Social Movements in Advanced Capitalism: The Political Economy and Cultural Construction of Social Activism
Social Movements in Advanced Capitalism: The Political Economy and Cultural Construction of Social Activism
Book by Steven M. Buechler; Oxford University Press, 2000
"I identify a prevalent problem in much recent theory and research. Among other things, this problem is evidenced by a fragmented, ahistorical, decontextualized approach to collective action that has made it difficult to see the structural roots and historical consequences of collective action."
"alternatively, mainstream social movement analysis has been devoid of the critique that animates the social movements it studies." pxii
"struggle has its own partly autonomous history, a history that does not reduce simply to a reflection of the changing organization of production or of the changing structure of state power, a history that in itself influences the organization of production and the structure of state power" ( Tilly, 1995, Popular contention in Great Britain 37)
"Despite superficial similarities with earlier forms of such action, social movements brought a new dimension to collective action because their participants saw the social order as contested and malleable rather than as natural and given. In the words of two European scholars, "[t]he idea of conscious collective action having the capacity to change society as a whole came only with the era of enlightenment" ( Neidhardt and Rucht, 1991:449)"
"Historicity is also the object of ongoing conflict between classes in the form of social movements that struggle over the self-production of society and the direction of social change. Since contemporary society is more dominated than any other by its historicity, and since class relations are about control of historicity (expressed through social movements) it follows that such movements are becoming increasingly central in contemporary society." p6
""Collective actors of the past were more deeply rooted in a specific social condition in which they were embedded, so that the question of the collective was already answered from the beginning through that social condition that accounted as such for the existence of a collective actor" ( Melucci, 1996a:84)." p8
"Throughout the modern era, possible alternatives have been embodied in social movements that have agitated for the transformation of one socially constructed order into another. Although such movements rarely achieve immediate or total victories, they often contribute to reform, change, and development in the social order they challenge. In this sense, contemporary society bears the imprint of numerous past social struggles that have been inscribed in the contours and institutions of the modern world." p16
"As Melucci has noted, "movements are the social domain which most readily escapes the confines of the inherited, and most perceptibly reveals the manner and locus of the society's self-constructive processes" ( Melucci, 1996a:380)." p17
"This variability in theorizing about movements is best understood through the sociology of knowledge, which suggests that the "story of social movement theory can be told only together with the story of social movements themselves" ( Garner, 1997:1). Indeed, the prevailing view of social movements at a given historical moment reflects not just existing movements but also the larger sociohistorical climate, the dominant sociological paradigms, and the biographies of scholars themselves." p19
TYPES OF SOCIAL MOVEMENT THEORY
1..Early social movement theory focused on crowd behaviour, collective behaviour "there is thus a tendency to view this phenomenon as formless, shapeless, unpatterned, and unpredictable. "
2..A third variant of classical collective behavior theory may be found in approaches that emphasize relative deprivation as the motivating force behind participation in collective behavior. Such approaches rely on a smattering of mainstream sociological concepts with a decidedly social-psychological twist." P28
"It was a fundamental political challenge to the legitimacy of the central institutions of the society that dovetailed with a cultural challenge to the hegemony of the core values of the society." p33 on sixties
"Resource mobilization theory emerged in the 1970s as a distinctively new approach to the study of social movements. According to this perspective, social movements are an extension of politics by other means, and can be analyzed in terms of conflicts of interest just like other forms of political struggle." p34
"The standard argument was that many groups in many times and places have had grievances but have not created social movements; hence, grievances cannot be the critical factor in generating social movements. What has been more variable, and more closely correlated with collective action, is group access to and control over the various resources necessary for effective social movement activism." p35
"The third element involves what McAdam calls cognitive liberation. This subjective factor refers to a change in group consciousness whereby potential protesters see the existing social order not only as illegitimate, but also as subject to change through their own direct efforts." p37
"As the concepts of individual and collective identity became more central in social movement theory with the rise of new social movement theory, practitioners of the framing perspective demonstrated its applicability to questions of identity as well ( Hunt et al., 1994). For example, protagonist framing involves a fundamental distinction between an in-group and an out-group that identifies the allies of the movement and helps to maintain its solidarity. Antagonist framing identifies the enemies of the movement by specifying the source of the problem and villainizing the people framed as responsible for the problem that the movement is addressing. Finally, audience framing identifies the relevant bystanders to a given conflict and their potential for joining either the movement or its opposition." p42
"hese premises have led Marxists to privilege proletarian revolution rooted in the sphere of production and to marginalize any other form of social protest. New social movement theorists, by contrast, have looked to other logics of action (based in politics, ideology, and culture) and other sources of identity (such as ethnicity, gender, and sexuality) as the sources of collective action. The term "new social movements" thus refers to a diverse array of collective actions that has presumably displaced the old social movement of proletarian revolution." p46
NEW SOCIAL MOVEMENT THEORY CHARACTERISTICS:
1...the attempt to theorize a historically specific social formation as the structural backdrop for contemporary forms of collective action is perhaps the most distinctive feature of new social movement theories.
2...a causal claim that links these new movements to this societal totality; this often means seeing new social movements as responses to modernity or postmodernity.
3..A third theme concerns the diffuse social base of new social movements.
4...a premium on the social construction of collective identity as an essential part of contemporary social activism, and it has led to a belated appreciation of how even "old" class-based movements were not structurally determined as much as they were socially constructed in the mobilization process itself ( Thompson, 1963).
5...cultural side of things presenting a face to hegemony etc..
"This was obscured for a time by the cliche that resource mobilization theory explained the "how" of movement mobilization whereas new social movement theory explained the "why" of such mobilization ( Klandermans and Tarrow, 1988)." p48
"here are several noteworthy examples of new social movement theories for which the connections between societal totalities and social movements are crucial. For Melucci ( 1996a, 1989), the emphasis falls on the semiotic aspects of a postmodern information society and the numerous ways in which these elements are reflected in contemporary activism. For Castells ( 1983), it is the capitalist transformation of urban space alongside the state's role in collective consumption that provokes important forms of collective action. For Habermas ( 1987, 1984), it is the tendency in advanced capitalism for a systemic political economy to instrumentally dominate and colonize a communicative life world that provokes new forms of social resistance. For Touraine ( 1985, 1981), the nature of postindustrial, programmed society is at the root of contemporary collective action as movements challenge authorities for control of what Touraine calls "historicity." " p50 -51
RESOURCE MOBILISAITON THEORY:
"[t]he content of such work tends to assume a movement so lacking connection to a particular time and place that its existence may well be doubted. This movement suigeneris tends to be scrutinized as if it can be understood without much reference to its particular social roots or its distinctive goals but instead by utilizing an array of generic concepts. ( Darnovsky et al., 1995:xv)" P 55
Book by Steven M. Buechler; Oxford University Press, 2000
"I identify a prevalent problem in much recent theory and research. Among other things, this problem is evidenced by a fragmented, ahistorical, decontextualized approach to collective action that has made it difficult to see the structural roots and historical consequences of collective action."
"alternatively, mainstream social movement analysis has been devoid of the critique that animates the social movements it studies." pxii
"struggle has its own partly autonomous history, a history that does not reduce simply to a reflection of the changing organization of production or of the changing structure of state power, a history that in itself influences the organization of production and the structure of state power" ( Tilly, 1995, Popular contention in Great Britain 37)
"Despite superficial similarities with earlier forms of such action, social movements brought a new dimension to collective action because their participants saw the social order as contested and malleable rather than as natural and given. In the words of two European scholars, "[t]he idea of conscious collective action having the capacity to change society as a whole came only with the era of enlightenment" ( Neidhardt and Rucht, 1991:449)"
"Historicity is also the object of ongoing conflict between classes in the form of social movements that struggle over the self-production of society and the direction of social change. Since contemporary society is more dominated than any other by its historicity, and since class relations are about control of historicity (expressed through social movements) it follows that such movements are becoming increasingly central in contemporary society." p6
""Collective actors of the past were more deeply rooted in a specific social condition in which they were embedded, so that the question of the collective was already answered from the beginning through that social condition that accounted as such for the existence of a collective actor" ( Melucci, 1996a:84)." p8
"Throughout the modern era, possible alternatives have been embodied in social movements that have agitated for the transformation of one socially constructed order into another. Although such movements rarely achieve immediate or total victories, they often contribute to reform, change, and development in the social order they challenge. In this sense, contemporary society bears the imprint of numerous past social struggles that have been inscribed in the contours and institutions of the modern world." p16
"As Melucci has noted, "movements are the social domain which most readily escapes the confines of the inherited, and most perceptibly reveals the manner and locus of the society's self-constructive processes" ( Melucci, 1996a:380)." p17
"This variability in theorizing about movements is best understood through the sociology of knowledge, which suggests that the "story of social movement theory can be told only together with the story of social movements themselves" ( Garner, 1997:1). Indeed, the prevailing view of social movements at a given historical moment reflects not just existing movements but also the larger sociohistorical climate, the dominant sociological paradigms, and the biographies of scholars themselves." p19
TYPES OF SOCIAL MOVEMENT THEORY
1..Early social movement theory focused on crowd behaviour, collective behaviour "there is thus a tendency to view this phenomenon as formless, shapeless, unpatterned, and unpredictable. "
2..A third variant of classical collective behavior theory may be found in approaches that emphasize relative deprivation as the motivating force behind participation in collective behavior. Such approaches rely on a smattering of mainstream sociological concepts with a decidedly social-psychological twist." P28
"It was a fundamental political challenge to the legitimacy of the central institutions of the society that dovetailed with a cultural challenge to the hegemony of the core values of the society." p33 on sixties
"Resource mobilization theory emerged in the 1970s as a distinctively new approach to the study of social movements. According to this perspective, social movements are an extension of politics by other means, and can be analyzed in terms of conflicts of interest just like other forms of political struggle." p34
"The standard argument was that many groups in many times and places have had grievances but have not created social movements; hence, grievances cannot be the critical factor in generating social movements. What has been more variable, and more closely correlated with collective action, is group access to and control over the various resources necessary for effective social movement activism." p35
"The third element involves what McAdam calls cognitive liberation. This subjective factor refers to a change in group consciousness whereby potential protesters see the existing social order not only as illegitimate, but also as subject to change through their own direct efforts." p37
"As the concepts of individual and collective identity became more central in social movement theory with the rise of new social movement theory, practitioners of the framing perspective demonstrated its applicability to questions of identity as well ( Hunt et al., 1994). For example, protagonist framing involves a fundamental distinction between an in-group and an out-group that identifies the allies of the movement and helps to maintain its solidarity. Antagonist framing identifies the enemies of the movement by specifying the source of the problem and villainizing the people framed as responsible for the problem that the movement is addressing. Finally, audience framing identifies the relevant bystanders to a given conflict and their potential for joining either the movement or its opposition." p42
"hese premises have led Marxists to privilege proletarian revolution rooted in the sphere of production and to marginalize any other form of social protest. New social movement theorists, by contrast, have looked to other logics of action (based in politics, ideology, and culture) and other sources of identity (such as ethnicity, gender, and sexuality) as the sources of collective action. The term "new social movements" thus refers to a diverse array of collective actions that has presumably displaced the old social movement of proletarian revolution." p46
NEW SOCIAL MOVEMENT THEORY CHARACTERISTICS:
1...the attempt to theorize a historically specific social formation as the structural backdrop for contemporary forms of collective action is perhaps the most distinctive feature of new social movement theories.
2...a causal claim that links these new movements to this societal totality; this often means seeing new social movements as responses to modernity or postmodernity.
3..A third theme concerns the diffuse social base of new social movements.
4...a premium on the social construction of collective identity as an essential part of contemporary social activism, and it has led to a belated appreciation of how even "old" class-based movements were not structurally determined as much as they were socially constructed in the mobilization process itself ( Thompson, 1963).
5...cultural side of things presenting a face to hegemony etc..
"This was obscured for a time by the cliche that resource mobilization theory explained the "how" of movement mobilization whereas new social movement theory explained the "why" of such mobilization ( Klandermans and Tarrow, 1988)." p48
"here are several noteworthy examples of new social movement theories for which the connections between societal totalities and social movements are crucial. For Melucci ( 1996a, 1989), the emphasis falls on the semiotic aspects of a postmodern information society and the numerous ways in which these elements are reflected in contemporary activism. For Castells ( 1983), it is the capitalist transformation of urban space alongside the state's role in collective consumption that provokes important forms of collective action. For Habermas ( 1987, 1984), it is the tendency in advanced capitalism for a systemic political economy to instrumentally dominate and colonize a communicative life world that provokes new forms of social resistance. For Touraine ( 1985, 1981), the nature of postindustrial, programmed society is at the root of contemporary collective action as movements challenge authorities for control of what Touraine calls "historicity." " p50 -51
RESOURCE MOBILISAITON THEORY:
"[t]he content of such work tends to assume a movement so lacking connection to a particular time and place that its existence may well be doubted. This movement suigeneris tends to be scrutinized as if it can be understood without much reference to its particular social roots or its distinctive goals but instead by utilizing an array of generic concepts. ( Darnovsky et al., 1995:xv)" P 55
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