Chapter 9 – How and Why Social Movements Achieve Influence

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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!

Ch. 9 Policy & Protest

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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?”

Chapter 8- Professional Organizers, more necessary today?

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Chapter 8, “When Everyone Protests,” is way to start thinking about both sides of a protest and movement-countermovement dynamics.  I thought Lucie did an excellent job of giving an overview of Myer’s points, so I won’t re-state those.  Among other specifics in the chapter, such as getting the attention of people with political power, I was most interested in Meyer’s take on the importance of professional organizers in movements. Especially as we being to think about countermovements and the necessity of responding to the “other side,” professional organizers might be vital to the success and impact of a protest.  As Lucie mentioned in her post, activists must put energy into their own movement, but also engage with the countermovements and publicize rebuttals.

Meyer first introduces professional organizers in Chapter 3, Becoming an Activist. There, he gives a good background about who becomes an activist, and the different types of activists that exist. Specifically, Meyer notes that  “movement professionals” are people who support themselves through organizing and political efforts.  These people do not just view the movement as a hobby, but as a lifestyle; there is always something to do that could be advancing the cause within the movement. Meyer says that movement professionals “develop a stronger vested interest in the survival and well-being of their organizations than will the rank and file activist” (55).

As we think more about countermovements, it’s good to acknowledge all the work that goes into managing the movement’s own message as well as incorporating responses to media coverage of the countermovement. Considering the bigger picture, Meyer points out that movements have become more complicated in general: “Whereas protest was the province of those without other means to make political claims effectively, it is now an add-on or component of the political strategy of an increasingly broad range of groups” (159).  Today, instead of all attention going into the protest, there are not a lot more considerations, such as current policy, lobbying, outreach campaigns to other organizations, e-mail and telephone communication, applying for police permits and posting bail.

Here are some questions I’ve had. What do you think?:

  • OWS not only has no professional organizers, but no identified leaders.  Is the absence of “professional organizers” a detriment or an advantage to the movement? Do every day citizens act as “movement professionals” in any way?
  • Has OWS engaged with a countermovement of any kind? How so?
  • What would Meyer say about OWS’s lack of engagement in the political process? Do you think the movement ever try to brand itself with politics or an existing power structure?

-Caitlin Manak

Chapter 7: Playing Within the Rules of the Game vs. The Consequences of Challenging the System

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In Meyer’s Chapter 7, we see him address not only the process of institutionalization but also the effects that it has on the different factions of a broad social movement. He suggests that these three complementary processes are cooptation, marginalization, and demobilization.

The first brings the one part of the faction to move into institutional politics as it moves from beyond the “borders of mainstream politics to the inside of the political arena” (130). We see this kind of association within social movements today as they try to gain momentum by playing within the rules of the already existing game. In this way, they can establish themselves “legitimately” as they follow the rules, routines, procedures, and norms of mainstream politics. Many new movements are vulnerable to cooptation as it is the safer route to take as they set their prospective achievements being attained in smaller steps as they have to follow all the red tape and rules that has already been established.

The second process is for groups that have been forced outside mainstream politics and their culture has been marginalized. A way that this can be achieved is through repression and forcible exclusion; however, this is sometimes a good thing for groups as they have no one to compromise their stances on their issues of concerns. This can be compared to how we see political candidates compromising their pure stances to nourish internal relationships and appease their constituents. If the groups aren’t worried about gaining access to larger audiences, then this process is actually allowing them to “speak their truths as clearly as possible, albeit to smaller audiences” (Taylor 1989). But we can see this kind of marginalization in our government’s history as social movement leaders of the 1880s onward have been threatened by secret police and sometimes sentenced to extended prison terms for exercising their right to express their opinions that just happened to be different than those of mainstream politics.

Lastly, sometimes when issues lose the spotlight and attention of mainstream politics, their supports and activists demobilize. However, as we talked about in class and as we read in Chapter 3, we know that there are movement professionals who don’t necessarily protest visibly on the streets everyday or rally the troops to sustain the movement, but are quietly and less visibly supporting their cause while sustaining a more career-oriented lifestyle. Although there are some movements who fall of the map as their supports demobilize there are many more that take what they have learned from the experience and pursue other more focused protests. For example, many movements include multiple factions that recognize that it is mutually beneficial to be seen as a one movement, but when the broad movement is demobilized, many individuals “turn their attention to other issues that now seem more pressing, more promising, or more in line with their core mission” (131). Meyers gives the example of the nuclear freeze movement that included multiple different groups, and when the movement faded, these groups didn’t just stop supporting their causes, but instead they turned their attention to their narrower focuses that held them together.

And so as I was reading, I was wondering what you guys thought are the “worst” or “best” fates of movements as they fall into the processes of institutionalization. Personally, I don’t necessarily think that it is a bad thing when super large groups demobilize after becoming marginalized because I think that in many scenarios, politics deludes the true intentions of groups and a reorganization of people with the same core mission once in awhile is a good thing.

Furthermore, I think that Meyers brings up an interesting point of how when these three wings develop in a movement and for example, the institutionalized wing looses momentum, the other two wings become less interested to stay strong as well. Do you guys think that factions are the reasons that movements fail? Or do you think that factions are what truly focus a movement? Do you think the factions of the Occupy Wall Street Movement will help or destroy its momentum?

Why Everyone Protests (Why Nothing Gets Done)

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Firstly I would like to provide a summary of the key points of this chapter for review. Meyer begins this chapter acknowledging the power of incorporating politics into social movements. Protesting at social movements, for example the Democratic national convention in Chicago in 1968, is a great way to gain the attention of the federal and state governments but also to gain political allies. Originally Meyer states that political protest was greater in the past than now, and contrastingly fewer issues were protested about in the past than are now. This increase of issues protested about alludes to JP’s question as to whether civil disobedience has become overused. Meyer admits in this chapter that the increase of social movements has created a “cluster of issues” (146) and each issue receives less attention as a result.

From there, Meyer then moves on to discuss the double-sidedness of political protests. Meyer uses the examples of abortion and civil rights to present the case that each political movement has a countermovement. He briefly states that although these movements may be the direct opposite of one another, they still often use the same tactics as mentioned in Chapter 5. Political protests have so many components to them due to the fact that each one has a countermovement. Meyers writes “Activists on more than one side of an issue must deal not only with each other, but also the outsiders drawn into the conflict” (150). Activists not only have to worry about organizing and promoting their side of the issue, but also have to stay on top of the counter movement’s plans and rebut their statements.

Not only is there countermovement to every movement, but also there is bipartisanship within both the state and federal government. So therefore you have the two sides of one issue fighting against each other, Republicans and Democrats fighting against each other, and the state and federal governments fighting against each other as well. It’s no wonder political protests never make any real progress. Political protests often have more resources than non-political protests because they engage politicians with power into the equation. These politicians can act as representatives for each side of the issue and make sure their opinions are debated in government meetings. However, because the state and federal governments often have different rulings and do not come to similar conclusions on rulings, there is a lot of gray area within these hot button issues. For example with abortion, Roe v. Wade ruled that a women can terminate her pregnancy during the first trimester, the state holds power in the third trimester, but during the second trimester, there needs to be a “balancing of rights” (152). This balancing of rights leaves a lot of room for interpretation. Take gay marriage, the federal government does not recognize gay marriage, yet they give states the right to make their own individual decisions. Well not all states have the same policies, so there again is a gray area of indecision.

In conclusion, Meyer states that the reason why political protests take so long to resolve, or might never be resolved is because of the split in government and the continued existence of movements and countermovement. Also, because political protest has become more commonly accepted in the present, people risk less by joining a movement. Therefore, there are more issues being debated and lots and lots of clutter.

Okay now for the fun part…some questions for you to think about:

1.)    Going back to JP’s question has the increase of political issues being debated taken away from their overall meaning? Would it be more conducive to focus on only a few hot button topics (gay marriage, abortion) at a time?

2.)    In what ways does a bipartisan government create standstills for social movements? Are these standstills necessary to keep the peace? Could these standstills ever realistically be removed somehow?

3.)    Is there a countermovement to Occupy Wall Street? If so, does that mean OWS is a political protest? If not, does that mean OWS does not qualify to be a political protest?

– Lucie Dufour

Social Movements, Too Legit to Quit? Ch 7 – The State and Protests: Institutionalization

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In this chapter, Meyer details the pattern of political institutionalization of social movements that has come to characterize some movements in the United States.  He uses the antinuclear movement of the 1970s, the longer term US populism and agricultural movements, and US labor movements as the exemplars for explaining the patterns and mechanisms of institutionalization.

Meyer provides an operational definition of institutionalization as “…the creation of a stable set of relationships and procedures such that the politics of an issue becomes routine, that is, repeatable for all concerned with minimal uncertainty or risk… The boundaries of possible reforms are reasonably clear to all concerned and are limited” (126).  He then outlines several mechanisms of institutionalization:

  1. “…policy makers can incorporate movement concerns by offering consultation, formal or informal, with representatives of a movement” (126)
  2. “…elected officials can offer social movement activists a platform or a venue for making their claims” (127)
  3. “…government can set up more permanent venues for consultation, formally adopting the concerns, and even sometimes the personnel, of a challenging movement” (127)
  4. “government can institute procedures that give an actor or claimant formal inclusion in a deliberative process” (128)
  5. “…policy reform can afford activist concerns a place in the process and resources attendant to that place” (128)
  6. “institutionalization includes norms and values, not only in government, but also in the broader culture” (128) *noted as critical by the author*

What struck me the most about this chapter was the indirect, implicit discussion of legitimacy.  To me it seems that at the foundation of this process of institutionalization is a search for the right place, a sense of permanence, the right people, and recognition for the need and the possibility for reform.  What the process of institutionalization does for a social movement is accommodating the needs of the cause while providing them with a form of legitimacy.  Following this train of thought, if this particular cause is being welcomed into the political system then it must have a legitimate claim to be taken seriously.  In the title of this blog post, I ask in jest “Social Movements, Too Legit to Quit?”.  But, I think this question has resonance with what Meyer discusses in this chapter because there seems to be a catch-22 with institutionalization.  The process does not just fuel the activistism and/or activist participation.  The social movement becomes institutionalized and gains legitimacy but gaining legitimacy may prompt activists to question what else they can do for their cause.  Can institutionalization make a movement “too legit” and make the activists quit?

After reading this chapter, I’m left considering the following questions which I now pose to you:

  • Is the process of institutionalization as described by Meyers just another way of phrasing the process of negotiation? Or is it a grander process of gaining legitimacy? Or is it simply selling out?
  • Do you think that institutionalization is necessary or even inevitable?
    Can you imagine OWS engaging in institutionalization? Or would that be completely antithetical to the cause?

 

Brittany Mangold

Media’s role in Social Movements: Stand up for Ellen

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Today, I found an article in the Huffington Post that serves as a great example of the power of media in social movements. Last week, One Million Moms (an affiliate of the American Family Association) attacked JCPenny for hiring Ellen DeGeneres based on her sexuality. In the “Gay Voices” section of the online newspaper, activist and blogger Scott Wooledge, gives reasons why the smear campaign will actually be ammunition for the LGBT community:

“The LGBT community owes a great big thanks to the “One Million Moms” (actually, closer to 40,000) for launching the best LGBT-friendly public relations blitz the community has seen in ages, and battering Christian conservative’s image in a way the LGBT community could never hope to do.”

The fact that One Million Moms is using moral judgement as grounds for employment discrimination has even gotten Bill O’Rielly talking. (In the article, there is a clip of O’Rielly passionately defending non-descrimination in the workplace.) In addition, GLAAD, the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, has started a campaign in response, called “Stand Up for Ellen”.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/scott-wooledge/million-moms-ellen-jcpenny_b_1272420.html

 

Thoughts?

Next Steps for the Occupy Movement?

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Sunday’s New York Times  featured this article about the different avenues the Occupy Movement is taking — planning larger protests to draw in more people to their movement, renting office space, organizing general assemblies and work groups.  The activists they quote in the article have experience participating in other social movements.

The article quotes David Meyer, the author of The Politics of Protest. “’Some of the stuff you do to get attention often puts off your audience,’ said David S. Meyer, a professor at the University of California, Irvine, who studies social movements. ‘It’s a delicate balance, being provocative enough to get attention and still draw sympathy.’”

In what ways does the article reflect other themes in Meyer’s book?

Also pay particular attention to the activists quoted by the reporters.  How is the New York Times portraying the Occupy Movement?

 

 

Chapter 6: Civil Disobedience, A Fact Sheet

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In a word: Versatile.

In a sentence: Civil Disobedience is a tool of social movements used by an individual or group to protest a law or common practice, and can change over the course of the movement from a spark of ignition to a unifying action.  

In a picture:

The OWS Student Strike in NYC (Rights owned by me, so no copyright issues)

 

Types of Civil Disobedience:

Individualistic-Often dramatic, and in accordance with an individual’s own ‘higher law,’ individualistic Civil Disobedience is an action of one or a few who find a present practice or law against their beliefs—religious, secular, or otherwise—and take action. Meyer’s example is of a woman who bars all other women entrance to an abortion clinic.

 

Collective-In acting not against a law or for a ‘higher law,’ collective Civil Disobedience relies on disagreement with a common practice that goes against the ‘collective value’ of a large group. Meyer’s example is of a fictional play in which women withhold sex and chores until war ends. Though not breaking laws, they are breaking customs. See ‘Famous Users’ for more.

 

Primary uses of Civil Disobedience:

Bring attention and inspire action-At the beginning of a movement, Civil Disobedience can bring media attention to an issue and inspire involvement by previously dormant citizens. Case in point: Rosa Parks refusing to give up her seat on the bus. (spark)

 

Unify a campaign- In the course of a movement, Civil Disobedience can serve as a common thread linking protestors, leaders, and events. Case in point: MLK and Ghandi used non-violent civil disobedience to gain the moral high ground and control the direction and methodology of protests.

 

Famous users/uses of Civil Disobedience:

Women and Prohibition-Though Meyer’s does not mention this in his fictional account of women withholding sex, many women in America actually did withhold sex, cease household labor, and acted generally against the grain in a response to the obscene drinking of the early twentieth century. The result: prohibition. This illustrates perfectly collective Civil Disobedience.

 

MLK and the Civil Rights Movement-Referred to constantly my Meyer’s and used by analysts around the world, the Civil Rights Movement illustrates both individualistic Civil Disobedience and Collective Civil Disobedience in the ways written about through the piece.

 

The Take-away

The key to understanding the different uses of Civil Disobedience lies not in the result or the people involved, but the origin of the action. In assessing whether or not a movement is effectively using Civil Disobedience at the right moment in the course of a movement, one must look at why it occurred. Did a single person or small group act in favor of a ‘higher law’ or a ‘collective value’?

 

With that in mind, how is Civil Disobedience used by the Occupy movement? Which kind? At what time? How about the Tea Party?

Chapter 6: Civil Disobedience

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There are several important takeaways that the author wishes us to absorb from chapter 6 on civil disobedience. The first is that the term “civil disobedience” is described and defined very broadly by its famous users to incorporate many behaviors. These more famous users include the likes of Henry Thoreau, Ghandi, and MLK. Their definitions range from “to wash one’s hands of [an enormous wrong]… and not give it practically his support,” to disobeying an “unjust” law because it violates a “higher law,” such as moral conscience, the constitution, or the bible.

The next point of absorption is that due to this vagueness of terms, civil disobedience can be can be overused, both as a term and a practice, and be employed by both sides of the same argument. This becomes problematic because anything can be rationally justified as civil disobedience and Americans tend to view it as the trademark of a justified cause, which can lead to misconceptions. For example, the author uses the example of pro and anti-abortion demonstrators and how they both use acts of “civil disobedience.” If I were an American with a positive stigma towards “civil disobedience” due to our countries history of it, I would not be able to rationally choose, with those definitions, which side of the abortion argument was truly civil disobedience and which one was a protest of a justified practice or non-practice. Also because users of civil disobedience appeal to “higher laws” the users believe, sometimes falsely, that no secular authority can ever disagree with them. In other words, labeling something civil disobedience is highly subjective.

Next, the author wishes for us to recognize the many instances of successful use of civil disobedience. MLK’s tactics, the story of Lysistrata, and Ghandi’s practices are the most famous. The author also wants to point out several characteristics of these usages. The first is people who did not otherwise have voice in society carried them all out. This shows that civil disobedience is often a last resort and a way for an outsider or marginalized person to affect the status quo. After all, “Dissidents are unlikely to march outside the White House if the can have a meaningful audience inside.” (114) The second is that civil disobedience was not the cause of the positive results of each movement; civil disobedience was used to generate publicity that eventually got the people who could change the status quos to change them. This is significant because it reveals that even though civil disobedience itself goes outside of a system to affect it, the real actual act of changing the system still comes from within. Thirdly, Civil disobedience is the most effective when the participants have strong emotional or personal connections to each other. I found this interesting because OWS does not have this characteristic.  Finally, civil disobedience can be adapted and employed in any number of social movements with good affects, however, they tend to be more successful when they share the above characteristics.

So, keeping in mind the main ideas of this chapter, I was wondering what the forum has to say about civil disobedience and anything else the chapter discussed. Is “civil disobedience” overused? Do you think Americans have been overexposed to those types of actions and don’t take them as seriously as they once did? Does anyone have good answers for the questions that the book poses on the bottom of page 111? “Do the politics and government of the United States encourage the development of certain kinds of strategies for social movements? Do the dominant strategies change over time? Are there certain kinds of constituencies who will choose to use civil disobedience, or are there certain issue areas for which the tactic is most relevant?” (111)

 

-JP Shannon