SOCIAL

MOVEMENT Kevin Gillan

S Kevin.Gillan@manchester.ac.uk
  Lecture 1. Social Movements: Pursuing Alternative
Values
 How do movements construct alternative values?
 What strategies give movements power to pursue

TOPIC those values?

 Lecture 2. Corporate Social Responsibility: Beyond
OVERVIEW the Profit Motive?
 To what extent is CSR a response to criticisms of
corporations by movements and other groups?
 Does CSR involve corporations acting on values other
than traditional economic value?
LECTURE OVERVIEW
 What is a social movement, and why do
sociologists study them?
 How do movements construct values?
 Collective Identities
 Interpretative Frames

 How do movements use protest as a form of

power?
 Protest defined
 Strategic logics of protest

 Summary and looking ahead

WHAT IS A SOCIAL
MOVEMENT?
“A social movement is a collective actor – comprising
individuals, informal groups and (often) formal
organizations – coordinating voluntarily to pursue a
range of values or interests that bring it into conflict with
perceived systems of power.”

Gillan, 2019, p. 304.

WHY ARE MOVEMENTS
WORTH STUDYING?
 Key actors in historic processes of socio-economic change.
 Resistance and alternatives to dominant social norms demonstrates the agency of
individuals and group vis-à-vis social structures.
 Movements also contain an interesting puzzle about overcoming the ‘collective action
problem’:
 From Mancur Olson’s (1965) The Logic of Collective Action. This book used economistic game
theory to examine why people participate in unions or movements.
 Participation seems illogical: there are risks/costs associated with participation; any benefits
won are collective in nature, going to people whether they participated or not; so, why not ‘free
ride’ on other’s action?
 Olson’s answer concerned the nature of formally organised groups and the provision of
‘selective incentives’ that only participants would get.
 While there has been significant critique of the assumptions of game theory (see Edwards,
2014, Ch. 3), the puzzle remains an interesting way in to the study of social movements.
STUDYING MOVEMENTS
INVOLVES…
 Understanding the historical contexts within which movements arise, such as
through:
 Identifying stakes of conflict (with states, corporations, dominant cultures?).
 Examination of structures of meaning (norms, values, ideologies, discourse
etc).
 Grasping the nature of collectivism (a key problem for sociologists in general),
especially through:
1. The generation of shared interpretative frames and collective identity (->
commitment to collective)
2. Investigation of means of coordination (-> ability to act collectively)
 Examining strategies and tactics by which attempt to create change.
VALUES IN
INTERPRETIVE
FRAMES
Movement scholars often understand the content of
movements aims and demands through the identification of
‘interpretive frames’.
 Concept rooted in social psychology, and recognition that our
cognition is shaped by packages of ideas, beliefs and values
that often have a structure shared by many people.
 Movements do the work of framing: bringing together ideas
into a coherent package, and communicating them in a way
that might persuade others to join the movement, donate
resources, or lend their support.
 When frames are shared, communication of one part of a
frame primes other ideas – that is related ideas become
salient in the mind of the listener, even if unspoken. This is
why short slogans, placards, banners and memes can carry a
lot of meaning.
VALUES IN COLLECTIVE
IDENTITIES
 Identities describe a sense of ‘we-ness’ – group members might be identified by:
 social or economic position, e.g. workers’ movement,
 some attribute of the movement’s constituents, e.g. women’s movement,
 or by reference to beliefs, e.g. socialist movement.

 Collective identities are constructed and negotiated, and movements develop them as a
shared, politicised position. They therefore include values too.
 Constructing a sense of ‘we’ also implicitly constructs a ‘they’, and for movements that
identifies a target or opponent. Sometimes, the identity of the ‘they’ is more important
than the ‘we’ – as in anti-corporate movements.
WHAT DO MOVEMENTS DO?
 Much of what movements do is activity to generate the movement itself. This includes:
 The practical gathering of resources (money, skills, people etc).
 The development and communication of meanings, that allow participants (and others)
to understand what is at stake in the conflict in which the movement is involved. As we
have seen:
 Interpretative frames describe what movements are in terms of their ideas: what do
participants believe?
 Collective identities describe who the movement is for: how do participants see
themselves? How do they identify their opponents.
 But, the most recognisable activities of movements are those directed at producing
social change…
PROTEST
“If there is a single element
that distinguishes social
movements from other
political actors … it is the
strategic use of novel,
dramatic, unorthodox and
non-institutionalized forms
of political expression to try
to shape public opinion and
put pressure on those in
positions of authority.”
(Taylor & Van Dyke, 2007)
 WORTHINESS, According to Charles Tilly, the
characteristic ‘repertoire of contention’
UNITY, NUMBERS, developed in democracies since 19th
century is characterised by ‘WUNC
COMMITMENT? displays’.
WORTHINESS?
 ‘Worthiness’ depends on perspective. Following the ‘I have a dream’
speech, FBI agent (and head of COINTELPRO) William Sullivan wrote:
“In the light of King's powerful demagogic speech yesterday he stands head
and shoulders above all other Negro leaders put together when it comes to
influencing great masses of Negroes. We must mark him now, if we have not
done so before, as the most dangerous Negro of the future in this Nation from
the standpoint of communism, the Negro and national security.”

 The illegitimacy of such claims today (i.e. retrospective worthiness of

the civil rights movement) is itself part of the movement’s success.
 More generally: worthiness always contested by other political actors.
MARCH
BLOCKA
CLOW
PROPERTY
CONFLI
STRATEGIC LOGICS OF
PROTEST
Indirect Direct
• WUNC displays depend on appeal to • Direct action preferred by those who
authority to act. have no trust in authorities to act on
• Assumes reasonably democratic polity. their behalf.
• E.g. marches, rallies, public meetings, • Action intended to have a direct impact
petitions. on opponents.
• E.g. property damage, blockades,
sabotage, strikes.

 Different strategic logics imply that forms of action carry activists’ theories of social
transformation (though careful interpretation required).
 Not all strategic action looks like public protest...
STRATEGIC PRACTICES: A
BASIC TYPOLOGY
Strategic logic

Indirect Direct

Exceptional WUNC displays Direct action

Temporal
Domain

Everyday Lifestyle action Prefiguration

From: Gillan, K. (2019). Social Movements, Protest and Strategic Practices. In G. Ritzer &
W. Wiedenhoft Murphy (Eds.), The Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Sociology (2nd edn.).
Wiley.
  Social movements are a sociologically puzzling
phenomenon, in which people break dominant social
norms, generate different values and interests, and
devise new ways of finding power.
 We can approach movement values through the key
concepts of ‘interpretive frames’ and ‘collective
identities’. Both imply that movements are active in
generating and communicating meaning.

SUMMARY  Power flows from the strategic logic of various forms

of movement action:
 Protest can be powerful through moral persuasion of
decision makers, or through directly impacting the
activities of targets.
 Other forms of strategic practice exist too and have
generated economically relevant trends such as boycotts
and ethical consumption. Such trends target corporate
activity specifically.

NEXT WEEK: We’ll look at how corporations have responded to

critiques that have been generated by social movements.
Something to watch later…
WHY IT’S
KICKING OFF
EVERYWHERE
 A very readable book by journalist Paul
Mason, now also a play.
 Video clip:
 https://learningonscreen.ac.uk/ondemand
/index.php/clip/109633
 NB, that’s a short clip – you can see the
whole thing here:
https://learningonscreen.ac.uk/ondemand
/index.php/prog/0F54D6A5?bcast=12460
3415
(1 hr, institutional login required,
programme starts 2 minutes in.)
 Questions to consider:
1. What different sorts of emotions are
expressed in the film? How would you
feel in any of these situations?
2. What caused the protest? What are they