Social Movement Outcomes Research Articles

Intricacies of Social Movement Outcome Research and beyond: “How can you Tell” Social Movements Prompt Changes?

Most scholars of social movements have been drawn to research on the politically contentious behavior of collective actors because of the conviction that social movements sometimes generate significant historical progress and social change. Yet movement outcome research has been least developed in the literature. This irony emanates from methodological and causal intricacies that fail to clearly explicate how social movements create change. The challenges encompass the heaped typologies, mutual inconsistencies, causal heterogeneities, and conflictive evaluation criteria of movement outcomes. To overcome these quandaries, this paper proposes that (1) any attempt to find an invariant model or general theorization of a movement outcome is inevitably futile; (2) instead, attention to the specific context of time and place in which social movements produce outcomes is necessary; and (3) a comprehensive understanding of the origins of a movement outcome becomes possible when multiple variables are considered and their combined effects are analyzed.

Cultura-Identidad

This article addresses the use of art in the University of Puerto Rico student movement of 2010 to achieve social movement outcomes, such as mobilization and collective identity. More specifically, this paper addresses two major research questions. One, what forms of art were present in the UPR student movement? Two, what impact do artistic objects and performances have on the movement, from the perspective of student activists and artists? Drawing upon 25 hours of observational data and 19 interviews with student activists, faculty, and artists, this paper demonstrates how activists incorporate multiple art forms, not only traditional forms like protest songs, but also innovative forms like street theatre. Incorporating a broad repertoire of art, the movement appealed to a broad population, as well as created a dynamic movement. These questions are critical for understanding recent global movements that rely upon creative and artistic tactics for resistance. However, despite the “cultural turn” among social movement scholars, few have taken seriously the use of art in activism, particularly the ways in which multiple forms of art may be used within one single movement. The case of the student movement of the UPR provides an opportunity to explore up-close the various ways that art may be present within a movement, as well as to uncover how these forms of art operate within the movement and impact on the overall movement.

Promotion of contentious agency as a rewarding movement strategy: evidence from the MST-paper industry conflicts in Brazil

The recent scholarship on social movement outcomes has called for explanations about how movements influence economic outcomes. This article demonstrates in practice how a dynamic and relational approach, coupled with a Bourdieuian analysis of social, symbolic, and territorial space, can be utilized in explaining the influence of movements in contentious politics around investment projects. Based on participant observation and comparison across the Brazilian Landless Movement (MST) groups in areas of paper industry expansion, I assess the different movement strategies and their influence on pulp project outcomes. I reinterpret the ideal ‘MST model’ as constructed by specific strategies promoting contentious agency: organizing and politicizing, campaigning by heterodox framing, protesting, networking, and embedded autonomy vis-à-vis the state. A Qualitative Comparative Analysis comparing the expansion of 13 pulp holdings between 2004–2008 shows how these strategies influence investment pace. When both contentious and conventional strategies were used, movements managed to slow pulpwood plantation expansion.

Policy networks and social resistance to water privatization in Latin America

The paper looks at civil society campaigns against water privatisation in six Latin American countries, resulting in both success and failure. Our inquiry aims at contributing to the understanding of the determinants of social movement outcomes. We explain variations in outcome as a result of interrelations between: a) agency; b) mobilisation tactics; c) political opportunity structures; and, d) network composition (i.e. the composition of coalitions promoting the campaigns). Our findings indicate that the strengthening of coalitions is a significant determinant of successful outcome. The combined effect of network size and heterogeneity of the coalition contributes to the representativeness, cohesion and effectiveness of the campaigns.

Issue Frames and the Political Outcomes of Transnational Campaigns: A Comparison of the Jubilee 2000 Movement and the Currency Transaction Tax Campaign

Since the end of the Cold War, a large number of transnational advocacy networks (TANs) have launched campaigns focusing on a number of different global issues. Some of these campaigns have been quite successful in influencing global public policy, while others have not. What accounts for differences in TANs' ability to shape the global policy process? How can we explain the variation in TAN campaign outcomes? To answer these questions, I draw on the concept of framing, which has been used to explain social movement mobilisation and outcomes, and apply it to two TAN campaigns that have had different outcomes: Jubilee 2000 and the Currency Transaction Tax campaign. I argue that effective framing strategies, i.e. the use of issue frames that resonate with international norms and values and provide compelling analyses and policy proposals, is one explanation for the variation in the outcomes of these two TAN campaigns.

How Social Movements Do Culture

While much social science literature has analyzed the cultural bases of social movement, activity, and the content of cultural production by social movements, relatively little has been written about the concrete social relations within which social movements do culture. This paper addresses the issue of what social movements are doing when they produce culture. Four dimensions of social relations within which culture is enacted are identified: the division of labor, the relations of power, tuning in, and embeddedness. A contrast between the how the People's Songsters Movement of the 1930s and 1940s and the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s used American folk music illustrates how variation in these dimensions affects the effects that cultural production had on social movement outcomes.

Policy change as one piece of the picture: outcomes among reproductive rights advocates in Peru

In the 1990s, feminist movements in Peru began to shift strategies from a focus on community training to an emphasis on policy advocacy. Since then, they have seen many of their demands translated into public policies favoring gender equity and reproductive rights. Some scholars argue that such policy changes have a limited impact on women's daily life in Latin America and it is necessary to conceptualize the outcomes of social movements more broadly to include their cultural and political effects as well as the links between these. Findings are presented from a study of two coalitions engaged in reproductive rights advocacy in Arequipa and Cusco, Peru. The approach for evaluating the materials included participant observation, focus group discussions and individual interviews with coalition members. The study found that coalition members perceive the effects of their advocacy on government policies in terms of five dimensions: coalition–government interactions, issue visibility and recognition, policy enactments, policy implementation, and policy position. I conclude that a broader definition of social movement outcomes is needed to evaluate efficacy and models for future action and that this should take into account the complexities of social and political change, particularly concerning reproductive rights and gender equity.

Introduction: The Outcomes of Social Movements

increased attention has led to calls for the improvement of our theoretical and conceptual arguments, the more effective implementation of methodological tools, and more empirical examples based on broader comparisons of issues and contexts (Giugni 1998; Earl 2000; Burstein and Linton 2002; Meyer 2005; Giugni 2008). With this special issue of Mobilization, our aim is to take some steps toward meeting these calls. Each of the contributors in this issue adds an important aspect to the current literature and introduces themes that we hope will be developed further in future research. We have included articles emphasizing several issues, including incremental outcomes, novel empirical factors for studying the contextual dependence of the outcomes of mobilization, different methods for strengthening and testing the robustness of our theoretical arguments, and new ways of thinking about the role of public opinion. Our introduction develops a foundation for the contributions contained in this special issue by stressing the connection between the five articles and laying out a few important achievements and problems in studying the outcomes of social movements. Finally, we briefly sketch several directions for future research.

Cultural Context and Social Movement Outcomes: Conscientious Objection and Draft Resistance Movement Organizations in Israel

This article aims to contribute to the debates on how cultural context influences mobilization outcomes through a comparative analysis of two Israeli social movement organizations that supported conscientious objectors and draft resisters during the second Palestinian Intifada. This analysis has two objectives. The first is to show how cultural and institutional conditions of Israeli militarism influenced both the discourses and the tactics of resistance of the movement organizations. The second is to demonstrate that different tactics of the movement organizations had a differential impact on the Israeli public and the Israeli political system. It is argued that both the culturally and institutionally embedded gender inequality within Israeli society has determined the choice of the available strategies for the movement organizations, which has in turn influenced the relative success of their campaigns.

Movements, Aesthetics, and Markets in Literary Change: Making the American Labor Problem Novel

One path to cultural innovation in artistic and literary fields is differentiation of a genre into new subgenres. But what are the dynamics at work in such a process? This article addresses that question by identifying and explaining the emergence and trajectory of a new fiction subgenre—the American labor problem novel—during the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. I make a theoretical case for the intersection of social movement fields and cultural production fields showing, through a historical sociological analysis, that this subgenre was the joint product of: (1) a shift in literary aesthetic practice resulting from the rise of realism, (2) the subgenre's dialogical character, (3) collective contention surrounding the rise of labor movement militancy, and (4) the exigencies of literary and popular culture markets. The historical conjuncture of these processes contributed to a repository of cultural constructions of class in storied form, as novelists sought to both entertain and educate readers about the emerging realities of class-contentious industrial society. This study demonstrates the fruitfulness of merging sociology of culture theory and social movement outcome perspectives when analyzing cultural change.

The Policy Impact of Social Movements: A Replication Through Qualitative Comparative Analysis

This article reanalyzes the data of a previous study on the policy impact of antinuclear, ecology, and peace movements in three countries with the aim of replicating its findings. Our goal is to see whether using a different analytical technique will yield similar results. The previous study used a regression approach to time-series analysis. Here, we use qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) to analyze the previous study's data. Specifically, we test the two main hypotheses based on the joint-effect model of social movement outcomes: (1) that the policy impact of social movements is conditioned by the presence of powerful allies within the institutional arenas, by the presence of a favorable public opinion, and/or by both factors simultaneously; and (2) that social movements are more likely to have policy impacts when they address issues and policy domains of low saliency. In addition, we compare the policy impact of social movements across countries. Our analysis confirms to a large extent the findings of the earlier time-series analysis, namely, the strong explanatory power of the jointeffect model of social movement outcomes and the varying impact of different movements on public policy.

Protest and Opportunities: The Political Outcomes of Social Movements - By Felix Kolb�Contentious Performances - By Charles Tilly

Protest and Opportunities: The Political Outcomes of Social Movements - By Felix Kolb�Contentious Performances - By Charles Tilly

Social Movements and Industry Development: The Environmental Movement's Impact on the Wind Energy Industry

This article builds a theoretical framework that highlights the role of social movements in industry emergence and growth. Using insights from the literature on social movement outcomes and industry creation, the article shows that the environmental movement has shaped the development of the wind energy industry at both the national and subnational levels. During the past two decades, wind power has transformed from a small, "alternative" energy industry into a multibillion-dollar global industry that produces electricity for millions of people. Quantitative analysis shows that the wind energy industry grows the fastest in countries and regions that have not only a high density of environmental groups but also good wind potential or a favorable political opportunity structure. Case studies deepen this picture by examining how environmental organizations contribute to the development of the wind energy industry. also like to thank Rory McVeigh and three anonymous reviewers for Mobilization for their suggestions.

Protest and Opportunities: The Politics of Outcomes of Social Movements. By Felix Kolb. Frankfurt: Campus, 2007. Pp. 329. $46.00 (paper).

<i>Protest and Opportunities: The Politics of Outcomes of Social Movements</i>. By Felix Kolb. Frankfurt: Campus, 2007. Pp. 329. $46.00 (paper).

Targeting Capital: A Cultural Economy Approach to Understanding the Efficacy of Two Anti–Genetic Engineering Movements

In the late 1990s, the British anti-genetic engineering (GE) movement effectively closed Britain's market for genetically modified foods, while the U.S. anti-GE movement had a negligible impact. In seeking to explain the different outcomes of these similar social movements, the authors draw upon the global commodity chains (GCC) literature to extend the understanding of the economic and industry-related openings and closures social movements face as they seek to promote social change. This analysis not only illustrates the importance of economic structures and organization for movement outcomes, but also shows how the economic sphere is culturally constituted. In this fashion, it broadens the social movement literature's understanding both of the way that political economy matters to movement efficacy and of the way that cultural processes infuse the economic sphere. The study advances the GCC literature by showing how GCCs are cultural as well as economic constructs.

Gauging Outcomes of the 1960s Social Equality Movements: Nearly Four Decades of Gender and Ethnicity on the Cover of the Rolling Stone Magazine

Gauging Outcomes of the 1960s Social Equality Movements: Nearly Four Decades of Gender and Ethnicity on the Cover of the <i>Rolling Stone</i> Magazine

Protest and Opportunities: The Political Outcomes of Social Movements

Protest and Opportunities: The Political Outcomes of Social Movements

A Political Mediation Model of Corporate Response to Social Movement Activism

This paper uses a theory of social movement outcomes, the political mediation model, to explain why certain corporations targeted by boycotts are more likely to concede to boycotters' demands. Hypotheses developed from this model predict that boycotts threaten tangible and intangible resources held by corporate targets, that these threats are transmitted indirectly through media coverage of the boycotts, that past declines in sales or reputation create opportunities for a movement to have influence, and that the level of threat posed by a boycott generates more influence when targeted against corporations that recently experienced declines in sales or reputation. Results from analyses of a sample of corporate boycotts reported in major national newspapers in the U.S. between 1990 and 2005 provide support for the political mediation model. Corporate targets of boycotts were more likely to concede when the boycott received a great deal of media attention. The effect of media attention was amplified when the corporate target previously experienced a decline in its reputation.

Global Norms, Local Activism, and Social Movement Outcomes: Global Human Rights and Resident Koreans in Japan

The authors integrate social movement outcomes research and the world society approach to build a theoretical model to examine the impact of global and local factors on movement outcomes. Challenging the current research on policy change, which rarely examines the effects of global norms and local activism in one analysis, they argue (1) that global regimes empower and embolden local social movements and increase pressure on target governments from below, and (2) that local activists appeal to international forums with help from international activists to pressure the governments from above. When the pressures from the top and the bottom converge, social movements are more likely to succeed. Furthermore, these pressures are stronger in countries integrated into global society and on issues with strong global norms. The empirical analysis of social movements by resident Koreans in Japan advocating for four types of human rights-civil, political, social/economic, and cultural-demonstrates that the movements produced more successes as Japan's involvement in the international human rights regime expanded since the late 1970s, and that activism on issues with strong global norms achieved greater successes. The analysis also shows that lack of cohesive domestic activism can undercut the chances of social movements' success even with strong global norms on the issue.

Using Social Movement Theory To Study Outcomes in Sport-Related Social Movements

In this study, we systematically examine the relevance of five bodies of social movement theory to the outcomes of two sport-related social movements — struggles over funding of sport facilities and struggles over Native American mascots. Thirty-eight themes were culled from the five bodies of social movement theory and explored via 83 semi-structured interviews with social movement and countermovement actors from 20 different sites in the United States. Surprisingly, we found only eight of the 38 themes that we studied are pivotal to the outcomes of both social movements. The analysis also reveals that no single theoretical approach adequately explains the outcomes of both movements. Parts of Resource Mobilization theory are useful, while Political Process and Cultural theories offer the most explanatory power. We find that a few internal aspects of social movement groups interact with some cultural and structural forces external to these groups to shape social movement outcomes. Sport sociologists are urged to continue the systematic study of social movement theory, but to move beyond the limitations of this study to focus on other social movements, geographical locations, and aspects of social movements.