Social movements Flashcards
What exactly is a social movement.
Is it a small or a large phenomenon.
Does it always involve protest.
There are some common dimensions in definitions of social movement, but there is also much heterogeneity in regard to the degrees of organisation, goals etc that must be present for a social movement to exist (Snow and Oliver, 1995; Opp, 2009)
The definition for protest “A joint action of individuals aimed at achieving their goal by influencing decisions of a target” (Opp, 2011)
However if we defined a social movement like this, it designates groups, such as unions, that we would not usually call a social movement. Therefore Opp (2011) suggested that a social movement is a certain kind of “protest group”. The larger and more formal its organisation, along with its longevity, the closer it comes to a social movement.
Rational choice theory
The rational choice theory provides a basis to explain the social movement.
Humans are rational actors - have a desire to maximise their expected benefit whilst having the least cost. The decision to join a movement depends on the incentives for individual participation.
Bounded rationality - real life choices are highly situational and context dependent, i.e. they are based upon the emotional state of the decision.
Most potential choices are not considered due to a limited cognitive capacity; therefore, individuals rely on intuitions and heuristics. Familiarity and previous experiences affect our choices as we are vicarious learners.
Rational-choice theory in general is that it is over simplistic. It assumes that individuals have perfect knowledge of the world around them, that they know their own preferences and interests. Ignoring the fact that to acquire the information it can entail huge costs (Ioannou, 2017).
What exactly is collective action (in the context of this module you need to remember that the focus is on collective action as a root cause of terrorism).
Theory of collective action – Underlining theory = Rational choice (Olson, 1965)
Any contribution to the provision of a public good is, by definition “collective action”. The term collective suggests that the action must be carried out by at least 2 people, if not more.
Unless the group is small, there must be a factor that makes individuals act in a common interest. Individuals are rational and self-interested, and so will not act unless there is a selective incentive stimulating an individual to act in a group-orientated way.
The stronger the positive selective incentive for contributing and the stronger the negative selective incentives for not contributing = Participation
At a micro level, the higher the costs (emotional, finanical) to contribute to the provision of the public goods, the less likely to contribution.
Also, the more intense the goal of providing the public good, and the higher percieved influence is the more likely the individual will participate in a social movement.
The larger the group, the higher perceived personal influence and group success. Percieved group success is also influenced by the similarity of present planned action to successful past action. This perception increases likelihood of activating a norm to participate.
Paradox - Public goods have a non-excludability which can lead to the free-rider effect. - why would you participate if you get the reward regardless?
Incentives must be selective to prevent those who remain from contributing from benefiting from the collective good.
Value expectancy
A more specific version of RCT is value-expectancy theory (Eagly and Chaiken, 1993) which focuses on an individuals willingness to participate
Effected by
The collective motive which describes the value of the public good to the individual
The social motive which describes social incentives
The reward motive which describes material incentives
According to expectancy-value theory, behavior is a function of the expectancies one has and the value of the goal. It predicts that, when more than one behavior is possible, the behavior chosen will be the one with the largest combination of expected success and value.
Resource mobilisation
Is about the dynamics and tactics (e.g. protest behaviour, mobilisation of resources) of social movement growth, decline and change (McCarthy & Zald, 1977).
The resource mobilization theory invokes the importance of the availability of suitable resources in the birth of a social movement. The term “resources” in this context refer to things like money, labour, social status, knowledge, support of the media and political elites, etc (Dobson, 2001;).
Social movements occur because of a change in the available resources and an individual’s conclusions about the costs and benefits of participation, rather than one born of a psychological predisposition to marginality and discontent (Klandermans,1984).
The greater the resources available to conscience adherents the more likely is the development of organisations that respond to preferences for change
Social movements often seek out and receive resources from constitutes. - The flow of resources will be less stable if the organisation consists of isolated constituents and more of those resources will need to spent on advertising to reach out to these isolated constituents
Organisations can set up local branches to bind constituents but this is problematic if there are conscience constituents present as the latter are likely to have allegiances to multiple organisations which will reduce loyalty
Older organisations are more likely to survive than newer organisations as longevity is positively related to legitimacy. They are also more likely to have professional staff and this be more effective
One of the major criticisms of this theory is that it has an extremely strong “materialist” orientation in that it gives primacy to the presence of appropriate resources (especially money) in explaining the birth of social movements - There are social movements that have been born even when resources (especially financial ones) were scarce.
Political process model
The political opportunities model is described as the dominant approach in the social movement literature.
Political opportunity structures alter the real or perceived chance of success for social movements and protest behaviour.
POS are elements of the environment that individuals cannot control whereas resources refer to discretionary goods which the individual is able to control. Therefore, resource mobilisation and political process are not mutually exclusive
The structures have been operationalised as follows, the opening of access to participation, evidence of political realignment with the people, appearance of influential allies, emerging splits with the elite, and decline in states capacity of willingness to press dissent (McCadam et al, 1996)
The linear model = negative linear relationship between POS as the independent variable and protest as the dependent – POS is low = Protest is high
Curvilinear model = an inverted U function, if POS is very low then protest is absent, increasing POS raises protest but when the POS reach a certain value then protest declines – you’re in power you don’t need to protest. The data seems to best fit this model. - RATIONAL
The primary criticism of this theory is that it focuses too much on political circumstances and ignores cultural factors that might be strong enough to mitigate the effect of the political factors.
Collective identity
Your identity can relate to being a member of a group (student society) or your status role (mother)
Collective identity refers to an individuals sense of belonging to a group, you have shared views on social environment , goals and the limits and success of collective action
Stronger collective identity of a group = more likely the group engages in collective protest
Many authors agree that collective identity is something that members share. What/how many views must be shared in order to assign a collective identity? Is it a qualitative (has or doesn’t have it) or quantitative (Different degrees) concept?
Framing
The concept refers to the organisation of experience.
Frame = mental model which consist of cognitive elements – can include norms, values, attitudes and goals
Frames (mental models) of individuals stored in memory – schemas/scripts
Social movements aim to align their views of the world with others, to gain power. Success is when the social movement aligns their frame with that of the individual, and social movement participation increases. There must be a shared schema between individuals and the movement to activate protest behaviour.
There are three aspects of framing.
Frame bridging is when there is no change in the frames of the individuals, there is an increasing awareness that the individual’s frame coincides with those of the social movement.
Frame amplification involves the clarification of an interpretative frame that focuses on a particular issue or set of events
Frame transformation and this is where the frames are not congruent, therefore, they must transform their frames
Structural-cognitive model
Opp,
The main aim of this is to overcome the separation of macro perspectives (Resource Mobalisation and POS) and micro perspectives (Framing and identity), thus the model suggests that both types of perspectives can be integrated.
Macro refers to factors within society, resource mobilisation and political opportunities. This model states these variables impact the micro level variables through the altering of cognitive processing of individuals through the framing processes. These cognitive changes impact the incentives to engage in protest behaviour.
Incentives include both (non-)material costs and benefits, which includes (collective) identify or identification with a social movement
Cognitions relevant to protest behaviour, which includes the perception of social relationships are also important
The overall strength of this model is that it integrates features from all the models
Emphasize cognitive processes as well as structural constraints and opportunities but neglects cultural variables
