Participants in the nuclear weapons freeze movement

Explanations of why people participate in social movements are usually ad hoc combinations of ideology, social support, and ecological factors. This survey of Californians active in the nuclear freeze movement found that rather than structural isolation, as suggested by collective behavior tradition, the participants displayed links to Democratic Party organizations and the previous anti-Vietnam War movement. At least some social movements may become institutionalized to the degree that paradigms from areas such as political sociology of institutions are needed. Social movements may have evolved beyond their earlier collective behavior origins.     

Introduction to the Social and Psychological Dynamics of Collective Action

Collective action is one of the core mechanisms of social change, and thus of major importance to social scientists, practitioners, and policy-makers. Our goal in editing this issue is to bring together recent advances on the social and psychological dynamics of collective action among members of disadvantaged as well as advantaged groups. This article introduces the contributions to this issue after a brief review of the major psychological perspectives on collective action (social identity, relative deprivation, and resource mobilization theories), and a discussion of the considerable diversity in collective action research in terms of contexts, populations, and measures. We hope that this issue contributes to a more multi-faceted and integrative understanding of the social and psychological dynamics of collective action in terms of theory, research, policy, and practice.     

Collective Action—and Then What?

Two aspects of the social psychology of collective action are of particular interest to social movement organizers and activists: how to motivate people to engage in collective action, and how to use collective action to create social change. The second question remains almost untouched within social psychology. The present article delineates research from political science and sociology concerning variables that moderate the effectiveness of collective action and maps these variables against intergroup research. Within intergroup social psychology, there is a theoretical literature on what needs to be done to achieve change (e.g., changing identification, social norms, or perceptions of legitimacy, stability, permeability). The article considers possible testable hypotheses concerning the outcomes of collective action which can be derived from intergroup research and from the synthesis of the three disciplines. For theoreticians and practitioners alike, a program of research which addresses the social-psychological outcomes of collective action and links these to identities, norms, intentions, and support for social change in bystanders, protagonists, and opponents has a great deal of interest.     

从基要主义到恐怖主义全球化时代的宗教政治

1970年代以来全球宗教复兴和宗教政治的发展，是全球化背景下社会运动的一种形式和表现。宗教基要主义和恐怖主义作为一种宗教运动，反映了对主导性的全球化意识形态的反抗，以及对全球化方案的替代性选择。这可以被界定为一种文化政治或认同政治。政治伊斯兰作为当今最突出的宗教基要主义和恐怖主义，一方面反映了全球社会运动和宗教运动的一般特征；另一方面则也是美国霸权和意识形态人为制造的结果。针对亨廷顿的文明冲突论，本文作者认为，当今的宗教与政治冲突更多地是反映了一种不同基要主义之间的冲突，而非不同文明之间的冲突。     

从边缘到主流：集体行动框架与文化情境

基于一个动员框架发生显著变化的社会运动案例,本文分析了主导运动前后两个阶段的动员框架及其转变机制。研究发现,框架转变源于社会运动领袖的策略性选择,转变背后体现的是动员框架与运动所处的宏观文化情境之间的微妙联系。具体而言,第一阶段的动员框架使用了文化情境中的边缘价值,动员效果并不理想;第二阶段,社会运动领袖对动员框架进行策略性的调整,将其与文化情境中的主流价值靠拢,在动员取得突破之后,又将边缘价值带回动员框架。随着运动的扩大,这些边缘价值被广泛传播与推广,并在运动之后延续下来,重塑了文化情境。     

The practices of collective action: Practice theory,sustainability transitions and social change

Developing theory for understanding social transformation is essential for environmental sustainability, yet mainstream accounts of collective action neglect the dynamics of daily life. Theories of practice have proved generative for the study of sustainable consumption but struggle to accommodate the roles of collective actors, strategic action and purposive collective projects in social change. In response, this paper develops a practice theoretical account of collective action pertinent to processes of large scale social change, with specific focus on transitions towards sustainability. We consider three ideal types of collective—bureaucratic organisations, groupings and latent networks—and, drawing on existing social theoretical resources that are ontologically compatible with a practice account, explore the kinds of practices and arrangements which compose them. Processes concerning strategy, bureaucracy, management, social worlds and collective identity are identified as important combinations of practices and arrangements. We suggest a key contribution of practice theory has been to identify a type of collective action we call dispersed collective activity, and we suggest how this type of activity may give rise to collectives. We conclude by suggesting further development for the realisation of the project's contribution to the analysis of sustainability transitions.     

Mobilizing Women's Strengths for Social Change

Group work aims both at helping individuals cope with personal difficulties and at eliminating social problems through collective action. Women's groups have made a unique contribution to linking personal and social change through their explicit dual focus. This paper deals with the different ways women use groups to mobilize their strengths towards social change. It begins by explaining why women chose all-female groups as the primary tool for building both individual strengths and a social movement. Key features of different group types are presented, including those focused primarily on social change and those in which social action is a secondary goal. The paper ends with a discussion of obstacles to social change and some ways women's groups can overcome them.     

Adolescent Self-Rejection and Adult Social Action: A Conditional Relationship

Objective . Theoretically informed models of the relationship between stigmatized personal identities and participation in collective social action are tested. Methods . Data from a longitudinal study of participants ( N = 4,169) followed between adolescence and the fourth decade of life are used to estimate structural equation models. Results . The data support hypotheses that perceived rejection during adolescence anticipates participation in social action under conditions when respondents reported during adolescence (1) that many of the kids at school participated in social movements ( p < .10) and (2) that they perceived themselves as having personal control over adverse outcomes ( p < .05), but not under mutually exclusive conditions. In all models, gender, mother's education, and minority status were specified as control variables. Conclusions . Early experiences of rejection and failure dispose people to engage in collective social action if they perceive social support for such action and anticipate that action will be effective.     

Pathways to Collective Protest: Calculation, Identification, or Emotion? A Critical Analysis of the Role of Group-Based Anger in Social Movement Participation

The dual-pathway model of collective action proposes two motivational pathways to collective protest, one is based on cost–benefit calculations and another is based on collective identification . The present research examined the role of feelings of group-based anger as an additional path. Study 1, a field study in the context of students' protest in Germany ( N = 201), provided evidence for a unique effect of anger. Study 2, a laboratory experiment ( N = 182), examined the desire to release aggressive tension as a psychological process underlying this effect. As hypothesized, analyses confirmed that anger affected participants' willingness to protest only to the extent that this behavior provided the opportunity of cathartic reduction in aggressive tensions. Moreover, an experimental manipulation providing an alternative means to release tension reduced the relationship between anger and willingness to protest to nonsignificance. The implications of these findings for reconceptualizing the role of anger in collective protest are discussed.     

Understanding Leaders of Repressive Social Movements

Researchers studying right-wing authoritarianism (RWA) have discussed the need to distinguish authoritarian followers from leaders. Altemeyer's (2003) studies raise several issues about political leadership in the real world. First, are most leaders of authoritarian social movements high on both RWA and social dominance (SDO)? Second, is it possible to be an authoritarian leader of a repressive social movement without being high on SDO? Third, it would be useful to develop techniques to assess SDO at a distance. Fourth, what roles do the psychological motives of need for power, need for affiliation and intimacy, and need for responsibility play in motivating leadership behavior in high SDO leaders? Finally, does social dominance exist in countries with non–Western value systems? Understanding the psychology of leaders of repressive social movements may help us develop ways to limit access to the power they crave and to mitigate the damage that they do.     

The Impossibility of Naturalism: The Antinomies of Bhaskar's Realism

From the publication of The Possibility of Naturalism, Bhaskar's critical naturalism or realism has argued for a dualistic social ontology of interpreting individuals and objective, 'real' social structures. In arguing for a dualistic ontology, Bhaskar commits himself to two antinomies; he insists that society is dependent on individuals but also independent of them, and that social action is always intentional but it also has non-intentional, material features. These antinomies are apparently resolved by appeals to emergence. In fact, the appeal to emergence is merely a disguised regression into reification and the only genuine path out of these antinomies is the adoption of a fully hermeneutic social theory in line with the positions of Winch and Gadamer.     

No Justice! Black Protests? No Peace: The Racial Nature of Threat Evaluations of Nonviolent #BlackLivesMatter Protests

Objective : Nonviolent protests have been at the center of minority interest advocacy for nearly a century, as marginalized communities air their grievances in search for substantive policy change. While groups organize and demonstrate in a peaceful manner, there is no guarantee that onlookers will perceive them as such. We find it necessary to explore what factors shape perceptions of social movement protests and how the racial composition of a demonstration can elicit dramatically different responses from onlookers. Methods : To examine the impact of racial identity on protest evaluations, we conduct a survey experiment on a total of 921 respondents. We simulate a media report concerning a Black Lives Matter protest to determine how subtle changes in the racial composition of the demonstration elicit varying perceptions of a potential for violence. Results : We find that protests that comprise all‐Black participants are perceived to have a higher probability to end in violence than more diverse demonstrations. These findings come despite an assurance that the protest in question was peaceful. Consistent with minority threat theory, these perceptions are largely driven by the sentiments of white respondents. Conclusion : We argue that ill‐conceived threat perceptions, rooted in the racial composition of Black Lives Matter protests, complicate the mission of those charged with making visible the plight of Black Americans. Even when Black protesters adhere to the “rules” of non‐violent protest, there is no guarantee that the biases of onlookers will not drown out their efforts. These findings have wide reaching implications on the exercise of First Amendment right to protest, the role of the media in reporting on protests, and the expectations of government interactions with protesters.     

试论社会工作专业机会主义发展背景下实习生的自我赋权

本文回顾中国大陆社会工作实践历程，认为现阶段社会工作专业发展有强烈的机会主义特征，即社会工作专业作为一种新的社会治理技术，从业者试图在传统的体制内嫁接该专业。在这种背景下，社会工作实习生所处的系统存在一定的局限性，．笔者提出自我赋权的理念，并从个人、人际、社区或政治三个层次分析实习生面临的处境，并进一步提出实习生可以通过自我赋权的途径克服其所处系统的局限性，以获得成长。     

Users as Citizens: Collective Action and the Local Governance of Welfare

Self-organization amongst users of community care services preceded the consumerist developments of the 1980s and early 1990s, but can be considered to have been "legitimized" by top-down objectives relating to "user involvement". Nevertheless, the objectives and value bases of disabled people's organizations and organizations of users (or survivors) of mental health services have not always been consistent with those of consumerism, and user groups have experienced tensions in determining the extent to which they should respond to official agendas. Drawing on theories of new social movements and of citizenship, this paper considers the developing place of user organizations within systems of local governance. It looks at the way in which groups have sought to assert the legitimacy both of experiential knowledge and of their position as citizens in the face of official responses which have constructed them as self-interested pressure groups. It draws on empirical research investigating local groups of disabled people and of mental health service users conducted in the first part of the 1990s. It discusses the significance of shared identity as a basis for collective action alongside more pragmatic motivations to influence the nature of health and social care services. In the context of appeals to "community" and "partnership" which are starting to replace the discourse of markets and contracts as the key metaphor for both policy-making and service delivery, the article considers likely future roles for groups comprising people often excluded from community.     

Realism and Contingency

This paper constitutes an extended response to Athanasia Chalari's paper The Causal Impact of Resistance, which suggests that one may derive from internal conversations a causal explanation of resistance. In the context of our engagements with critical realism and digital research into social movements, we review Chalari's main argument, before applying it to a concrete case: the student protests in London, 2010. Whilst our account is sympathetic to Chalari's focus on interiority, we critique the individualism that is implicit in her argument, arguing that it emerges because of an underlying neglect of the relational aspects of resistance. Instead, we offer a relational realist analysis that treats resistance as process within an ontologically stratified account of reality that is mindful of the contingency of political acts. Taking this route, we establish resistance as an emergent relation, generative of distinctive “relational goods” in the context of collective action, which we locate at different levels of reality, as we move from an analysis of individual to collective reflexivity. In doing so we offer a sympathetic critique of Chalari, building on the thought provoking arguments contained within it, whilst also making a contribution to the theorisation of social movements and the “relational turn” within realist social theory (Archer, 2010, 2012).     

Effectiveness of Local Governance: Interactions Between Social Capital and Institutional Structures

This paper critically evaluates the debate on what makes local governments more effective, higher social capital (such as trust, reciprocity, and informal social networks) or stronger institutional structures (such as democratic processes, ombudsman, and social audits). Empirical analysis of a decentralized welfare scheme in India, the Andhra Pradesh Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (APREGS), using the latent variable path analysis modeling approach reveals that creation of formal democratic institutional channels in itself does not impact governance performance. Rather, it is mediated by complex institutional and social capital issues. For example, formal information dissemination activates social capital, leading to effective local governance. However, this (higher social capital and better institutions) does not automatically lead to empowerment or trust in the local government. The influence of the economically and politically powerful mediates this relationship. These and other results, cumulatively, highlight the complexity involved in the effectiveness of government empowerment initiatives. The paper calls for a fresh and wider debate on decision‐making dynamics in rural India, especially the interaction between government institutions, social capital, and the historical societal dynamics.     

Disobedience and support for democracy: Evidences from the World Values Survey

For some time, social movement research and political science have studied protests and activists. However, little empirical research attempts to relate movements to the type of social change they endeavour to achieve. In this paper, we suggest that different psychosocial processes may distinguish between different types of movement and protest. In particular, we cross lines between classical social psychology studies on the individual–authority relationship and studies on protest and social movements. We focus attention on the psychological processes triggered in obedience/disobedience. Our results show that when disobedience is associated with attitudes of inclusiveness, it is also positively linked to prodemocratic individual attitudes and to the enhancement of democracy at institutional levels.     

The Efficacy of a Community-Based Project in a Chinese Context

In this paper, the authors report the results of an exploratory study which assessed the service efficacy of a collaborative service initiative developed by a university academic department and a community-based social service agency in a socially deprived and remote community in Hong Kong. The project aimed to foster mutual help and self-help of low-income families and deepen their social connection with the community. Service efficacy was assessed using a structured questionnaire and a focus group interview. After participating in the service project, the well-being of the participants has become better and their family relationships have improved. They have developed a stronger sense of belonging toward the community. The preliminary findings support the importance of creating social network in social work practice for low-income families residing in a deprived and remote neighborhood.     

The labour movement and mutual benefit societies: Towards an international approach

The comparative history of the mutualist and workers'movements shows up several notable points of convergence, from their beginnings up until the Second World War. They were branches of a common tree: tradesmen's and workers'guilds were more often than not at the origin of union and pre-union organizations and mutual aid societies. The two movements also developed in parallel over the course of the two industrial revolutions of 1780-1840 and 1880-1890. Despite this, their paths began increasingly to diverge. Setting out from the same essentially craft-based social milieu as the unions, the mutualist movement gradually took root among the lower-middle and middle classes, the civil service and the military. The mutualist ideology of a common good shared among the social classes was the antithesis of the prevailing ethos in the union movement, of which class struggle was the defining attribute. Finally, the aims of the two movements also diverged: on one hand the trade unionists, engaging in mass and sometimes violent action in support of immediate demands; on the other, the mutualists, working away at their necessarily long-term administrative tasks. From the last quarter of the nineteenth century on, therefore, the mutualist and workers'movements entered into a process of increasing diversification.     

The Dynamics of Welfare Policy‐Making in South Korea: Social Movements as Policy Entrepreneurs*

This paper analyzes the role of social movements in the creation and evolution of a welfare state in South Korea. We begin with a theoretical overview of the existing works on policy change, highlighting concepts such as ideas, policy paradigms, and windows of opportunity. We then examine state institutions, hegemonic policy paradigms, and the specific dynamics of welfare policy‐making during South Korea’s authoritarian period (1961–1987). Next, characterizing the democratic transition in 1987 and the economic crisis of 1997–1998 as “windows of opportunity,” we probe how social movements emerged as “policy entrepreneurs” and played crucial roles in building welfare institutions and promoting welfare policies. In particular, we focus on the role of social movements in legislating the National Basic Livelihood Security Act in 1999 and consolidating fragmented health insurance systems in 2000. We conclude that social movements in democratized South Korea have assumed the role of policy entrepreneurs, filling the vacuum left by the central government and elite bureaucrats in the field of social welfare policy‐making.