scholarly journals Prefigurative Politics and Social Movement Strategy: The Roles of Prefiguration in the Reproduction, Mobilisation and Coordination of Movements

2020 ◽  
pp. 003232172093604
Author(s):  
Luke Yates
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Social Movement ◽  
Recent Work ◽  
New Social Movements ◽  
Movement Strategy ◽  
Prefigurative Politics ◽  
The 1960S

Recent work historicises and theoretically refines the concept of prefigurative politics. Yet disagreements over the question of whether or how it is politically effective remain. What roles does prefiguration play in strategies of transformation, and what implications does it have for understandings of strategy? The article begins to answer this question by tracking the concept’s use, from discussions of left strategy in the 1960s, a qualifier of new social movements in the 1980s–1990s, its application to protest events in the 2000s, to its contemporary proliferation of meanings. This contextualises reflections on the changing arguments about the roles of prefiguration in social movement strategy. Based on literature about strategy, three essential categories of applied movement strategy are identified: reproduction, mobilisation and coordination. Prefigurative dynamics are part of all three, showing that the reproduction of movements is strategically significant, while the coordination of movements can take various ‘prefigurative’ forms.

scholarly journals Social Movement Literature and U.S. Labour: A Reassessment

2014 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 165-179
Author(s):  
Keith Mann
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Social Movement ◽  
Occupy Wall Street ◽  
New Social Movements ◽  
Wall Street ◽  
Labour Movement ◽  
Common Features ◽  
1960S And 1970S ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The Arab Spring

Largely due to its conservative profile at the time, the U.S. labour movement was largely absent from modern social movement literature as it developed in response to the new social movements of the 1960s and 1970s. Recent labour mobilizations such as the Wisconsin uprising and the Chicago Teachers’ strike have been part of the current international cycle of protest that includes the Arab Spring, the antiausterity movements in Greece and Spain, and Occupy Wall Street. These struggles suggest that a new labour movement is emerging that shares many common features with new social movements. This article offers a general analysis of these and other contemporary labour struggles in light of contemporary modern social movement literature. It also critically reviews assumptions about the labour movement of the 1960s and 1970s and reexamines several social movement concepts.

Taiwan's State and Social Movements Under the DPP Government, 2000–2004

2005 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 401-425 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ming-sho Ho
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Social Movement ◽  
Economic Recession ◽  
Contentious Politics ◽  
Political Orientation ◽  
Democratic Progressive Party ◽  
Opportunity Structure ◽  
Conservative Policy ◽  
Movement Strategy ◽  
Progressive Party

This article explores the evolution of social movement politics under the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) government (2000–2004) by using the perspective of political opportunity structure. Recent “contentious politics” in Taiwan is analyzed in terms of four changing dimensions of the opportunity structure. First, the DPP government opens some policy channels, and social movement activists are given chances to work within the institution. Yet other features of the political landscape are less favorable to movement activists. Incumbent elites' political orientation shifts. As the economic recession sets in, there is a conservative policy turn. Political instability incurs widespread countermoblization to limit reform. Last, the Pan-Blue camp, now in opposition, devises its own social movement strategy. Some social movement issues gain political salience as a consequence of the intervention of the opposition parties, but its excessive opportunism also encourages the revolt of antireform forces. As a result of these countervailing factors, social movements have made only limited gains from the recent turnover of power.

SOCIAL MOVEMENT THEORY: LESSONS FROM THE SOCIOLOGY OF W. E. B. DU BOIS*

2019 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 125-136
Author(s):  
Aldon Morris
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Social Movement ◽  
Black Community ◽  
Lived Experiences ◽  
Black People ◽  
Accurate Analysis ◽  
Movement Theory ◽  
Du Bois ◽  
The 1960S

This article addresses why movement scholars had no idea that the civil rights and black power movements of the 1960s and 70s were imminent. In fact, their theories led them to predict that these movements were impossible because only whites possessed history-making agency. These scholars accepted the dogma that black people, their culture, and their institutions were inferior and incapable of organizing and leading powerful movements. This article demonstrates that the black sociologist W. E. B. Du Bois predicted those movements a half century before they occurred. He did so because he conducted concrete empirical analyses of the black community, and his lived experiences led him to reject the thesis of black inferiority. This article argues that the field of social movements remains too white and elitist and that this condition causes less robust and accurate analysis. The article suggests ways to make needed changes.

Living Labour and Social Movements: A Dialogue with Antonio Negri

2017 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 518-525 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniela Chironi ◽  
Federico Tomasello
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Social Movement ◽  
Class Struggle ◽  
Sociology Of Religion ◽  
Carl Schmitt ◽  
The Political ◽  
Radical Critique ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Antonio Negri ◽  
Financial Capitalism

In this interview, Antonio Negri first focuses on the possibility of defining the concept of ‘social movement’. By mobilizing a spectrum of references that goes from Carl Schmitt to the Weberian sociology of religion, he insists on the necessity, not to sociologically crystallize the concept, but, instead, to think about it in a historical manner. Social movements would then be attempts at activating ‘liberation processes’, which nowadays can only be thought of within the conditions of financial capitalism. Negri then proceeds to examine the relation between the concept of social movement and those of class and class struggle: he suggests a dynamic and relational interpretation of the Marxian concept of ‘living labour’ as a bridge between a class analysis of society and the study of social movements, movements which in the contemporary landscape are ready to take an ‘entrepreneurial’ connotation. The political and intellectual experience of Italian Workerism in the 1960s is then recalled as a fertile example of the application of this method of social analysis, but also as an exemplification of the principle of ‘unrepeatability’ of social movements. The author finally claims to be a ‘theorist of immaterial labour’ in order to then develop a radical critique of the idea of so-called ‘post-materialist’ movements and of the effects that such a notion has had on the sociology of social movements.

scholarly journals The evolving quality and scope of new social movements: Toronto food security organizations mobilizing for change.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elisabeth Schieck
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Food Security ◽  
Social Change ◽  
Social Movement ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
New Social Movements ◽  
Research Project ◽  
Movement Theory ◽  
Food Taking ◽  
Security Organizations

"This research project investigates some contemporary urban aspects of the politics of food. Taking social movement theory as my theoretical framework, this paper examines the ways in which the practices and services of Toronto organizations such as the Stop Community Food Centre, FoodShare, and Not Far From The Tree promote countercultural food ideologies and thus may be viewed as actors attempting to influence political and social change through food. While individual organizations should not be confused with social movements, it is possible that we may be able look at this ensemble of organizations as an informal network that exemplifies a new contemporary form of social movement."--Pages 3-4.

scholarly journals Islamic "New Social Movements"? Radical Islam, AL-QA'IDA and Social Movement Theory

2006 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 101-115 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip Sutton ◽  
Stephen Vertigans
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Social Movement ◽  
Unique Character ◽  
Radical Islam ◽  
Movement Organization ◽  
Key Characteristics ◽  
The Social ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
New Social Movement ◽  
Post Industrial

European new social movement (NSM) theory was developed to describe and explain the apparently unique character of the wave of collective action that began in the 1960s and continues to this day. Key characteristics of NSM theory are a post-industrial orientation, middle-class activist core, loose organizational form, use of symbolic direct actions, creation of new identities, and a "self-limiting radicalism." The theory's claims to movement innovation were later criticized by many as exaggerated and ahistorical. However, the filtering down of key NSM elements into social movement studies has led to changing definitions of what social movements actually are and opened up new opportunities for the integration of religious movements into the social movements mainstream. Using the case of radical Islam, and with particular reference to the terrorist social movement organization al-Qa'ida, this article argues that drawing on key features of NSM theory should lead to a better understanding of radical Islam as well as a more realistic explanation of its continuing development and transformation.

WHEN SAYING LESS IS SOMETHING NEW: SOCIAL MOVEMENTS AND FRAME-CONTRACTION PROCESSES*

2017 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 275-292 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marc Lavine ◽  
J. Adam Cobb ◽  
Christopher J. Roussin
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Social Movement ◽  
New Social Movements ◽  
Dynamic Nature ◽  
United Auto Workers ◽  
Auto Workers ◽  
Frame Alignment ◽  
Framing Strategies ◽  
Blind Spots

The framing strategies of social movements are typically characterized by movement actors conceptually and rhetorically expanding frames. We contend that movement actors also contract frames by deliberately excluding frame elements. We add the concept of contraction to the frame-alignment construct and show how frame contraction allows for enhanced theorizing about the dialectical and dynamic nature of social movements. We describe three distinct frame contraction processes, frame removal, frame minimization, and frame restriction, which characterize common frame contraction strategies. We illustrate frame contraction by examining the framing approaches used by the United Auto Workers as they bargained with automakers across two rounds of negotiations in 1945–46 and 1949–1950. We show how frame contraction articulates undertheorized complexities in changes to social movement frames. We also illustrate potential blind spots, biases, or distortions that may arise absent the frame contraction construct.

The Return of The Repressed: The Fall and Rise of Emotions in Social Movement Theory

2000 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 65-83 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeff Goodwin ◽  
James Jasper ◽  
Francesca Polletta
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Social Movement ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Social Movement Theory ◽  
Movement Theory ◽  
Catching Up ◽  
History Of ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Fertile Area

In recent years sociologists have made great strides in studying the emotions that pervade social life. The study of social movements has lagged behind, even though there are few arenas where emotions are more obvious or important. We hope to understand this lag as well as make some suggestions for catching up. To do this we examine the history of scholarship on social movements, finding that emotions were poorly specified in the early years, ignored entirely in the structural and organizational paradigms that emerged in the 1960s, and still overlooked in the cultural era of the 1980s and 1990s. Despite isolated efforts to understand the emotions of social movements, they remain today a fertile area for inquiry.

Religion as a Political Tool

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Sarzynski
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Popular Culture ◽  
Social Movement ◽  
Northeastern Brazil ◽  
Rural Workers ◽  
Brazilian Government ◽  
Government Documents ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Religiously Based ◽  
Rural Social Movements

This chapter examines how discourses of religious practices and beliefs of messianism and Catholic radicalism functioned to both unite rural workers and criminalize the rural social movements, while also coding o Nordeste as fanatical and non-modern. By connecting films and popular culture to rural social movement publications and U.S. and Brazilian government documents, the chapter shows the conflicting ways in which political and cultural actors resurrected the historical messianic movement and war of Canudos (1896-7) in the 1960s. Conservatives emphasized the “fanatical” features of social movement leaders and participants, mobilizing the dominant stereotype of Nordestinos as religiously devious. Rural social movements established their own religiously based narrative of a revolutionary Jesus who fought against the wealthy for the poor. The radicalization of Catholic doctrine along with debates about the meaning of past struggles in the Northeast such as Canudos both shifted and upheld the prevailing constructions of Northeastern Brazil.

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