Radical Flank Research Articles

States Shaping Civic Activism: Comparing Animal Rights Activism in Poland and Russia

ABSTRACTThis article offers a comparative study of animal rights and animal welfare activism in Poland and Russia. It investigates how an East European democratic state, on the one hand, and a post-Soviet semiauthoritarian state, on the other hand, steer civic activism and how different state–society relationships affect the forms that activism takes. The analysis aims at identifying the specific institutional mechanisms by which steering operates in the two cases, thus explaining some notable similarities between the movements in the two countries, such as the focus on noncontentious animal welfare issues, but also the differences between them. Although facing a more repressive context, the contentious radical flank of the Russian movement is more active than the Polish one.

Democracy Wall, Foreign Correspondents, and Deng Xiaoping

This article identifies and explains the role of the Western media in Chinese politics between November 1978 and April 1979, when the rise of Deng Xiaoping within the Communist Party coincided with the emergence of the Democracy Wall free speech movement on China's streets, and the normalization of Sino-American relations. At this critical juncture in twentieth-century history, foreign journalists in Beijing were much more than simply gatekeepers of a conduit to the outside world. Chinese activists believed that, through the Western media, they could reach domestic audiences in China, and potentially even the Party leadership. Indeed, foreign reporting contributed to the movement's spread to other parts of the country, while strengthening and accentuating its most aspects. However, the main beneficiary of these interactions was Deng, who enlisted Democracy Wall and the foreign media, at times in conjunction, to advance his domestic and international objectives. Once he had secured control of the Party's political direction, and the normalization of Sino-American relations, the foreign press provided the rationale, if not the impetus, for the movement's suppression. Drawing on participant interviews, new Chinese sources, and analysis of press archives, this article brings important new insights into the momentous political events that set in motion the ongoing transformation of China and the region. It also illuminates the little-studied role of international media in producing radical flank effects that can help or hinder both social movements and state authorities. The case stands as a cautionary example for social activists attempting to harness the power of international media today.

The Radical Flank Effect and Cross-occupational Collaboration for Technology Development during a Power Shift.

This 12-month ethnographic study of an early entrant into the U.S. car-sharing industry demonstrates that when an organization shifts its focus from developing radical new technology to incrementally improving this technology, the shift may spark an internal power struggle between the dominant engineering group and a challenger occupational group such as the marketing group. Analyzing 42 projects in two time periods that required collaboration between engineering and marketing during such a shift, we show how cross-occupational collaboration under these conditions can be facilitated by a radical flank threat, through which the bargaining power of moderates is strengthened by the presence of a more-radical group. In the face of a strong threat by radical members of a challenger occupational group, moderate members of the dominant engineering group may change their perceptions of their power to resist challengers’ demands and begin to distinguish between the goals of radical versus more-moderate challengers. To maintain as much power as possible and prevent the more-dramatic change in engineering occupational goals demanded by radical challengers, moderate engineers may build a coalition with moderate challengers and collaborate for incremental technology development.

Extending Nonmarket Strategy: Political Economy and the Radical Flank Effect in Private Politics

This paper examines a private politics environment in which a confrontational activist and a cooperative activist face a profit-maximizing firm and a self-regulating firm. The environment is studied from a perspective that combines the radical flank effect from sociology and the political economy approach to private politics and nonmarket strategy. We present a formal model in which behavior depends upon favoritism, awareness of a positive externality, and own or aggregate objectives of the activists, and we calibrate these factors through an online experiment. From the experiment, the greater the harm from the confrontational activist, the higher are the offers to work with the cooperative activist and avoid targeting by the confrontational activist. The self-regulator is favored by the activists and offers less than the profit-maximizer. The confrontational activist also favors the self-regulator by threatening a less aggressive campaign. The intensity of the threat results in a positive externality, and to exploit the externality, donors shift resources from the cooperative activist to the confrontational activist. The transfer is greater if the activists’ objectives are the accomplishments of both activists rather than their own accomplishments. Strategy implications are drawn from the model and the results of the experiment.

“Are You One of Those Women?” Within-Movement Conflict, Radical Flank Effects, and Social Movement Political Outcomes*

Studies of social movement outcomes rarely consider the impact of conflict between groups within movements on the ability of movement actors to achieve their political goals. In this examination of the Texas women's movement from the late 1950s until the early 1970s, we consider the role of within-movement conflict as organized women worked to gain an Equal Legal Rights Amendment. Our analysis reveals that conflict within movements can benefit activists by fueling a radical flank effect and, in the end, helping activists achieve important political goals. Our study also reveals the agency of movement actors as one group distances itself from another to seek political elite support. Such efforts can help activists open largely closed political opportunity structures. We conclude that researchers studying movement political outcomes should consider the potentially beneficial role of within-movement conflict.

Limits on Violence; Limits on Responsive Regulatory Theory

Responsive regulation is a general theory of how to steer the flow of events. This article seeks to understand when violence is and is not defensible as an enforcement escalation. It specifies limits on the claim of responsive regulatory theory that a tough enforcement peak to a regulatory pyramid helps drive regulation down to persuasion at the base of the pyramid. Those limits are about the counterproductive effects of violence at the peak of an enforcement pyramid. Erica Chenoweth and her colleagues show that nonviolent civilian resistance to regimes is twice as likely as armed struggle to succeed. Nonviolence complemented by a violent radical flank is less effective than disciplined nonviolence. This refutes the “benign big gun” aspect of responsive regulatory theory as a general theory of the regulation of social action. The theory implies that capacity to escalate to armed struggle at the peak of a regulatory pyramid should empower resistance. Can responsive theory be adapted to this empirical challenge? Can that adaptation show a productive path to an ethics of when to constrain escalation to violence as an option at the peak of all kinds of regulatory pyramids? Lessons are drawn from how Nelson Mandela's struggle against apartheid opened nonviolent paths to transformation without total renunciation of violence.

Rethinking Radical Flank Theory: South Africa

Chenoweth and Stephan (2011) found that nonviolent resistance movements since 1900 have twice the success rate of violent movements in achieving their objectives. Schock and Chenoweth (2012) furthermore show that nonviolent resistance movements with a violent radical flank have a lower success rate than nonviolent movements without a violent radical flank. This contradicts the analysis of the African National Congress of how Apartheid was defeated. The ANC believes both armed struggle and nonviolent resistance were effective and complementary. After listening to voices from the South African resistance, a tweak of Schock and Chenoweth is advanced. Nonviolent resistance should not cultivate the creation of violent radical flanks; if violent radical flanks exist, however, nonviolent leaders should be reluctant to cast them out of resistance coalitions. Indeed, like Nelson Mandela in the 1980s, nonviolent oppositions may do best to resist tyranny with willingness to invoke the spectre of violent spoilers.

Dinamika Dan Pengerucutan Teori Gerakan Sosial

This article aims to describe of dynamic and reduction social movement theory. Emergent of socialmovement theory get our see from two aspect. First, from relationship between framing with politicalchanges thinking. Twice, correlation reciprocal between framing with mobilization. Success orunsuccessfull from movement depend of organization movement capability to present third organizationalfactor. That are disruptive tactics, radical flank effects and goals.Keywords: social movement theory, dynamic, reduction

Grant making as advocacy: The emergence of social justice philanthropy

AbstractIn recent decades the phrase “social justice philanthropy” has emerged to describe grant making for progressive social reform. This article investigates this new discourse based on a cross‐sectional analysis of foundations that actively support nonprofit social action. Smaller foundations, younger foundations, and public foundations are more likely to mention social justice or social change in their program descriptions than are other philanthropic institutions. Results indicate that foundations that set international grant making and rights activities as priorities are more likely to adopt this sensitive discourse than are foundations dedicated to other subjects; foundations with longer legacies of supporting reform also discuss social justice more frequently. This article begins to clarify which foundations provide legitimacy for social change nonprofits through their discourse and offers new insights into the role of foundations as policy actors. These findings suggest that the main advocates for a liberal policy voice within the philanthropic community may be smaller foundations and those incorporated as public foundations, a radical flank that pressures other foundations to expand their funding repertoire.

Two of a kind? Voting motivations for populist radical right and religious fundamentalist parties

Over the last two decades a number of theoretical perspectives have emphasized the growing phenomenon of extremist political challenges. These challenges come from two main sources: largely secular radical right-wing populism and religious fundamentalism. Yet the relationship between the two is still theoretically and empirically limited. Researchers have usually limited their discussion to only one of the phenomena, ignoring the fact that despite the basic distinction between the two (i.e., secular versus religious orientation), the literature points to many commonalities. This article takes up the challenge by analyzing the predictive power of socioeconomic, ideological, and security threat factors on voting behavior for populist radical right (PRR) parties and for religious fundamentalist (RF) parties. Data collected following the Israeli parliamentary election of 2003 ( N = 808) offer a challenge to the conventional, secular wisdom of right-wing extremism. The radical right party family is multifaceted with at least two flanks – a hawkish nationalist flank on the one hand, and a ‘faith-based’ radical flank on the other. Implications of these distinctions for voting behavior scholars and radical right-wing scholars are discussed.

Two Logics of Labor Organizing in the Global Apparel Industry

What factors account for labor strategies in global industries? While some scholars point to economic factors and others look to political opportunity structures, an examination of union actions in the Central American apparel export industry over a 14-year period suggests that activists’ historical experiences and ideological orientations also strongly influence union dynamics. Left-oriented unions tend to form unions through transnational activism whereas conservative unions most often turn to plant-level cross-class collaboration. Moreover, these two union strategies are interconnected. Successful transnational activism facilitates conservative union formation through a “radical flank” mechanism; the threat of left-union organizing motivates employers to accept unionization by conservative unions to block left unions from gaining influence in the plant. To examine these arguments, this article employs pooled time-series statistical analysis, structured interviews with labor organizers, and process tracing that draws on nine months of field research in Honduras and El Salvador.

Takin’ It from the Streets: How the Sixties Mass Movement Revitalized Unionization

Was the militant zeitgeist of the “long sixties” social movement wave harmful, irrelevant, or revitalizing for labor militancy and union growth? The authors extend research on intermovement relations by examining the influence of ascendant militancy of the new left–inspired mass movement wave on the organizational fortunes of labor. Time‐series models buttressed by secondary historical evidence show that “the movement,” as radical flank, did stimulate a militant oppositional culture that moved from the streets into workplaces. That oppositional culture was especially significant in the public sector, where it fueled union recognition strikes which, in turn, helped push the extension of collective bargaining laws in that sector, opening the door for union growth. The authors consider implications for social movement theory and labor movement revitalization.

Unbearable Burdens: Aleksandr Blok and the Modernist Resistance to Progeny and Domesticity

Drawing on contemporary critical theory, as well as on the works of a wide variety of Russian modernists, Jenifer Presto discusses the ways in which the symbolist poet Aleksandr Blok responded to what Edward Said has termed the modernist “crisis of filiation.” This essay contends that despite the fact that Blok was consecrated as one of the poetic sons of Russian modernism, he envisioned modern poetic history as a violent family romance that involved murderous impulses not just, as Harold Bloom would suggest, toward his literary forefathers, but also toward his imagined children. Although Blok's complicated reaction to the appearance of a new generation of children has received far less critical attention than that of the futurist Vladimir Maiakovskii, it is Blok—not Maiakovskii—who can be credited with inaugurating a filicidal model of poetic creativity that would come to dominate the more radical flank of Russian modernism, the avant-garde. By examining Blok's resistance to progeny within the larger context of Russian modernism, this article reveals the existence of an antigenerative male poetic tradition that extends from Blok to the futurists, reflecting the writers' growing sense of rupture with the past in the period leading up to and immediately following the revolution.

The Women's Suffrage Movement

ABSTRACT The women's suffrage movement is explored as a social movement and an argument is made that analysis of the outcomes of social movements is central to those engaged in effecting social change. A set of five factors that influenced the movement's success is explored. These factors are: (1) The framing processes of the Women's Suffrage Movement (WSM) enhanced collective and individual identity, while fueling participants' emotions and actions; (2) A movement community developed that supported the goals of the WSM and held a radical flank effect; (3) External resources were constant; (4) The WSM experienced an infusion of new ideas as a result of cross-national interaction; and (5) The WSM benefited from committed and innovative leaders throughout the movement. These factors are not viewed as exhaustive; rather they are components that were critical to success.