Class 6: Aspects of Social Movement Activity

Organisation, strategies and tactics

Dr. Michael C. Zeller

Opening notes

Open Stickerfrom Open Stickers

Presentation groups

Presentations line-up
Date Presenters Method
4 Dec: Daichi, Seongyeon, Jehyun TBD
18 Dec: Ayla, Tara, Theresa, Annabelle discourse analysis
15 Jan: Luna, Emilene, Raffa, Sofia TBD

A conceptual framework of strategy

  • strategy defined
  • elements of strategy
  • drivers of strategy selection
  • example from a non-violent but disruptive group
  • example from a violent group
Strategery Snl Skit GIFfrom Strategery GIFs

Basic, intuitive definition of strategy

strategy refers to the approach of an actor(s) to achieve their (political) objectives—connecting actions to goals (means to an end)

  • extant definitions identify some elements, e.g.,
    • “a combination of a claim (or demand), a tactic, and a site (or venue)” (Meyer 2007, 82)
    • Ganz (2010, 9): targeting, tactics, timing
  • many groups use mixed strategies of violence and non-violence

Elements of strategy

  • informative element: objective(s) (why): what are the actor(s) goals? minimalist vs. maximalist objectives
  • target (what/who) - what entity is being acted upon?
    • involves choice to commit resources to specific outcomes
  • tactics (how) - types of collective action and their form
    • attempt to deploy strengths, exploit target’s weaknesses
  • site/venue (where) - what place or what forum type is action taken?
  • timing (when) - when are tactics employed against targets
    • ‘some moments, often fleeting, promise greater opportunity than others’ … (cf. Grzymala-Busse 2011)

Elements of strategy

  • informative element: objective(s) (why): what are the actor(s) goals? minimalist vs. maximalist objectives
  • target (what/who) - what entity is being acted upon?
  • tactics (how) - types of collective action and their form
  • site/venue (where) - what place or what forum type is action taken?
  • timing (when) - when are tactics employed against targets

What are the strategic elements of social movements that you know of?

Drivers of strategy selection

  • strategy is be a product of (rational) choice

BUT…

  • it is also a part collective identity (cf. Polletta and Jasper 2001)
    • strategy also involves moral and emotional committments

An example from the news…

How can we characterise the group’s strategy here?

Tagesschau
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eT9nr9_em0k&pp=ygUebGFzdCBnZW5lcmF0aW9uIHByb3Rlc3QgYmVybGlu

An example from ‘the 43 Group’

An example from ‘the 43 Group’

post-war Labour government, witnessing low-level fascist-party organising and agitation…

Beckman (2013):

On Tuesday May 21st [1946], [James] Chuter Ede, the Home Secretary, received a deputation from the JDC [Jewish Defence Committee, part of the Board of Deputies of British Jews] led by the Chairman, Gordon Liverman … They listened to the deputation and said they would consider all the points raised, but nothing tangible happened.

documentary about 43 Group: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBusQBSCAHY

Poll: strategy formation and effect

A QR code for the survey.

Take the survey at https://forms.gle/6aVSF54HyFR2iNpDA

  • most important factor shaping movement org. strategy?
  • do maximalist goals require more extreme strategies?
  • is popular support necessary for strategic success?
  • is engagement in politics strategically necessary for long-term impact?
  • are disruptive tactics an effective way of generating awareness?

most important factor shaping movement org. strategy?

do maximalist goals require more extreme strategies?

Poll results

popular support necessary for strategic success?

engagement in politics necessary for long-term impact?

disrupting is effective for building awareness?

Tactical frivolity (Bogad 2016)

more of a humanities/dramaturgical perspective on movements and their tactics

Temporality

  • Grzymala-Busse (2011) on temporality
    • overview
    • definitions and examples
    • tempo and duration
Timing GIFfrom Timing GIFs

Grzymala-Busse (2011) - overview

  • mechanisms: “recurrent causal links between specified initial conditions and outcomes. Specific sequences (orderings) of mechanisms and events then constitute processes.”

  • Fundamentals of temporality: how long events take (duration), how quickly they change (tempo), whether they speed up or slow down (acceleration), and when they occur (timing)

Grzymala-Busse (2011) - definitions and examples

library(kableExtra)
library(tibble)

data <- tribble(
  ~Aspect, ~Definition, ~Examples,
  "Duration", 
  "Temporal length of an event; how much time elapses between the start and end of an action or event", 
  "Time elapsed between the announcement that a new agency is founded and its demise, or the period between the takeoff of popular literacy and its full attainment",

  "Tempo", 
  "Amount of change per unit of time (dist./time interval); frequency of the 'subevents' in a larger event, or between events in a process.", 
  "How much time elapses before each new state institution is established, between each new person gaining literacy",

  "Acceleration (and deceleration)", 
  "Derivative of velocity with respect to time (direction vector/direction tempo); rate of change", 
  "Postcommunist privatization started to unfold very quickly, with a great deal of entrepreneurial activity and privatization auctions at the outset. In several countries, it then slowed down",

  "Timing", 
  "Position on a temporal timeline (itself composed of some units of time, such as electoral cycles or years)", 
  "18th-century revolutions had pamphlets and word of mouth as their mobilizing techniques; 20th-century revolutions had television, radio, email, and cell phones at their disposal"
)

kable(data, "html", escape = FALSE, align = c("r", "l", "l")) %>%
  kable_styling(full_width = FALSE, bootstrap_options = c("striped", "hover"),
                font_size = 22)
Aspect Definition Examples
Duration Temporal length of an event; how much time elapses between the start and end of an action or event Time elapsed between the announcement that a new agency is founded and its demise, or the period between the takeoff of popular literacy and its full attainment
Tempo Amount of change per unit of time (dist./time interval); frequency of the 'subevents' in a larger event, or between events in a process. How much time elapses before each new state institution is established, between each new person gaining literacy
Acceleration (and deceleration) Derivative of velocity with respect to time (direction vector/direction tempo); rate of change Postcommunist privatization started to unfold very quickly, with a great deal of entrepreneurial activity and privatization auctions at the outset. In several countries, it then slowed down
Timing Position on a temporal timeline (itself composed of some units of time, such as electoral cycles or years) 18th-century revolutions had pamphlets and word of mouth as their mobilizing techniques; 20th-century revolutions had television, radio, email, and cell phones at their disposal

Grzymala-Busse (2011) - tempo and duration

library(kableExtra)
library(tibble)

data <- tribble(
  ~` `, ~Faster, ~Slower,
  "Shorter", 
  "Radical processes: coups, revolutions, shock therapy, regime replacement, and some institutional creation (free elections)", 
  "Abruptly ending processes: threshold effects, bargaining, establishing some institutions (cf. postcommunist clientelism)",

  "Longer", 
  "Lengthy instability: revolutions and wars, cascades, predation, postcommunist civil society growth, political party fission", 
  "Gradual processes: demographic change, spread of literacy and nationalism, linguistic transformations, quasiparameter change"
)

kable(data, "html", escape = FALSE, align = c("r", "l", "l")) %>%
  kable_styling(full_width = FALSE, bootstrap_options = c("striped", "hover"),
                font_size = 34)
Faster Slower
Shorter Radical processes: coups, revolutions, shock therapy, regime replacement, and some institutional creation (free elections) Abruptly ending processes: threshold effects, bargaining, establishing some institutions (cf. postcommunist clientelism)
Longer Lengthy instability: revolutions and wars, cascades, predation, postcommunist civil society growth, political party fission Gradual processes: demographic change, spread of literacy and nationalism, linguistic transformations, quasiparameter change

Tactics and effecting change

  • connecting tactics to outcomes
  • tactical innovation
  • Spaßguerrillas
  • Gene Sharp and nonviolence
  • some fun examples
Talladega Nights GIFfrom Talladega GIFs

Connecting tactics to outcomes

  • Gamson (1990) found that violent social movements (incl. ‘strikes and disruptive techniques’) are more likely than nonviolent to achieve their goal
    • more effective in attracting attention and imposing costs on targets/opponents
    • similarly found by Cress and Snow (2000)
    • BUT… opposite found on regime-challenging movements by Chenoweth and Stephan (2011)
    • Opposite also found in U.S. campus policy by Rojas (2006)

Connecting tactics to outcomes

  • social control hypothesis (e.g., Piven and Cloward 1979)
    • disruptive protests/tactics allow movements to win concessions in exchange for ending protests/tactics (coercion mechanism)
  • mass mobilisation/social pressure hypothesis (e.g., Chenoweth and Stephan 2011)
    • gaining enough (visible) support to pressure decision-makers into concessions (consensus/demonstrative/persuasion mechanisms)
      • implicit appeal to democratic norms

(necessity of) tactical innovation

  • McAdam (1983): tactical interaction
    • movements disrupt as they mount a challenge
    • authorities/targets adapt to tactics, dulling their impact
    • movements innovate tactics to maintain effective strategy
  • With responsive authorities/targets, this cycle places high demands on movements
    • (McAdam (1983) writes that by the end of the 1960s, U.S. black rights movement(s) had been made ‘tactically impotent’)

Spaßguerrillas

  • problem in student movement of unexciting and/or intimidating modes of activism
  • Wolfgang Lefèvre (SDS leader):

‘Every event or demonstration should be inventively planned so that it is exciting and fun for students.’

  • the ‘fun-fighters’ emerged from the Sozialistischen Deutschen Studentenbund
    • Fritz Teufel, Rainer Langhans advocate playful tactics
    • long legacy in German activism (e.g., ‘Front Deutscher Äpfel’)

Gene Sharp and nonviolence (Sharp 1973)

  • ‘political ju-jitsu’ (using opponents’ strength against them): violent repression of nonviolent resistance strengthens resistance by creating sympathy for resisters

\(\downarrow\)

Tactics in practice, example

  • off and on since 1988, German neo-Nazi groups had organised ‘memorial marches’ in Wunsiedel (Virchow 2013; Zeller 2022)
  • in 2014, anti-far-right activists organised ‘involuntary walkathon’

(German version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMrQge9hP5o)

Tactics in practice, example

  • 2016: U.S. state of Texas passes law allowing carrying handguns on university campuses
  • at the same time, state ‘obsenity laws’ forbid bringing dildoes onto campus
  • the ‘cocks not glocks’ campaign was born…

Tactics in practice, example

‘We’re fighting absurdity with absurdity.’

Any questions, concerns, feedback for this class?

Anonymous feedback here: https://forms.gle/AjHt6fcnwZxkSg4X8

Alternatively, please send me an email: m.zeller@lmu.de

References

Beckman, Morris. 2013. The 43 Group: Battling with Mosley’s Blackshirts. New York: Perseus Press.
Bogad, Lawrence M. 2016. Tactical Performance. London: Routledge.
Chenoweth, Erica, and Maria J. Stephan. 2011. Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict. New York: Columbia University Press.
Cress, Daniel, and David Snow. 2000. “The Outcomes of Homeless Mobilization: The Influence of Organization, Disruption, Political Mediation, and Framing.” American Journal of Sociology 105 (4): 1063–1104.
Gamson, William A. 1990. The Strategy of Social Protest. Belmont: Wadsworth Publishing.
Ganz, Marshall. 2010. Why David Sometimes Wins: Leadership, Organization, and Strategy in the California Farm Worker Movement. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Grzymala-Busse, Anna. 2011. “Time Will Tell? Temporality and the Analysis of Causal Mechanisms and Processes.” Comparative Political Studies 44 (9): 1267–97. https://doi.org/10.1177/0010414010390653.
McAdam, Doug. 1983. “Tactical Innovation and the Pace of Insurgency.” American Sociological Review 48 (6): 735–54.
Piven, Francis Fox, and Richard A Cloward. 1979. Poor People’s Movements. New York: Vintage Books.
Polletta, Francesca, and James M Jasper. 2001. “Collective Identity and Social Movements.” Annual Review of Sociology 27 (1): 283–305.
Rojas, Fabio. 2006. “Social Movement Tactics, Organizational Change and the Spread of African-American Studies.” Social Forces 84 (4): 2147–66.
Sharp, Gene. 1973. The Politics of Nonviolent Action (3 Vols.). New York: Porter Sargent.
Virchow, Fabian. 2013. “’Wem Die Strasse Gehört’: Wunsiedel Als Symbolischer Ort Der Demonstrationspolitik Der Extremen Rechten.” In Wunsiedel Ist Bunt – Nicht Braun! Die Auseinandersetzungen Um Das Hess-Grab Verändern Die Politische Kultur, edited by Julia Hasse, Gregor Rosenthal, and Joachim Twisselmann, 171–85. Bad Alexandersbad/Berlin: bfdt/BPgR.
Zeller, Michael C. 2022. “Demobilising Far-Right Demonstration Campaigns: Coercive Counter-Mobilisation, State Social Control, and the Demobilisation of the Hess Gedenkmarsch Campaign.” Social Movement Studies 21 (3): 372–90. https://doi.org/10.1080/14742837.2021.1889493.