements across the world and the political spectrum are now taking advantage of peer production mechanisms such as collaboration, co-production, and self-organisation. This essay investigates the consequences of peer production for social protest, looking at how peer production reshuffles and remediates social change activism today. It explores the convergences and tensions between peer networks and contemporary social movements ranging from informal coalitions and amorphous grouping to traditional social movement organisations. First, it traces the historical trajectory of peer production as it has come to permeate the progressive social movements of the last three decades, linking distinct approaches to organizing to technological innovation. Second, it reflects on the so-called social affordances (and constraints) of digital infrastructure and their role in fostering specific modes of creativity and convergence apt to support protest actors. Third, it explores three types of consequences of peer production for social movements, namely cultural production and norm change, collective identity, and the commons. The chapter then examines three tensions that might emerge in the process of embedding peer production mechanisms and values in instances of collective action, namely: individual vs. collective engagements, peer networks vs. social movement organizations, and self-organized vs. commercial infrastructure.

Why “Dissident” Irish Republicans Haven’t Gone Away

When considering “terrorists” and “terrorism,” the focus tends to be on violence—the threat of violence, its aftermath, the ideology and belief systems that lead to it, and so forth. Political violence, however, represents only a portion of the repertoire of collective action that is available to “terrorists.” Images from “dissident” Irish Republican events and photo-elicitation interviews with activists who participated in these events show that: (1) the repertoire of “violent” organizations includes nonviolent political activity; and (2) the organizational structures and affective incentives that sustain activism in nonviolent voluntary associations and social movement organizations also sustain activism in organizations that embrace physical force or “terrorism.” In combination, these findings show that “dissident” Irish Republicans are likely to persist into the foreseeable future. More generally, the findings also show that our understanding of “terrorists” and “terrorist organizations” will be enhanced if we focus less on their violent activities and more on their similarities with nonviolent activists and organizations.

Can ECE professionals be advocates? Perspectives from the child care advocacy movement in Manitoba and Ontario

In this major research paper, findings from a qualitative study with fourteen informants from four child care social movement organizations (SMOs) in Manitoba and Ontario are presented. Using the political economy of care theory to interpret informant perspectives on early childhood educators (ECE) as advocates, the purpose of this study was to understand what role, if any, ECEs should play in provincial child care advocacy. Based on informant perspectives, the primary finding of this study is that ECE professionals can be advocates on the micro level, for children and families, within their own programs. This paper discusses informant perspectives on where we are in provincial child care advocacy, where we might be headed and what role ECEs can play in the continued fight for child care provisions that reflect values of inclusion, equality and a better Canada for all children, families and parents.

Can ECE professionals be advocates? Perspectives from the child care advocacy movement in Manitoba and Ontario

In this major research paper, findings from a qualitative study with fourteen informants from four child care social movement organizations (SMOs) in Manitoba and Ontario are presented. Using the political economy of care theory to interpret informant perspectives on early childhood educators (ECE) as advocates, the purpose of this study was to understand what role, if any, ECEs should play in provincial child care advocacy. Based on informant perspectives, the primary finding of this study is that ECE professionals can be advocates on the micro level, for children and families, within their own programs. This paper discusses informant perspectives on where we are in provincial child care advocacy, where we might be headed and what role ECEs can play in the continued fight for child care provisions that reflect values of inclusion, equality and a better Canada for all children, families and parents.