Download Chapter 15: Collective Action and Social Movements

Chapter 15:
Collective Action and
Social Movements
Melanie Hatfield
Soc 100
Collective Action

When people act in unison to bring about or
resist social, political, and economic change.
Routine
 Nonroutine


Routine collective
actions follow
established patterns of
behavior in existing
social structures.

Nonroutine collective
actions take place when
usual conventions cease
to guide social action and
people bypass
established structures.
Breakdown Theory of Nonroutine
Collective Action
Three Factors:
 A group of people must be economically
deprived or socially rootless.
 Their norms must be strained or disrupted.
 They must lose the capacity to act rationally by
getting caught up in the madness of crowds.

Most pre-1970 sociologists would have said that
Neal’s lynching was caused by one or more of
the following factors:
Deprivation
 Contagion
 Strain

Deprivation

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Research shows that no clear association between fluctuations in
economic well-being and the number of lynchings that took
place each year between the 1880s and the 1930s.
In the case of the Neal lynching, the main instigators were
especially not economically deprived, nor were the socially
marginal individuals.
In most cases of collective action, leaders and early joiners are
well-integrated members of the communities, not outsiders.
Levels of deprivation are not commonly associated with the
frequency or intensity of outbursts of collective action.
Contagion


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Despite its barbarity, the Neal lynching was not a
spontaneous and unorganized affair.
Sophisticated planning went into the Brewton jail raid.
Nonroutine collective action is structured by:


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ideas and norms that emerge in the crowd itself.
the predispositions that unite crowd members and predate
their collective action.
the degree to which different types of participants adhere to
emergent and preexisting norms.
preexisting social relationships among participants structure
nonroutine collective action.
Strain


Lynching had deeper roots than the apparent
violation of norms governing black-white
relations.
Significantly, it was a means by which black farm
workers were disciplined and kept tied to the
southern cotton industry after the abolition of
slavery threatened to disrupt the industry’s
traditional, captive labor supply.
Frequency of Lynching, US, 1882-1935
Social Movements


According to breakdown theory, people usually
rebel soon after social breakdown occurs.
In reality, however, people often find it difficult
to turn their discontent into an enduring social
movement.
Solidarity Theory



Research conducted since 1970 shows that social
breakdown often does not have the expected shortterm effect.
There are several social-structural factors that modify
the effects of social breakdown on collective action.
Three other variables are associated with episodes of
collective action:



Resource Mobilization
Political Opportunities
Social Control
Unions and Collective Action



Workers have traditionally used three methods of
collective action to advance their interests: unions,
political parties, and strikes.
Unions enable groups of workers to speak with one
voice and thus bargain more effectively with their
employers for better wages, working conditions, and
benefits.
The union movement brought us many things we take
for grated today, such as the eight-hour work day, twoday weekends, health insurance, and pensions.
Strikes and Resource Mobilization



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The post-1945 drop in union density is partly a result of changes
in America’s occupational structure.
The industrial working class (where unionism is strongest) has
shrunk and therefore become weaker.
In addition, beginning in the 1970s, many American employers
began to contest unionization elections legally.
They also hired consulting firms in anti-union “information”
campaigns aimed at keeping their workplaces union-free.
Thus, a decline in organizational resources available to industrial
workers was matched by an increase in anti-union resources
mobilized by employers.
Strikes and Political Opportunities



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In 1947 Congress passed the Taft-Hartley Act, which
meant unions were no longer allowed to force
employees to become members or to require union
membership as a condition for being hired, and also
allowed employers to replace striking workers.
Unions thus became less effective – and therefore less
popular – as ways of achieving workers’ aims.
Taft-Hartley remains the basic framework for industrial
relations in the US.
Less social organization typically mans less protest.
Frequency of Strikes with 1,000+
Workers, US
Unemployment and the Frequency
of Strikes with 1,000+ Workers, US
Frame Alignment

Frame alignment is the process by which socialmovement leaders make their activities, ideas,
and goals congruent with the interests, beliefs,
and values of potential new recruits to their
movement.
Encouraging Frame Alignment
1.
2.
3.
Social-movement leaders reach out to
organizations that contain people who are
sympathetic to the cause.
Movement activists stress popular values that
have not been prominent in the thinking of
potential recruits.
Social movements can stretch their objectives
to win recruits who aren’t initially sympathetic
to their aims.
Determinants of Collective Action
and Social-Movement Formation
Goals of New Social Movements

Some new social movements provide not the rights of specific
groups, but of humanity as a whole to peace, security, and a
clean environment.


Other new social movements promote the rights of particular
groups that have been excluded from full social participation.


The peace movement, the environmental movement, and the human
rights movement.
The women’s rights movement and the gay rights movement,
The emergence of the peace, environmental, human rights, gay
rights, and women’s movements involves the extension of
citizenship rights to all adult members of society and to society
as a whole.
Globalization Potential of New
Social Movements



New social movements increased the scope of
protest beyond the national level.
For example, members of the peace and
environmental movements pressed for
international agreements binding all countries to
protect the environment and stop the spread of
nuclear weapons.
Social movements went global.

Greenpeace