Social Movement Organizations Research Articles

Explaining the impact of citizens’ initiatives on social movements: insights from the Spanish housing movement

ABSTRACT How do instruments of direct democracy affect the social movement organisations that sponsor them? Drawing on social movement studies and direct democracy research, we argue that direct democracy has a transformative effect on its sponsors because it triggers a triple process of movement building, learning, and bargaining with political elites. This triple process sets in motion enduring trends within the organisation that has undertaken the burden of promoting the initiative. We illustrate this argument with the case of a people’s legislative initiative (a non-binding mechanism of direct democracy) organised by a housing rights organisation between 2011 and 2013 to counter the eviction crisis in Spain. This initiative did not result in the reform that activists demanded. Nevertheless, it contributed to consolidating the sponsor organisation, innovating its repertoire of action, and broadening its strategic options.

‘You are not Sikkimese enough’: Understanding collective action tendencies of old settlers in Sikkim using SIMCA

AbstractThe current study analyses the motivators and inhibitors of collective action tendency using the Social Identity Model of Collective Action (SIMCA). The study was conducted with a minority and state‐based repressed group known as the old settlers in Sikkim, India. The old settlers are a community that have been historically settled in Sikkim prior to the state's merger with India in 1975. They are racially and ethnically different from the majority population of northeasterners in Sikkim and face both institutional and interpersonal discrimination. A qualitative approach using semi‐structured interviews with 11 old settlers was taken to delineate SIMCA variables – moral conviction, identity, injustice and efficacy – within the context of northeast India. Collective action was motivated through moral conviction via principles of equality and unequal treatment and outsider status, identity via politicisation of identity, creation of social movement organisations, injustice via anger and fraternal resentment and efficacy via marches and legal recourses. Collective action was inhibited through moral conviction via denial of violation, identity via acculturation, injustice via fear and efficacy via learned helplessness. These findings indicate that in state‐based repressed groups, collective action tendencies must be understood from a context‐specific lens that attempts to understand both motivating and inhibitory factors.

#Resistencia: Indigenous Movements, Social Media, and Mobilization in Latin America

Abstract Indigenous peoples in Latin America have produced some of the region’s strongest and most enduring social movements, drawing on a diverse repertoire of contention to pursue their goals. In the twenty-first century, social media have transformed the landscape of collective action, compelling Indigenous movements to navigate the evolving dynamics of digital platforms. There is an ongoing debate in the literature regarding the role of social media in mobilization. But we know relatively little about how social media fit into the tactical repertoires of Indigenous actors and what tasks these platforms are used for. This article addresses this gap through an examination of how Indigenous actors use social media during protest events. We conducted a comparative analysis of social media content produced by Indigenous social movement organizations during major protest events in three countries from 2018 to 2019. We find that the most common functions include activating supporters and exposing state violence. These functions support several of the organizations’ core mobilization tasks by providing actors with tools to complement collection action.

Land Rights Movements in Nepal: Investigating Mobilization Strategies within a Political Landscape

This paper explores nations' political influence on social movement organizations. It focuses on the activities of National Land Rights Forum (NLRF), the largest land rights organization of Nepal. Effective mobilization of movement depends on organization's ability to align with the current political landscape, but is less emphasized by the global south social movement studies, which are focused on analyzing historical triggers and socioeconomic consequences with references to state policies. This paper takes survey-based open-ended interviews with 27 stakeholders, including the leaders and participants of NLRF’s land rights movement. The NLRF’s experiences on mobilization provided a strategic understanding of its adaptation to country's political milieu by leveraging the state-initiated major political events, which could be seen as opportunities to incorporate their concerns with state agendas. Furthermore, the Maoist-led insurgency in the past had fueled for the land rights movements, particularly the NLRF’s priority in organizing and unifying individuals who had similar political and economic identities. The mobilization strategies for land rights movement highlight the contextual variation on how current political landscape shapes the adaptive systems and practices of movement organizations.

“Framing” contentious activism: a sociological analysis of Boko Haram’s ideology, through its discourse (2008 – 2016)

ABSTRACT How does a terror movement like Boko Haram employ language and discourse towards collective action? This is the central question our paper addresses. Focusing on Boko Haram as a militant jihādist social movement organisation (SMO), our article shows how the movement’s ideology, evidenced through its discourse, “frames” narratives that identify the problem, call for action and motivate adherents and potential recruits towards violent repertoires. Using interview data, critical discourse analysis (CDA) and Social Movement Theory (SMT), specifically framing analysis, we interrogate Boko Haram’s Qur’anic exegesis based on the group’s publications, exhortations, lectures and sermons between 2008 and 2016. Along with calls for jihād (holy war, within the movement’s interpretation) and criticism of Nigeria’s federal constitution vis-à-vis Sharī‘a (Islamic law) as a superior social alternative, Boko Haram employs a specific takfir (apostate declaration) doctrine that divides the world into two camps: unbelievers (al-kāfirūn) or (kuffar) and believers. Such identity construction constitutes part of a “framing” approach to mobilisation and recruitment. In this sociological analysis of Boko Haram’s discourse, we identify diagnostic, prognostic and motivational “framing” patterns employed alongside an injustice master frame as a means to encourage collective action by the “in-group” (adherents and potential recruits) against “out-group” identities.

“WE WON’T BE DIVIDED, WE STAND UNITED!” MOVEMENTS’ PROTEST CLAIMS ON SOCIAL MEDIA

For social movement organizations to create impact, broadcasting the dWUNCness (diversity, worthiness, unity, numbers, and commitment) of protest is crucial. Public representations of dWUNC are inherent to social movements’ existence and increase the legitimacy of their acts. However, to what extent do social movement organizations claim dWUNC? Which dWUNC elements do they focus on? And, which protest and social movement features explain their dWUNC claims? In this study, I analyze Twitter and Facebook messages (N = 2,849) of social movement organizations (N = 186) about street protests (N = 232) staged in Brussels (Belgium). Descriptives show that in 67.7% (N =1,929) of their online protest messages, social movements speak in terms of dWUNC. Unity was frequently claimed, and dWUNC was communicated differently across social media platforms. Explanatory analyses show that social movements display dWUNC in and outside the boundaries of protest reality. Findings reveal the outcome of movements’ protest communication strategy in today's digital media landscape.

Seeking ‘to cease existing as we are’: dynamic strategies of environmental activism in Russia

How and why do civil society actors change their modes of activism and strategies under the condition of shrinking civil society space in authoritarian states? Previous studies have tended to juxtapose participatory activism, associated with broader mobilisation, and transactional activism, based on coalition building and professionalised civil society organisations. Using the illustrative example of the environmental social movement organisation RazDel’niy Sbor (‘Separate Collection’) in Saint Petersburg, we demonstrate how the strategic repertoire of civil society organisations changes from participatory to transactional activism over time. The study takes a dynamic outlook on strategies and explores how transactional activism and professionalisation are built on the previous successful participatory phase. Furthermore, the study expands our understanding of the participatory mode of activism that is interpreted in an innovative and safe way to avoid repression in the authoritarian political context of modern Russia.

역사왜곡 대응방안에 관한 예비적 고찰

This paper aims to develop a strategy of countermeasures against pro-Japanese history distortions on the Korean history. Korean history has long been distorted by Japanese historians and their Korean students under the influence of the Japanese imperial power in 20th century. And the intensity of this distortions, become deeper and wider in recent years, has threaten the stability of the national identity and people’s mental health.
 This article is composed of 3 chapters and introductory remarks. In the first chapter, the past salient instances of distortions made by pro-Japanese groups were over-viewed focusing on the era of the second half of the 20th century. Those instances included are War-indemnity, History-textbooks for the middle and high school students, Dok-do Island, Sex slaves in Japan imperialism, Etc.
 Second chapter introduces the countermeasures against those pro-Japanese distortions, practiced by Korean people and government. It includes government’s official letter of protest, people’s social movement organization formation and it’s protest gathering and marches. Reviewing this responses, this paper is inspected on the perspective of social movement theory.
 Third part shows the strategy of the newly constructed counter-measures against history distortions. This new counter-measure is constructed as a conceptual system, composed of 4 elements including subjects, aims, resources, and object of social movement. These elements construct a social movement action system on the base of the concerted inter-relationship of those 4 elements, named the counter-measure system against history distortions. This new countermeasure system can improve the ratio of success and achievement in the counter-measure social movements against history distortions.

Before the Court and in the Press: Newspaper Coverage of Creationism and School Prayer Movements' Legal Framing

During the last century, social movement organizations have mobilized around what role religion should play in school. These struggles have focused on teaching creationism and evolution in the science classroom and the appropriateness of school prayer and Bible reading in public schools. Court cases like Scopes and Engel are infamous in American history, while others are much less well-known. This project explores media coverage of social movements that do not engage in typical protest activity and instead choose to operate in more institutional contexts. This paper will begin by presenting the coverage patterns of each movement across the twentieth century, illustrating how the media's focus is primarily influenced by movements either initiating legal action, being compelled to appear in court, or reacting to judicial proceedings. Next, it will present a typology of coverage that these legal-based movements received. A movement's legal framing is carried in and through the media, and sometimes, the framing is all that is reflected in media attention, making this type of reporting so attractive to movement organizations. The legal constraints over framing and legitimate actors account for some of the media exposure, which was likely to be equitable in tone and quantity to both the creationism and school prayer movements. To understand media coverage of social movements, scholars must begin to account for the cycles and patterns of coverage likely to occur when a movement ends up in court.

‘For Once We’re Asking for MORE Testing’: organisational infrastructure in the safe schools movement during COVID-19

ABSTRACT This article explores organisational infrastructure in the movement for safe schools during the COVID-19 pandemic. Drawing on several qualitative studies of educator organising during the pandemic, this article shows that educators across the United States have organised through a range of social movement organisations, including national grassroots networks, regional grassroots networks, unions, social justice caucuses, and building-based committees. Through these organisations, they have advanced demands for more equitable public health and education policies, including safety mitigations and wraparound services1 for students. Building on the literature on social justice unionism, contentious co-governance, and social movement organisations, this article finds that the diverse array of organisational structures and strategies within the movement enabled educators to advance their demands and build power.

On Black Radical Feminist Pragmatism

A “reckoning” is an opportunity to settle a score. It is a moment of collision between what is and what is due. Woodly's excellent book not only espouses the formation and political organization of the Movement for Black Lives (M4BL) coalition, but it also describes how social movements challenge the status quo and demand transformation in light of systems that work only for the powerful few. This transformation, Woodly shows, is brought about by the grassroots theorizing and political praxis of social movement organizers. Reckoning models the development of these new ideas, demonstrating both their intellectual and practical legacies. In this essay, I consider Woodly's theoretical formulation of the M4BL's philosophy of “radical Black feminist pragmatism” and what I see are (1) its promise for centering the reorienting practices of radical Black feminist politics and (2) the ways “pragmatism” as a frame stands in tension with those radical elements of the movement.

Anti-Stigma Organizing in the Age of Social Media: How Social Movement Organizations Leverage Affordances to Build Solidarity

Anti-Stigma Organizing in the Age of Social Media: How Social Movement Organizations Leverage Affordances to Build Solidarity

Ripple effects: How collaboration reduces social movement contention

AbstractResearch SummaryResearch suggests firms can reduce stakeholder contention (e.g., lawsuits, protests) by collaborating with threatening stakeholders. We propose that by tapping into stakeholder networks and identities, collaborations also produce ripple effects beyond the firm's partner to attenuate contention from a broader set of stakeholders. Using variation in firms' and stakeholders' willingness to collaborate exogenous to contention to account for selection, our examination of contentious and collaborative interactions between 136 environmental movement organizations and 600 US firms corroborates our arguments. Firms face less contention when they collaborate with a better‐connected stakeholder motivated to share affirming information about the firm, or with a more contentious and authentic stakeholder. Our findings generalize to stakeholder criticism beyond movement organizations, suggesting collaborations are powerful tools for fashioning less contentious environments.Managerial SummaryCompanies can reduce conflict from hostile stakeholders like social activists by collaborating with their friends. We find social movement organizations mount fewer protests, boycotts, lawsuits, and other conflict against a company that collaborates with an organization that is either well connected in the movement or known for mobilizing movement's grassroots. This suggests that cross‐sector collaborations quell conflict through passing affirming information about a company through interorganizational networks or through the broadcast of an affirming signal to the broader stakeholder environment. We find that criticism from a wide range of stakeholders (e.g., media) also abates, suggesting that collaborations are powerful tools for fashioning less contentious environments.

Insider‐allies: The precarious politics of men in identity‐fluid feminism

AbstractAcademic and activist conversations about the position of men in feminism often operate under the assumption that women are the movement's key beneficiaries and men are privileged outsiders lending their support. I use 59 interviews from a broader project on feminist and LGBTQ+ activism in the United States to illustrate how men's orientation to feminism is shaped by whether social movement organizations adopt what I call woman‐centered or identity‐fluid politics. While woman‐centered politics treat men as allies whose intentions must be vetted by women, identity‐fluid feminism imagines men as insiders with their own independent investment in the movement. I argue that the tension between these two models of identity politics gives men a liminal “insider‐ally” position within feminism. Although feminist men are given a tentative authority to speak for the movement, the persistence of woman‐centered understandings of feminism means men's insider status is contested, especially when they dominate feminist spaces, compromise women's sense of safety, and seek leadership.

The Nexus between Protest and Electoral Participation: Explaining Chile's Exceptionalism

AbstractThe literature on political participation has consistently found that protest positively and significantly correlates with voting. However, Chile can be considered a deviant case to this pattern. During the last decade, Chileans who participated in street demonstrations were unlikely to participate in elections. What explains this anomaly? We argue that this rupture between participation in protest and in elections results from an effective distancing between social-movement organisations (SMOs) and institutional politics. However, this distancing of SMOs from party politics has not been homogeneous. To examine this heterogeneity, we conduct a comparative design of two cases: the labour and student movements. Based on a mixed-methods study that combines interviews with movement leaders and surveys of protest participants in marches, we seek to highlight the mediating role of SMOs in the promotion of different forms of political participation.

The cultural underpinnings of platformization: How social movement organizations helped form the category of the sharing economy

This paper explores the cultural dynamics underpinning platformization by unpacking the emergence of the sharing economy—a vital terrain of platformization—as a culturally significant category. Drawing on online archival data, our study reveals the important role of social movement organizations (SMOs) in establishing the sharing economy as a prominent cultural category and infusing it with powerful social meanings. We outline the discursive strategies used by SMOs to articulate this macro-market category, and to frame platform technology as a benevolent enabler of social change. Our study contributes to platformization research by turning attention to how cultural dynamics (i.e., the discursive strategies giving rise to the emergence of sharing economy) shape platformization. In addition, we contribute to market system dynamic research by expanding the focus of investigation from singular industries to the macro economy level, shedding light on new discursive dynamics (e.g., discursive strategies for articulating and technologizing the emergent economy), and by the extending previous work on the role of SMOs and social movements in market shaping.

Exploring Digital Communication Needs of Local Communities and Self-organized Collectives

Recent work in HCI has explored the use of ICTs for the mobilisation and organisation of values-led communities and social movements. This paper extends this line of work by exploring the design of a communication system for informal, place-based citizen collectives-also referred to as Social Solidarity Movements. The distinctive characteristics of such collectives, namely their decentralised, bottom-up and self-organised organisation, and their lack of monetary resources, pose interesting challenges for communication technology design. The work reported in this paper sought to explore how the values and practices of such collectives can be embodied in mobile communication tools. A system was designed to mirror on-the-ground informal organisational structures, its primary goal being to serve as a probe for research and discussion. Our findings highlight the diversity of channels and organisational structures prevailing in these contexts, their participatory nature, and issues of temporality, anonymity, privacy, and trust, all of which must be considered when designing technologies to support cooperative work. We contribute methodological insights and design implications for mobile technologies underpinning the work of social collectives and their practices.

STRATEGIC ALLIANCES: THE POLITICAL EFFICACY OF RELIGIOUSSECULAR TIES*

This multimethod study investigates strategic collaboration in alliances connecting politically engaged religious and secular social movement organizations. We assess the impact of religious-secular strategic alliances on movement political efficacy by analyzing data from a national survey of the community organizing field to compare organizations that do/do not participate in religious-secular alliances. The conceptual framework draws on the literatures in social movements, political sociology, and organizational sociology to argue that political efficacy is fundamentally shaped by an organization's strategic capacity and mobilizing capacity. We analyze four organizational outputs that serve as indicators of strategic capacity and find that participating in religious-secular alliances is associated with greater strategic capacity but lower mobilizing capacity. A complementary ethnographic case study identifies likely mechanisms underlying both findings. Our analysis suggests that collaboration across the religious-secular divide can increase a movement’s political efficacy within a democratic polity but with accompanying complexities that participants must manage.

Why are conflicts about race a point of no return for feminist organizations?

AbstractThis article seeks to advance scholarship on conflict in feminist organizations. Using the theoretical framework on agonistic conflict of Chantal Mouffe, it analyzes a conflict about racism that arose in a feminist lesbian, bi and trans social movement organization, located in Paris (France). The main contribution lies in offering a framework to analyze the mechanisms that prevented this conflict from constructively fostering the intersectional politics of the feminist organization. The ethnographic findings show that the organization's inability to challenge its racism and whiteness is linked to its post‐political vision of feminism, which translates into attempts to suppress conflict related to multiple and competing identifications. Thus, this article contributes to existing research on conflict in feminist organizing by suggesting that the subduing of conflict associated with such a post‐political vision of feminism prevents feminist organizing from being “anti‐oppressive”.

The politics of policy implementation and reform: Chile's environmental impact assessment system

This paper examines the policy impacts of social movement organizations in conflicts over mega-project development, focusing on the linkages between the politics of policy implementation and subsequent reform efforts. I argue for the utility of a comparative political economy approach to disentangle the relationship of structural context to movement specific factors, such as movement organization, strategies, and tactics, to explain the policy impacts of movements. This helps to specify systemic, medium and short-term conditions more rigorously, and, more importantly, how they affect the balance of power between movements and opposing socio-economic and political forces. I test these propositions in the case of the politics of policy implementation and how they affected efforts to reform the Chilean Environmental Impact Assessment System (SEIA) from 1994-present. Within shifting structural conditions, movement organization, strategies, and tactics had discernable impacts on outcomes: positive outcomes mediated by political allies under favorable conditions, and indirect impacts under unfavorable conditions when allied politicians killed a bill hostile to their interests in committee.