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Presentation groups

Remember: topic to me at least by Week 4

Collective behaviour theory (CBT)

fundamental question: why is this thing happening?

• reckoning with legacy of interwar era:
  • why was their the national socialist movement?
  • why was their the Bolshevik revolution?
  • why did people join such movements instead of participating in ‘institutional politics’?

Collective behaviour theory (CBT)

fundamental question: why is this thing happening?

• a mix of sociological and psychological approach—influenced by Durkheim and Marx
• movements as consequences and manifestations of strain, deprivation, and grievance
  • movements are ‘abnormal’ (contrary to idea of ‘movement society’)
• movements as part of ‘emergent phenomena,’ ranging from trends and gossip, to collective action, up to and including insurrection and revolution

Collective behaviour theory (CBT)

fundamental question: why is this thing happening?

• CBT struggles to predict (Piazza 2017): not everyone is aggrieved engages in collective action
  • BUT several core concepts—grievance, (relative) deprivation—endure (e.g., van Stekelenburg and Klandermans 2013 on the social psychology of protest)
    • Because… even if they are neither necessary nor solely sufficient, CBT concepts refer to important motivations for many movement participants

Resource mobilisation theory (RMT)

fundamental question: how is this thing happening?

• focus on organisations: how they mobilise and campaign in strategic pursuit of goals

Types of resources:

Resource mobilisation theory (RMT)

fundamental question: how is this thing happening?

• RMT rejects the CBT idea that movements are abnormal

• Still, focus on organisations omits/obscures contextual factors

• But organisation, strategy, leadership, resources remain important—but better understood with context (e.g., Guzman-Concha 2015; Kern, Marien, and Hooghe 2015; Williamson, Trump, and Einstein 2018)

Political process theory (PPT)

fundamental question: what makes/shapes this thing that is happening?

• situates RMT organisational focus within wider socio-political context
• movements are products of the political environment in which they emerge, responding to socio-political changes (opportunity/threat) and being met with (broadly) facilitation or repression (Tarrow 2011) (or disregard)

Political process theory (PPT) - POS concept

fundamental question: what makes/shapes this thing that is happening?

• key concept: political opportunity structure

“are comprised of specific configurations of resources, institutional arrangements and historical precedents for social mobilisation, which facilitate the development of protest movements in some instances and constrain them in others” (Kitschelt 1986, 58)

Political process theory (PPT) - DOS concept

fundamental question: what makes/shapes this thing that is happening?

• related to POS: discursive opportunity structure (Koopmans and Olzak 2004, 202–5): aspects of the public discourse that determine a message’s chances of diffusion in the public sphere

Political process theory (PPT) - DOS concept

discursive opportunity structure (Koopmans and Olzak 2004, 202–5): aspects of the public discourse that determine a message’s chances of diffusion in the public sphere

More on social movement theories next week

• we will cover framing and civil society

• other theories/approaches that we will not cover: constructivist approaches; ‘new social movements’; political mediation model; field theory; relational/network approaches

  • though we may encounter these in some of the readings

Kitschelt (1986) - research justification

POS: Astra inclinant, sed non obligant. (‘The stars incline us, they do not bind us.’)

• translation (from Kitschelt 1986):

While they do not determine the course of social movements completely, careful comparisons among them can explain a good deal about the variations among social movements with similar demands in different settings, if other determinants are held constant.

In a nutshell, this is what Kitschelt sets out to test

Kitschelt (1986) - quick student question on the reading

A particularly useful outgrowth of this research is the identification of a curvilinear relationship between openness and movement mobilization, which shows that very closed regimes repress social movements, that very open and responsive ones assimilate them, and that moderately repressive ones allow for their broad articulation but do not accede readily to their demands.

Kitschelt (1986) - case selection

• anti-nuclear movements in France, Sweden, US, W. Germany. Why?

Comparative case selection

x = causal variable; y = phenomenon to be explained

Further on case selection strategies, see Gerring (2007, e.g., pp. 89-90)

Kitschelt (1986) - 3 POS effect on movements

1. What resources (‘coercive, normative, remunerative and informational’) can an emergent movement draw upon?
   • note the improvement on RMT, resources depend on context

Kitschelt (1986) - POS components

Kitschelt highlights to components of POS relevant to the movements he studies: (1) political input structures and (2) policy implementation capacity

Concept formation - Adcock and Collier (2001, 531)

Kitschelt (1986) - POS components

Kitschelt (1986) - case differences

• (relatively) open and responsive input structures (Sweden, U.S.) = possibility to impact policy
  • (relatively) closed insisted on pre-determined policies
• Weak implementation capacity offers opportunity for disruption
• Strong implementation capacity could shield policy from attacks

Kitschelt (1986) - hypotheses

Kitschelt (1986) - anti-nuclear strategies

Kitschelt (1986) - procedural and substantive impacts

• what procedural impacts did anti-nuclear movements have? what (other) procedural impacts could policy-oriented movements have?

• what substantive impacts did anti-nuclear movements have (that Kitschelt examined)?

Kitschelt (1986) - findings

• hypotheses generally confirmed
  • Sweden and (to lesser extent) U.S. search for new policies
  • France and (to lesser extent) W. Germany stayed on policy course
  • U.S. and W. Germany movements had chance to disrupt implementation
  • Sweden and France movements had no chance to disrupt implementation

Kitschelt (1986) - key takeaways

• what did you learn from this article?

Boudreau (1996) - set-up

• social science theories (including PPT for social movements) are often developed in the ‘North’
  • theory requires adjustment
• structural (cross-national) (Kitschelt 1986) or time-series (McAdam 1982; Tarrow 2011)

Boudreau (1996) - historical development (Tilly)

• state expansion (including improved communication networks, rising middle class, etc.) helps to create an audience
  • incentivises demonstrations as collective action repertoire

seeks to accumulate influence within a political structure, to communicate a demand, convey resolve, and (where the polity is unresponsive) raise the costs of disregarding the movement. … They play to the polity (and to allies) whose subsequent action resolves movement grievances. … Demonstrations inconvenience or embarrass authorities and establish the movement’s social support but never themselves attain the collective goal. (p. 181)

Boudreau (1996) - historical development (Tilly)

• state expansion (including improved communication networks, rising middle class, etc.) helps to create an audience
  • direct action repertoires

seize resources to satisfy their demands or take unilateral action to resolve a grievance. … Direct action seeks itself to achieve collective goals. (p. 181)

• in line with Kitschelt (1986), POS shapes mobilisation: ‘closed’ and ‘centralised’ more inviting for direct action; ‘open’ and ‘decentralised’ more inviting for demonstration

Boudreau (1996, 178)

SMOs attract mass support by offering more promising avenues (massed demonstration, armed battle, land occupation) to achieve popular goals than existing modes of action

Boudreau (1996) - select observations

• Poverty and levels of oppression are fundamental structural variables underlying all POS (p. 179) [cf. Piven and Cloward (1979); Scott (1985)]
• Campaigns must win/provide benefits or else face increasing demobilising pressure (p. 183) (cf. Gamson 1990; Davenport 2015; Demirel-Pegg 2017; Zeller 2022)
• SM organisations have to weigh trade-offs between demonstration strategies and direct action strategies (p. 184) (cf. Ganz 2010)
• Property of inertia: initial conditions surrounding mobilisation powerfully influence on subsequent movement trajectories (p. 185) (cf. Polletta and Jasper 2001)

Social movements in/around Germany

“Those who only know one country, know no country” - Seymour Martin Lipset (inspired by Alexis de Tocqueville)

• well-known and covered in media and research literature
• diverse strategies, objectives, and ideological characteristics
• active in Germany and/or EU

Animal Rights Watch (ARIWA)

Anti-Atomkraft

Autonome Bewegung

Demos für alle

Extinction Rebellion

Federation of Antifascists (VVN-BdA)

‘Vereinigung der Verfolgten des Naziregimes – Bund der Antifaschistinnen und Antifaschisten’

Fridays for Future

Hausbesetzung (Squatters) movement

Identitarians

Letzte Generation

‘Ohne mich’/Peace movement

PEGIDA

Reichsbürgerbewegung

Querdenken 711

Sozialistischer Deutscher Studentenbund

Vier Pfoten