Together all the way? Abeyance and co-optation of Sunni networks in Lebanon

ABSTRACT

This article assesses how social movement continuity may vary in non-democratic and repressive contexts. Using a single case study of Islamist networks in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli over three decades, I ask: Under what conditions is social movement continuity possible, and in what form? Former studies have three levels of abeyance - activist network and personnel; movement goals and repertoires; and collective identities and symbols - are instructive. Network survival and abeyance structures can facilitate rapid mass protests in case of a facilitating external conjuncture. This analysis relies on data collected during fieldwork conducted over a decade in Tripoli, triangulated with secondary literature and primary sources in Arabic. I find that four individual-level continuity pathways are available in authoritarian contexts: continuation of activism; disengagement; co-optation; and arena shifts. These pathways should not be seen as final and stable outcomes but as fluctuating and contingent processes, or pathways. Due to the ambiguity of informal networks, co-opted movements may easily turn against the authorities once again. Moreover, local legacies of protests may be used as resources by new protest leaders.     

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.     

‘Not that kind of atheist’: scepticism as a lifestyle movement

This article examines atheist activists from a lifestyle movement perspective. I focus on how atheist activists adopt the term ‘sceptic’ as a distinct identity marker to represent their growing interest in other types of activism beyond atheist community building and criticism of religious beliefs. My data come from thirty-five interviews with Canadian atheist activists and participant observation in the province of Alberta. In contrast to previous social movement approaches to atheist activism, I deemphasize the importance of collective identity and instead attend to personal identity as the site of social change. My findings show that being a sceptic is a personally meaningful identity in the context of a relatively weak secularist collective identity. Moreover, atheist activists who also identify as sceptics wish to expand the boundaries of the atheist movement to include individualistic projects of personal affirmation based on science and critical thinking. This work contributes to our understanding of the everyday activities of activists who engage in individual action in the absence of a strong collective identity. In particular, this article expands our understanding of lifestyle movements beyond the current focus on socially conscious consumption. Instead, I return to the roots of lifestyle movement theory, that is, how one’s everyday choices serve as a form of protest. Finally, this work contributes to atheism scholarship, which has neglected the diversity of individual identities within atheist organisations and among atheist activists.     

The medicalization of Nonhuman Animal rights: frame contestation and the exploitation of disability

Nonhuman Animal rights activists are sometimes dismissed as ‘crazy’ or irrational by countermovements seeking to protect status quo social structures. Social movements themselves often utilize disability narratives in their claims-making as well. In this article, we argue that Nonhuman Animal exploitation and Nonhuman Animal rights activism are sometimes medicalized in frame disputes. The contestation over mental ability ultimately exploits humans with disabilities. The medicalization of Nonhuman Animal rights activism diminishes activists’ social justice claims, but the movement’s medicalization of Nonhuman Animal use unfairly otherizes its target population and treats disability identity as a pejorative. Utilizing a content analysis of major newspapers and anti-speciesist activist blogs published between 2009 and 2013, it is argued that disability has been incorporated into the tactical repertoires of the Nonhuman Animal rights movement and countermovements, becoming a site of frame contestation. The findings could have implications for a number of other social movements that also negatively utilize disability narratives.     

Social Movement Engagement over the Long Haul: Understanding Activist Retention

This article offers a broad review of the scholarship of the ‘retention’ of social movement activists, examining it from the individual, social relational, and organizational levels of analysis. The following contribute to the likelihood that a participant sustains their engagement: accommodation of individual needs and motivations, a social network to reinforce attachment to activism, and a successful organization that promotes its members' empowerment. The conclusion considers the insights gained from the scholarship so that organizations might increase activist persistence and notes gaps that merit further study, particularly regarding the emerging effects of ‘internet communication technology’ (ICT).     

The prospectus of activism: discerning and delimiting imagined possibility

This article aims to articulate a new agenda in the scholarship of social movements. Specifically, it seeks to turn attention to the assumptions that undergird activism. Rather than studying movements themselves, we can study them as the embodiment of collective expectation in a particular public. We can learn more about the broader society in which movements are embedded by asking how activists and the public they seek to engage determine what is within the realm of possibility. I refer to the imagined horizon of possibility as the activist prospectus. To illustrate the importance of prospectus, I draw upon a case study of environmental activism in Samara, Russia. Ethnographic observation and analysis yield insights into subjective perceptions that help explain the weakness of civil society within Russia.     

‘Anger is Why We're All Here’: Mobilizing and Managing Emotions in a Professional Activist Organization

The emotions involved in social activism are central factors in the recruitment to, motivation for, and sustainability of social movements. But this perspective on the role of emotions within social movements contrasts with studies of emotions within mainstream organizations where employees are called on to manage their own emotions and those of others. Thus, while much social movement research focuses on how activists actively cultivate emotional expression, these ideas rarely intersect with the organizational research that examines how a diminished quality of working life may result from the need for employees to modify, suppress or emphasize emotions. Using in-depth interviews with activists at Amnesty International, this article bridges this theoretical divide by examining emotional labour and emotional regulation among paid activists in a professional social movement organization. I explore the ways in which employees struggle with the emotional component of their work and the implications of these emotions for the quality of their working life, the stability of such organizations and the maintenance of social movements.     

Managing Organizational Emotions: Framing Feelings of Illegitimacy in the Radical Women's Prison Movement

Abstract

This article examines how activists manage the potentially deleterious emotions that arise in social movement organizations. Using data from a case study of an organization in the contemporary radical women's prison movement in California, I explore how feelings of illegitimacy are managed and sublimated by activists, during the course of organizational life, to sustain participation in the movement. Drawing on framing theory, I find that organizational frames serve as mechanisms that manage and focus activists' feelings, delimit movement strategies, and inspire and legitimate collective action.     

Rumour and decertification in exile politics: evidence from the Egyptian case

ABSTRACT

Does exile affect activism and if so how? In this paper, the case of Egyptian activists exiled in England is taken as illustrative of processes typical of exiled activism. The case study draws on primary and secondary sources including a series of biographical interviews with exiled activists. The analysis compares activism in Egypt with exiled activism in England using the participants’ critical self-reflections to explain the mechanisms mediating the changes. Contrary to reasonable expectations that exile is a spontaneous response to a change in political context, the conditions for exile predate banishment and lie within the institutions of dictatorship which decertify activism. Decertification continues throughout the exile process as fear of repression becomes internalized within the movement. Within the sanctuary of the host country, a process of brokerage counteracts decertification expanding and modifying the exile repertoire.     

Surreptitious Symbiosis: Engagement Between Activists and NGOs

Based on research conducted in Athens, Cairo, London and Yerevan, the article analyzes the relationship between activists engaged in street protests or direct action since 2011 and NGOs. It examines how activists relate to NGOs and whether it is possible to do sustained activism to bring about social change without becoming part of a ‘civil society industry.’ The article argues that while at first glance NGOs seem disconnected from recent street activism, and activists distance themselves from NGOs, the situation is more complicated than meets the eye. It contends that the boundaries between the formal NGOs and informal groups of activists are blurred and there is much cross-over and collaboration. The article demonstrates and seeks to explain this phenomenon, which we call surreptitious symbiosis, from the micro- perspective of individual activists and NGO staff. Finally, we discuss whether this surreptitious symbiosis can be sustained and sketch three scenarios for the future.

     

When right-wing actors take sides with deportees. A typology of anti-deportation protests

Academic research on activism in migration issues has mainly focused on the actions of either left-wing or far-right activists. As a result, less homogeneous, more complex configurations of actors have been overlooked. This article addresses this gap by drawing attention to unusual alliances of right-wing and left-wing actors as co-partners in the group of key protagonists of anti-deportation protests. Drawing on 96 interviews with actors involved in 15 studied protest cases that took place in Austria, Germany and Switzerland (2005–2013), we find two ideal types of protest, which we call personifying and exemplifying. Personifying protests include right-wing actors, strongly focus on the case of a particular migrant, and do not challenge the principle of deportation as such. In contrast, exemplifying protests do not include right-wing actors. They are carried out by actors with activist experience in NGOs, and more generally criticize deportation and restrictive migration policies. We argue that exemplifying protests are embedded in the solidarity movement, whereas personifying protests, lacking claims of social change or reform, resemble contemporary forms of pragmatic altruistic engagement aiming at individual solutions.     

Hiding Spinach in the Brownies: Frame Alignment in Suffrage Community Cookbooks, 1886–1916

Recent studies have examined how the conventions of cultural genres help advance frames. This line of scholarship can be used to study how activists might popularize radical frames that fundamentally challenge widespread beliefs. In this article, I analyze how the gendered character of suffrage community cookbooks aids in frame alignment. I determine how these cookbooks advance ‘femininity frames’ that drew on widespread beliefs about femininity (and thus were more likely to resonate with a broad audience). I also examine how suffrage cookbooks advance ‘republican citizenship frames’ that argued that women should vote because they could embody the masculinized republican ideals of civic virtue and public responsibility. Republican citizenship frames challenged widespread beliefs about femininity (and thus were likely to be viewed as more radical). I find that the embrace of domestic femininity in community cookbooks amplifies femininity frames by intensifying traditional beliefs about women. Furthermore, the gendered character of community cookbooks extends republican citizenship frames to the average housewife by proving that women could incorporate new practices into their lives without abandoning their traditional feminine roles. This study enriches our understanding of the roles of cultural genres in framing, and it demonstrates how activists may try to popularize radical frames.     

Between rebellion and uprising intersecting networks and discursive strategies in rebel controlled Syria

ABSTRACT

In the article I explore how, at the individual level, participation in multiple networks opens up questions regarding the classification of social activism. The central contention is that as mobilization networks increasingly intersect, explicit discursive designations of activism (being ‘political’ or ‘nonpolitical, social’) by individual activists becomes more prevalent. I substantiate this argument with an in-depth exploration of the Syrian uprising. I show that as two distinct networks─one that emerged around nonviolent activism, another that emerged around a violent uprising─increasingly intersected, activists began to use specific discursive strategies. On the one side, a strategy emerged that emphasized the nonpolitical nature of mobilization, distancing activism discursively from intersecting networks. On the other side, a strategy emerged of politicizing collective identities, thereby bridging discursively various mobilization networks. The article thereby adds to existing studies on the intersection between network structure and individual activism. The analysis builds on more than a hundred primary sources from various rebel groups and relevant local actors in addition to thirty interviews with relevant players among activist, rebel and public services organizations.     

Beyond organizational ties: foundations of persistent commitment in environmental activism

ABSTRACT

Movement scholars commonly treat persistent commitment as an aspect of activism that is set in motion when recruits join a group or organization. To investigate the phenomenon of sustained activist commitment that exists separately from or in addition to organizational membership, I examine activist commitment to environmental causes. I base this analysis on thirty open-ended interviews, averaging eighty minutes, with activists whose persistent commitments to environmental causes range from ten to fifty years. I (a) identify patterns that long-term environmental activists express in their personal biographies and activist trajectories, (b) generate insights about commitment mechanisms that exist independently of organizational membership, (c) discuss how existing conceptions of activist commitment might be extended. I recommend that scholars look beyond organizational ties to pinpoint specific mechanisms that produce and sustain activist commitment to causes. I find that committed environmental activists link their activism to strong connections with nature, biographical influences, individual tactics, and personal missions rather than to organizations.     

Learning to feel: the neglected sociology of social movements

This paper discusses the experience and ideology of emotions among animal rights activists, and more broadly, the applicability of the sociology of emotions to the field of social movements. I examine the case of a social movement which relies heavily on empathy in its initial recruitment, and which has been derisively labeled by outsiders as ‘emotional’. I explain recruitment to animal rights activism by showing how activists develop a ‘vocabulary of emotions’ to rationalize their participation to others and themselves, along with managing the emotional tone of the movement by limiting the kinds of people who can take part in debates about animal cruelty. The interactive nature in which emotions develop in social movements is stressed over previous approaches to emotions in the social movement literature, which treat emotions as impulsive or irrational.     

Institutional Activism: Seeking Customary Forest Rights Recognition from Within the Indonesian State

This article aims to explain why the adat movement activists in Indonesia could expand their campaigns for state recognition of adat community rights to activities from within the state apparatus. We argue that three combined processes have contributed to the conjuncture that made institutional activism possible: the preparation of the 2014 national election offered activists opportunities to influence the government agenda; the emergence of a conscious strategy for conducting institutional activism; and the coalitions between some key state officials and the movement’s actors. This article also analyses the problems that institutional activists faced, in particular resistance from influential actors at various government units who were not sympathetic to the adat movement’s agenda. Therefore, the impact of this activism on policy changes so far remains limited. The authors’ personal involvement in this case of institutional activism to promote customary forest provided access to the information for this article.     

Academic opportunity structures and the creation of campus activism

Past research points to elite, liberal and/or wealthy universities and colleges as the most likely sites of campus activism. In addition, periods of high social movement mobilization in society in general are given credit in spurring student activists. In contrast, this study examines how a feminist activist subculture is created on a conservative campus at a time of subdued societal activism. I draw on a four-year ethnography of a U.S.-based, feminist-oriented student organization to conceptualize how universities facilitate student groups through an ‘academic opportunity structure,’ and in the process promote the development of an activist subculture. In doing so, I argue that universities, like the political and cultural environment, can be open or closed to campus activism. When there is a favourable environment, universities require the creation of formalized organizations, centralized leadership, and an institutional history. In response to meeting these requirements, universities then provide necessary resources to student groups and facilitate activism. These academic opportunity structures then foster activist subcultures that allow student groups to continue over time with the potential to influence the larger university culture.     

‘Tourists go home’: anti-tourism industry protest in Barcelona

This profile looks at the wave of at times violent protests against the economic, social and environmental consequences of mass tourism in Barcelona, which came to international attention in the summer of 2017. It outlines the leading role played by left-wing nationalist activists linked to the Candidatura d’Unitat Popular (CUP, Popular Unity Candidacy) political party in the protests. I examine CUP’s direct-action methods, targeting local business interests and foreign tourists, as well as the largely critical response this prompted from the wider anti-tourism industry movement. This profile addresses the CUP’s justifications for the action and the echo effect it had in other parts of Spain. It argues that to understand the events requires a focus on aspects of both continuity and change in urban social movement mobilisation in Barcelona, against processes of neoliberal urbanisation, in which anti-tourism industry contestation is to the fore.     

Social movement schools: sites for consciousness transformation,training, and prefigurative social development

ABSTRACT

We develop the concept of “social movement school’ (SMS), showing how these organizational spaces are deliberately designed for purposes of educating, mentoring, training, and coordinating individuals as effective, committed movement agents. SMSs can also be important sites of prefigurative design and practice for future societal development consistent with movement goals. We motivate the theoretical significance of SMSs based on five perspectives in social movement scholarship: (1) resource mobilization; (2) cultural approaches to repertoires of contention; (3) cognitive perspective; (4) micro-mobilization; and (5) biographical consequences of participation. We then offer a typology to capture primary purposes, and spatial reach within the broad field of SMSs. Within-movement variation is illustrated by focusing on a variety of SMSs in the U.S. civil rights movement; and the cross-movement breadth of the concept is illustrated by highlighting contemporary SMS forms drawn from three very different movements–labor, radical feminism, and mindfulness meditation movements. In the interest of launching a research agenda on SMSs, we end with several key questions that could serve to guide future research. Important theoretical, empirical, and practical considerations suggest that SMSs deserve the attention of scholars and activists alike.     

Event Coalitions in the Pittsburgh G20 Protests

Protests at events such as the 2009 Group of Twenty (G20) Summit in Pittsburgh frequently require activists to engage in some type of coalition work. This article examines two event coalitions created to organize the Pittsburgh G20 protests: the Pittsburgh G20 Resistance Project (PGRP), consisting of local anti‐authoritarians, and a loose alliance of individuals and organizations brought together by the Thomas Merton Center (TMC), a local peace and justice movement center. I show how the organizational structure and early decisions of the PGRP made it more effective than the TMC alliance and how those choices were affected by preexisting network structures, social movement organizations, ideological alignments, and relationships in the local movement community. The experiences of activists in event coalitions, both positive and negative, then affect the shape of the movement community and subsequent coalitions and campaigns.