How Social Movements (Sometimes) Matter. David S. Meyer
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potential impact is everywhere in that cycle, but it’s critical to recognize that movements don’t work in a vacuum, and that their influence is determined by their relations with other actors, inside and outside of government.
We might begin by acknowledging that there are always people who are trying to convince others that something in their society is drastically wrong, and to recruit those people into purposeful action to change it. The range of issues is virtually infinite: individuals can be upset about moral failures in the larger society; economic injustice; the prevalence of male circumcision; the persistence of female circumcision; the lack of civil liberties; the availability of guns; the use of public lands; the degree of civil liberties afforded most citizens; foreign policies; wars and preparations for wars; taxation; or the distribution of food. Discontent with a set of issues is normal. In any polity, some of those who are dissatisfied will be working through normal political channels – whatever they are – to secure their interests; others will be located well outside normal political actions, confined to the margins of mainstream discourse. Visibility is low, and there is little contact with a public that isn’t normally concerned with those issues. It’s not that everyone involved is happy or satisfied with the status quo, but rather that most people concerned with a set of issues view the established politics of the issue to be relatively stable, with changes on matters of policy taking place in increments. Political stability tends to reflect stalemate rather than satisfaction (Baumgartner and Jones 1993).
Social movements commence when institutional actors look to develop an outside strategy to pursue their aims – or those on the margins suddenly see greater success in reaching a broader audience – or both. This is usually a function of what’s going on in mainstream politics. They have to be convinced that additional means of politics are necessary and potentially effective. Those who are normally on the margins suddenly seem more relevant and potentially influential. Most interesting, those on the margins now can see common cause with those normally confined to mainstream politics.
When does this happen? Usually these moments are a reaction to regular politics and policy. When new leaders come to power and develop different coalitions of support, pushing some previously used to ostensibly meaningful political access out of political institutions, and welcoming those normally excluded in, the calculus of would-be activists changes. When political leaders offer new policies that depart from previous practices, partisans can sense a possibility of influence or the threat of severe losses. Most people take to the streets when they think their efforts are both necessary and potentially effective.
We can see reciprocal processes of mobilization coming from the mainstream and the margins. The public events of dissidents get larger, and generate more interest. Those who operate within more mainstream politics generally now take more time and effort to expand their audiences and explain their concerns to public groups they can normally ignore. As Schattschneider (1960) noted long ago, the important actors in a fight are usually the bystanders, who have the potential of taking sides. Successful social mobilization means engaging the crowd. Under normal circumstances, those at the margin have great difficulty doing so, and risk having the largest part of the public join on the side of the opposition. Under normal circumstances, those comfortable in mainstream institutional politics have no interest in doing so.
Like any overnight sensation, the sudden emergence of a social movement marks a long period of less immediately successful attempts to effect change and to reach a public. In authoritarian polities, those efforts might be secret, played out around kitchen tables and around the edges of work, with a samizdat literature circulation used to spread information. In democratic states, efforts to change the world can be extremely public, reflected by activists handing out leaflets, then making phone calls, and later, posting information on websites. When circumstances allow, that small core will extend to reach broader constituencies, convincing new people that organizing and taking positions is necessary and/or potentially effective.
Through literature, conversation, and through other events and products, organizers develop ideas. The work develops not only the ideas, but also commitment to them. People trying to recruit others to the cause use ideas, slogans, and symbols to do so (Rochon 1998). Even as ideas or demands expand, the depth of commitment or understanding needed to join in diminishes. Short-hand descriptions stand in for elaborated understanding.
The growth in support feeds the growth in support, creating a kind of bandwagon effect (Oliver et al. 1985). The presence of greater numbers of people engaged on the same set of issues serves to draw attention to both the issues and the activities of movement organizers. Visibility legitimates their efforts and their issues. More organization and more people mean more events, and more opportunities for potential supporters to join in, and make it far more likely that a prospective activist will already know people who are engaged. The movement seems to be more urgent, demonstrate a greater chance of making a difference, and thus more attractive to engage. It’s easy to walk past a single leafletter on the streets, and hard to imagine that this effort will make a difference. As the crowds grow, and as they generate attention, they are harder to ignore and easier to join. Bystanders join in as risks diminish, and as movements can offer more incentives for others to join. Importantly, one does not have to sign on to all elements of a movement’s campaign in order to join, particularly as it grows. Indeed, life within a social movement provides a basis for transmitting values and beliefs (Munson 2009).
The growth of a movement also feeds the supply of resources available to it. More people can do more. More money allows hiring full-time organizers, opening additional offices or outposts, producing more media, and creating more events. All of this aids visibility, aiding recruitment, and driving legitimacy. And the larger a movement becomes, the more imperative it becomes for authorities to respond, and the more visible those responses are. Growth makes subsequent growth easier.
As a movement grows, of course, diversity within it increases. Although successful campaigns may be able to coalesce around a central demand, the contours of their claims and the nature of their ultimate goals are going to be increasingly contested. As more diverse factions join, they come with different ultimate goals and different sets of commitments to ultimate aims. Importantly, people are more likely to sign on to a movement as a vehicle for sending a message, when that movement appears capable of conveying a message. Others, who may start with no commitment to the cause, may sign on simply because the movement appears as the strongest expression of any kind of political alternative.
Authorities’ responses become increasingly critical to a movement’s future. When a campaign succeeds, those in authority are forced to answer questions about it, and about the issues activists press. Institutional political opponents of the government will adopt the concerns of a movement for their own purposes, and mainstream journalists will continually demand that government officials explain what they’re doing. Even when authorities justify the policies activists protest, the role of social movements in setting the agenda for institutional politics is the place where influence can take place.
Authorities respond to both the actions and the ideas of social movements. Those responses matter, and they are not necessarily seamlessly connected.
In response to the actions of activists, authorities typically draw lines that separate permissible or accepted modes of dissent from those that they will not tolerate. In liberal democracies, governments give most causes ready access to the tools of protest. Democracies allow participation in all sorts of other ways as well. Organizations can develop permanent and visible offices, raise money, contribute to campaigns, and lobby elected officials. Demonstrations, marches, and rallies have become routine for all concerned in liberal democratic polities. Organizers generally negotiate with authorities before an event on parade routes, likely crowd sizes, and the amount of sound produced, and the number of portable bathroom facilities needed. Police monitor the boundaries of the demonstration, often keeping distance between protesters and their opponents, and arresting people who would violate whatever the negotiated protocol might be. Even civil disobedience can be managed through elaborately choreographed, ritualized performances, in which the time, place, and manner of arrests can be negotiated in advance (Earl et al. 2003).
Liberal democracies generally claim to allow a broad spectrum of protest tactics, regardless