Social Movements Examples Suffrage Movement mid1800 s to

Social Movements

Examples • Suffrage Movement: mid-1800 s to 1920 • Civil Rights Movement: 1950 s-1960 s (alternatively, the “long civil rights movement, ” began in early 1920 s) • Gay Liberation Movement: 1964 in Canada for creating a positive gay identity and employment rights • Movement for Global Justice: 1999: Battle in Seattle

Definitions • “collective challenges, based on common purposes and social solidarities, in sustained interaction with elites, opponents, and authorities” (Straggenborg 2011: 5, emphasis in original). • Social movements are one form of “contentious politics, ” that is, participants are typically “outsiders with regard to the established power structure” (6, emphasis in original).

Types of Social Movements Harper & Leicht (2002) Instrumental Expressive Reform: Permutations of existing social arrangements and culture 1. REFORMATIVE: labor movement, NAACP (org), ERA (legislation), tax reform (legislation), antiabortion and abortion rights (legislation and org) 3. ALTERNATIVE: Christian evangelicalism, various “enthusiasms” (Trekkies, joggers) Radical: Significant departure from existing social arrangements 2. TRANSFORMATIVE: Bolsheviks, religious fundamentalism (e. g. , Christian and Islamic) 4. REDEMPTIVE: cults and other isolated environments (e. g. , Jim Jones and the People’s Temple)

Social Movement Organizations • “’a complex, or formal, organization which identifies its goals with the preferences of a social movement or a countermovement [opposed to a social movement] and attempts to implement those goals’” (Straggenborg, p. 6, quoting Mc. Carthy and Zald) • United Mine Workers: www. umwa. org • Greenpeace: www. greenpeace. org

Theories of Social Movements 1. 2. 3. 4. Collective Behavior Resource Mobilization Political Process New Social Movement

Collective Behavior • Known as “strain” or “breakdown” theories. • “They typically posit that collective behavior comes about during a period of social disruption, when grievances are deeply felt, rather than being a standard part of the political process” (Staggenborg: 12 -13). • Also known as the classical approach.

Resource Mobilization • Social movements “seen as a continuation of the political process, albeit by disorderly means” (Staggenborg: 17). • Social movements emerge when resources are present such as: --1. moral (e. g. , legitimacy) --2. cultural (e. g. , tactical repertoires and strategic know-how)

Resource Mobilization, cont’d • --3. social-organizational (e. g. , networks) • --4. human (e. g. , labor and experience of activists • --5. material (e. g. , money and office space)

Political Process • “social movements are most likely to emerge when potential collective actors perceive that conditions are favorable” (Staggenborg: 19). • Focus on the existence of “favorable ‘structures of political opportunity’” (Harper & Leicht: 144). • May take several forms: • “decline in the effectiveness of repression” • “effective power of political elites is undermined by internal fragmentation and disunity” • “broadening of access to institutional participation in the political process”

Collective Action Frames Part of the approach of both RM and PO • Refers to the narrative structure of the movement. • CAFs are ways of “capturing the importance of meanings and ideas in stimulating protest” (Staggenborg: 20, citing Benford and Snow). • For example, We are a movement in support of local food systems to decrease our reliance on a fossil-fuel dependent industrial food chain that destroys the environment.

New Social Movement • Movements seen as “reactions to the modernizing process in advanced industrial capitalist societies” (Harper & Leicht: 147).

• Support for this type of movement activity “is associated with ‘postmaterialist’ values, which focus on quality of life and self-expression, rather than ‘materialist’ values, which emphasize economic and physical security” (Staggenborg, p. 104 citing Inglehart 1995).

• Emphasizes “collective identity, which refers to the sense of shared experiences and values that connects individuals to movements and gives participants a sense of ‘collective agency’ or feeling that they can effect change through collective action” (Staggenborg: 22).

Major Theories of Social Movements Staggenborg (2011) THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVE ORIGINS OF MOVEMENTS IMPORTANT FEATURES AND FOCUSES Collective Behavior Social disruptions Psychology of New meanings and strains, grievances; protest; emergent forms of precipitating events organization and organization norms; protest outside institutional structures Resource Mobilization and Political Process Pre-existing organization; resources; political opportunities and threats; master frames Connections between social movements and political process; mobilizing structures; framing strategies; institutional and non-institutional KEY OUTCOMES OF MOVEMENTS New resources, organizations and frames; cultural and political changes

Environmental Movement Off-shoot: Modern Food Movements • Environmental: modern movement in North America began largely as a result of the publication of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring in 1962. • “Environmental activists who came out of the protest movements of the 1960 s adopted many of the direct-action tactics used by the civil rights, antiwar, and women’s movements” (e. g. , protest, boycotts) (Staggenborg 2011: 102)

Modern Food Movements • • Organic Back-to-land Slow Food Local (defined): www. attra. ncat. org