Showing papers on "Social movement published in 2011"

Toward a General Theory of Strategic Action Fields

Abstract: In recent years there has been an outpouring of work at the intersection of social movement studies and organizational theory. While we are generally in sympathy with this work, we think it implies a far more radical rethinking of structure and agency in modern society than has been realized to date. In this article, we offer a brief sketch of a general theory of strategic action fields (SAFs). We begin with a discussion of the main elements of the theory, describe the broader environment in which any SAF is embedded, consider the dynamics of stability and change in SAFs, and end with a respectful critique of other contemporary perspectives on social structure and agency.

Emotions and Social Movements: Twenty Years of Theory and Research

Abstract: The past 20 years have seen an explosion of research and theory into the emotions of protest and social movements. At one extreme, general theoretical statements about emotions have established their importance in every aspect of political action. At the other, the origins and influence of many specific emotions have been isolated as causal mechanisms. This article offers something in between, a typology of emotional processes aimed not only at showing that not all emotions work the same way, but also at encouraging research into how different emotions interact with one another. This should also help us overcome a residual suspicion that emotions are irrational, as well as avoid the overreaction, namely demonstrations that emotions help (and never hurt) protest mobilization and goals.

The globalization of world politics : an introduction to international relations

Abstract: We now live in a new era of globalization, where instant communications, the emergence of a world economy, a global culture, and new non-state social movements have transformed world politics, making redundant many of the approaches developed for understanding and explaining the Cold War world. This comprehensive introductory text focuses on explaining to first year undergraduate students how contemporary world politics works. An introductory chapter discusses the concept of globalization and summarises the main arguments for and against it. There then follow four sections, covering: the recent historical background to contemporary world politics; the details of the main theories that offer explanations of world politics; the structures and processes of world politics; and the main issues of contemporary world politics. Each chapter is written by a leading specialist in the field, and uses diagrams, boxes, and discussion points extensively. extremely reader-friendly student text. Each chapter has a guide to further reading and ends with a series of questions.

Digitally Enabled Social Change: Activism in the Internet Age

Abstract: Much attention has been paid in recent years to the emergence of "Internet activism," but scholars and pundits disagree about whether online political activity is different in kind from more traditional forms of activism. Does the global reach and blazing speed of the Internet affect the essential character or dynamics of online political protest? In Digitally Enabled Social Change, Jennifer Earl and Katrina Kimport examine key characteristics of Web activism and investigate their impacts on organizing and participation. Earl and Kimport argue that the Web offers two key affordances relevant to activism: sharply reduced costs for creating, organizing, and participating in protest; and the decreased need for activists to be physically together in order to act together. A rally can be organized and demonstrators recruited entirely online, without the cost of printing and mailing; an activist can create an online petition in minutes and gather e-signatures from coast to coast using only her laptop. Drawing on evidence from samples of online petitions, boycotts, and letter-writing and e-mailing campaigns, Earl and Kimport show that the more these affordances are leveraged, the more transformative the changes to organizing and participating in protest; the less these affordances are leveraged, the more superficial the changes. The rally organizers, for example, can save money on communication and coordination, but the project of staging the rally remains essentially the same. Tools that allow a single activist to create and circulate a petition entirely online, however, enable more radical changes in the process. The transformative nature of these changes, Earl and Kimport suggest, demonstrate the need to revisit long-standing theoretical assumptions about social movements.

Role of the New Media in the Arab Spring

Abstract: This article examines the role of the new media in the ‘Arab Spring’ in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. It argues that although the new media is one of the factors in the social revolution among others such as social and political factors in the region, it nevertheless played a critical role especially in light of the absence of an open media and a civil society. The significance of the globalization of the new media is highlighted as it presents an interesting case of horizontal connectivity in social mobilization as well signaling a new trend in the intersection of new media and conventional media such as television, radio, and mobile phone. One of the contradictions of the present phase of globalization is that the state in many contexts facilitated the promotion of new media due to economic compulsion, inadvertently facing the social and political consequences of the new media. Este articulo examina el papel de los nuevos medios en ‘la primavera arabe’ en la region del Medio Oriente y ...

Social Media in the Egyptian Revolution: Reconsidering Resource Mobilization Theory

Abstract: This article seeks to open dialogue about the utility of resource mobilization theory in explaining social movements and their impact by exploring the use of social media in the 2011 Egyptian revolution through a limited case study analysis. It argues that social media played an instrumental role in the success of the anti-government protests that led to the resignation of the country’s dictatorial leader, and calls for further examination of the proposed incorporation of social media as an important resource for collective action and the organization of contemporary social movements.

Doing is Believing: Prefiguration as Strategic Practice in the Alterglobalization Movement

Abstract: In most accounts of social movements, prefiguration and strategy are treated as separate movement practices that are either contradictory or complementary to each other. In this article I argue that in the case of the alterglobalization movement, we have to understand prefiguration itself as strategic. When movement goals are multiple and not predetermined, then prefiguration becomes the best strategy, because it is based in practice. By literally trying out new political structures in large-scale, inter-cultural decision-making processes in matters ranging from global politics to daily life, movement actors are learning how to govern the world in a manner that fundamentally redesigns the way power operates. This process constitutes a prefigurative strategy in which movement actors pursue the goal of transforming global politics, not by appealing to multilateral organizations or nation-states, but by actively developing the alternative political structures needed to transform the way power operates.

Advocacy 2.0: An Analysis of How Advocacy Groups in the United States Perceive and Use Social Media as Tools for Facilitating Civic Engagement and Collective Action

Abstract: In light of a thriving interest in social media’s ability to enhance various forms of political and organizational communication, a survey of 169 representatives from 53 national advocacy/activist groups operating in the United States was conducted to assess the extent to which these groups perceive and use social media as tools for facilitating civic engagement and collective action. Quantitative results reveal that all groups are using a variety of social media technologies to communicate with citizens almost every day. Facebook is the outlet of choice, followed closely by Twitter. Email remains popular with some groups emailing 8 million members each week. Qualitative results suggest that groups believe that social media can facilitate civic engagement and collective action by strengthening outreach efforts, enabling engaging feedback loops, increasing speed of communication and by being cost-effective. While some groups raised doubts about social media’s ability to overcome the limitations of weak ties and generational gaps, an overwhelming majority of groups see social media as essential to contemporary advocacy work and social movements, and laud its democratizing function.

Post-Gay Collective Identity Construction

Abstract: Falling under the rubric of “post-gay,” recent changes in gay life challenge theoretical accounts of collective identity by creating effects that, while acknowledged, have not yet been articulated using a parsimonious and portable framework. Consistent with conventional wisdom, LGBT activists construct collective identity using an oppositional “us versus them” formation during those times when they strategically deploy their differences from heterosexuals. But what happens when activists seek to emphasize their similarities to straights, as they are motivated to do during a post-gay moment? Drawing on interview and archival data of a college LGBT student organization, this article argues that in a post-gay era, activists construct collective identity using an inclusive, distinction-muting logic of “us and them.” The shift from opposition (“versus”) to inclusion (“and”) implies that activists today are motivated less by drawing boundaries against members of the dominant group and more by building bridges toward them. The article concludes with critiques of and implications for post-gay politics.

Global Social Movements

Abstract: This text provides a broad and systematic analysis of social movements in a globalizing world, integrating case material fom a range of fields.

The Arab Spring| Social Media in the Egyptian Revolution: Reconsidering Resource Mobilization Theory

Abstract: This article seeks to open dialogue about the utility of resource mobilization theory in explaining social movements and their impact by exploring the use of social media in the 2011 Egyptian revolution through a limited case study analysis. It argues that social media played an instrumental role in the success of the anti-government protests that led to the resignation of the country’s dictatorial leader, and calls for further examination of the proposed incorporation of social media as an important resource for collective action and the organization of contemporary social movements.

Science and neoliberal globalization: a political sociological approach

Abstract: The political ideology of neoliberalism is widely recognized as having influenced the organization of national and global economies and public policies since the 1970s. In this article, we examine the relationship between the neoliberal variant of globalization and science. To do so, we develop a framework for sociology of science that emphasizes closer ties among political sociology, the sociology of social movements, and economic and organizational sociology and that draws attention to patterns of increasing and uneven industrial influence amid several countervailing processes. Specifically, we explore three fundamental changes since the 1970s: the advent of the knowledge economy and the increasing interchange between academic and industrial research and development signified by academic capitalism and asymmetric convergence; the increasing prominence of science-based regulation of technology in global trade liberalization, marked by the heightened role of international organizations and the convergence of scientism and neoliberalism; and the epistemic modernization of the relationship between scientists and publics, represented by the proliferation of new institutions of deliberation, participation, activism, enterprise, and social movement mobilization.

Communicating Social Change: Structure, Culture, and Agency

Abstract: Communicating Social Change: Structure, Culture, and Agency explores the use of communication to transform global, national, and local structures of power that create and sustain oppressive conditions. Author Mohan J. Dutta describes the social challenges that exist in current globalization politics, and examines the communicative processes, strategies, and tactics through which social change interventions are constituted in response to the challenges. Using empirical evidence and case studies, he documents the ways through which those in power create conditions at the margins, and he provides a theoretical base for discussing the ways in which these positions of power are resisted through communication processes, strategies, and tactics. The interplay of power and control with resistance is woven through each of the chapters in the book. This exceptional volume highlights the points of intersection between the theory and praxis of social change communication, creating theoretical entry points for the praxis of social change. It is intended for communication scholars and students studying activism, social movements, and communication for social change, and it will also resonate in such disciplines such as development, sociology, and social work, with those who are studying social transformations.

Location Matters: The Rhetoric of Place in Protest

Abstract: Social movements often deploy place rhetorically in their protests. The rhetorical performance and (re)construction of places in protest can function in line with the goals of a social movement. Our essay offers a heuristic framework—place in protest—for theorizing the rhetorical force of place and its relationship to social movements. Through analysis of a variety of protest events, we demonstrate how the (re)construction of place may be considered a rhetorical tactic along with the tactics we traditionally associate with protest, such as speeches, marches, and signs. This essay has implications for the study of social movements, the rhetoricity of place, and how we study places.

Participation, responsibility and choice: summoning the active citizen in Western European welfare states

Abstract: Responsibility, participation and choice are key policy framings of active citizenship, summoning the citizen to take on new roles in welfare state reform. This volume traces the emergence of new discourses and the ways in which they take up and rework struggles of social movements for greater independence, power and control. It explores the changing cultural and political inflections of active citizenship in Germany, Finland, Norway, the Netherlands, France, Italy and the UK, with ethnographic research complementing policy analysis. The editors then look across the volume to assess some of the tensions and contradictions arising in the turn to active citizenship. Two final chapters address the reworking of citizen/professional relationships and the remaking of public, private and personal responsibilities, with a particular focus on the contribution of feminist research and theory.

Democratic education in neoliberal and neoconservative times

Abstract: Given the increasing power of neoliberal and neoconservative agendas in education internationally, critically democratic policies and practices are now even more important. Yet, one of the major problems with critical work in education has been the fact that some of the academic leaders of the ‘critical pedagogy’ movement and of critical and democratic education in general in many nations have not been sufficiently connected to the actual realities of schools and classrooms. Yet, only when it is linked much more to concrete issues of educational policy and practice – and to the daily lives of educators, students, social movements and community members – can a critical and democratic education succeed. I point to a number of such linkages and suggest that because of this the ways we think about the role of education in social transformation needs to be made more nuanced and complex.

Social movements, mobilization, and contestation in the Middle East and North Africa

Abstract: Before the 2011 uprisings, the Middle East and North Africa were frequently seen as a uniquely undemocratic region with little civic activism. The first edition of this volume, published at the start of the Arab Spring, challenged these views by revealing a region rich with social and political mobilizations. This fully revised second edition extends the earlier explorations of Egypt, Morocco, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey, and adds new case studies on the uprisings in Tunisia, Syria, and Yemen. The case studies are inspired by social movement theory, but they also critique and expand the horizons of the theory's classical concepts of political opportunity structures, collective action frames, mobilization structures, and repertoires of contention based on intensive fieldwork. This strong empirical base allows for a nuanced understanding of contexts, culturally conditioned rationality, the strengths and weaknesses of local networks, and innovation in contentious action to give the reader a substantive understanding of events in the Arab world before and since 2011.

Correa, Indigenous Movements, and the Writing of a New Constitution in Ecuador

Abstract: In 2008, voters in Ecuador approved a new and progressive constitution. Indigenous leaders questioned whether the new document would benefit social movements or strengthen the hand of President Raf...

Who Are ‘We the People’?

Abstract: The Tea Party trumpets itself as a movement of the people. But who is included in “We the People”? Ruth Braunstein tries to answer.

Political Economy of the Environment

Abstract: Sociological theories about the political economy of the environment have appeared in two waves. The first wave has a productivist orientation, showing how the normal workings of industrial production damage the environment. It includes impact theories (IPAT and STIRPAT), the treadmill of production, growth machine theories, and resource extraction/ecologically unequal exchange theories. A second wave of theories focuses on environmental destruction and the social movements that challenge the agents of destruction. To accommodate popular unrest over environmental declines, states have typically created corporatist policymaking circles that include long-established, moderate environmental nongovernmental organizations and exclude disadvantaged and unorganized peoples. Advocates for environmental justice and sustainable consumption have attempted to mobilize the excluded, articulating a just sustainability theory that addresses both concerns. Current controversies in the field focus on the predictive power ...

Movimentos sociais na teoria e na prática: como estudar o ativismo através da fronteira entre Estado e sociedade?

Abstract: In the last two decades, social movement scholars have brought the frontiers of the field into question. Some have advocated for the substitution of "social movements" for "civil society", while others have proposed to rename the field as the study of "contentious politics". In both of these cases, the justification is that the field of social movements has become too narrow, empirically as well as theoretically. The article discusses these reformist initiatives and identifies a problem they have in common: the lack of attention to numerous forms of interaction between actors involved with social movements situated both outside and inside the state. We offer a theoretical discussion based on the results of empirical research undertaken in Brazil on this issue, which, we argue, help us better understand the relationship between states and social movements. We also argue that the recent literature on social networks provides analytical clues to think about activism from within state structures.

Hail the snail: Hegemonic struggles in the Slow Food movement

Abstract: This paper explores how new institutional fields are established and extended. We argue that they are created by social movements engaging in hegemonic struggles and which develop social movement strategies, articulate discourses and construct nodal points. We examine how this process played out during the creation and development of the Slow Food movement. We argue that the positioning of Slow Food as a new field was based particularly on using multiple strategies, increasing the stock of floating signifiers, and abstracting the nodal points used. This mobilized new actors and enabled a more extensive collective identity which allowed the movement to progress, extend, and elevate the field of Slow Food. The field of Slow Food was transformed from appealing only to gastronomes to becoming a broader field that encompassed social justice activists and environmentalists. This study contributes to the existing literature on field formation, the role of social movements in this process, and political dynamics ...

Networks in Political Science: Back to the Future

Abstract: What are the relational dimensions of politics? Does the way that people and organizations are connected to each other matter? Are our opinions affected by the people with whom we talk? Are legislators affected by lobbyists? Is the capacity of social movements to mobilize affected by the structure of societal networks? Powerful evidence in the literature answers each of these questions in the affirmative. However, compared to other paradigmatic foci, political science has invested tiny amounts of capacity in the study of the relevance of networks to political phenomena. Far more attention has been paid to the psychology of how people process information individually as opposed to collectively, and to the role that institutions play in structuring politics as opposed to the relational undergirdings of politics. A review of the flagship journals in political science reveals a dearth of articles on networks. Few, if any, doctoral programs include courses for which the primary focus is network-related ideas, and even the notion of a relational dependence in data is rarely mentioned in discussions of the assumptions embedded in the statistical methods that dominate political science.

Hot Lights and Cold Steel: Cultural and Political Toolkits for Practice Change in Surgery

Abstract: One of the great paradoxes of organizational culture is that even when less powerful members in organizations have access to cultural tools (such as frames, identities, and tactics) that support change, they often do not use these tools to challenge traditional practices that disadvantage them. In this study, I compare data about work practice change from my own field study of an elite teaching hospital (conducted in the early 2000s) to previously reported data from field studies of two similar hospitals (one conducted in the 1970s and one in the 1990s). I demonstrate that although cultural toolkits supporting change may allow less powerful organization members to see traditional practices as running counter to their interests, they may not be able to significantly change traditional practices unless they also have access to what I call political toolkits (including tools such as staffing systems, accountability systems, and evaluation systems) that support change. Although cultural tools allow them to reinterpret practices that disadvantage them as unfair, political tools allow them to feel optimistic that others will help them effect change. Whereas cultural tools enable them to develop a “we” feeling with other reformers, political tools allow them to coordinate their change efforts. And although cultural tools provide them with a repertoire of contentious tactics, political tools afford them a sense of security that they can battle defenders of the status quo without ruining their careers. These findings contribute to our understanding of both the cultural construction of organizational life and social movement processes.

Democracy and Other Neoliberal Fantasies: Communicative Capitalism and Left Politics

Abstract: Democracy and Other Neoliberal Fantasies: Communicative Capitalism and Left Politics. Jodi Dean. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2009, 232 pages. $74.95 hbk. $21.95 pbk. Jodi Dean is a multitasker. She teaches political science at Hobart and William Smith Colleges, and is the Erasmus Professor of the Humanities at Erasmus University in Rotterdam. She is also a critical scholar worthy of the title. Rather than following the well-worn path of criticism directed at the "powers that be," Dean directs her attention toward the infirmities within and among critics and activists on the political left in the United States. At the heart of her critique is her suggestion that the once-sharp edges of social movement vanguards have been dulled by their emersion in a cloud of meaningless and self-serving chatter that merely adds to the flow of digital detritus that she defines as the essence of "communicative capitalism." Despite the fact that most of the analyses that serve as core of her six tightly organized chapters were written before we had much experience with the "postpartisan" and "post-racial" versions of progressive politics as performed by the Obama administration, most readers could fiU in the blanks on what her assessment would likely be. Dean lays the groundwork for her attack on liberal capitulation to a neoliberal hegemony by identifying several core themes in the approach to social policy that achieved dominance during the Clinton years. Of particular significance is her suggestion that the discursive frameworks that supported progressive struggles for the "rights" of various oppressed groups served to reinforce the "position of the victim" at the heart of these movements. She then suggests that it is precisely the character and capacity of communicative capitalism that creates "ideal discursive habitats for the thriving of the victim identity." Although Dean gives a central place of honor to recent work in psychoanalytic theory, the examples, arguments, and illustrations that she provides throughout the book wUl still generate understanding and appreciation among those of us not well grounded in Lacanian Marxism. Dean explicates her take on the nature of communicative capitalism, appropriately enough, in a chapter on technology. In essence, she argues that rather than serving the democratic functions of enlightenment that we expect to find in a Habermasian public sphere, the everexpanding flow of commentary and personal expression exists as Uttle more than circulating content, something akin to a warm bath. For example, she suggests that pointed criticism "doesn't require an answer because it doesn't stick as criticism. It functions as just another opinion offered into the media-stream." Thus, her definition of communicative capitaUsm is "talk without response." In her view, communications technology helps to provide a "fantasy of participation" where taking poUtical action is reduced to an act of talking into the space of flows of which the Internet is the deepest end. …

Global activism and nationally driven recycling: The influence of world society and national contexts on public and private environmental behavior

Abstract: This article analyses the relationship between an individual’s environmental behavior and the social context. Drawing upon social movement and world societal literature, the authors start from the ...

Sustainability: Design for the pluriverse

Abstract: Arturo Escobar is a Kenan Distinguished Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and associate editor of Development. His research interests are related to political ecology; the anthropology of development, social movements; Latin American development and politics. Escobar′s research uses critical techniques in his provocative analysis of development discourse and practice in general. He also explores possibilities for alternative visions for a post-development era. He is a major figure in the post-development academic discourse, and a serious critic of development practices championed by western industrialized societies.