The chapter was a bit choppy in my opinion, so I’ll do my best to discuss what I thought were the major points. Myers uses chapter 9 to discuss the complex and multi-dimensional relationship between social movements and public policy. Myers outlines how public policy can be both a cause and response to social movement. The examples Myers juxtaposes to illustrate this point are the expansion of the draft during the Vietnam War and the distribution of benefits as a result of the Bonus March following WWI. The expansion of the draft played a pivotal role in inciting the anti-war movement. Myers uses this example to generalize that “changes in policy provide the concerns that drive people into mobilization” (171). The distribution of benefits to veterans returning from the war was the culmination of the Bonus March and years of protesting for well fare. This example is used to demonstrate how the policy process “responds to social movement” (171). The key point Myers tries to make is that public policy influences social movements, and social movements influence public policy.

Myers dives deeper into how social movement effects policy by describing four ways in which social movements alter policy networks. In summation, social movements can

1. Lead to the replacement of existing political figures, meaning “throwing a rascal out and putting and ally in office instead” (173).
2. Lead to the conversion of beliefs where existing political figures change their beliefs on policy to benefit the movement
3. Lead to the creation of a completely new policy area, agency, habit, or institutional setting
4. Lead to the reconfiguration of current policy monopolies by introducing to new individuals to them

The key question I asked myself when I was reading all of this was whether policy should even be the desired outcome of social movement. Myers briefly hints at this at one point in the chapter on page 170, but I wish that he had explored this issue more. History has shown that public policy is not always capable of achieving societal change. The Emancipation Proclamation is just one of many policies in our country’s history that epitomize the principle that policy cannot change hearts. In order for policy to have its desired effect the mindsets and values of those it affects have to change as well. Therefore, the most important outcome of social movement is not one of the aforementioned changes to the policy networks, but rather changes in societal values and beliefs. I feel that this aspect of social movements is often ignored in favor of striving for direct policy changes.

What are all of your opinions on this issue? Am I downplaying the power that policy changes can have or is changing public values and opinions as important as I think? I feel as if I would be remiss in my blog duties if I didn’t mention OWS, so do you guys think that the OWS movement needs to change public opinions on wealth distribution in order to accomplish its broad goals?

The Bonus Marchers' camp outside Washington D.C.

In Chapter 9 Meyer opens with the example of the Bonus Marchers of 1932, which I find particularly interesting being a member of Army ROTC. The basic idea behind the Bonus Marchers was for WWI veterans march to Washington D.C. and persuade the government to give them their monetary bonus for serving in the war immediately, instead of waiting till 1945, when it was originally scheduled to be paid. Their “Bonus Bill” was shot down in 1932, but in 1933 when Franklin Delano Roosevelt became president, they returned to protest again. Finally, by 1936 the Bonus Marchers’ continual protest was rewarded as Roosevelt agreed to pay the bonus ahead of schedule.

There are two things that I’d like to highlight in this story. First, that protest can affect policy. This is the theme of this chapter in looking at how exactly this happens. Second, this is an example of a social movement that fully achieved their goal. Unlike many of the social movements that we’ve looked at so far, the Bonus Marchers actually accomplished what they set out to do, and when they finished, they disbanded and went home. This will become important later on in this post.

Let’s look at the first topic, how exactly can protests affect policy? Meyer seems to point to a few different reasons, all leading up to the fact that in order to change policy, social movements have to go through the government in order to get their reforms enacted. Meyer talks about how the Bonus Marchers had contacts in government, and how they had their “Bonus Bill” heard in congress. But ultimately, everything has to go through government. Protests serve to gain attention, to spread the concerns to a wider audience, and then, once enough people are upset, the politicians have to do something about it.

Now why does this matter? What do we care that hundreds of people are camping out in Washington D.C. for a bonus that they’ll get paid eventually anyway? Meyer says that “When a mobilized effort demonstrates strength and commitment, it can make the current policy course untenable or make long-simmering ideas appear suddenly viable” (Meyer, 172). When enough people are upset it looks poorly for those in command. President Hoover had to explain why he didn’t favor helping the veterans when there was an unemployment problem already. The key seems to be numbers and persistence.

Finally, another way that I thought was key to this issue, and wasn’t really talked about very much in the chapter, was the fact that the Bonus Marchers had an achievable goal. It seems common sense that if you want to achieve your goal, you want to make your goal achievable. This is how I would critique some of the movements that just strive for “social equality” or to even out the wage dispersion like OWS wants. How is one ever going to fully achieve social equality? Or how can we ever make everyone have exactly equal pay? It just seems that sometimes smaller goals can get heard and made into policy more than the larger ones.

I’ve said a lot in this post that was hopefully provocative in some way. If you agree or disagree, please let me know by commenting. Thanks!

In Chapter 9, entitled “The Policy Connection,” Meyer describes the reciprocal relationship of policy and protest. He showed how activists respond to government policy in many situations, and inversely how policy addresses the disruption that mobilization causes in others.The two examples he used to demonstrate both sides of the democratic connection between policy and protest were the Bonus Bill movement and the antiwar movement against Vietnam.

The Bonus March movement involved a series of marches and demonstrations from veterans who had been displaced from World War I. They were desperate for work and the government had only promised a measly $1,000 service bonus to each of them. The Veterans were fighting to pass a bill called the Bonus Bill which would offer them much more money and support. When the veterans’ encampment and marches failed to convince government to pass the bill, the marchers extended their cause to a wider audience to include many more people who were in need. When relief for more people became the focus, and the movement grew larger and unavoidable, Roosevelt eventually passed the bill in response to their grievances. This is a fine example of policy responding to protest. In the other example, the antiwar movement in the 1960s, the movement was a direct response to policy that was passed. There had already been growing hatred for Nixon’s use of nuclear weapons in Vietnam, but after he passed a policy which extended the draft to eighteen-year-olds, a new movement erupted. This example shows the other side of the relationship in which a group was given a reason to join other groups who already opposed the war; it was protest in response to policy.

In this chapter, Meyer asserted that changes in policy are usually incremental by way of marginal adjustments. So, although he has given instances in which policy has changed due to protest, the outcome is certainly not always in the favor of the activists. Not only is policy change too slow to be satisfactory to the urgent concerns of activists, but it often does not change enough to accomplish the end goals of the movement. He had an interesting quote saying, “There is a mismatch between political rhetoric that emphasizes absolutes and a political process that prizes compromise and incrementalism” (Meyer 177). Our governmental system will never meet all the expectations and address all the grievances of a movement, so people will always experience some sort of disappointment. This reminded me of Barbara Ransby at her lecture about MLK Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement. She said that if Ella Baker and MLK Jr. were here today, they would be pleased with progress, but they would not feel like their goals had been reached. There is always more work to be done.

“At what point can movements claim victory? Is there ever at point at which they can say that they have won, even when there is always more work to be done? Even if policy does not change in response to a movement, can the visibility of new issues be enough to satisfy the constituents?”