Protest, Movements, and Dissent in the Social Sciences

A multidisciplinary perspective

Giovanni Travaglino

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781138924543
• eBook ISBN: 9781317408550
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

Drawing on a wide range of social science disciplines and approaches, each chapter in this book offers a comprehensive analysis of social protest, political dissent and collective action. The distinguished scholars contributing to the book discuss some of the key theoretical and methodological issues in social protest research, and analyse recent instances of collective dissent around the globe, ranging from the 15M movement in Spain, to the 2011 Salford riots in the UK, to Pro-Palestinian activism in Jerusalem. The result of these contributions is a sophisticated and multifaceted collection that enriches our understanding of why, when, and how groups of people decide to act collectively in order to pursue political change. The book is a timely testament to the vitality of the field. This book was originally published as a special issue of Contemporary Social Science.

Social sciences and social movements: the theoretical context

Giovanni A. Travaglino

Centre for the Study of Group Processes, School of Psychology, University of Kent, Canterbury, UK

This manuscript situates the papers of this special issue within the broader context of social movement research. It discusses the historical and theoretical significance of the four main perspectives in the field of social movement, namely the collective behaviour paradigm, the resource mobilisation approach, the political opportunity model and the cultural turn in social movement studies. Each of these perspectives has highlighted the importance of different units and levels of analysis pertaining to the study of social movements, including the role of grievances, organisational and political structures and meanings associated with participation. As a result, the field is highly receptive to multidisciplinary dialogue and to relations of mutual influences among different disciplines. The next step in social movement studies consists in the elaboration of a coherent framework of research which links the different levels of analysis and dimensions.

Of what is a revolt composed? Of nothing and everything. (Victor Hugo, Les Misérables)

Introduction

On 5 June 1832, in France, Parisian students rose in rebellion against the king. The revolt, which was described by Victor Hugo in Les Misérables, was an unsuccessful attempt to overthrow the monarchy. In the years between 1960 and 1970, waves of protest swept across Europe and the USA, leading to important historical and political changes. More recently, in 2010, over 130,000 British students took part in protests against Parliament’s decision to increase university fees. A few weeks later, a series of insurgencies spread through the Middle Eastern countries, the so-called ‘Arab Spring’. During 2013, other major political actions have taken place in Brazil and Turkey, whereby thousands of people took to the streets demonstrating against their governments. As this very limited list suggests, protest, riots and social movements are ubiquitous across history and locations and their occurrence is becoming increasingly frequent (Snow, Soule, & Kriesi, 2004).

The scientific study of social protest and social movements has a long and rich history. In order to explain individuals’ engagement in collective actions, several theories, models and approaches have been formulated across a wide range of disciplines (Klandermans & Roggeband, 2007; McAdam, McGarty, & Zald, 1996). These conceptualisations have emphasised different themes related to collective actions, including the role of grievances, the structural features conducive to participation and the meanings generating and generated by political action.

The emergence of different conceptualisations has also highlighted that protest is a highly multifaceted phenomenon, which can be approached from multiple levels of analysis and from a variety of different angles (Klandermans & Staggenborg, 2002). Indeed, protest and social movements are objects of study that fall at the intersection of different disciplinary fields (Klandermans & Roggeband, 2007; Klandermans & Staggenborg, 2002; Travaglino & Nulman, 2012). While these fields have developed very different languages, standards of evidence and methodologies, they also share a similar degree of ontological commitment to some core assumptions, which has promoted relations of mutual influence across disciplinary boundaries (Roggeband & Klandermans, 2007, p. 6).

The variety of frameworks and perspectives pertaining to the study of social movements and protest calls for greater dialogue between neighbouring disciplines. However, it is important that this variety is contextualised in the wider landscape of social movement studies. The present paper briefly reviews the historical and scientific context of research in social movement. Specifically, the most influential research programmes in the field and their contribution to the scientific understanding of protest are analysed and discussed.

Theoretical approaches in social movement research

Social movement studies span the entire social scientific spectrum. Organisational and political structures, grievances, identity, emotions, culture, media influence and frames are some of the many elements related to social movements. They are also objects of study in the many disciplines that have contributed to, and enhanced, our understanding of the field.

Sociology, however, is the discipline from which most of the more prominent and influential theories about social movements and protest have developed. Indeed, as discussed by Roggeband and Klandermans (2007), sociology has been the ‘home front of social movement studies’ (p. 6), the theoretical place where concepts imported from other disciplines have been re-elaborated and systematically integrated into formal models. Four main approaches have emerged, namely the collective behaviour paradigm, the resource mobilisation approach, the political opportunity model and the cultural framework. In this section, the basic propositions of these different approaches are reviewed and contextualised in their broader historical frame

Collective behaviour, mobilising structures and political opportunities

As early as 493 BC, whilst trying to prevent the plebs revolting, Agrippa metaphorically compared the Roman social order to a living organism. At first sight, it might have seemed convenient to the hardworking limbs (the plebs) to revolt against the apparently lethargic stomach (the patricians) and to stop carrying food within the organism. However, in so doing, the limbs would soon discover that, without nutrients, the whole body would weaken and perish. In his speech to the insurgent crowd, Agrippa was advancing a very simple yet powerful idea. That is, collective interest may only be achieved through the coordinated work of all organs or, bodily allegories aside, through harmonious relationships between social groups.

A similar emphasis on the value of social harmony informed early work on protest and social movements (e.g. Goodwin & Jasper, 2003; Jenkins, 1985, pp. 1–2). These early theories were anchored in intellectual traditions that underlined the value of functional integration in society. In these traditions, the social sphere was characterised as a structured whole in which stability and consensus were the main cornerstones of society. Challenging social norms was thus seen as a symptom of personal pathology or as a consequence of social disorganisation.

Along with his others contemporaries, Le Bon (1895/1968) famously hypothesised that masses and crowds were a danger to civilisation. His influential volume Psychologie des Foule was grounded in the view that a small aristocratic elite was necessary for ensuring a civil social life (cf. Reicher, 2011). Without any form of hierarchical control, society would have fallen prey to the irrationality and violence of the individual absorbed by the masses. Indeed, according to Le Bon’s account, revolutionary masses were responsible for weakening the will of predisposed individuals and inducing them to violence (cf. Drury & Stott, 2011; Killan, 1964; Oberschall, 1973).

This emphasis on irrationality and violence of the masses (and by the extension of social movements; see Killian, 1964) endured in different forms and shapes up to the years successive to the Second World War. In the writings of these years, collective behaviour was contrasted to conventional behaviour and seen as ontologically different from individual action (cf. Marx & Wood, 1975). Acting collectivities were deprived of any political meaning and motive. Lacking rationality, as attributed to the individual, masses were unable to engage in authentic political action (cf. also Freud, 1930).

Explanations of collective behaviour were thus confined and reduced to abnormal psychology (cf. McAdam, 2002). These explanations were anchored in the idea that masses could only attract social outcasts or deviants. For instance, Kornhauser (1959) conceptualised the masses as ‘large numbers of people who are not integrated into any broad social groupings, including classes’ (p. 14). He argued that the elites’ loss of political control, the electoral structure of the political system and the increasing atomisation of society were responsible for what he labelled as the ‘mass society’ – that is a society where mass movements would lead to anti-democratic ‘violation’ of the state. On a similar note, but at a socio-psychological level of analysis, Hoffer (1951) contended in his volume, The True Believer, that traits such as self-esteem and life satisfaction where negatively associated with participation in mass movement. In contrast, personality attributes such as impotence, selfishness and boredom characterised the ‘potential converts’, that is individuals prone to join mass movements.

This aversion towards the masses was not a characteristic of the entirety of the collective behaviour tradition (Buechler, 2004). However, also in its more structural accounts of protest activities, dissent was still perceived as being induced by social or psychological disorganisation, a reactionary symptom that something was wrong in society (Park & Burgess, 1921; Turner & Killian, 1957; see Buechler, 2004). Individuals’ discontent and grievances would materialise in protest as a form of tension release due to social (e.g. Smelser, 1962) or psychological (e.g. Gurr, 1970) strains (for a review see Buechler, 2004; Marx & Wood, 1975).

These assumptions of irrationality and disorganisation were challenged by a new generation of theorists, in a significant paradigmatic shift in the field of social movement studies (cf. Gamson, 1975; McAdam, 2002; Stryker, Owens, & White, 2000). Historical and intellectual elements were contributed to this shift. New waves of contention, such as the struggle for black civil rights in America and the student protests against the Vietnam War, began to expand and gain public support. Many social scientists were themselves engaged in these political struggles and could easily notice the mismatch between scholarly explanations and the reality of the movements (cf. McAdam, 2002). Moreover, new social scientific approaches emerged which stressed conflict, rather than social integration (cf. Buechler, 2004).

In this new climate, explanations of social movements and protest turned on the institutional and structural elements related to participation. Scholars paid greater attention to the role of social movements in the broader political arena. The question of ‘why do people protest?’ was replaced by the question ‘when do people engage in collective actions?’ (cf. Klandermans & Staggenborg, 2002).

An important theoretical contribution came from Olson’s (1965) theory of collective action (cf. McAdam, Tarrow, & Tilly, 2007). This work called into question a widespread assumption in previous models, the idea that ‘groups of individuals with common interests are expected to act on behalf of their common interests much as single individuals are often expected to act on behalf of their personal interests’ (Olson, 1965, p. 1). More specifically, Olson contended that, despite shared discontent, it does not logically follow that individuals would be willing to engage in collective participation to further their interests, due to the nature of a collective good. A collective good is by definition public and it is not possible (or feasible) to exclude selected individuals from its fruition. In addition, Olson emphasised that participation is a high-cost activity because it requires investment of time and resources. Thus, a rational individual would be more inclined towards non-participation, given that she will still be able to benefit from the collective good, while avoiding the costs related to engagement (i.e. the free-rider problem).

Olson’s model had a great impact on the field of social movement studies because it forced scholars to take into account the ‘free-rider problem’. Their explanations needed to specify under which circumstances individuals would engage in collective actions. Scientists’ attention turned to the study of the benefits and cost reduction mechanisms related to participation (Oberschall, 1973). Thus, the analysis of the social processes and the organisational structures that enable mobilisation of resources and prompt participation in collective actions acquired theoretical and empirical centrality (Edwards & McCarthy, 2004; Jenkins, 1983; McCarthy & Zald, 1977).

Two influential perspectives emerged in the field of social movement studies. The first focused on the organisational elements conducive to protest (Jenkins & Perrow, 1977; McCarthy & Zald, 1977), while the other centred on the broader political context of collective actions (e.g. Tilly, 1978). These two new perspectives shared the core assumption that discontent, strains and grievances are ubiquitous in society and could not thus in themselves account for the variability in emergence and development of social movements.

The Resource Mobilisation approach stressed the importance of social movements’ formal institutions (social movement organisations), micro-structural processes, material resources and tactics as preconditions to the emergence and development of a movement (McCarthy & Zald, 1977). For instance, resource mobilisation scholars demonstrated that sponsorships and resources from established organisations were needed in order to overcome the free-rider problem and induce political participation (Jenkins, 1985; Jenkins & Perrow, 1977). Those movements which were able to mobilise resources from external sources and offer incentives to their members were more likely to succeed (Gamson, 1975). Thus, in contrast to previous models that characterised protest as stemming from social disorder, this approach d...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Citation Information
• Notes on Contributors
• Foreword
• 1. Social sciences and social movements: the theoretical context
• 2. Unity within diversity: a social psychological analysis of the internal diversity of the Indignados movement
• 3. The political economy of Israel’s ‘social justice’ protests: a class and generational analysis
• 4. Hashtags, ruling relations and the everyday: institutional ethnography insights on social movements
• 5. A matter of law and order: reporting the Salford riots in local news webpages
• 6. The moral economy of the UK student protest movement 2010–2011
• 7. Networks, counter-networks and political socialisation – paths and barriers to high-cost/risk activism in the 2010/11 student protests against fees and cuts
• 8. Something’s wrong here: transnational dissent and the unimagined community
• 9. Why the psychology of collective action requires qualitative transformation as well as quantitative change
• Index