Lecture 8 Flashcards
The Political Process Model: main presumptions (1)
- Social movement is a political rather than psychological phenomenon (in political approach: members of the system vs challengers of the system)
- Core factors: political opportunities, readiness, efficacy
o Political opportunities are open so you feel ready and empowered that you can make changes
o Provides an external political framework to social movement - Movement represents a continuous process (from generation to decline)
o Contributions to failing social movements: losing hope of the movement, the power holders want to keep the status quo, so they will organize counter movements against the social movement - Rational attempt by the excluded groups to mobilize sufficient political leverage
- There is a strong relationship between structural power and those who are subject to it
o Ability to disrupt the functioning of the system
Power holders can still be interrupted by excluded groups as they are kind of dependent of the ‘inferiors’
What do we need for the Political Process Model
- Broad socio-economic processes that prove to be disruptive: wars, international political realignments, prolonged unemployment, widespread demographic changes
- Political opportunities
o The broad socio-economic processes restructure existing power relations (indirect effect)
o At different times political systems can be more or less open to specific groups
o Political opportunities increase the political power of excluded groups (political leverage)
Political opportunities increase the likelihood of success:
Because of reduced power discrepancy between insurgents and the opponents
That is why the bargaining position increases
Because the costs of repressing the insurgent action increase
Risks associated with movement participation decrease
Indigenous organizational strengths
cultural connectedness, participation, traditional ceremony, and even language preservation
Resources that enable insurgent groups to exploit opportunities
Established associational and communication network
Integration of members (they are more easy to mobilize/target for a protest)
‘’Established structures of solidarity incentives’’ – interpersonal rewards (helps to avoid ‘’free rider’’ problem)
Recognized leadership
Example of disruptive tactics: Montgomery bus boycott
Example of mobilizing networks and resources:
Cognitive liberation
Cognitive liberation is the notion that when people feel as though their involvement will make a difference, based on the “‘subjective meanings they attach to their situations’
Insurgents need to take a complex set of cognitive cues into account
Individual members have to understand the different landscapes of their political desires, therefore they need to think about and educate themselves on all political cues to understand what meaningful event they can take out of it
Political conditions become meaningful events communicating about possible success of protesting
Increased sense of group efficacy
Social integration gives people a sense of empowerment to change conditions
When do people NOT protest?
If there are many parties, preferences will be articulated in parliament and people will not need to engage in protest
In a multiparty system, people may feel that their interests are already well represented in national parliaments and so are not motivated to undertake more protesting
Criticism of political opportunity approach?
- Social movement does not always seek a political goal; it can also be psychological, social and cultural
- It is not always a rational instrument thinking or moving ahead
- Political Opportunity Structure becomes a sponge that is used to explain so much, it may ultimately explain nothing
- Not all movements are focused on political decision-making
Inglehart’s Modernization Theory
People grow up in more secure societies. Thus, more emphasis is placed on the meaning and quality of life
- Increasing material security shift in cultural values (e.g. for religion, tolerance)
- Value priorities correspond to generations or age cohorts. Age cohorts that had experiences of war and scarcity, would give are relatively high priority to economic security and safety needs
- For the younger cohorts, values related to the quality of life and self-expression become more important
The scarcity hypothesis
Based on the Maslowian idea of value hierarchy: survival needs are fulfilled
Modernization Theory (Inglehart, 1977/1990)
How to measure these materialist and post-materialist values?:
- Giving people more say in important government decisions
- Protecting freedom of speech
Post-materialism and New Social Movements (Martin, 2015)
- Old movements are concerned with the struggles of the working-class’s material security
- NSM reflect the post-material values of an emergent and aspiring new middle class
o Old left vs. new left - Habermas: a society seeks to resist technocratic control over social life via self-management
o Old politics addresses economic problems of modern capitalism
o New politics relates to new problems of late capitalism that have to do with quality of life, equal rights, individual self-realization, participation and human rights (Habermas 1987: 392; in Martin, 66)
Criticism of new social movements
- New social movements are not really new (identity movements also occurred in the past)
- Many of the contemporary social struggles appear more old than new (concerns the issues of well-being, economic security, precarity of working conditions)
- Many movements combine concerns for material deprivation with newer concerns around autonomy and independent living
The political process model (McAdam)
excluded groups have potential for a successful insurgency
The political process model is based on a particular conception of power in America
the perspective advanced here rests on the fundamental assumption that wealth and power are concentrated in America in the hands of a few groups
social movements are seen as rational attempts by excluded groups to mobilize sufficient political leverage to advance collective interests through noninstitutionalized means
The political process model identifies three sets of factors that are believed to be crucial in the generation of social insurgency.
The first is the level of organization within the aggrieved population (degree of organizational “readiness” within the minority community)
the second, the collective assessment of the prospects for successful insurgency within that same population (level of “insurgent consciousness” within the movement’s mass base)
third, the political alignment of groups within the larger political environment (the “structure of political opportunities” available to insurgent groups)
what accounts for such shifts in the “structure of political opportunities” where change is easier to be obtained?
three steps of emergence of a protest movement
The emergence of a protest movement entails a transformation both of consciousness and of behavior. The change in consciousness has at least three distinct aspects. (cognitive liberation)
First, “the system”-or those aspects of the system that people experience and perceive-loses legitimacy.
Second, people who are ordinarily fatalistic, who believe that existing arrangements are inevitable, begin to assert “rights” that imply demands for change.
Third, there is a new sense of efficacy; people who ordinarily consider themselves helpless come to believe that they have some capacity to alter their lot
