Strategies for Social Change

359 Pages·2012·2.139 MB·English

by  Gregory M. Maney (editor), Rachel V. Kutz-Flamenbaum (editor), Deana A. Rohlinger (editor), Jeff Goodwin (editor)

STRATEGIES FOR SOCIAL CHANGE
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 37 Gregory M. Maney, Rachel V. Kutz-Flamenbaum,
Deana A. Rohlinger, and JeffGoodwin, editors, Strategies
for Social Change
Volume 36 Zakia Salime, Between Feminism and Islam: Human Rights and
Sharia Law in Morocco
Volume 35 Rachel Schurman and William A. Munro, Fighting for the
Future of Food: Activists versus Agribusiness in the Struggle over
Biotechnology
Volume 34 Nella Van Dyke and Holly J. McCammon, editors, Strategic
Alliances: Coalition Building and Social Movements
Volume 33 Stefaan Walgrave and Dieter Rucht, editors, The World Says No
to War: Demonstrations against the War on Iraq
Volume 32 Rory McVeigh, The Rise of the Ku Klux Klan: Right-Wing
Movements and National Politics
Volume 31 Tina Fetner, How the Religious Right Shaped Lesbian and
Gay Activism
Volume30 Jo Reger, Daniel J. Myers, and Rachel L. Einwohner, editors,
Identity Work in Social Movements
Volume29 Paul D. Almeida, Waves of Protest: Popular Struggle in
El Salvador, 1925–2005
Volume28 Heidi J. Swarts, Organizing Urban America: Secular and
Faith-based Progressive Movements
Volume27 Ethel C. Brooks, Unraveling the Garment Industry:
Transnational Organizing and Women’s Work
For more books in the series, see pages 319–20.
STRATEGIES FOR SOCIAL CHANGE
Gregory M. Maney, Rachel V. Kutz-Flamenbaum,
Deana A. Rohlinger, and Jeff Goodwin, editors
Social Movements, Protest, and Contention
Volume 37
University of Minnesota Press
Minneapolis • London
Portions of chapter 7 previously appeared in Nancy Whittier, The Politics
of Child Sexual Abuse: Emotion, Social Movements, and the State,published by
Oxford University Press, 2009.
Portions of chapter 12 previously appeared in Sharon Erickson Nepstad and
Stellan Vinthagen, “Strategic Changes and Cultural Adaptations: Explaining
Differential Outcomes in the International Plowshares Movement,”
International Journal of Peace Studies13, no. 1 (2008): 15–42.
Copyright 2012 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 Third Avenue South, Suite 290
Minneapolis, MN 55401-2520
http://www.upress.umn.edu
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Strategies for social change / Gregory M. Maney . . . [et al.], editors.
(Social movements, protest, and contention ; 37)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-8166-7289-9 (hc : alk. paper)
ISBN 978-0-8166-7290-5 (pb : alk. paper)
1. Social change. 2. Social movements. 3. Social participation. I. Maney, Gregory M.
HM831.S7697 2012
303.4—dc23
2011044235
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper
The University of Minnesota is an equal-opportunity educator and employer.
19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
This book is dedicated to each of you
making another world possible.
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Contents
Preface ix
An Introduction to Strategies for Social Change xi
Gregory M. Maney, Kenneth T. Andrews, Rachel V.
Kutz-Flamenbaum, Deana A. Rohlinger, and JeffGoodwin
I. Conceptual Foundations and Agendas
1. Thinking about Strategy 3
David S. Meyer and Suzanne Staggenborg
2. Choice Points, Emotional Batteries, and Other Ways to Find
Strategic Agency at the Microlevel 23
James M. Jasper
3. Three Mechanisms by Which Culture Shapes Movement Strategy:
Repertoires, Institutional Norms, and Metonymy 43
Francesca Polletta
II. Activist Engagement and Movement-Relevant Research
4. Raising Public Awareness of Domestic Violence: Strategic
Communication and Movement Building 61
Charlotte Ryan, Karen Jeffreys, and Linda Blozie
5. Mobilizing the Generation Gap: Transnational Coalitions and
Insider/Outsider Strategy in the Climate Action Network 93
Anna-Liisa Aunio
6. Local Strategies for Global Change: Working for Human Rights
and Economic Empowerment in the Midwest 120
Jackie Smith
III. Formation and Development of Strategy
7. The Politics of Coming Out: Visibility and Identity in Activism
against Child Sexual Abuse 145
Nancy Whittier
8. Agreeing for Different Reasons: Ideology, Strategic Differences,
and Coalition Dynamics in the Northern Ireland Civil Rights
Movement 170
Gregory M. Maney
9. Marketing for Justice: Corporate Social Movement
Organizations 197
Belinda Robnett and Jessica Ayo Alabi
IV. Strategy and the Consequences of Movements
10. Land Struggles in the Global South: Strategic Innovations in
Brazil and India 221
Kurt Schock
11. Similar Strategies, Different Outcomes: Institutional Histories
of the Christian Right of Canada and of the United States 245
Tina Fetner and Carrie Sanders
12. Strategic Choices in Cross-National Movements: A Comparison
of the Swedish and British Plowshares Movements 263
Sharon Erickson Nepstad and Stellan Vinthagen
Conclusion: Conceptualizing Strategy in an Interactive
Processional Model 285
Rachel V. Kutz-Flamenbaum
Contributors 301
Index 305
Preface
This volume began with the planning of the 2007 American Sociological
Association (ASA) Collective Behavior and Social Movement (CBSM) sec-
tion workshop on Movement Cultures, Strategies, and Outcomes. Along with
the rest of a workshop organizing committee, which included Andy Andrews,
John Krinsky, Ellen Reese, and Dingxin Zhao, we sought to make room for
the breadth of research interests within the section while also taking advan-
tage of recent developments within our field and the discipline as a whole.
One major objective was to use the workshop to advance our under-
standing of social movement strategy. Theoretically, early discussion did not
address the relationship between culture and strategy. Culture can be a
source of strategy, a goal of mobilization, an obstacle to social change, or
an opportunity for social change. The implications of recent scholarship on
not only cultural but also structural aspects of social movements for strategy
have yet to be fully considered. Indeed, strategy opens up new avenues of
dialogue and potential synthesis between structuralist and culturalist theo-
ries that have often been at odds with one another. At the same time, the
trade-offs inherent in any strategic decision highlight the role of agency in
mobilization and contention, a role that has often been neglected in both
structuralist and culturalist theories.
Perhaps because of the relative lack of attention to agency, activists typ-
icallyfind little insight from academic theory and research on social move-
ments. Yet strategy and its relationship to social change provide an important
point of convergence where the theoretical and methodological tools of the
discipline can be harnessed around questions of ongoing significance for
ix