Routing the Opposition: Social Movements, Public Policy, and Democracy (Social Movements, Protest and Contention)

328 Pages·2005·2.69 MB·English

by  David S. Meyer

ROUTING THE OPPOSITION
Social Movements, Protest, and Contention
Series Editor: Bert Klandermans, Free University, Amsterdam
Associate Editors: Ron R. Aminzade, University of Minnesota
David S. Meyer, University of California, Irvine
Verta A. Taylor, University of California, Santa Barbara
Volume 23 David S. Meyer, Valerie Jenness, and Helen Ingram, editors,
Routing the Opposition: Social Movements, Public Policy, and
Democracy
Volume 22 Kurt Schock, Unarmed Insurrections: People Power Movements
in Nondemocracies
Volume 21 Christian Davenport, Hank Johnston, and Carol Mueller,
editors, Repression and Mobilization
Volume 20 Nicole C. Raeburn, Changing Corporate America from Inside
Out: Lesbian and Gay Workplace Rights
Volume 19 Vincent J. Roscigno and William F. Danaher, Th e Voice of
Southern Labor: Radio, Music, and Textile Strikes, 1929–1934
Volume 18 Maryjane Osa, Solidarity and Contention: Networks of Polish
Opposition
Volume 17 Mary Margaret Fonow, Union Women: Forging Feminism in the
United Steelworkers of America
Volume 16 Bert Klandermans and Suzanne Staggenborg, editors, Methods
of Social Movement Research
Volume 15 Sharon Kurtz, Workplace Justice: Organizing Multi-Identity
Movements
Volume 14 Sanjeev Khagram, James V. Riker, and Kathryn Sikkink,
editors, Restructuring World Politics: Transnational Social
Movements, Networks, and Norms
For more books in the series, see page 310.
ROUTING THE OPPOSITION
Social Movements,
Public Policy, and Democracy
David S. Meyer, Valerie Jenness,
and Helen Ingram, Editors
Social Movements, Protest, and Contention
Volume 23
University of Minnesota Press
Minneapolis • London
Copyright 2005 by the Regents of the University of Minnesota
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,
without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Published by the University of Minnesota Press
111 Th ird Avenue South, Suite 290
Minneapolis, MN 55401-2520
http://www.upress.umn.edu
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Routing the opposition : social movements, public policy, and democ racy /
David S. Meyer, Valerie Jenness, and Helen Ingram, editors.
p. cm. — (Social movements, protest, and contention ; v. 23)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8166-4479-9 (hc : alk. paper) — ISBN 0-8166-4480-2 (pb :
alk. paper)
1. Social movements—United States. 2. Political activists—
United States. 3. Social problems—Government policy—United
States. 4. Democracy—United States. 5. United States—Politics and
government—20th century. I. Meyer, David S. II. Jenness, Valerie,
1963– III. Ingram, Helen M., 1937– IV. Series.
HN65.R68 2005
322.4'4'0973—dc22
2 005000434
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper
Th e University of Minnesota is an equal-opportunity educator and employer.
12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Introduction. Social Movements and Public Policy:
Eggs, Chicken, and Th eory 1
David S. Meyer
Part I. Context Matters and Patterns of Infl uence: Agendas and Alliances 27
1. Political Contexts, Challenger Strategies, and Mobilization:
Explaining the Impact of the Townsend Plan 29
Edwin Amenta
2. Social Movements, the Rise of New Issues,
and the Public Agenda 65
Frank R. Baumgartner and Christine Mahoney
3. Velcro Triangles: Elite Mobilization of Local
Antidrug Issue Coalitions 87
John D. McCarthy
Part II. The Social Movement–State Nexus: The Structure
and Consequences of Interpenetration 117
4. Creating Credible Edibles: Th e Organic Agriculture
Movement and the Emergence of U.S. Federal
Organic Standards 121
Mrill Ingram and Helen Ingram
5. Inside and Outside the State: Movement Insider Status,
Tactics, and Public Policy Achievements 149
Lee Ann Banaszak
6. Th e Policy Nexus: Professional Networks and the Formulation
and Adoption of Workers’ Compensation Reforms 177
Ryken Grattet
Part III. The Nature of the Field: Impacts on Participation, Mobilization, and Identity 207
7. Policy Feedback Eff ects for Collective Action:
Lessons from Veterans’ Programs 211
Suzanne Mettler
8. Rights without Citizenship: Activist Politics and
Prison Reform in the United States 236
Mary Fainsod Katzenstein
9. Policy Th reats and Social Movement Coalitions:
California’s Campaign to Restore Legal Immigrants’
Rights to Welfare 259
Ellen Reese
Conclusion. Social Movements, Public Policy, and Democracy:
Rethinking the Nexus 288
Valerie Jenness, David S. Meyer, and Helen Ingram
Contributors 307
Index 311
Acknowledgments
We are grateful to all of the participants at the conference “Social Move-
ments, Public Policy, and Democracy” held in Laguna Beach, California, in
January 2002. In addition to those who are represented in this volume, all
of the papers benefi ted immensely from insightful comments by other con-
ference participants, including Paul Burstein, Doug Imig, Cecelia Lynch,
Calvin Morrill, Lina Newton, Belinda Robnett, David Snow, and Sidney
Tarrow. Th e conference from which this book derives, as well as the book
itself, would not have been possible without the support of the Center for
the Study of Democracy, the School of Social Sciences, and the School of
Social Ecology, all at the University of California, Irvine. We are grateful for
the confi dence and support of Dean William Schoenfeld, Dean C. Ronald
Huff , and the director of the Center for the Study of Democracy, Russell
Dalton. Finally, we deeply appreciate the heroic administrative work pro-
vided by Dianne Christianson, Judy Omiya, and Th omas Wicke, and the
editorial expertise of Carrie Mullen, Nancy Sauro, and Jason Weidemann.
Each in their own way made this volume come into being.
vii
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Introduction
Social Movements and Public Policy: Eggs, Chicken, and Theory
David S. Meyer
Th ere were all kinds of good reasons to oppose U.S. participation in the
Vietnam War in 1965, and as the war escalated, opponents found increasingly
good reasons to take to the streets to make their claims. In July 1965, Lyndon
Johnson announced that he would intensify the U.S. commitment to South
Vietnam, increasing its military presence by nearly fi fty thousand troops,
necessitating more aggressive use of the military draft. Th e draft turned a dis-
tant issue,1 the war in Vietnam, into a proximate one, and stoked the fl edg-
ling antiwar movement. Th e draft provided a focus for the antiwar movement
as well as a sense of urgency on college campuses to do something to stop the
war. Th e Johnson administration, probably not intentionally, aided activists
who wanted to focus on the draft when, in October 1965, Attorney General
Nicholas Katzenbach promised to investigate the antidraft movement even as
local Selective Service offi cials revoked the student exemptions of protesters
against the war when they were arrested (De Benedetti 1990, 120–30).
Th e salience of the draft invigorated what had formerly been small
pacifi st and leftist organizations mobilizing and coordinating the initial op-
position to the war, fl ooding local chapters and national events with larger
numbers of new activists than any of the organizations were prepared to
handle (Gitlin 1980; Miller 1987). Th e draft allowed pacifi sts who normal-
ly reached small audiences to speak to much larger crowds, and groups that
expressed a broad commitment to comprehensive democratic change in the
United States, like Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), spread quickly
to less elite college campuses (Heineman 1993). Resistance to the draft,
often by the ritualized (and criminal) action of destroying a draft card, was
1