Lecture 11: Grievances and Legitimacy: Social Movements and Law in Society Guest Lecture

Question 1

context of social movement theories

Answer 1

• A predominantly American theory in sociology
• Heavily focused on the Civil Rights Movement
• An organizational view of political action (prior notions of sociological theory tend to see social movements as deviant, but social movement theories acknowledge their political function)
• An alternative to rational choice theory’s view of collective action (social movement theories acknowledge that people don’t always act rationally)
• A rejection of social psychology

Question 2

social movement theories as a a distinctive phenomenon of capitalist democracies

Answer 2

• Close relations to working class mobilization and social revolution
• Close relations to economic developments and political institutions
• Close relations to historical legacy of oppression, racism, and inequality

Question 3

the polity model

Answer 3

• A structural view of political movements
• A political system incorporating formal (legal) and informal (normative/cultural) means of control
• These relationships involve coercion, normalization, and repression

Question 4

social movement theories on law

Answer 4

• legitimacy building -> criminalization (through the criminal justice system)
• radicalization -> normalization and stigmatization (through cultural and educational institutions)
• mobilization -> repression (through police and armed forces)

Question 5

African American protests in the Southern U.S.

Answer 5

• Heavily racist legal system and social regulation known as Jim Crow Law
• High risks of Black mobilization and political actions
• Protests against racial segregations facing legal consequences of arrests, trial, and imprisonment

Question 6

Sit-in protest comparison in Albany, Georgia, and Birmingham, Alabama

Answer 6

• Both heavily segregated areas
• Same tactics of nonviolent, sit-in protests
• In Albany, local authority implemented light coercion (arresting boycott and sit-in protesters and implementing high bail money to exhaust Civil Rights organizations)
• In Birmingham, they used direct violence (attacking and assaulting sit-in protestors to restore public order)

Question 7

The re-emergence rise of the far-right after Trump’s 2016 election

Answer 7

• Loosely connected with historical “right” political organizations in the U.S.
• Heavily stigmatized identities and political agenda
• High risk of action due to countermovement and prevalence of misinformation

Question 8

Social cost, threat assessment, and racialization in far-right white supremacists

Answer 8

• Contemporary far-right and white supremacist organizations face more difficult offline actions than online actions
• The dilemma between looking bad by associating with violence and being proud by demonstrating their extreme political agenda
• Far-right and white supremacist organizations implementing repeated yet radical ideology to build solidarity among members and navigate collective actions

Question 9

Protests in Hong Kong metropolitan areas with historical roots

Answer 9

• Local cultural identities and history of protests legacies
• Special standing of the special administrative region after British colonial ruling
• Densely populated region with over two million mobilizations
• Protests against criminal justice reforms becoming city-wide violent mobilization against the Chinese central government

Question 10

counter-intuitive findings from Hong Kong, 2019 data

Answer 10

• If people are afraid of state repression, prior police actions predict less protest
• If people are not afraid, prior police actions predict more protests
• In 2019, indiscriminate repression did not impact violent protest actions
• In contrast, police actions in arrests bring more protests generally
• Potential explanation: alternative mechanisms of social media coordination, small group mobilization, and identity-building in responding to state violence