Mobilization Processes and the 1989 Chinese Democracy Movement

Using a multimethod strategy, we identify and analyze mobilization processes associated with the rapid emergence of the 1989 Chinese Democracy Movement. We propose that the confluence of macro-, meso-, and micromobilization processes and linkages among them provide a more robust model for understanding social movement dynamics. While the Chinese Democracy Movement was facilitated by economic reforms, regime crises, delayed repression, and the presence of foreign journalists, institutional forces were not sufficient in explaining the rapid and extensive mobilization. Students were able to overcome deficits in organizational and media resources by co-opting extant networks and by developing resonant collective action frames. Their frame alignment strategies and nonviolent direct action tactics tended to resonate with ordinary people's observations and experiences as well as with traditional Chinese narratives of Confucianism, nationalism, and communism. State reactions and counterframings, on the other hand, failed to sway the masses. Instead, participation spread from a few hundred college students to millions of citizens and ended, tragically and ironically, with the "People's Army" slaughtering its own people around Tiananmen Square.     

动员效力与经济理性:农户参与新农保的行为逻辑研究——基于武汉市新洲区双柳街的调查

本文通过问卷调查发现,农户普遍了解新农保,参保积极,但缴费水平偏低;宣传动员有助于提升农户信息了解程度,从而提升农户参保广度,但对参保深度无显著影响。当信息充分时,农户参保行为是完全经济理性行为,情理动员无显著影响;当信息不充分时,农户参保行为是有限理性行为,情理动员可以提升参保广度,但参保深度不足。社会动员效力与特定社会背景下社会成员的价值理念相关。在当前经济理性主导下,社会动员必须符合农户的经济利益。作为后发展国家,社会成员对新制度的理解与接受能力有限,社会动员具有推动社会跨越式发展的功能。     

The South African Monoplane Hysteria: An Evaluation of the Usefulness of Smelser's Theory of Hysterical Beliefs*

An outbreak of monoplane sightings within British South Africa during 1914 is examined as a case of mass hysteria. The incident is used to evaluate the utility of Smelser's category of the negative or hostile hysterical belief manifestation within Smelser's value-added theory of collective behavior, namely: structural conduciveness, structural strain, growth and spread of a generalized belief, mobilization of participants for action, and inadequate measures by agencies of social control. Each of these was found to be present during the period immediately prior to and encompassing the collective episode, thus supporting Smelser's explanation. However, Smelser's objectivist approach labels collective behavior as irrational and is limited beyond providing a general ordering of conditions involved in a particular collective action.     

ALAIN TOURAINE, MANUEL CASTELLS AND SOCIAL MOVEMENT THEORY: A CRITICAL APPRAISAL

The "action theory" of Alain Touraine and Manuel Castells' theory of urban movements together constitute a social movement paradigm which differs significantly from both the traditional collective behavior explanation and the newer resource mobilization model. In this paper, the Touraine-Castells perspective is contrasted to the existing approaches with reiation to social movement causes, characteristics, and outcomes. It is argued that the work of this "French School" represents a partial realization of Traugott's (1978) attempt to reconceptualize social movements as distinct phenomena integrally linked to the analysis of social change outside institutional channels.     

Social Strain, Structural Breakdown, Political Opportunity, and Collective Action

Sociology traditionally identified social strain and structural breakdown as causes of collective action. Such explanations were widely interpreted as endorsing social order and viewing its breakdown and the resulting collective action in a negative light. In the 1970s, advocates of the resource mobilization perspective criticized strain and breakdown explanations and this negative connotation of collective action. Rather than strain or breakdown, these theorists explained collective action in terms of solidarity, interests, and resources. Despite these criticisms, strain and breakdown explanations persisted at the margins of mainstream social movement theory. Moreover, the resource mobilization approach invoked 'opportunity' to explain collective action. There is a strong resemblance between 'strain and breakdown' and 'opportunity'. Both explain collective action in terms of external, facilitating conditions, but opportunity explanations connote a more favorable evaluation of the resulting collective action. Such resemblances suggest the viability of a synthesis between older and newer explanations of collective action.     

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.     

Continuing Validity of the Collective Behavior Approach

This study evaluates the collective behavior (CB) approach that dominated studies of social movements from the 1920s to the 1970s. Its roots lie in five scholarly traditions: Durkheim (collective consciousness), Mill (a sum of individual cost‐benefit calculations), Weber (charisma and bureaucracy), Simmel (interaction of individuals), and European mass psychology. CB studies began in Chicago University in the 1920s by Robert E. Park. His pupil Herbert Blumer made the basic classifications in the field. In the interactionist school, Ralph Turner and Lewis Killian stressed the emerging norms that modify CB, and Kurt and Gladys Engel Lang focused on collective processes. In the structure‐functionalistic school, Talcott Parsons stressed the impact of cultural trends in movement emergence, and Neil Smelser developed a value‐added theory of how social movements form. CB tradition was attacked in the 1960s when its theories did not fit into the student movement and there was a paradigm shift to resource mobilization and Marxist approaches. However, with the rise of constructivism, the ideas of CB have been reinvented in new social movement studies.     

The integrative power of online collective action networks beyond protest. Exploring social media use in the process of institutionalization

Abstract

In this article, we aim at expanding the event-based and protest-centered perspective that is typically adopted to study the nexus between social media and movements. To this aim, we propose a network-based approach to explore the changing role that these tools play during the dynamic unfolding of movement processes and, more particularly, over the course of their institutionalization. In the first part, we read the added value of social media as a function of the ‘integrative power’ of the networks they foster – a unique and evolving form of sociotechnical power that springs from the virtuous encounter between social media networking potential and social resources. In the second part, we investigate this form of power by focusing directly on online networks’ structure as well as on the type of communication and participation environments they host. We apply our proposed approach to the longitudinal exploration of the Twitter networks deployed in the period 2012–2014 during three annual editions of the transnational feminist campaign ‘Take Back The Tech!’ (TBTT). Results from our case study suggest that, over time, TBTT supporters do in fact make a differentiated use of social media affordances – progressively switching their communicative strategies to better sustain the campaign’s efforts inside and outside institutional venues. Thus, the exploration of the TBTT case provides evidence of the usefulness of the proposed approach to reflect on the different modes in which social media can be exploited in different mobilization stages and political terrains.     

How Theory and Research Inform Citizen Participation in Poor Communities: The Ecological Perspective and Theories on Self- and Collective Efficacy and Sense of Community

The engagement of residents in poor, disadvantaged communities has been a focus of social work practice since the early part of the twentieth century. In the person:environment configuration, a renewed appreciation is building for community-level factors in human behavior and functioning. Poor neighborhoods are transactional settings that can negatively impact human behavior and development. However, active citizen participation can positively impact neighborhoods, including strengthening residents' individual and collective capacities and relationships. This article uses the ecological perspective to examine the neighborhood as a transactional setting that influences individual and collective behavior and outcomes and citizen participation as vehicle for improving outcomes for residents living in poor communities. The article also discusses theory and research on self- and collective efficacy and sense of community to understand the motivation for and benefits of citizen participation. Implications for social work research and practice are discussed.     

Socio-historical foundations of citizenship practice: after social revolution in Portugal

This article shows how macro-historical processes of change can activate robust and enduring forms of citizenship practice, providing both survey-based evidence for this claim and a theorization of the causal mechanisms involved. Focusing on the case of Portugal, where democratization followed the historically unusual path of social revolution, we examine survey data on civic practice covering twenty countries and find Portugal to be a world leader in public participation in the electronic public sphere. When we examine the subsection of the population socialized politically in the country’s post-revolutionary democracy, we find another important indicator of lively citizenship practice. The article takes the examination of this specific national case as the basis for developing an argument of broad theoretical relevance on the social underpinnings of lively and participatory citizenship practice. With an empirical foundation for our claims in survey data and other sources, our analysis of Portugal offers an interpretation of the case, leading to substantial revision of assumptions in the extant literature. More importantly, through our examination of this case, we show how large-scale macro-historical processes of change can encourage lively civic practice manifested at the individual level. Our argument highlights the importance of hierarchy-challenging collective experiences that reconfigure cultural frameworks and reorient the character of institutional practice. We take up the implications of this argument for cases lacking a history of revolution and find certain parallels with national cases shaped by movements of social reform as in the social democracies of Scandinavia.     

Everyday politics,social practices and movement networks: daily life in Barcelona's social centres

The relations between everyday life and political participation are of interest for much contemporary social science. Yet studies of social movement protest still pay disproportionate attention to moments of mobilization, and to movements with clear organizational boundaries, tactics and goals. Exceptions have explored collective identity, ‘free spaces’ and prefigurative politics, but such processes are framed as important only in accounting for movements in abeyance, or in explaining movement persistence. This article focuses on the social practices taking place in and around social movement spaces, showing that political meanings, knowledge and alternative forms of social organization are continually being developed and cultivated. Social centres in Barcelona, Spain, autonomous political spaces hosting cultural and educational events, protest campaigns and alternative living arrangements, are used as empirical case studies. Daily practices of food provisioning, distributing space and dividing labour are politicized and politicizing as they unfold and develop over time and through diverse networks around social centres. Following Melucci, such latent processes set the conditions for social movements and mobilization to occur. However, they not only underpin mobilization, but are themselves politically expressive and prefigurative, with multiple layers of latency and visibility identifiable in performances of practices. The variety of political forms – adversarial, expressive, theoretical, and routinized everyday practices, allow diverse identities, materialities and meanings to overlap in movement spaces, and help explain networks of mutual support between loosely knit networks of activists and non‐activists. An approach which focuses on practices and networks rather than mobilization and collective actors, it is argued, helps show how everyday life and political protest are mutually constitutive.     

Social Movement Rhetoric and the Social Psychology of Collective Action: A Case Study of Anti-Abortion Mobilization

This paper seeks to contribute toward anintegrated approach to social movement mobilization. Itdoes so through considering how a social psychologicalaccount of the determination of collective behavior (self-categorization theory) may be applied tothe mobilization rhetoric of social movements. Morespecifically it argues that as people may definethemselves and act in terms of social categy usefully conceive of social movement rhetoricas being organized so as to construct social categorydefinitions which allow the activists preferred courseof action to be taken on by others. Our theoretical argument is illustrated throughthe detailed analysis of category construction incontemporary U.K. anti-abortion argumentation.     

Institutional Pluralism,Organizations, and Actors: A Review

The institutional logics perspective holds the promise of delivering where neo‐institutionalist theory has disappointed – the ability to address key societal problems such as inequality, social discrimination, and economic insecurity – a promise that, as of yet, has been unrealized. In this review, I provide an overview of the body of work within the institutional logics perspective that addresses the co‐existence of multiple institutional logics influencing identities, values, cognitive frameworks, and practices – institutional pluralism. I demonstrate how pluralism diverges from conventional neo‐institutionalist theory in its view of institutional fields as heterogeneous spaces. I then review the implications for organizations and social actors responding to multiple logics in the institutional environment. In the discussion section, I argue that the study of pluralism, in acknowledging human agency, politics, and collective mobilization, opens the door for creative resolutions to societal problems hitherto overlooked in neo‐institutional theory. Despite the promise, I address key research areas that remain unresolved or under‐addressed in the institutional pluralism perspective.     

Social Movement Rhetoric and the Social Psychology of Collective Action: A Case Study of Anti-Abortion Mobilization

This paper seeks to contribute toward anintegrated approach to social movement mobilization. Itdoes so through considering how a social psychologicalaccount of the determination of collective behavior (selfcategorization theory) may be applied tothe mobilization rhetoric of social movements. Morespecifically it argues that as people may definethemselves and act in terms of social categories, we may usefully conceive of social movement rhetoricas being organized so as to construct social categorydefinitions which allow the activists preferred courseof action to be taken on by others as their own. Our theoretical argument is illustrated throughthe detailed analysis of category construction incontemporary U.K. anti-abortion argumentation.     

Social movements and the politics of care: empathy,solidarity and eviction blockades

ABSTRACT

This paper develops a perspective of mobilization based on the ethics of care to explore the complexities of political solidarity in social movements. On the one hand, it is interested in the reasons why commonly aggrieved individuals do not always collaborate to confront their oppression. On the other, it explores why sometimes people initiate mobilization for causes that do not benefit them directly. From a care perspective, aggrieved individuals may not mobilize to confront their troubles because some of their caring needs (emotional, identity, and participatory) are not covered. At the same time, empathy motivates people not affected by a grievance to initiate mobilization in support of the oppressed collective. Internal solidarity among those aggrieved may be created during the process of mobilization through care work. The analytical relevance of this model is demonstrated explaining the mobilization of the ‘Platform of Those Affected by Mortgages’, the biggest housing organization in Spain. A care-based approach to mobilization contributes to our analysis of contentious collective action by helping to better understand the complexities of political solidarity and the mechanisms through which organizations foster solidarity among their members.     

Minority status and culture: local constructions of diversity in a classroom in the Netherlands

In this paper, we explain diversity in knowledge‐sharing strategies in a multi‐ethnic classroom both from a minority status perspective and from a cultural production perspective. The analysis shows how these perspectives are dynamically related in local productions of diversity. The paper argues how, at the level of classroom practice, culturally learned experiences are shaped by status relationships and, at the same time, how status relationships are expressed in cultural formats. Moreover, it is also argued that at a larger social level, collective attitudes towards schooling develop as a co‐construction between cultural processes and status issues.     

The emergence of social enterprises through the initiative of self-organized citizens: an analysis starting from Olson's approach to the logic of collective action

This article provides indirect empirical evidence with which to verify whether the logic of collective action maintained by Olson represents a sound theoretical approach to social enterprises. Our hypothesis is that, if a positive effect of participation in social enterprises on pro-social attitudes of members exists, when considering these organizations we should move from the approach proposed by Olson to the one proposed by Putnam, in the Tocqueville tradition. Overall, the existing empirical and experimental evidence seems to suggest that Putnam's approach to voluntary organizations is better able than Olson's to capture the organizational behavior of social enterprises, confirming that initiatives by self-organized citizens should be considered a possible convincing explanation for their emergence.     

How social ties contribute to collective actions on social media: A social capital approach

In public relations research into civic engagement, the influence of social ties on the individual level has not been adequately studied from a social capital perspective. To fill this gap, this study conducts a one-factor between subjects experiment to examine the difference, if any, between the social influence of strong ties and of weak ties on individuals’ participation intentions in regard to collective actions. This study postulates collective efficacy as a factor possibly associated with the intention to participate in collective actions. The study findings suggest that advocacy about certain social causes, such as veterans affairs, have globally positive effects on publics’ civic engagement intentions, regardless of the norms of the social network with which the individuals are connected. Furthermore, collective efficacy was found to be positively associated with participation in collective actions. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.     

The Sociologist as Teacher in a Time of Crisis

Abstract

A recent wave of research promotes the idea that anonymity or deindividuation precipitates collective behavior. Specifically, anonymous individuals are more likely to participate in collective behavior events than people among friends and acquaintances. To reconsider this recent resurgence of a more contemporary contagion theory, we replicate and expand upon Aveni's (1977) study of crowd behavior. Our survey data of crowd and collective behavior participants show that anonymity actually hinders the emergence of collective behavior. Rather, collective behavior participants are more likely to be in small groups rather than isolated individuals. Our data do suggest that one form of anonymity (i.e., anonymity from formal agents of social control) can facilitate the emergence of collective behavior.     

Investigating the organizational everyday: a critical feminist approach

ABSTRACT

This article considers the possibilities and limits of applying institutional ethnography, a feminist theoretical and methodological approach that contributes to collective projects of investigating and transforming social life. Elaborating on the approach, the article reports on an ethnographic exploration of visual artists’ experiences and struggles in Canada's art world – a project that started from the standpoint of practising visual artists, examined their work and relations, and explicated practices and logics of art and valued work conditioning their lives. Speaking back to formal or text-based investigations of particular institutions, the article grapples with how to engage in research that more fully reveals the ‘social,’ attending to everyday life, to the ‘life work’ that people do, and to social forms that are threaded through intersecting, localized intimate and institutional spheres.