List of Acronyms
Chapter 6: Social Movements
6.3 Social movement theory
Many commentators divide social movement theory roughly into two: a largely liberal
‘American/USA’ theory, which concentrates on the actions and motivation of the individuals involved in social movements, and the resources they need to influence political processes;
and a ‘European’ theory, which developed out of Marxism and post-Marxist critiques, which saw social movements as a by-product of advanced capitalism, including the failure of organised labour to create change (Gibson, 2006, p.28). Munck (1995) argues that American theory focuses on strategy, whilst European theory focuses on identity (p.667).
Ballard et al (2006a), however, distinguish between three broad schools of social movement theory. I discuss each of these school in more detail below.
6.3.1 Opportunities/constraints within which social movements may/may not develop
This view developed in Europe in the 1980s, and concentrates on the relationship between new social movements and the broader structural changes in society as a whole (Davis, 2002, p.6). New social movements are seen as a product of late capitalism; but their potential impact
Functionalists (looking at the function played by social institutions in society) saw social movements as ‘non-institutional’, because they challenged social institutions such as the family, government etc.. Thus, their actions were seen as spontaneous and irrational (Scott, 1990, p.38). A key proponent of this view is Neil Smelser. Smelser argued that the social system is always under ‘strain’ (i.e. neither in equilibrium nor disequilibrium) (Scott, 1990, p.40). Strain is a necessary but not sufficient condition for collective action: “people under strain mobilize to reconstruct social order in the name of a generalized principle belief”
(Smelser, 1962, p.385 cited in Scott, 1990, p.41). So for Smelser, collective action is always reactive (Scott, 1990, 45).
Structuralists looked at broader structural openings/instabilities in which social movements may operate (Ballard et al, 2006a, p.4), whilst political opportunity theorists look at how institutions create and limit opportunities for mass struggles - i.e. the extent to which the political system is open or closed; the extent to which elite alignments are stable/unstable; the presence/absence of elite allies; the state’s capacity and propensity for repression. Movements themselves can impact on political opportunity, for example increasing political opportunity as they expand into structurally created political opportunities; or declining because of disillusionment, frustration, boredom (Ballard et al, 2006a, pp.4-5).
Neo-Marxists such as Manuel Castells, on the other hand, saw social movements as “not quite class movements” (Scott, 1990, p.39). Castells remains one of the most influential neo-
Marxist (post-Marxist?) social movement theorists. Stuart Lowe (1986) has shown how Castells’ thinking changed over time, from a formal structuralist position, which accorded economics a determinant position, and saw the working class as critical to any processes of change, to a far more postmodernist position, in which the working class had largely been replaced by individuals and social groups (pp.17-52). Broadly, Castells argues that in liberal capitalism, the fight is about wages; in late capitalism, it is about the social wage, about housing, schooling, health (Scott, 1990, p.46). Thus the crux of conflict between classes is no longer in the sphere of production, but in the sphere of reproduction of labour power (p.46).
Social movements are similar to trade unions in that they are essentially negotiating for a larger proportion of the total surplus produced without challenging the nature of production itself - they are fighting for participation in, rather than control of (Scott, 1990, pp.49-50).
Castells also insists that the site of struggle in late capitalism is the city, and thus much of his work has focused on urban social movements.
Another key theorist within this school is Jurgen Habermas. Habermas argues that social movements need to be understood in the context of a long historical process of rationalization within Western societies (Scott, 1990, p.15), to which they are a reaction (Foweraker, 1995, p.9). Habermas said that the ‘lifeworld’ created within civil society (the community, the family) has been progressively colonised by the expanding structures of state and market; new social movements are a defensive resistance to these processes of ‘inner colonialization’
(Scott, 1990, pp. 71-72); and are thus indicators of a potential legitimation crisis in late
capitalism (p.70). Scott (1990) argues that, if Habermas is correct, then new social movements should be arguing for participatory rather than representative democracy; for growing state intervention in the cultural sphere to mitigate against the market; and for a more transparent distribution of resources. In fact, many new social movement demands are contra this - they are about the quality of life, equal rights, individual self-realisation, human rights (p.73). Scott says that Habermas did not in fact look at actual social actors or the actual political strategies they use, in his analysis (p.79): “The sociological consequence of this is an underestimation of the flexibility of late capitalist society to accommodate itself to possible legitimation and motivational crises” (Scott, 1990, p.80). Davis (2002) agrees that instead of finding out how activists themselves interpreted what they were doing, Habermas overlayed his own
interpretation (p.9); whilst Cox (1998) also argues that Habermas’ analysis of social movements is an essentially liberal one (p.2).
6.3.2 How social movement participants themselves define their movements
The scholarship of participant self-definition is also a largely European school, growing out of a disenchantment with the highly academic and structural version of Marxism which had become dominant, and in response to the increase of social movement activities in the 1960s (Foweraker, 1995, p.9). The upheavals of 1968 were not worker-led; whilst Marx’s
predictions about the growing disparity between the capitalist class and the working class, and the gradual disappearance of ‘complicating’ social classes between the main classes and of
revolutionary consciousness among organised labour did not seem to have developed, with trades unions focusing largely on wages and worker conditions, rather than on an overthrow of capitalism itself, and workerist parties having largely abandoned any commitment to the abolition of private property (p.58). Meanwhile, new social movements very apparent at the time - the women’s movement, and black power - were not class based (p.56). Many left theorists thus sought to understand how social movements differ from working class or labour movements (Davis, 2002, p.6). Marcuse attempted to retain traditional Marxist reasoning, whilst substituting social movements for the working class (Scott, 1990, p.58), but in general there was a shift away from looking at structure (functionalism, structuralism, Marxism) to the social actor (Davis, 2002, p.11), and to the diversity of social movements.
Over time, discourse, symbols, and meaning became increasingly key features of this theory, as did culture, reflecting the shift from political economy to postmodernism in sociology in the wake of the failure of 1968 (Gibson, 2006, p.29). Many within this school thus attempt to theorise the new social movements outside of the ‘grand narratives’ of class, revolution etc., and to cast them rather as part of hybrid individual identities/multiple subject positions - social movements are thus collectively shared beliefs, ideologies, values, and meanings about the world. Whilst this school developed largely in Europe, it has an American ally in American Social Constructionism, which emphasises framing: “In the framing perspective, “collective action frames” emerge through an interactive and negotiated process as a group consciously fashions its grievances, strategies and reasons for action by drawing on and modifying existing cultural beliefs and symbols” (Davis, 2002, p.7).
Key European theorists connected to this school are the French theorist Touraine (1981) and Italian theorist Melucci (1989) (a pupil of Touraine’s), both of whom also use framing, of identity, status, and values (Ballard et al, 2006a, p.6). Touraine abandoned class as a structural category, looking instead at the social subject as the active perpetuator and creator of social relations (Scott, 1990, p.61). For Touraine, social movements are pure forms of activity outside of the political system (p.11), and therefore “Social movements are not dramatic and exceptional events. They are, in a permanent form, at the very core of social life” (Touraine, 1978, quoted in Castells, 1983, p.290).
Touraine was critical of functionalist and Marxist theories that reduced action to structure or relations of domination. He saw social movements as both bearers and symptoms of the transition from industrial to post-industrial society (Scott, 1990, p.15); they reflect a
qualitative shift in the nature of capitalist society (Foweraker, 1995, p.13). This shift involved a shift from industrial to post-industrial, from manufacture-based production to knowledge- based production, from the work-place to outside of the work-place. The struggle was no longer about the ownership and control of the means of production, but about the ownership and control of the means of knowledge production (Scott, 1990, p.66). The enemy was the technocratic state; but the solution was no longer to take over the state, but rather to defend and extend civil society against the state (Ibid.).
By 2001, Touraine was arguing that the new social movements, which had given birth to new actors and new ideas over the last 20 years, had now been greatly weakened (Touraine, 2001, p.9). Those that had had the most influence in France (his home) had been those that
emphasised cultural rights, and particularly the sans papiers movement [a movement of illegal immigrants, literally ‘without papers’/the undocumented] (a movement, coincidentally, that Badiou has been very involved with over a number of years), rather than those that directly opposed neoliberalism, such as those related to jobs and wages (Ibid., p.48). Touraine argued that social movements “cannot exist unless they both assert something and reject something”
(p.48), and that their struggles “must be waged in the name of values that are deemed central by the whole of society”(p.49). He identified the following three contemporary characteristics of social movements:
1. Their refusal to obey the rules (he calls this their ‘primal revolt’) 2. Their recourse to the general principle of legitimacy
3. Their powerful and educated vanguard.
What is ‘new’ about these movements is their defence of the cultural and social rights of individuals and minorities (Touraine, 2001, p.50). Scott (1990) argues that Touraine neglects movement organisation, his criteria for success or failure of movements is entirely ideological, and his conception of social action too limited (p.68). Like Habermas, Davis (2002) argues, Touraine imposes his own view on social movements and social movement activists, rather
This kind of theory has also been applied elsewhere - Slater (1985), for example, has adopted this approach in looking at Latin America. Slater says that the rise of new social movements in Latin America is “rooted in the contemporary social development of capitalist societies”
(p.2), i.,e. commodification, bureaucratisation, cultural massification, but are highly diverse and multi-faceted (p.1) He draws heavily on Mouffe (1984) in his arguments.
With the growing shift to postmodernism in social theory, social movement theorists took on a number of postmodernist concepts. These theorists denied the possibility of any general theory of society and history, a la Marxism, rejecting both the notion of the working class, and the notion that consciousness, culture and politics were shaped by class position (Scott, 1990, pp.101-102). Finger (1989), for example, sees the ‘newness’ of new social movements as being that “it is the person who defines his or her relation to modern society” (p.15). Unlike old social movements, which strived for a more equal distribution of modernisation and development and thus targeted the creation of new power relations, the members of new social movements fundamentally question modernity, both as a reality and as an ideal, and want new, personal relationships with the world. Their politics is thus new. Whereas old movements aimed to mobilise mass movements to put pressure on the state, the political system, institutions, and thus operated at the national level, new social movements, on the other hand, act at a local and transnational level, believing that transformation must start from the individual, with the personal being the political. Thus, the highly organised movements that were seen as having a greater chance of effecting change under the old social movement thinking have been replaced by loosely structured, grassroots and global movements (pp.16- 17)
Laclau and Mouffe (1985), not surprisingly, argue from roughly the same position. They argue that the new social movements of the 1980s and 1990s signal a decline of class politics, and the rise of struggles based on ‘extraeconomic’ identities. There are thus a variety of struggles by social movements, none of which is more privileged or ‘real’ than any other.
These struggles do not have a common opponent, and do not necessarily share common interests or aims (Scott, 1990, p.104). The outcomes of these struggles is not predetermined by structural factors, but is rather the result of developments within the social movement itself, and the reaction of the movement to its environment. The overall character of any movement
is determined by whatever tendency becomes hegemonic within it, so a movement might be left-wing, but might just as easily be reactionary (Ibid.). As we have seen, Laclau and Mouffe reject the notion of any historic subject, since all subjects are created by discourses. They espouse radical democracy precisely because this says absolutely nothing about the outcome of any historical struggle, since this can never be determined (p.105).
Eyerman and Jamison (1991) adopt a ‘cognitive approach’, looking at social movements as a way of thinking new knowledge. They argue that new social movements are “best conceived as temporary public spaces, as moments of collective creation that provide societies with ideas, identities and even ideals” (p.4). Their approach begins with the assumption that social movements are forms of activity by which individuals create new kinds of social identities.
Whilst their contribution in terms of understanding social movements as spaces of knowledge creation has been considerable, I would argue, with Foweraker (1995, p.11) that their
understanding of social movements clearly falls within the approach discussed above.
There have been a number of critiques of this position. Those working within it have been accused of dehistoricising and making opaque the relationship between social movements and the political world (Foweraker, 1995, p.13). Their claim that social movements reject
modernity is unwarranted (Welton, 1993, pp.152-153), since in fact they selectively radicalize rather than reject modern values (for example emphasising social justice, especially for the marginalized (p.161)), or, at least in the peripheral countries, are the result of the shattering of the promise of real modernization (Amin, 1997, p.139). Rather than marking the end of politics, they are revitalizing political life, advocating direct or participatory democracy, and emphasing decentralisation. They directly challenge hierarchical and bureaucratic institutional forms (Welton, 1993, p.162). Welton (1993) sees new social movements as emerging in response to welfare state capitalism, with its emphasis on egoism and self-interest (pp.154-5).
The position arises primarily from a Western perspective, and thus does not necessarily explain movements that have erupted in the South.
16 Resources here mean knowledge, money, media, labour, solidarity, legitimacy, 6.3.3 Networks, structures, and other resources16 needed to mobilize supporters
The emphasis of this school of social movement theory is on how rather than why (Foweraker, 1995, p.2). Its theory is usually termed Resource Mobilization Theory (RMT), and emerged primarily in North America. Resource mobilisation theory begins with the premise that social discontent is universal; but collective action is not. Different groups with different interests are a permanent condition of modern society, and conflict between them is inevitable. Social movements are a rational manifestation of this - when individuals with grievances are able to mobilise sufficient resources to take action (Holford, 1994, pp.98-99). Thus the issue is how to mobilise, and how to resource this (especially, organisation and leadership) (Foweraker, 1995, p.15). A crucial issue for RMT is what it is that makes individuals engage in collective action. Rational choice theory, which heavily influences RMT, posits that people will always weigh up the pros and cons of any action in a rational way. Generally, people will not engage in collective action if they can benefit from it without actually having to take part (this is called the ‘free-rider’ problem). Thus incentives need to be provided for people to engage in collective action (and once in, to act in a sustained manner towards a common goal) (Munck, 1995, p.669).
RMT has come under fairly heavy criticism for its emphasis on rationality. Foweraker (1995) criticises it for seeing social actors as employing narrowly instrumental cost/benefit
rationality, rather than adopting a broader understanding, as did Weber, that people may act for habitual, affective, and expressive reasons, and not just instrumental.
RMT is also criticised for being too narrowly defined. Melucci (1989, p.3, cited in Ballard et al, 2006a, p.6), for example, says resource mobilisation theorists “tend to explain how, but not why social movements emerge and develop”. Foweraker (1995) criticises RMT for ignoring the social context within which social movement occur (p.17), and argues that the theory lacks a properly political analysis of social movements, and a realistic assessment of their impact (1995, p.3).
A number of theorists thus revised RMT by looking at mobilizing structures. They emphasise the need to look at formal/informal networks, and not only at material resources (Ballard et al, 2006a, p.5). So how social movements are formed, what networks they build on, what
institutions they use, what access they have to political and material resources, and the kinds of political action taken (eg. Sit-ins, letter-writing, violence etc) are considered, as is the broader context (Ibid.).
6.3.4. ‘Bridging’ theory
Thus the three schools identified by Ballard et al (2006a) have arisen in different contexts, and make very different arguments about the nature of social movement. The general view of
‘competing’ theories, and the critiques of the different theories, has meant that several theorists have tried to bridge the main theoretical trends.
Tarrow (1988, cited in Foweraker, 1995, p.18) has tried to merge European new social movement theory and North American resource mobilization theory in his ‘political process model’, arguing that neither theory successfully manage to “[connect] collective action to politics”. Tarrow believes that there is a need to bring the state back into the analysis (p.428, cited in Foweraker, 1995, p.18). Tarrow argues that the character and organisation of social movements varies depending on the political authority they challenge (p.19). His political process theory argues that there are three vital components for movement formation - insurgent consciousness (i.e. a collective sense of injustice felt by its members/potential members); organizational strength (i.e. resource mobilisation); and political opportunities.
Tarrow thus de-emphasises the role of culture (Ibid.); but his remains a primarily state-centric model.
Cohen and Arato (1992, cited in Foweraker, 1995, p.21) have also tried to integrate European cultural theory and resource mobilisation theory, using a re-reading of Habermas. They claim that social movements have civil society “as both target and terrain of collective action”
(Ibid.).
McAdam, Tarrow and Tilly (2001, cited in Ballard et al, 2006a, p.8) have placed greater emphasis on the mechanisms and processes that bring about action, arguing for a more dynamic approach to social movement activity/collective action. Their framework uses:
• boundary activation (i.e. us vs. them);
• diffusion (transmission of ideas/approaches to new populations);
• brokerage (linking previously unconnected actors and sites);
• radicalisation (move to more extreme tactics/agendas);
• social appropriation (appropriation of previously non-politicised sites and activities);
• category formation (creation of new social categories);
• object shift (change in perceptions/relations among actors); and
• certification (validation of actors by external authorities).
Finally, Ballard et al (2006a) argue that there is a need to look at the material structure within which social movements are formed - it is thus important to look at opportunity structures and the establishment/presence of networks and the production of shared beliefs/collective
identities (p.7).
6.3.5 The Marxist analysis of social movements
As discussed above, Cox (1998) suggests that there has not been a systematic attempt to formulate a Marxist analysis. This is deeply ironic, since Marxism itself is a theory derived from, and for, a social movement (the worker’s movement): “Marxism is a theory of social movements; and, perhaps, nothing else” (p.2). He draws specifically on the humanist activist tradition of Marxism in formulating his own theory, thus rejecting the structuralist/fatalist point of view. Rather, he draws on Gramsci, Williams and the early work of Lukacs; as well as on Thompson’s working class history. Cox argues that Western Marxism “is a theory of social movements, and one which elevates social movements to the central, perhaps the only, feature of the historical process and the social structure” (p.3).
In this analysis then, there is no space for the contention that economic and social structures are anything other than the result of human structures; and power, state, rationaility or discourse cannot be reified as either pre- or supra-social. “In other words, it is a thorough-