OUR Walmart: a case study of connective action

This article analyzes communication practices within networked social movements by exploring the network structure of an organization responsible for numerous labor actions and campaigns targeting the retail giant Walmart. This case study of the Organization United for Respect at Walmart (OUR Walmart) represents an initial attempt to map the network structure of an emergent form of labor organization. To better understand the relationship between communication and collective action, I utilize Bennett and Segerberg's [(2012). The logic of connective action: Digital media and the personalization of contentious politics. Information, Communication & Society, 15(5), 29] model of connective action to examine the organizational structure of OUR Walmart. I conducted semi-structured interviews with a dozen union representatives, OUR Walmart members, and current and former Walmart employees. My intention is to (1) delineate the network structure of a new and significant organizational form of class struggle and (2) consider the utility and validity of the logic of connective action. I conclude with a consideration of the limitations and affordances of the network structure of OUR Walmart for workers engaged in struggles for better working conditions and higher wages. This research finds support for Bennett and Segerberg's model of large-scale action networks. Moreover, this research suggests that organizationally enabled networks are an effective means of coordinating class struggle.     

From connective to collective action: internet elections as a digital tool to centralize and formalize protest in Russia

Over the past decade, an extensive body of literature has emerged on the question of how new communication technologies can facilitate new modes of organizing protest. However, the extant research has tended to focus on how digitally enabled protest operates. By contrast, this study investigates why, how, and with what consequences a heavily digitally enabled ‘connective action network’ has transitioned over time to a more traditional ‘collective action network’ [Bennett, W. L., Segerberg, A. (2013). The logic of connective action: Digital media and the personalization of contentious politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 47]. Specifically, the article scrutinizes the trajectory of the Russian protests ‘For Fair Elections.’ This wave of street protests erupted after the allegedly fraudulent parliamentary elections of December 2011 and continued into 2013. As is argued, the protests were initially organized as an ‘organizationally enabled connective action network.’ However, after eight months of street protests, Russian activists reorganized the network into a more centralized, more formalized ‘organizationally brokered collective action network.’ In order to implement this transition, they deployed ‘Internet elections’ as a cardinally new digital tactic of collective action. Between 20 and 22 October 2012, more than 80,000 activists voted online in order to create a new leadership body for the entire protest movement, the ‘Coordination Council of the Opposition.’ As the study has found, activists implemented this transition because, within the specific Russian socio-political context, enduring engagement and stable networks appeared crucial to the movement’s long-term success. With regard to achieving these goals, the more formalized collective action network appeared superior to the connective action form.     

Repression and popular collective action: Evidence from the West Bank

This article examines the connection between state repression and the dynamics of popular collective action in the Palestinian West Bank from 1976 to 1985. Unlike traditional social movement research that focuses on structural causes, the analysis is confined here to the interaction between the state and its challengers. How shifts in the form and level of repression affected the rate of collective action is the main question addressed. A dynamic, continuous-time model, based on systematic evidence, is used to answer this question. Assuming a Weibull parameterization, the model allows for time dependence of the hazard rate. With a few exceptions, repression was found to increase the rate of collective action. This finding contradicts certain hypotheses advanced by movement researchers regarding the efficacy of state coercion and control, and suggests that repression may appropriately be considered a powerful mobilizational force in similar contexts.An earlier version was presented at the annual meetings of the American Sociological Association, Cincinnati, Ohio, August 1991.     

Comparing Protest and Conflict: A Time-Series Analysis of Peasant Unrest in Japan, 1800-1877

Abstract  The objective of this study is to explore the mechanisms of peasant political protest and social conflict in nineteenth-century Japan. While political protest and social conflict have often been referred to as constituting two major categories of peasant unrest throughout feudal Japan, past studies on nineteenth-century peasant uprisings, based mainly on a class conflict paradigm, did not treat them as such. This study aims at examining differential mechanisms between protest and conflict, and at assessing the applicability of the class conflict paradigm.
A time-series analysis is performed using the annual data of peasant uprisings and antecedent socioeconomic and political conditions during the period 1800-1877. The study results strongly suggest that differential mechanisms between political protest and social conflict existed in the nineteenth-century, and that the applicability of a class conflict paradigm is, at the very least, dubious. Based on the results, combined with historical-contextual knowledge, an alternative explanation is also suggested.     

How flat organizations filter: organizational gatekeeping in a networked environment

The development of affordable Internet-based tools and platforms has led to major transformations in organizational dynamics. One key change is the shift of agency from center to ends and the consequent emergence of decentralized (networked) organizations. Focusing on the realm of collective action, we suggest that organizational configurations constructed around participants with greater agency induce organizations to promote new filtering tactics to sort out members who are valuable to the group. Drawing on Signaling Theory, we analyze the filtering behavior that organizations develop in their attempt to cope effectively with a type of tension characteristic of the digital era: The impetus to uphold egalitarian ideals on the one hand and the need to sort out desired participants on the other. Previous studies have explained how boundary work actually works in bureaucratic settings with fairly clear boundaries. This study focused instead on how new patterns of collective participation emerge, and how novel practices related to filtering are distributed in decentralized organizations. The study makes two points with theoretical implications. First, it explains an organization's decision to conduct filtering measures – a decision that on the face of it is counterintuitive since organizations operating in a digital environment can tolerate the enclosure of ‘free riders’. The second point relates to filtering practices. It shows that the emergence of new forms of participation, practices and norm, due to the development of networked media, encourages creativity in the development of specific filtering tactics, with activists considering new tactics for achieving their goals.     

Modelling free social spaces and the diffusion of social mobilization

Free social spaces have long been emphasized in the social movement literature. Under names such as safe spaces, social havens, and counterpublics, they have been characterized as protective shelters against prevailing hegemonic ideologies and as hubs for the diffusion of ideas and ideologies. However, the vast literature on these spaces has predominantly focused on internal dynamics and processes, thus neglecting how they relate to the diffusion of collective mobilization. Inspired by formal modeling in collective action research, we develop a network model to investigate how the structural properties of free social spaces impact the diffusion of collective mobilization. Our results show that the assumption of clustering is enough for structural effects to emerge, and that clustering furthermore interacts synergistically with political deviance. This indicates that it is not only internal dynamics that play a role in the relevance of free social spaces for collective action. Our approach also illustrates how formal modeling can deepen our understanding of diffusion processes in collective mobilizations through analysis of emergent structural effects.     

Fighting back: Vulnerabilities,blunders, and countermobilization by the targets in three animal rights campaigns

Among the determinants of social movement success, the characteristics and responses of nonstate organizations under attack by protestors have been overlooked. We examine three campaigns by animal rights groups against experimentation, in 1976–1977, 1987–1988, and 1988–1989. The first two campaigns stopped the research, while the third did not. One influential set of factors was the preexisting vulnerabilities—e.g., unpopular practices, internal factions—on the part of targeted organizations. Another was the strategic responses of these organizations, especially the avoidance of blunders. A growing countermovement, thirdly, affected the organizations' ability to respond effectively and avoid blunders. As a social movement expands and strengthens, it encourages counterorganizing and a hardening of resistance, so that many social movements may actually be less successful as they become larger and more visible.Revised version of a paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association, Washington, DC, August 1990.     

Masses,Crowds, Communities,Movements: Collective Action in the Internet Age

This article investigates two questions: One, how might the very differently structured social collectives on the Internet – masses, crowds, communities and movements – be classified and distinguished? And two, what influence do the technological infrastructures in which they operate have on their formation, structure, and activities? For this, we differentiate between two main types of social collectives: non-organized collectives, which exhibit loosely coupled collective behavior, and collective actors with a separate identity and strategic capability. Further, we examine the newness, or distinctive traits, of online-based collectives, which we identify as being the strong and hitherto non-existent interplay between the technological infrastructures that these collectives are embedded in and the social processes of coordination and institutionalization they must engage in, in order to maintain their viability over time. Conventional patterns of social dynamics in the development and stabilization of collective action are now systematically intertwined with technology-induced processes of structuration.     

How to become animal through writing: the case of the bear

ABSTRACT

Animals are present in many corners of our consciousness and can help us in the creative process of writing. It is in the writing, and especially writing on the edge of ignorance, that knowledge of a new kind is produced. In this process, animals have a specific power of attraction, like many famous novels have shown. Taking a close look at the concept of becoming-animal that is in itself embedded in these authors’ poetic and nearly prophetic language, animal writing is seen as an extension of dirty, interruptive or feminine writing. The French novel La peau de l’ours – The bear's skin illustrates how becoming-animal operates in fiction writing, producing a strong effect both on writer and reader. Animal writing is a molecular encounter with the wild animals that live in us and as such it is also an upheaval of the self.     

Candidate emergence as movement mobilization: An analysis of Women's post-2016 electoral engagement

Political science scholarship argues that women's underrepresentation in American politics stems from a persistent shortage of female candidates. Women are less likely to run because they often perceive individual and structural obstacles that negatively impact their electoral interest. Such barriers remain intact, yet thousands of women have signaled their interest in running for office since the 2016 election by participating in candidate training programs (CTPs). Though running for office is not commonly defined as an activist activity, this article argues that theories of collective action and movement mobilization, rather than those focusing on the psychological aspects of candidate emergence, are better equipped to explain the recent increase of electoral interest. Using EMILY's List—an elite political entity that began as a grassroots social movement organization—as a case, this article integrates scholarship from sociology and political science to examine how feminist activist organizing can impact women's interest in running for public office. I first review the research on women's candidate emergence and CTPs before discussing the electoral movement strategies and the mobilizing impact of the media and collective action frames. The article reviews recent scholarship on the Women's March and the Resistance, then synthesizes the literature to examine EMILY's List and their electoral movement strategies leading up to the 2018 midterm elections. I conclude by suggesting avenues for future research that can bridge the relationship between movements and electoral politics and advance scholarly understanding of how, when, and why women run for office.     

No Expo Network: a failed mobilization in a post-political frame

In 2015 Milan hosted the Universal Exposition with the theme ‘Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life’. Even if characterized by various scandals and problems, the edition was narrated by the mainstream media as a political and economic success. Critical voices were almost completely obscured by favorable propaganda and the ideas of development and the future proposed by the Expo rhetoric was presented as inevitable, configuring ‘the best of all possible worlds’ in a more general post-political frame. In this profile I first present the main characteristics of the No Expo Network, e.g. the actors that composed it and the main critiques that they advanced. I will then focus on the reasons for its defeat, which is then contextualized in relation to the election of the Chief Executive Officer of Expo 2015 as new Mayor of Milan. Here, we can see the continuation and structural strengthening of the neoliberal politics of Expo2015 beyond the mega event itself.     

It Takes a Tragedy to Arouse Them: Collective Memory and Collective Action during the Civil Rights Movement

This paper examines the impact that collective memories of key events related to the civil rights movement had on black political activism during the 1960s. It proposes a theory that examines the effects of collective memory on collective action by considering how events and collective memories are appropriated by political entrepreneurs for collective action. Examining four events through a rare opinion survey of blacks taken in 1966, the analysis specifies a framework that illustrates how events evolve into collective memories and how collective memories are appropriated for collective action as time passes from the original event. Qualitative materials from historical accounts, including autobiographies, biographies, and oral histories, are used to make inferences about the meaning of events to political actors. The analysis shows that one event among the four, the murder of Emmett Till, had a stronger residual effect on black activism than the other events. The findings suggest that scholarship on the movement may have underestimated the impact of Till's murder on the generation of black insurgency in the 1950s.     

Farmer producer organizations as farmer collectives: A case study from India

Small and marginal farmers in India have been vulnerable to risks in agricultural production. Several organizational prototypes are emerging to integrate them into the value chain with the objective of enhancing incomes and reducing transaction costs. Among these are Farmer Producer Organizations (FPOs). We explore the potential of FPOs as collective institutions through a case study of Avirat, one of the first FPOs in Gujarat. Our analysis suggests that FPOs have the potential to provide benefits through effective collective action. The main challenge, however, is to raise sufficient capital to maximize these benefits. We discuss the implications of our findings to policy.     

Creating the collective: social media,the Occupy Movement and its constitution as a collective actor

This paper examines the process through which Occupy activists came to constitute themselves as a collective actor and the role of social media in this process. The theoretical framework combines Melucci's (1996 Melucci, A. (1996). Challenging codes: Collective action in the information age. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]) theory of collective identity with insights from the field of organizational communication and particularly from the ‘CCO’ strand – short for ‘Communication is Constitutive of Organizing’. This allows us to conceptualize collective identity as an open-ended and dynamic process that is constructed in conversations and codified in texts. Based on interviews with Occupy activists in New York, London and other cities, I then discuss the communication processes through which the movement was drawing the boundaries with its environment, creating codes and foundational documents, as well as speaking in a collective voice. The findings show that social media tended to blur the boundaries between the inside and the outside of the movement in a way that suited its values of inclusiveness and direct participation. Social media users could also follow remotely the meetings of the general assembly where the foundational documents were ratified, but their voices were not included in the process. The presence of the movement on social media also led to conflicts and negotiations around Occupy's collective voice as constructed on these platforms. Thus, viewing the movement as a phenomenon emerging in communication allows us an insight into the efforts of Occupy activists to create a collective that was both inclusive of the 99% and a distinctive actor with its own identity.     

Parent-worker relationships in child welfare social work: a Belgian case study

The involvement of parents within child and family social work has become an important research topic during the past few decades. Within this research, a lot of attention is paid to partnership, which is recognised as a dominant concept in current thinking about the parent–worker relationship in present-day practice. The debate on parent–worker relationships, however, seems to be mainly focussed on the individual relationship between the parent and the social worker. Based on a historical analysis of policy documents on a Belgian child and family welfare service, this article offers a historical and sociopolitical contextualisation of the current debate on the parent–worker relationship. The analysis reveals that sociopolitical ideas about the responsibilities of the state, the community and the private family have induced a continuous reflection on which children and parents should be seen as the most appropriate clients for a particular service, as well as an ongoing development of diagnostic instruments to legitimise inclusion and exclusion of families within child and family social work. Consequences for parent–worker relationships in child and family social work are discussed, as well as some implications for future research on child and family social work practices.     

The political mobilization of corporate directors: socio‐economic correlates of affiliation to European pressure groups

Business has played a central role in the debate over Britain's place in the European Union. This paper examines the socio‐economic characteristics of directors of Britain's largest corporations who affiliated either to Business for Sterling or Britain in Europe. It reports associations between directors' social backgrounds and their probabilities of affiliation. Elite university education, club membership, wealth and multiple directorships were all associated with higher propensities to affiliate. The associations are consistent with the idea that directors' social resources allow them to overcome collective action problems as well as supplying them with the motivations to affiliate. They also indicated that directors form a privileged group in that they have a number of very powerful actors who can take unilateral political actions.     

Entering into,staying, and being active in a group of football supporters: a procedural analysis of engagement. The case of supporters of a French football club

In football (or soccer) stadiums, one of the ends (virages in French, or curve in Italian) brings together the most organized and ardent fans who support their team manu et voce. This article aims to define the dynamics leading individuals to become a part of a group of supporters, an engagement conceived of according to a sequential process. Through a qualitative inquiry, results show the importance of the relational networks in the process of engagement in this type of organization. Moreover, friendly interaction and the levels of sociability encountered over the course of action as part of supporting make up as much incentive to activism as may be understood in the condition of being set back in the general framework of the supporters' careers. The article ends with a discussion on the use of the sociology of collective action and mobilization in order to study the world of football supporters.     

Social workers and social action: a case study of the Australian Association of Social Workers' Victorian branch

Professional social work associations have long espoused at least a rhetorical commitment to promoting more equitable social policy outcomes. Yet too often the actions have failed to live up to the rhetoric. This article explores the social action history of the Victorian state branch of the Australian Association of Social Workers. Attention is drawn both to the highlights and lowlights of the branch's social policy interventions. The problematic nature of social action is attributed to a number of factors including deficits in skills, resources, and education. Practical suggestions are made as to how the AASW might establish a more effective social policy network in the future.     

Wikipedia in the anti-SOPA protests as a case study of direct,deliberative democracy in cyberspace

This paper contributes to the discussion on deliberative, direct democracy and volunteer mobilization in the Internet era by analyzing the vote participation levels of Wikipedia volunteer editors (Wikipedians). On 18th January 2012 in the ‘first Internet strike’ against the American ‘Stop Online Piracy Act' legislation, over two thousand Wikipedians took part in the vote concerning whether their site should undertake a protest action, with vast majority expressing support for this action. However, the vote participants formed only a tiny fraction of the total number of Wikipedians who number in millions. Although Wikipedia can be seen as an open, democratic forum practicing deliberative, direct democracy, the process of voting on Wikipedia is significantly influenced by participation inequality, with a majority of the vote participation coming from a small group of most active contributors – an effective oligarchy. This paper discusses the intricate dynamics between Wikipedia egalitarian ethos and the creed to discuss project matters deliberately on one hand and the conspicuous lack of promotion and advertisement stemming from a rule against ‘canvassing’ and an overall skepticism regarding the status of majority votes. While voters' passivity and lack of interest play a major role, as expected, another factor emerges as a significant factor responsible for the low levels of participation: an inefficient information distribution system, as the vast majority of Wikipedians were not aware of the ongoing discussions and the vote itself until after their conclusion.     

From social movements to cloud protesting: the evolution of collective identity

This article develops a conceptual framework for understanding collective action in the age of social media, focusing on the role of collective identity and the process of its making. It is grounded on an interactionist approach that considers organized collective action as a social construct with communicative action at its core [Melucci, A. 1996 Melucci, A. (1996). Challenging codes: Collective action in the information age. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]. Challenging codes: Collective action in the information age. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press]. It explains how micromobilization is mediated by social media, and argues that social media play a novel broker role in the activists' meaning construction processes. Social media impose precise material constraints on their social affordances, which have profound implications in both the symbolic production and organizational dynamics of social action. The materiality of social media deeply affects identity building, in two ways: firstly, it amplifies the ‘interactive and shared’ elements of collective identity (Melucci, 1996 Melucci, A. (1996). Challenging codes: Collective action in the information age. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]), and secondly, it sets in motion a politics of visibility characterized by individuality, performance, visibility, and juxtaposition. The politics of visibility, at the heart of what I call ‘cloud protesting’, exacerbates the centrality of the subjective and private experience of the individual in contemporary mobilizations, and has partially replaced the politics of identity typical of social movements. The politics of visibility creates individuals-in-the-group, whereby the ‘collective’ is experienced through the ‘individual’ and the group is the means of collective action, rather than its end.