Sociology 924: Social Movements Seminar Calendar Pamela Oliver

 

Dynamics of Movement-State Interactions

The articles this week provide information on the ways in which movements and states interact over time. The emphasis is on quantitative analyses of sequences of events and the interplay of movement actions with regime reforms and repression.

Assignment: What and how to read I think depends on your interests and goals, so the assignment is to skim/look over maybe 6-7 things to get a sense of what they are like and to read 3 things more closely. Below some suggestions of which things to focus on. The common theme is thinking about the dynamic processes of movements over time. I tend to think quantitatively, but I believe these ideas are also relevant for thinking qualitatively about how movements produce social change.

  1. Getting familiear at a superficial level with the quantitative approach to looking at how movements interacts with their opponents and other social forces over time. We started some of this with the slide show lecture I presented last week. McAdam 1983 #14 is an early influential piece; Other good examples are Markoff #12, Rasler #13, Koopmans #15, Koopmans #7. Kim #9 combines a lot of qualitative information with some quantitative analysis. This page shows just a few of the studies in this tradition -- there are a lot. There is a deeper level of methodological analysis that digs into the measures and the logic of model specification that is also important if you are going to do this line of work that is probably beyond the scope of this class session.
  2. Thinking in an evolutionary way about protest dynamics. Oliver & Myers #3, Koopmans #8. These are two theoretical articles with different angles on the same core point: thinking in an evolutionary way focuses on inter-movement competition, adaptation to political environments, and the importance of the interactions between movements and regimes.
  3. Other issues. Opp & Roehl #11 study individual people's feelings about repression (not just aggregate rates); Whittier #6 shows how movements change as their personnel come and go.
  4. The outcomes readings are all review articles that are worthwhile background, but too diffuse for discussion. The key idea across all articles is the shift from asking whether movements win or lose to asking what the consequences of movements are, and these can be political, cultural, generational.

State-Movement Dynamics; Cycles and Coevolution

  1. Social Movements : An Introduction. Donatella Della Porta and Mario Diani. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers. 2006 Chapter 7. Action Forms, Repertoires and Cycles of Protest. Opens with a summary of Seattle protests. The first half othe chapter is about forms of action and repertoires; the second half is about cycles. Protest as communication and the media are part of the story. (1999. Chapter 7. Forms, Repertoires and Cycles of Protest. Defines protest as unconventional, seeking influence through indirect persuasion mediated by mass media. "Logics" of protest: numbers, damage, witness. Strategic options, cycles)
  2. Koopmans, Ruud R. (2004). Protest in Time and Space: The Evolution of Waves of Contention. The Blackwell Companion to Social Movements. D. A. Snow, S. A. Soule and H. Kriesi. Malden, MA and Oxford, UK, Blackwell Publishing: 19-46. Essay on expansive processes: political opportunities, diffusion, reactive mobilization. And transformative mechanisms: Mechanisms of strategic change: strategic anticipation, strategic adaptation, environmental selection. Then a discussion of punctuated equilibrium, contingency, path dependence. Discussion of problem of scope conditions for generalizations. Contractive mechanisms (how they end): restabilization through interactive convergence, conflict mediation and resolution, external effects.
  3. Soule, Sarah A. (2004). Diffusion Processes within and across Movements. The Blackwell Companion to Social Movements. D. A. Snow, S. A. Soule and H. Kriesi. Malden, MA and Oxford, UK, Blackwell Publishing: 292-310. Review of diffusion research. Concepts, Direct ties, indirect ties. Theory. Suggestions. Short overview.
  4. Taylor, Verta and Nella Van Dyke (2004). "Get up, Stand up": Tactical Repertoires of Social Movements. The Blackwell Companion to Social Movements. D. A. Snow, S. A. Soule and H. Kriesi. Malden, MA and Oxford, UK, Blackwell Publishing: 262-293. Focus on analysis of tactics and the problem of evolving tactics and tactical repertoires that lags research coding schemes. Emphasis on cultural performances. Factors that influence tactical repertoires: external and internal. Factors that affect outcomes: novelty, militancy, variety, size, cultural resonance.
  5. Jasper, James M. (2004). "A Strategic Approach to Collective Action: Looking for Agency in Social-Movement Choices." Mobilization: An International Journal 9(1): 1-16. For a study of strategic choices that takes cultural & institutional contexts more seriously than game theory. Presents several strategic dilemmas that organizers & participants face. Emphasize agency and culture in these choices.
  6. (*) Koopmans, Ruud and Susan Olzak (2004). "Discursive Opportunities and the Evolution of Right-Wing Violence in Germany[1]." American Journal of Sociology 110(1): 198-230. This article explores the link between violence and public discourse. It suggests that media attention to radical right violence and public reactions to violence affect the clustering of targets and the temporal and spatial distribution of violence. The notion of "discursive opportunities" is introduced, and the article argues that it can serve to link political opportunity structure and framing perspectives on collective action. Using a cross-sectional and time-series design to model event counts in states in Germany, this study finds that differential public visibility, resonance, and legitimacy of right-wing violence significantly affected the rate of violence against different target groups.
  7. (*) Andrews, Kenneth T. and Michael Biggs (2006). "The Dynamics of Protest Diffusion: Movement Organizations, Social Networks, and News Media in the 1960 Sit-Ins." American Sociological Review 71(5): 752-777. The authors use event-history analysis to trace the diffusion of sit-ins throughout the South and to compare cities where sit-ins occurred with the majority of cities where they did not. They assess the relative importance of three channels of diffusion: movement organizations, social networks, and news media. The authors find that movement organizations played an important role in orchestrating protest; what mattered was a cadre of activists rather than mass membership. There is little evidence that social networks acted as a channel for diffusion among cities. By contrast, news media were crucial for conveying information about protests elsewhere. In addition, the authors demonstrate that sit-ins were most likely to occur where there were many college students, where adults in the black community had greater resources and autonomy, and where political opportunities were more favorable.
  8. Tarrow, chapters 9 (cycles), 10 (struggling to reform)
  9. Pamela E. Oliver & Daniel J. Myers. "The Coevolution of Social Movements" Mobilization 8: 1-25. 2003. Abstract. PDF of publication
  10. Sidney Tarrow. "Cycles of Collective Action: Between Moments of Madness and the Repertoire of Contention." Social Science History 17: 2 (Summer) pages 281-308. 1993. MS 328-339.
  11. Sidney Tarrow. "Cycles of Protest." BC 441-456. reprints a selection from Power in Movement.
  12. Whittier, Nancy "Political Generations, Micro-Cohorts, and the Transformation of Social Movements". American Sociological Review; 1997, 62, 5, Oct, 760-778. Cohort replacement and movement change. PDF File .
  13. Ruud Koopmans. The Dynamics of Protest Waves: West Germany, 1965 to 1989. American Sociological Review 1993, 58, 5, Oct, 637-658. Cycles of protest in Europe; action repertoires diverge in response to repression. MS 367-383. PDF file
  14. Ruud Koopmans. "The Missing Link between Structure and Agency: Outline of an Evolutionary Approach to Social Movements" Mobilization: An International Journal, 2005, 10, 1, Feb, 19-35 PDF file
  15. Kim, Q. Y. (1996). "From Protest to Change of Regime: The 4-19 Revolt and the Fall of the Rhee Regime in South Korea" Social Forces, Vol. 74, No. 4. (Jun., 1996), pp. 1179-1208. Economic deprivation was the most important cause of the collective protest during the first phase of the movement. The authorities' violent response to the protest & the mobilization of public opinion against the violence facilitated protest & transformed it into a major upheaval that overthrew the regime. Stable URL
  16. Soule, S. A., D. McAdam, et al. (1999). "Protest Events: Cause or Consequence of State Action? The U.S. Women's Movement and Federal Congressional Activities, 1956-1979." Mobilization 4(2): 239-255. More consequence than cause
  17. Karl-Dieter Opp and Wolfgang Roehl. "Repression, Micromobilization, and Political Protest." MS 190-206. Social Forces 69: 521-547. 1990. Argues that repression has a direct negative effect on mobilization, but can have an indirect positive effect on protest through radicalization, if the repression is perceived as illegitimate. JSTOR Stable URL
  18. Markoff, John (1997). "Peasants Help Destroy an Old Regime and Defy a New One: Some Lessons from (and for) the Study of Social Movements." American Journal of Sociology 102(4): 1113-1142. A dataset of 4,689 rural insurrectionary events, drawn from a literature review, are used to examine interactions of elites and insurrectionary mobilization, shaping each other. Stable URL
  19. Rasler, Karen "Concessions, Repression, and Political Protest in the Iranian Revolution" American Sociological Review; 1996, 61, 1, Feb, 132-152. Quantitative analysis of interactions between protest and state actions. Repression had short term negative and long term positive effects on mobilization. PDF file.
  20. McAdam, Doug (1983). "Tactical Innovation and the Pace of Insurgency." American Sociological Review 48(6): 735-754. MS 340-356. PDF File This was a crucial article setting off a lot of this analysis. Argues that upsurges in mobilization are due to tactical innovations, which are brought down by regimes learning how to respond.
  21. Koopmans, Ruud Dynamics of Repression and Mobilization: The German Extreme Right in the 1990s. Mobilization; 1997, 2, 2, Sept, 149-164. Examines the relationship between repression & mobilization in the context of the mobilization of the German extreme Right & the different forms of repression that state authorities have reactively applied, drawing on a content analysis of every second issue of the national daily newspaper, Frankfurter Rundschau 1991-1994. Cross-sectional & diachronic analysis reveal that the impacts of institutional & situational repression on violent & nonviolent mobilzation are very different. Situational police repression of events has an escalating effect, but institutional repression (eg, bans, trials, or court rulings against activists) has a negative impact. Reasons for the effectiveness of institutional repression, including degree of consistency & legitimacy, are discussed. 3 Tables, 1 Figure, 28 References. ,PDF file
  22. Olzak, S., M. Beasley, et al. (2003). “The Impact of State Reforms on Protest against Apartheid in South Africa.” Mobilization 8(1): 27-50. From 1970 to 1985, South Africa vacillated between reform & reaffirmation of the repressive regime known as apartheid. Did these reforms slow the pace of protest, or did they facilitate protest, by intensifying discontent? Using event-history data on anti-apartheid protest we suggest that passage of reforms will increase the pace of protest while state repression will dampen it. We further hypothesize that the nature & scope of each reform would differentially affect protest by each of three official racial populations: Black Africans, Coloureds, & Asian Indians. As expected, reforms that integrated housing & jobs & reforms that legitimated the rights of black labor unions propelled protest by Black Africans against apartheid, but so did reforms that excluded Black Africans from citizenship. In contrast, relatively few reforms affected the rate of protest by Asian Indians & Coloured population groups. Finally, we found that repression decreased rates of protest significantly for all three groups. 2 Tables, 1 Figure, 2 Appendixes, 92 References. Adapted from the source document. Library reserves: Olzak et al., On-line reserves copy
  23. Titarenko, L., J. D. McCarthy, et al. (2001). “The Interaction of State Repression, Protest Form and Protest Sponsor Strength during the Transition from Communism in Minsk, Belarus, 1990-1995.” Mobilization 6(2): 129-150. The waves of public protest events that accompanied the early years of the transition from communism in the former Soviet republic of Belarus offer the opportunity to explore the short-term interaction between state repression & the ongoing choice of protest form by challengers. Using police (militia) records of public protest events, 1990-1995, we examine the evolving choice of protest form by collective actors in Belarus. We develop expectations about how the strength of social actors interacts with the extent & form of state repression in shaping protest form. Analyses show that as democratic access expanded & state repression waned during a "democratic opening" weak collective actors came to dominate the protest arena, staging mostly pickets & vigils. As state repression escalated, however, strong collective actors reentered the protest arena, but, in response to the escalating state repression, employed mostly the picket/vigil protest form that, during less repressive times, had been the weapon of weak collective actors. Library reserves: Titarenko et al., Interaction of state repression, protest form and protest sponsor
  24. (*) Wisler, D. and M. Giugni (1999). “Under the Spotlight: The Impact of Media Attention on Protest Policing.” Mobilization 4(2): 171-187. Analysis of data on protest policing & its media coverage in four Swiss cities, 1965-1994, suggests that the mass media do have an impact on levels & forms of repression, along with political opportunity dimensions & levels of disruption. Two specific mechanisms are identified: (1) The symbolic battles waged by protest groups & their outcomes affect the level of repression that these groups face; depending on whether the civil-rights or the law-&-order scenario wins in the public sphere, the police adopt different postures when facing disorders. (2) The police are vulnerable to an increase of media attention during a protest campaign; when protest becomes a blind spot in the public sphere, repression increases. Library reserves: Wisler & Giugni, Under the spotlight
  25. (*) Davenport, C. and M. Eads (2001). “Cued to Coerce or Coercing Cues? An Exploration of Dissident Rhetoric and Its Relationship to Political Repression.” Mobilization 6(2): 151-171. This article explores whether & how state repression is influenced by a social movement organization's rhetoric; &, conversely, if dissident rhetoric is responsive to authorities' repressive efforts. These relationships are examined with data generated from several newspapers within the Bay area, across 253 weeks, 1969-1973, concerning rhetoric of the Black Panther Party (BPP) as well as police & court repression directed against the Panther organization. The results of the statistical analysis are mixed. Several aspects of BPP rhetoric increase both police- & court-ordered repression, albeit at different magnitudes & lags. Moreover, results disclose that only police repression influences the discussion of particular topics in the Panther newspaper - the same topics that induce protest policing (again, across different lags). The analysis complements existing research on the conflict-repression nexus, but it also forces us to consider state-dissident interactions in a more comprehensive manner. 3 Tables, 1 Figure, 2 Appendixes, 101 References. Adapted from the source document. Davenport & Eads, Cued to coerce or coercing cues? In electronic reserves
  26. Kriesi, H. (1996). The Organizational Structure of New Social Movements in a Political Context. CP: 152-184. Theory & typologizing on state-movement interactions.
  27. Voss, K. (1996). The Collapse of a Social Movement: The Interplay of Mobilizing Structures, Framing, and Political Opportunities in the Knights of Labor. CP: 227-258. Argues the Knights lost not because they were weak but because organized employers were strong.
  28. Joseph Gusfield. "Social Movements and Social Change: Perspectives of Linearity and Fluidity." Research in Social Movements, Conflicts and Change 4: 317-339. 1981. Argues for looking for the cultural and indirect influences of movements.
  29. Frank, A. G. and M. Fuentes (1994). "On Studying the Cycles in Social Movements." Research in Social Movements, Conflicts and Change 17: 173-196.
  30. For a good set of articles on the institutionalization of protest, see Meyer & Tarrow The Social Movement Society: Contentious Politics for a New Century
  31. Snow, D. A., D. M. Cress, et al. (1998). “Disrupting the "Quotidian": Reconceptualizing the Relationship between Breakdown and the Emergence of Collective Action.” Mobilization 3(1): 1-22. Provides theoretical refinement & empirical specification for the breakdown variant of strain theory. The relationship between social breakdown & movement emergence is reconceptualized in a fashion consistent with strands of cultural theory, phenomenology, & symbolic interactionism. This reconceptualization resonates with prospect theory & research on collective action in a diversity of settings. It is argued that the key to the breakdown-movement relationship resides in the actual or threatened disruption of the quotidian. Four conditions are especially likely to disrupt the quotidian & heighten prospects of collective action: accidents that throw a community's routines into doubt &/or threaten its existence; actual or threatened intrusion into &/or violation of citizens' sense of privacy, safety, & control; alteration in subsistence routines because of unfavorable ratios of resources to claimants or demand; & dramatic changes in structures of social control. The relationship between these conditions & movement emergence is elaborated by drawing on literature regarding the emergence of collective action in various contexts & on fieldwork on 15 homeless social movement organizations in eight US cities. Also explored are the implications for understanding more fully the generality of various conditions & processes commonly thought to apply to social movement emergence. 1 Table, 70 References. Adapted from the source document
  32. Sewell, W. H., Jr. (1996). “Historical Events as Transformations of Structures: Inventing Revolution at the Bastille.” Theory and Society 25: 841-891. The theoretical organization of historical events as sequences of occurrences resulting in durable transformations is discussed. Social structures are defined as mutually sustaining & overlapping sets of cultural schemas, distributions of resources, & modes of power that combine to reproduce consistent patterns of social action. Based on this definition, historical events are theorized as occurrences that inspire a set of related occurrences & lead to long-term transformations of social structures. Further, historical events must be recognized as important by contemporaries. Drawing on the case example of the French Revolution & the taking of the Bastille, a number of other characteristics are cited as fundamental to historical events: the rearticulation of social structures, cultural transformations, heightened emotion, acts of collective creativity, ritualization, production of future events, & articulation through authoritative sanction. It is concluded that the boundaries of an event are determined by arbitrary judgments. T. Sevier.

 

Sociology 924: Social Movements Calendar Pamela Oliver

Last updated November 5, 2009 © University of Wisconsin.