RESEARCH IN SOCIAL MOVEMENTS, CONFLICTS AND CHANGE
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RESEARCH IN SOCIAL MOVEMENTS, CONFLICTS AND CHANGE Series Editors: Patrick G. Coy and Isidor Wallimann Volumes 19–21: Edited by Michael Dobkowski and Isidor Wallimann Volume 22: Volume 23:
Volume 24:
Volume 25:
Edited by Patrick G. Coy Political Opportunities, Social Movements and Democratization, Edited by Patrick G. Coy Consensus Decision Making, Northern Ireland and Indigenous Movements, Edited by Patrick G. Coy Authority in Contention, Edited by Daniel J. Myers and Daniel M. Cress
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RESEARCH IN SOCIAL MOVEMENTS, CONFLICTS AND CHANGE VOLUME 26
RESEARCH IN SOCIAL MOVEMENTS, CONFLICTS AND CHANGE EDITED BY
PATRICK G. COY Center for Applied Conflict Management and Department of Political Science, Kent State University, Ohio, USA
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CONTENTS LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS
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INTRODUCTION Patrick G. Coy
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PART I: TACTICAL AND STRATEGIC INNOVATIONS IN SOCIAL MOVEMENT ORGANIZING SPECIALISTS AND GENERALISTS: LEARNING STRATEGIES IN THE WOMAN SUFFRAGE MOVEMENT, 1866–1918 Brayden G. King and Marie Cornwall TRANSNATIONAL ACTIVISM IN THE AMERICAS: THE INTERNET AND INNOVATIONS IN THE REPERTOIRE OF CONTENTION Jeffrey M. Ayres
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PART II: POLITICAL REPRESSION AND SOCIAL MOVEMENTS MULTI-SECTORAL COALITIONS AND POPULAR MOVEMENT PARTICIPATION Paul D. Almeida ‘‘YOU CAN BEAT THE RAP, BUT YOU CAN’T BEAT THE RIDE:’’ BRINGING ARRESTS BACK INTO RESEARCH ON REPRESSION Jennifer Earl v
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PART III: SELECTING AND SILENCING IN THE NEWSPAPER COVERAGE OF SOCIAL MOVEMENTS ADDRESSING THE SELECTION BIAS IN MEDIA COVERAGE OF STRIKES: A COMPARISON OF MAINSTREAM AND SPECIALTY PRINT MEDIA Andrew W. Martin
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WILDERNESS OR WORKING FOREST? BRITISH COLUMBIA FOREST POLICY DEBATE IN THE VANCOUVER SUN, 1991–2003 Mark C. J. Stoddart
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PART IV: IDENTITY AND EMPOWERMENT ISSUES IN SOCIAL MOVEMENTS WE DON’T AGREE: COLLECTIVE IDENTITY JUSTIFICATION WORK IN SOCIAL MOVEMENT ORGANIZATIONS Belinda Robnett
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CONSTRUCTION OF RELATIONSHIP FRAMES IN THE ABORIGINAL RIGHTS SUPPORT MOVEMENT: THE ARTICULATION OF SOLIDARITY WITH THE LUBICON CREE OF NORTHERN CANADA Neil Funk-Unrau
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THE POSSIBILITY OF PERSONAL EMPOWERMENT IN DISPUTE RESOLUTION: HABERMAS, FOUCAULT AND COMMUNITY MEDIATION Jordi Agusti-Panareda
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ABOUT THE AUTHORS
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LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS Jordi Agusti-Panareda
Stanford Law School, Stanford University, CA, USA
Paul D. Almeida
Department of Sociology, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, USA
Jeffrey M. Ayres
Department of Political Science, Saint Michael’s College, Colchester, VT, USA
Marie Cornwall
Department of Sociology, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT, USA
Patrick G. Coy
Center for Applied Conflict Management and Department of Political Science, Kent State University, Kent, OH, USA
Jennifer Earl
Department of Sociology, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA, USA
Neil Funk-Unrau
Conflict Transformation Studies, Canadian Mennonite University, Winnipeg, MB, Canada
Brayden G. King
Department of Sociology, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT, USA
Andrew W. Martin
Department of Sociology, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA
Belinda Robnett
Department of Sociology, University of California, Irvine, CA, USA
Mark C. J. Stoddart
Department of Anthropology and Sociology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada
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INTRODUCTION This 26th volume of Research in Social Movements, Conflicts and Change opens with two papers addressing tactical and strategic innovations in social movement organizing, followed by two papers focusing on repression and social movements. We then move to two papers focused on media coverage of social movements, and the volume concludes with three papers addressing collective identity, solidarity, and empowerment issues in social movements. In what follows below, each paper will be briefly introduced, in the order of their appearance in the volume. A bit of a divide, false though it is, has characterized much of the study of social movements. Some claim that what is distinctive about social movements, and therefore what should be studied, is their engagement in outsider and contentious politics (i.e. political protest), as opposed to insider and institutionalized politics (lobbying, legislative activism, commercial activities, etc.). This insider/outsider dichotomy is effectively rejected by Brayden King and Marie Cornwall in their rigorous, empirical study of the woman’s suffrage movement. Researching the woman’s suffrage movement on the state level, they show that movement strategies often move back and forth from insider to outsider tactics, and that such a ‘‘generalist’’ approach is the result of movements learning over time to use various strategies through some combination of the following processes: retention, adaptation, or diffusion. Relying in part on multinomial logistic regression, King and Cornwall meld the advanced data analysis tactics commonly associated with the protest events school with some of the theory-building research and discussions put forth by various kinds of qualitative research. Their paper not only makes significant contributions to the literature on collective learning in social movements, but they have done much to bring down a deleterious divide that has conditioned and constrained how we conceive of social movements, and therefore how we study them. A re-structuring of the repertoire of contention utilized by social movements has been taking place over the past decade or so. Internet-based tactics have modified how activists organize their campaigns for political change, bringing innovations on the one hand, and complimenting existing forms of contention and their targets on the other. The promise and the ix
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limits of these new forms of contention are particularly pronounced with regard to the transnational protests of neoliberal trade and investment initiatives and accords. While much has been written about the use of the Internet in social movement organizing, we have relatively few detailed case studies that critically analyze the promises and the pitfalls of specifically transnational movements mobilizing primarily through the Internet. Jeffrey Ayers paper on the work of the Hemispheric Social Alliance, a transnational coalition that opposed the Free Trade of the America’s accord, provides such an analysis. Ayers demonstrates the limiting aspects of the Hemispheric Social Alliance’s reliance upon Internet organizing, including the resultant privileging of a smaller group of movement entrepreneurs at the expense of a wider, more grassroots-based alliance. An emerging literature focused on protest participation in authoritarian political contexts is partly focused on the fact that participation in high-risk settings brings with it a unique set of micromobilization issues. Increased state repression against political protesters not only serves to dampen movement participation thanks to the dangers involved, but at some points and in some contexts it has the opposite effect: serving to ignite and fuel even more protest participation, and often among even more sectors of society. Paul Almeida’s nuanced study of participation in the political protests of the popular movement in El Salvador in the late 1970s is focused on the multi-sectoral nature of the opposition. Almeida builds social movement theory by demonstrating the importance of constructing a multi-sectoral movement identity in authoritarian political settings to aid in mobilization, and by empirically answering the following important questions: What are the correlates to individual activists sustaining protest participation in authoritarian political settings, where risks to personal safety are pronounced? What factors influence levels of protest intensity in such settings? The title of Jennifer Earl’s paper aptly describes its content, ‘‘You Can Beat the Rap, but You Can’t Beat the Ride: Bringing Arrests Back in to Research on Repression.’’ There is a widely accepted notion in the social movements literature on repression, which says that policing of political protests in the West has become increasingly softer, with police using much less violence while making many more arrests instead. Relying on an analysis of the literature on a series of mine strikes in Arizona in the 1980s and on mass arrests in urban areas throughout the U.S., Earl disputes this, as well as the assumed commensurability of arrests with other forms of police action. She accomplishes this via an expanded understanding of the significant costs incurred by activists who are arrested (physical, emotional, legal, as well as economic), and by noting the dampening effect this can also have on the movement.
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The study of social movements is complex and generally rife with difficulties, not the least of which is the collection of meaningful, accurate data that fairly reflects the work of the movement, its organizations, and the individual activists who make up both. These data obstacles are frequently compounded when the movement or the period under study is not contemporary, but solely historical. Thus, media-based analysis of public protest events is a robust subfield in the study of social movements. Not surprisingly, more recently a related body of literature has emerged that addresses a complex of methodological complications associated with reliance upon newspaper coverage of protest events, including the various selection biases of mainstream, mass audience newspapers in covering protest activities. Andrew Martin’s paper fills two gaps in that literature insofar as he expands traditional protest activities to include strikes, and he focuses not only on a mass audience newspaper (the New York Times) but also on an alternative, specialty newspaper (the Daily Labor Report). Martin investigates a series of well-conceived and testable hypothesis through a variety of means including logistic regression to find that both newspapers ‘‘selected’’ strikes for coverage in ways quite similar to how other forms of protest (demonstrations, marches, rallies, and vigils) are most often covered by mainstream, mass audience papers. The larger and the more economically disruptive a strike was the more likely it was to be selected for coverage in these two very different newspapers. There are, of course, many ways to utilize mass audience newspapers in the study of social movements. Marc Stoddart takes a qualitative approach, relying on discourse analysis rooted in Michel Foucault, and on Alan Schnaiburg’s theoretical framework of the ‘‘treadmill of production.’’ Stoddart uses purposive sampling to analyze coverage in the Vancouver Sun from 1991–2003 of four major environmental policy debates in British Columbia. The constructions by the Sun of key social groupings in these debates is examined, and Stoddart establishes that the range of voices in the policy debates were severely truncated in the Sun’s coverage, silencing First Nations peoples and ignoring more fundamental challenges to the ecological harms associated with modern capitalism. The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) played a unique role in the civil rights movement insofar as it was specifically founded in 1960 to fill some rather large gaps existing between existing civil rights organizations. Initially, SNCC was primarily made up of students and other young adults involved in the sit-in movement. It explicitly embraced nonviolence as both a tactic and a religious-based lifestyle ethic, and it was more committed to democratic, participatory decision-making than were many of
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the older, established civil rights organizations. Yet as the organization expanded and its members matured, grew and changed, and as the discourse and values of many in the civil rights movement modified in response to the violent intransigence of the Jim Crow south, many in SNCC re-evaluated their commitments to and identifications with its founding values. This provides the fascinating context for Belinda Robnett’s case study of the collective identity justification processes in SNCC. Based on interviews with SNCC activists and archival research, Robnett charts and analyzes the multiple ways that participants in SNCC managed emerging degrees of incongruence between personal identity and movement identities. Robnett’s delineation of the various kinds of identity justification work that individuals must also perform if they are to stay active over time is a welcome addition to scholarship that has too often focused on the identity amplification efforts of movements and their organizations. Neil Funk-Unrau’s paper focuses on what he calls an ‘‘advocacy social movement,’’ one motivated to work in a relatively altruistic way on behalf of a population or a group outside of its own membership. Funk-Unrau argues that in these types of movements, the framing of the collective relationship with the group being advocated for is a significant subject of study insofar as it impacts how a sense of injustice, an awareness of collective identity and a feeling of agency are also experienced and framed. Utilizing interview data from an Aboriginal rights support network in Alberta, Canada, FunkUnrau examines the creation of solidarity frames and their impact on mobilization and fidelity, and in doing so he makes helpful distinctions between the related concepts of collective identity and solidarity. Depending in part on the issue arena of the particular movement, many social movements are marked by a tension that is central to the movement’s identity and self-definition. This tension revolves around the degree to which the movement is striving simply for reform of existing institutions or policies, vs. working for something more radical, more revolutionary, e.g. the displacement of existing institutions with genuine alternatives. This recurring tension has been particularly pronounced in the community mediation movement in the United States with regard to the movement’s relationship with the formal legal system. As early reform-oriented activists hoped, the discourse of mediation and the tactics and techniques of alternative dispute resolution have increasingly been institutionalized within court systems in the United States. This has engendered a spirited debate both among community mediation activists and practitioners and also among scholars of the alternative dispute resolution field as to whether the movement has compromised its ability to empower individuals and
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communities to constructively deal with their own conflicts outside of the formal legal system. Many argue that community mediation has been effectively co-opted by the courts, thereby increasing informal state control and further entrenching centralized state power relations vs. local communities and individuals. Jordi Agusti-Panareda takes up this issue by way of a critically analytic evaluation of the empowerment discourse, claims and traditions of community mediation. He accomplishes this by applying Habermas’ theory of communicative action vis-a-vis community mediation. This is then enriched by a Foulcauldian analysis of power and freedom issues as they relate to the empowerment discourse and debate within community mediation. While Habermas’ theoretical framework is often used to claim that community mediation has not lost its empowering components, Agusti-Panareda suggests that an accurate application of Habermas should lead to a more careful and nuanced conclusion. Similarly, even though Faulcault’s work on power and freedom is generally used to argue that community mediation cannot realize its animating vision of empowerment, Agusti-Panareda shows that the Faulcauldian framework may lead to other conclusions, thanks in part to Faucalt’s understanding of the multiple faces, voices and manifestations of power. I extend my thanks to Abhijit Shanker, my research assistant, and to Mary Anne Skinner, the secretary at the Center for Applied Conflict Management, for their able assistance on this volume. Patrick G. Coy Series Editor
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PART I: TACTICAL AND STRATEGIC INNOVATIONS IN SOCIAL MOVEMENT ORGANIZING
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SPECIALISTS AND GENERALISTS: LEARNING STRATEGIES IN THE WOMAN SUFFRAGE MOVEMENT, 1866–1918$ Brayden G. King and Marie Cornwall ABSTRACT We use collective learning theory to explain social movement strategic outcomes. Three movement strategies are conceptualized: insider, outsider, and generalist strategies. Generalist strategies are a combination of insider and outsider tactics. Movements learn in three main ways: retention of existing knowledge, adaptation based on past experiences, and via diffusion processes. Utilizing available data about the use of insider and outsider tactics in the state-level fight for woman suffrage, we find that state suffrage movements learned through retention of previously used strategies, adaptation in the face of major defeat, and through the diffusion of outsider tactics. Social movements exhibit structural inertia. Movement activists stick to what they know, unless they face a major
$
This research was supported by two National Science Foundation Grants (NSF #0095224 and #9876519). Additional research support was provided by the College of Family, Home, and Social Sciences, the Women’s Research Institute, the Sociology Department, and the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies at Brigham Young University.
Research in Social Movements, Conflicts and Change, Volume 26, 3–34 Copyright r 2005 by Elsevier Ltd. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 0163-786X/doi:10.1016/S0163-786X(05)26001-9
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defeat. Movement strategies are more complex and more flexible than suggested by the current focus in the social movement literature, suggesting the need to rethink the insider–outsider dichotomy.
INTRODUCTION Social movement scholars recently have shown great interest in studying tactical repertoires and tactical choice (see Taylor & Van Dyke, 2004 for a review). Very little attention has been paid to shifts in movement strategies, and there has been less theoretical work on the evolution of strategy over time. Much social movement research (see Garner, 1997 for a review) tends to depict social movement activity as occupying a specialist role among political actors by relying exclusively on extrainstitutional means to accomplish collective ends. We contend, however, that social movement strategy varies and that movements may often use generalist strategies by attempting create change utilizing means both inside and outside the realm of institutionalized politics. We look at changes over time in movement strategy utilizing available data about insider and outsider strategic outcomes (see McCammon, 2003). We use collective learning theory as an explanation of strategic outcome. According to this theory, movement strategy is the crystallization of knowledge stored in movement organizations and inter-personal networks about the ways to address political grievances and seek change. Movements learn in three main ways: retention of existing knowledge, adaptation based on past experiences, and via diffusion processes. We generate and test hypotheses about these three modes of learning by looking at strategic outcomes in the woman suffrage movement. Specifically, we assess how learning may have contributed to state-level movements’ use of insider, outsider, and generalist strategies over a 50-year period.
MOVEMENT STRATEGIES Utilizing theories of organizational or military strategy (see Von Clausewitz, 1968; Chandler, 1962; Pennings, 1985; Galaskiewicz & Bielefeld, 1998), we conceptualize strategy as the combination of tactics used by a social movement. Strategy need not be the product of rational actors. Organizational scholars indicate that even in hierarchical organizations strategy is not
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always explicitly stated and planned. Pennings (1985) suggests that strategy is implicit and rationalized after a set of tactics have already been initiated. Seen in this way, strategies are expressions of tactical choices and posthoc rationalizations. From the perspective of social movement research, we can infer a movement’s strategy based on the array of tactics utilized during a given period of time.1 Strategic outcome is a reflection of the movement’s accumulated knowledge and experience as indicated by the practice of certain tactics. Social movement research has focused almost exclusively on tactical choice and innovation (McAdam, 1983; Ennis, 1987; McCammon, 2003; Staggenborg, 1989) and has largely ignored movement strategy (although see Freeman, 1979; Shapiro, 1985; Minkoff, 1999). Studies of tactical choice tend to focus on innovations in movement tactics. For example, McCammon (2003) examines how environmental and social movement characteristics influenced the adoption of an innovative tactic. Research looking at movement strategy has also focused on organizational change, explaining the adoption of new organizational strategies (Minkoff, 1999). Strategic development among a range of alternative strategies has not yet been addressed, nor has there been any research exploring strategies at the movement level. Noting the distinction between social movement organizations and social movements, which can consist of multiple organizations and activists, we seek to answer the following questions: What explains the use of certain strategies over other alternative strategies, and under what conditions are social movements likely to shift strategies? Do social movements learn from their failures and thus adopt new strategies? When seeking new strategies, do social movements learn from others?
INSIDER, OUTSIDER, OR GENERALIST STRATEGIES In the study of contentious politics a number of terms have been used to describe the strategies a collectively organized group might use to affect change (see McAdam, Tarrow, & Tilly, 2001). Insider and outsider strategy is a common categorical scheme (Soule, McAdam, McCarthy, & Su, 1999). The insider/outsider distinction is defined by the institutional location of tactical use. Insider strategies target the institutionalized realm of the state, and outsider strategies use tactics that bypass institutionalized expressions of discontent. Outsider strategies also consist of tactics often thought of as confrontational. Insider and outsider strategies share in common the
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distinction of being specialist strategies as they focus on a specific repertoire of tactics. We conceptualize a third strategy – a generalist strategy – wherein movements combine both insider and outsider tactics. Movements are flexible and capable of using multiple kinds of tactics to achieve their goals. We argue that some movements utilize both insider and outsider tactics, thus developing a generalist strategy that covers several political and social bases at once. Movements utilizing a generalist strategy seek to simultaneously expand their range of influence inside and outside of the state. Generalist strategies demonstrate the diversity of a movement’s acquired knowledge. Surprisingly, within the social movement analytic framework there has been little systematic research investigating why movements use insider or outsider strategies (although see Soule et al., 1999). Previous research has dichotomized the concept (insider/outsider) and has not considered the possibility of generalist strategies (Soule et al., 1999). Although a broader body of political sociologists has advanced a multimodal view of political strategy (Skocpol, Abend-Wein, Howard, & Lehmann, 1993; Banaszak, 1996; Clemens, 1997; Szymanski, 2003), social movement scholars remain focused on the outsider strategy as a form of political contention. Instead of problematizing variation in movement strategies, most movement scholars begin with the theoretical assumption that social movement actors are specialists – utilizing an outsider strategy to the exclusion of more generalist or insider approaches. These theoretical blinders may cause researchers to ignore some variation in social movement activity. We consider the implementation of insider, outsider, and generalist strategies and attempt to link standard social movement research on strategies with the historical examination of political strategic transformation in U.S. politics (see Clemens, 1997). We ground our understanding of strategic outcomes in collective learning theory.
LEARNING MOVEMENT STRATEGIES Strategy is a product of collective learning. Theories of collective learning (see Macy, 1990; Oliver & Myers, 2003) explain how groups store knowledge and retain memories of past experiences – successes and failures – through routines and practices found in organizations and networks (see Argote, 1999; Miner & Haunschild, 1995; Miner & Anderson, 1999; Beckman & Haunschild, 2002). Learning also entails acquiring new knowledge and adopting new ways of operating based on past experience
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(Macy, 1990). Like other kinds of collective organization, social movements learn through interaction with their environment. We expect that movements learn strategies in three main ways: retention, adaptation, and via diffusion processes. First, movements retain knowledge by establishing a stable set of tactics that are transmitted to incoming activists and then reproduced over time. Strategies tend to be replicated across time as they become normatively taken-for-granted. Minkoff (1999) suggests that strategy retention is a product of structural inertia (Hannan & Freeman, 1984). Social movement organizations, even at the grass roots level, develop distinct competencies that enable resource acquisition. Changing strategies disrupts legitimate routines and practices, thereby alienating some participants and forcing leaders and activists to learn new competencies. Retention involves the exploitation of extant resources and skills, rather than exploration for new resources and skills (March, 1991). Second, movements learn through adaptation. Actors respond to external stimuli, such as punishments and rewards. In adaptive learning, actors follow the rule of ‘‘win-stay/lose-shift’’ (Macy, 1995). When an objective is obtained, change nothing; and when an objective is lost, try something new. Movements are expected to change their strategy, or at least begin looking for a new strategy, when performance aspirations are not met (Cyert & March, 1963). Examples from research on tactical innovation indicate that movements adopt new tactics as a function of adaptive learning. McCammon (2003) argued that woman suffragists adopted innovative outsider tactics in response to past legislative failures. McAdam’s (1983) classic piece on tactical innovation claimed that the civil rights’ movement adapted tactics in response to repression by movement opponents. The tactical choices of the civil rights movement were shaped by a kind of learning process wherein adaptation was a response to powerlessness. Finally, movements learn by acquiring knowledge and practices from other activist networks through diffusion (McAdam & Rucht, 1993; Meyer & Whittier, 1994; Soule, 1997; Strang & Soule, 1998). Sometimes indirect mimicry of peers may be the cause of diffusion (DiMaggio & Powell, 1983), but in social movements, where strong activist networks transmit information about new ideas and tactics, diffusion may also occur directly through organizational or network channels. McAdam and Rucht (1993) and Meyer and Whittier (1994) found evidence that movement practices diffused through direct contacts between organizations. Soule’s (1997) study of protest against university holdings in South Africa as part of the anti-Apartheid movement demonstrated how the shantytown tactic diffused through
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non-relational, or socially constructed, ties between universities. This latter kind of diffusion is a form of vicarious learning (Cyert & March, 1963; Nelson & Winter, 1982; Levitt & March, 1988; Baum, Li, & Usher, 2000). Movement actors learn from both mimicry of activist peers and via the direct transmission of knowledge and practices within networks. Movements may favor retention over adaptation or adaptation over diffusion. More plausibly, movements learn strategies in multiple ways. Movements may favor retaining current strategies because to adapt may threaten the viability of the movement base (e.g. cause loss of membership or leadership). On the other hand, movements that never change may suffer debilitation if repeated or serious failures occur. Movements may adopt new strategies as a result of adaptation in order to reinvigorate the movement during moments of self-doubt. Movement leaders may find adaptation attractive when there are clear signs that current strategies are not working effectively. Strategies may also be adopted through diffusion if contacts with other organizations facilitate change. In summary, movements are most likely to retain strategies and alter their strategies when faced with failure. Movements seek new strategies within available networks and thus diffusion is an important process of change. Strategies may be more likely to diffuse when external networks to other organizations facilitate such change.
STRATEGIC OUTCOMES IN THE WOMAN SUFFRAGE MOVEMENT During the 70 plus years that suffragists agitated for women’s right to vote, most of the activity of the suffrage movement occurred at the state level. Of the three avenues available for adopting suffrage (by legislating an amendment followed by a referendum, via constitutional convention, or by direct democratic means such as the citizen initiative2), the most common and the most successful path was through the legislature.3 Twenty-four state legislatures passed suffrage amendments (some of them did so more than once), and 11 of the subsequent referenda were successful. By 1918, 15 states had adopted woman suffrage. State suffrage movements experimented with various tactics and strategies to influence these political outcomes (Dubois, 1978, 1987; Graham, 1996; McCammon, 2003; King, Cornwall, & Dahlin, 2005).
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At the state level, the tactics of the woman suffrage movement varied along the insider–outsider continuum. Some of the outsider tactics used by suffragists were parades, fair booths, leaflet distribution, canvassing, and voting as a form of civil disobedience. Suffragists also employed insider tactics, such as legislative lobbying and candidate campaigning. Fig. 1 shows the changing use of various tactics by state suffrage movements.4 While political lobbying was the most widely used tactic, parades, fair booths, and leaflet distribution were commonly implemented. The more radical tactic of attempting to vote occurred early in the movement, but was only rarely used thereafter. Candidate campaigning became more popular in the later years of the movement. The increased use of lobbying as well as parades, fairs, and leaflets after 1890 is apparent. Added energy was brought to the movement during this period with success in four states (Utah, Wyoming, Idaho, and Colorado), the merger of AWSA (American Woman Suffrage Association) and NWSA (National Woman Suffrage Association) into the National American Woman Suffrage Association, and the leadership of a new generation of leaders like Anna Howard Shaw and Alice Stone Blackwell. Movement strategies correspond to the kinds of tactics used. A generalist strategy is the combination of both insider and outsider tactics. Fig. 2 reports the proportion of all state movements in which one of the movement strategies was used. The proportion equals the number of movements choosing the strategy divided by the total number of active state movements.5 In some states, activists did not report engaging in any of the discussed tactics. In years where no known strategies were used, activists may have been engaged in less publicized activities like recruitment or the movement may have been in abeyance while leaders planned a course of action and waited for new opportunities. Following Taylor (1989), we conceive of abeyance as ‘‘a holding process by which movements sustain themselves in nonreceptive political environments and provide continuity from one stage of mobilization to another’’ (p. 761). Fig. 2 reveals a few exceptional patterns in the evolution of strategies. First, as time passed all state movements were more likely to engage in activist-oriented strategies compared to no apparent strategy. The second obvious pattern is that generalist strategies became more common in the later years. Outsider strategies emerged as insider strategies declined. But even outsider strategies peaked in the last decade of the nineteenth century as suffrage movements began using a generalist strategy. McCammon (2003) reports that certain kinds of outsider tactics, in particular the suffrage parade, became more popular among suffragists as insider tactics proved ineffective.
Fig. 1. Number of Movements using Tactic by year. 19
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Fig. 2.
Proportion of States with Active Suffragist Movements using Strategies. 11
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DATA, STATISTICAL MODEL, AND HYPOTHESES The data used to test the following hypotheses came from two sources. All of the social movement variables (tactics and organizational variables) were gathered by Holly McCammon, Karen Campbell, and their research team. These data were collected from secondary and primary historical sources (see in particular, Stanton, Anthony, & Gage, 1886; Harper, 1922). The authors collected legislative data from government documents. Combining both datasets provides us with information about strategic outcomes and the social, political, and legislative factors that influence their implementation. Our unit of analysis is the state. We use panel-level data, covering each year from 1866 to 1918.6 States that adopted full woman suffrage during this time period are dropped from the analysis the following year. States enter the analysis in either 1866 or the year in which they became a territory.7 Excluding state years during which there were no known activists or movement organization, there are 1,690 total observations. The dependent variable, strategic outcome, was constructed using available data about specific movement tactics. The McCammon and Campbell dataset (see McCammon, Campbell, Granberg, & Mowery, 2001) provides yearly state-level information about the presence of the following tactics: political lobbying, candidate campaigning, parades, fairs, leafleting, and attempts to vote. We coded lobbying and candidate campaigning as insider tactics and parades, fairs, leafleting, and illegal voting as outsider tactics. A state movement’s strategy was coded as insider if only insider tactics were used, outsider if it only outsider tactics were used, generalist if both insider and outsider tactics were used, and no apparent strategy if none of the above tactics were recorded as being used in the state during the year. The dependent variable is time varying and has four possible nominal outcomes. We use multinomial logistic regression, a method that is useful in cases where there can be more than two possible nominal outcomes.8 A multinomial logistic model allows us to assess the effects that independent variables have on the risk of observations resulting in one of several mutually exclusive nominal outcomes. Covariate effects are interpreted in comparison to a reference category, where a unit change in x affects the log-odds of adopting a certain strategy (insider, outsider, generalist, or no apparent strategy) versus a reference category (see Long, 1997). The coefficients from the model can be used to calculate predicted probabilities for each outcome. We can then assess how the independent variables affect the probability of each strategy’s occurrence.
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Because we have panel-level data, we must take into account the time invariant heterogeneity within the state. To reduce potential bias, we cluster the observations by state and obtain robust standard errors in our model estimations.9 These provide more conservative estimates of statistical significance than would be obtained otherwise. Retention First we want to assess the extent to which strategic choice is shaped by retention. A movement’s current strategy should reflect knowledge and expertise accumulated during the time of movement activity. Structural inertia makes movements less inclined to modify strategies. H1. State suffrage movements will likely choose the same strategy used in the previous year. To test this hypothesis we include in the analysis lagged variables for three strategies: insider, outsider, and generalist. The excluded lagged outcome, which serves as the reference category, is no apparent strategy. Adaptation We expect that movements adapt to past failures and successes. Given the prevalence of failures (it took suffragists 70 years to finally accomplish their goal), suffragists likely absorbed some of the impact of failure, making only small adjustments to their core activities. Dramatic shifts in strategy may have only followed major failures or crises, which would have sufficiently shocked the activists and spurred attempts for reform. In the suffrage movement a small, common failure would have been the loss of a single legislative bill. A major failure would have been the loss of a referendum. This meant that suffragists had previously seen a bill passed in both houses of the legislature, signed by the governor, and then put on the ballot to be decided by the voters. The ultimate defeat of a referendum usually implied that several years of hard work had resulted in defeat. Suffragists would need to start the legislative process again. The shock of a referendum loss may have caused activists to rethink their current strategy. H2. State suffrage movements will likely change their strategy in years following a referendum loss.
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We include in the analysis a dichotomous measure of referendum loss in the previous year. If a movement experienced a referendum defeat in the prior year, the variable was coded as one. No matter the path suffragists took (legislative referendum or initiative), the amendment had to pass in a referendum. Referendums required extensive movement organizing and losses were equally devastating. To test the second hypothesis we created interaction effects between the referendum loss variable and the prior year’s strategy. A negative effect of the interaction variable on the corresponding strategic outcome would indicate that a movement would be less likely to retain the same strategy after a referendum loss as they would be otherwise. That is, the loss would lessen the direct effect of the retention variable. We cannot use the ‘‘insider strategy’’ category in interaction with referendum defeat because there was only one case in which a movement used an insider strategy in the same year that a suffrage referendum failed. There were no years that no apparent strategy existed in the same year as a referendum defeat. Therefore, we only include one interaction effect (failed referendum * generalist strategy or failed referendum * outsider strategy) in the model. We run two final models (one with each interaction effect) to obtain the predicted probabilities. Suffragists might also have adapted to cumulative failures in their attempt to gain an amendment through the legislature. While referendum defeats were rare occurrences that usually involved years of effort, individual bills were regularly introduced in many states, and therefore, the overall effect of a single bill’s failure would not be as damaging. However, if suffragists continually faced defeats of legislative measures, they might have become disheartened by institutional means to success. In cases where a movement experienced a history of legislative defeats, the movement might be inclined to abandon insider strategies, and instead opt to bypass the legislature by using an outsider or generalist strategy. H3. State suffrage movements that faced a history of legislative defeats will be less likely to use an insider strategy to attain their goals. We include in the analysis a variable measuring the cumulative number of bills introduced in the state legislature that were subsequently defeated without moving on to a roll-call vote.10 From time to time, suffragists experienced incremental legislative successes. We focus on two kinds of incremental success: party endorsement and partial suffrage adoption. Although not a guarantee of legislative success, obtaining a major party’s endorsement of woman suffrage in the party platform signaled to suffragists the growing acceptance and legitimation of
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woman suffrage as a constitutional ideal. By acquiring party endorsements, suffragists may have perceived that insider or generalist strategies were effectively persuading institutionalized actors in the polity to support their cause. Similarly, partial woman suffrage adoption may have indicated to suffragists that legislative reform was within their grasp. By experiencing past legislative success, suffragists may have been more inclined to seek insider support and would therefore be more likely to choose an insider or generalist strategy. H4. State suffrage movements will be more likely to choose an insider or generalist strategy once they have already obtained the endorsement of a major political party. H5. State suffrage movements will be more likely to choose an insider or generalist strategy if the state has already adopted some form of partial suffrage. We include two dichotomous variables indicating (1) whether a major political party endorsed woman suffrage in their platform, and (2) whether a state had previously adopted some form of partial suffrage. Conceivable forms of partial suffrage included the right to vote in municipal, school, bond, primary, and presidential elections.
Diffusion Movements acquire strategies from other actors within their sphere of influence. That sphere includes actors with whom they share direct ties and other movements that they might mimic as a form of vicarious learning (Soule, 1997; Miner & Haunschild, 1995; Baum et al., 2000). State suffrage movements often had direct ties with national suffrage organizations like the National American Woman Suffrage Association. These national affiliations provided state movements with knowledge, organizers, financial resources, and direct access to a variety of experiences had by long-time suffrage activists (McCammon, 2001). These resources were often most influential in small state movements where local resources were scarce. Referring to assistance from the national organization during an attempted referendum, a Main suffragist leader recognized the necessity of national assistance: ‘‘Without the aid of the National American Association the campaign would have been impossible. The magnificent generosity with
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which it furnished speakers, organizers, posters, and literature will make the women of Maine forever its debtors’’ (quoted in Harper, 1922, p. 252). We expect that these ties provided state suffragists with the resources and information needed to develop generalist strategies. Whereas limited resources and knowledge may have forced a state movement to become specialists, the national connections enhanced their ability to expand their base of operations and allowed state suffragists to transcend the experience of their local environments to gain a more well-rounded perspective of the movement. These competencies may have translated more smoothly where the state movement organization was already well organized and designed for the transmission and learning of external knowledge. A centralized leadership structure, for example, may have aided in the diffusion of top– down knowledge by communicating information and transmitting resources from the national organization more effectively. Although suffrage movements certainly did not operate as corporations with heavy directives from top leaders, the rationalized, bureaucratic structure of many state movements may have facilitated communication and enabled the diffusion of new information and resources. Information may just as likely have been transmitted from the masses at the local level to leaders in the national organizations (see Skocpol, 2003), but the point is that the connections between these organizations allowed for the elaboration of more information and resources that facilitated the adoption of more complex, generalist strategies. Therefore, we expect that state movements that had hierarchical structures and national affiliations would be the most likely candidates for the transmission of knowledge and resources and their subsequent transformation into organized action. H6. State suffrage movements with hierarchical movement organizations and organizational affiliations to a national organization will be more likely to adopt generalist strategies. A dichotomous variable was included that indicated whether the leadership of a state movement organization was hierarchical and also had an affiliation with national movement organization. It was coded as 1 if both of these properties were present and 0 if one or both were missing. National organizations included the AWSA, the NWSA, and the National American Woman Suffrage Association. Diffusion might also operate through mimicry of other state movements. Diffusion theorists have argued that practices tend to diffuse between actors that have perceived similarities or that share similar cultural identities (Strang & Meyer, 1993; Strang & Soule, 1998). While not all actors have
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direct ties to one another, actors are more likely to monitor and mimic those they perceive as similar. We expect that movements in states from the same region are both more likely to have direct movement ties and are more likely to perceive themselves as similar. Both of these conditions should enhance the diffusion of strategies between movements in the same region. H7. State suffrage movements are likely to choose strategies used by other movements in their region. To test this hypothesis we included three different strategic outcome variables. Each variable consists of the number of states in that region using one of the three strategies. For example, the regional insider strategy variable indicates the number of states (other than the state in question) in a region using an insider strategy in that particular year. We used the same regional categorization as Elazar (1984). While Elazar’s work has been questioned in analyses of contemporary politics (Hero, 1998), the scheme is appropriate for the time period under study as it is constructed based on migration patterns of the day. Thus, we believe Elazar’s categorization scheme had a closer fit to the actual patterns of regionalization than census categories, which changed significantly over the course of the woman suffrage campaign.
Control Variables We control for the effects of other important indicators of strategic outcome, including organizational, political, and cultural factors. We first control for the internal capacity of the movement to mobilize resources and generate influence. Resource mobilization theorists claim that social movement action stems from the accrual of key organizational resources (McCarthy & Zald, 1977). Soule et al. (1999) looked at the influence of internal organization on tactics but did not find a significant effect. Still, given the relative importance of resource mobilization arguments to the study of social movements, we deem it necessary to control for the effects of internal organizational capacity. The first measure we use is a dichotomous variable indicating whether a movement had a state suffrage organization. State organizations often coordinated the efforts of other clubs and organizations in the state. Movements without state organizations usually consisted of a small number of local activists or distinct suffrage clubs not organized in any formal way. To account for the organizational diversity of each state movement, we included a variable measuring the total number of suffrage organizations in a state. Presumably, movements with a great deal
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of diversity would be more likely to use generalist movements because specific organizations would be able to specialize. We also expect that the sheer number of organizations in a movement would increase the likelihood that any given tactic would be used. Following McCammon (2003), we also control for the presence of inter-organizational conflict among suffrage organizations in a state movement. Movements with internal conflict are more likely to experience differentiation in tactics. This bifurcation may in turn lead to an overall generalist, albeit uncoordinated, movement strategy. We include a measure of political openness – an index indicating a state’s propensity for democratic reform. As suggested by social movement theorists, political opportunity structures influence movement strategies (Tarrow, 1994; McAdam, 1996; Soule et al., 1999). Our measure of political openness is based on the political openness score constructed by Clemens (1997) and measures the presence of three kinds of democratic reforms: the Australian (secret) ballot, mandatory direct primary, and popular initiative and/or referendum. Clemens’ political openness variable was derived from several sources (Kettleborough, 1923; Merriam & Overacker, 1928; Ranney, 1978; Heckelman, 1995). We returned to the original sources to construct a time-varying variable.11 We control for changing gender relations – the gendered opportunity structure – as suggested by McCammon et al. (2001). The gendering of the public sphere was well under way and state-level differences in gender relations influenced the legislation of suffrage amendments (McCammon & Campbell, 2001). Between 1870 and 1920, middle class and working class women moved out of the domestic sphere. By 1920, one-fourth of all women employed in non-agricultural jobs were factory workers and another onefourth were ‘‘clerks, saleswomen, stenographers, typists, bookkeepers, cashiers, and accountants’’ (Hill, 1929, p. 40). By 1880, two-thirds of all teachers were women; by 1920 80% were women. As a result women gained skills and developed repertoires that made them more effective movement activists. Our measure of the gendered opportunity structure is the percentage of working-age women employed in non-agricultural jobs.12 To account for the extent to which strategies may be shaped by the timing of legislative sessions, we included in the analysis a dummy variable indicating if a session was held that year. Finally, we include in our analysis time-period dummy variables, measured as decade intervals, to control for unobserved temporal heterogeneity and period effects. We do not include yearly dummies due to lack of degrees of freedom. Other control variables (including measures of urbanization, female literacy rates, conflict within state movements, presence of the Women’s
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Christian Temperance Union, and third-party presence) were included in models not shown. These variables did not significantly improve the fit of the model and were not included in the final, trimmed model because either (1) we did not have data for the entire time period or (2) the variable introduced collinearity in the final model, which could potentially bias the efficiency of the results. Collinearity was particularly an issue for the historical variables that were only recorded at decade intervals and for which we consequently interpolated missing values. A complete table of model results is available upon request. The appendix lists correlations among all independent variables in the analysis.
RESULTS Table 1 contains the results of a multinomial logistic model predicting movement strategic outcome. The three columns on the right report the coefficients for the model when insider strategy is the reference category. We show the results for only one of the four possible comparisons for simplicity of display. The coefficients can be interpreted in the following way: an increase in one unit of xj increases the odds of being in category m versus being in the reference category by a multiplicative factor of expbmj, controlling for all other covariates. For example, the coefficient for the legislature met variable in the second column ( 1.13) indicates that in every year where a legislative session was held the odds of choosing an outsider strategy over an insider strategy decrease 68%. Suffragists were more likely to use insider strategies during years of legislative sessions. The second column contains the w2 for a likelihood-ratio test when the corresponding variable was eliminated from the full model. If the w2 is significant, inclusion of the variable improves the fit of the model. We use the w2 to determine the significance of the variable rather than relying upon the significance of each individual coefficient. This is a standard approach when using multinomial logistic regression. The likelihood-ratio test is a stronger test of significance and allows us to compare the effects of a given variable across all possible outcomes (for more information see Long & Freese, 2001; for an example of the use of this method see Earl, Soule, & McCarthy, 2003). Table 2 summarizes the information of the multinomial logistic model in the form of predicted probabilities for each outcome. We present the predicted probabilities for outcomes in relation to changes in all statistically significant variables to facilitate interpretation. While Table 1 provides the
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Table 1.
Multinomial Logistic Regression Coefficients of Strategic Outcome.
Variable
w2 LR test
Intercept Retention Insider strategy (lagged) Outsider strategy (lagged) Generalist strategy (lagged) Adaptation Failed referendum (lagged) Cumulative total failed bills (lagged) Failed referendum generalist Party endorsement Partial suffrage law Diffusion National affiliationhierarchical Regional insider (lagged) Regional outsider (lagged) Regional generalist (lagged)
139.08 110.66 270.15
13.35 13.27 17.00 10.98 6.53
11.58 1.94 2.34 2.72
Controls State suffrage organization
33.51
Number of other organizations
20.21
Conflict
1.51
Political openness
2.29
Women’s employment
10.56
Outsider
Generalist
No Apparent Strategy
0.59 (0.45)
1.09 (0.52)
3.33 (0.42)
1.89 (0.38) 2.40 (0.35) 0.005 (0.26)
0.14 (0.29) 1.90 (0.44) 2.17 (0.27)
2.37 (0.27) 0.15 (0.35) 2.06 (0.37)
3.00 (1.24) 0.12 (0.04) 4.16 (1.44) 0.20 (0.21) 0.21 (0.31)
1.30 (0.83) 0.05 (0.03) 0.62 (1.12) 0.43 (0.22) 0.52 (0.23)
0.90 (1.05) 0.07 (0.05) 0.71 (1.19) 0.42 (0.27) 0.09 (0.22)
0.98 (0.53) 0.08 (0.17) 0.14 (0.14) 0.13 (0.09)
1.08 (0.49) 0.07 (0.13) 0.02 (0.13) 0.01 (0.08)
0.006 (0.61) 0.05 (0.10) 0.18 (0.14) 0.04 (0.11)
0.51 (0.35) 0.009 (0.005) 0.11 (0.54) 0.001 (0.22) 0.02 (0.02)
0.44 (0.35) 0.008 (0.005) 0.45 (0.51) 0.17 (0.18) 0.02 (0.02)
0.95 (0.28) 0.008 (0.008) 0.23 (0.93) 0.07 (0.19) 0.06 (0.02)
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Table 1. (Continued ) Variable Legislature met
Time-period dummies 1880s
w2 LR test
Outsider
Generalist
No Apparent Strategy
65.28
1.13 (0.26)
0.11 (0.22)
1.25 (0.19)
0.19 (0.38) 1.16 (0.37) 1.64 (0.49) 1.15 (0.57) 1690
0.12 (0.21) 0.82 (0.29) 1.43 (0.35) 1.28 (0.43)
0.04 (0.27) 0.55 (0.35) 0.64 (0.40) 0.29 (0.54)
0.51
1890s
12.49
1900s
23.68
1910s
12.76
Number of observations Note: Standard errors in parentheses. po0:05 (two-tailed); po0:01; po0:001:
reader with an indication of the direct effect of each variable on strategic outcome (compared to a reference outcome), Table 2 reports the predicted probabilities for each strategy. The baseline probability is the probability a state suffrage movement uses an outsider, generalist, or no apparent strategy if all of the continuous variables are set at their mean and the dummy variables are set at zero. The rows beneath the baseline show the predicted probabilities of each strategic outcome given a change in one or more of the statistically significant independent variables. The baseline probability can be compared to the other probabilities to estimate the magnitude and direction of the independent variables’ effects on the probability. So, for example, the probability of using an insider strategy changes from 0.09 to 0.44 if an insider strategy was used in the prior year and all other variables are held constant. The results support the retention hypothesis that movements are likely to retain the same strategy used in prior years. Suffragists were much more likely to use an outsider strategy if they used an outsider strategy in the preceding year (probability equals 0.55). The same holds true for the other two strategies. Once a strategy is in place, movements are likely to continue using that strategy. We find some support for our hypotheses about adaptation as a form of learning. Following a referendum defeat at the polls, state suffrage movements
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Table 2.
Predicted Probabilities of Strategic Outcome.
Variable/Change in Value
Strategy/Probability Insider Outsider Generalist No apparent strategy
Baseline probability
0.09
0.10
0.02
0.79
Retention Insider strategy in prior year Outsider strategy in prior year Generalist strategy in prior year
0.44 0.04 0.19
0.08 0.55 0.22
0.11 0.07 0.37
0.37 0.34 0.22
Adaptation Failed referendum generalist strategy Failed referendum outsider strategy Cumulative. failed bills +1 s.d. Party endorsement
0.10 0.06 0.12 0.12
0.34 0.03 0.08 0.16
0.03 0.02 0.02 0.04
0.53 0.89 0.78 0.68
Diffusion Nationally affiliated organization.
0.08
0.22
0.05
0.65
Controls State suffrage organization Other organizations+1 s.d. Women’s employment +1 s.d. Legislature met
0.19 0.11 0.12 0.25
0.12 0.18 0.12 0.09
0.06 0.04 0.02 0.05
0.63 0.67 0.74 0.62
are more likely to shift strategies in the following year. Suffragists using a generalist strategy were more likely to use an outsider strategy following a referendum defeat. In Table 2, the appropriate row of comparison (the baseline probability) for the interaction effect would be the retention row of the corresponding strategy. When a generalist strategy was used in the prior year, the probability of a generalist strategic outcome is 0.37, but if there was a suffrage referendum defeat in the prior year the probability of using a generalist strategy decreased to 0.03. Following a referendum defeat and the use of an outsider strategy, suffragists were more likely to use an insider strategy. This can be ascertained by observing that the probability of using an insider strategy in years in which an outsider strategy was used previously is 0.04 and that this probability increases to 0.06 if a referendum was defeated in the same prior year.13 Under the same circumstances, the probability of using an outsider strategy decreases from 0.55 to 0.03. The probability of having no apparent strategy increases in years following a referendum failure, regardless of the prior strategy used. Taken together, these results suggest that strategic adaptation is most likely following the loss of a referendum. This corresponds
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with McCammon’s (2003) finding that political defeats increased the likelihood of suffragists adopting a novel tactic; however, the idea put forward here is more general. Movements that suffer major defeats often reorganize their efforts – sometimes innovating but sometimes shrinking back the scale of their efforts. Because referendum defeats are a particularly shocking form of failure, the defeats created temporary crises in many state movements. Only a few states were able to regroup, as New York did in 1915, and engage new strategies immediately after defeat. In most cases, a failed referendum set state-level efforts back several years. This was especially true in the early history of the movement when amendments were often soundly defeated. For instance, in 1887 a referendum was defeated in Rhode Island by a vote of 6,889–21,957. Historical records indicate that ‘‘after having been defeated by so heavy a vote, it was deemed best not to ask for another submission of the question for a term of years’’ (Anthony & Harper, 1902, p. 911). State movements in situations like this likely reassessed their methods and initiated searches for new means of influence (March, 1991). Such a shift may have, in fact, led to momentary abeyance (Taylor, 1989) as movement actors took time to redefine their strategy. Evidence shows that abeyance occurred in about a quarter of referendum defeats. The data suggest the average length of this abeyance was 4 years. Contrary to expectations, we find that state suffrage movements were more likely to use insider strategies after experiencing a history of legislative defeats. Although the effect is relatively small, compared to the coefficients of the other adaptation variables, this is still an unexpected finding. Rather than move away from a strategy that apparently provided little success, suffragists in fact were more likely to embrace this strategy. The probability of using an insider strategy increases from 0.09 to 0.12 as the number of cumulative legislative defeats moves one standard deviation above the mean. The probability of using the other two strategies remains roughly the same or decreases with changes in cumulative legislative defeats. In the face of legislative failure, suffragists may have viewed an insider strategy as having almost succeeded rather than as defeat and, therefore, continued using the same strategy. Another possible explanation is that suffragists were satisfied enough that they attained moderate success (getting bills introduced and moved to a roll-call vote) that they felt committed to insider strategies. We find some, but not overwhelming, support for the proposition that previous successes cause movements to adapt their strategies. State suffrage movements were more likely to choose an insider or generalist strategy if
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they received the endorsement of a major political party, but they were also more likely to use an outsider strategy. This indicates that party endorsements increased the odds of using any of the strategies, and decreased the odds of having no apparent strategy. State suffrage movements were no more likely to use an insider or generalist strategy if the state had previously adopted a partial suffrage law, as indicated by the w2 result’s lack of significance (Table 1). The model found some support for the diffusion argument. We found that state movements with national affiliations were about twice as likely to use a generalist strategy (see Table 2). The probability of using an outsider strategy, however, also increased from 0.10 to 0.22. This indicates that affiliation with a national organization encouraged local suffragists to use outsider tactics rather than insider tactics. We found no evidence for the second kind of diffusion – mimicry of other state movements. State suffrage movements were no more likely to use a strategy if other movements in their region were also using that strategy. Four control variables significantly affected strategy. The presence of a state suffrage organization greatly increases the probability of using all strategies, although it most strongly influences insider strategy (changing the probability from 0.09 to 0.19) and generalist strategy (changing the probability from 0.02 to 0.06). Movements with more suffrage organizations are also more likely to use any of the strategies, although the greatest effect is on the use of outsider and generalist strategies. A standard deviation increase in the percentage of employed women also positively affects the use of all three strategies. Insider and generalist strategies were also more commonly used in years when legislatures met. This indicates that tactics like lobbying and candidate campaigning were partly a response to opportunities to influence legislators’ opinions about suffrage.
STRATEGIC OUTCOMES AND SOCIAL MOVEMENTS In summary, the findings suggest that the strategies implemented by state woman suffrage movements were primarily learned through the retention of previously used strategies, adaptation in the face of major defeat, and through the diffusion of outsider tactics from affiliated organizations. We also find effects for adaptive learning as a result of accumulated failures and party endorsement, but these effects are not as large. Social movements exhibit structural inertia. Movement activists stick to what they know, unless they face a major defeat. Failure increases the probability that activists
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will change their strategy. Moreover, movements are not immune to outside influence; their strategies are shaped by affiliation with other organizations.
Strategy and Tactics Revisited Although we focus on strategy in this paper, we want to make clear that strategies emerge from tactical choices. As noted earlier in the paper, most social movement research has focused on tactical choice or repertoires (e.g. McAdam, 1983; Ennis, 1987; Taylor & Van Dyke, 2003), often ignoring strategy or even substituting strategy as another term for tactic. We contend that strategy is a core feature of the social form14 known as the social movement. Societal actors recognize social movements, and thus label them as such, by their repertoire of activities. For this reason understanding variation in strategy is an important component of the social movement research agenda. Future research should look at the relationship between these two levels of movement activism. While we have mainly used tactics as a way to get at the emerging strategic outcome, movement researchers should also be interested in how tactical choice shapes the actual strategic language of a movement. The relationship of strategy and tactic is largely dialogical. Strategy should be apparent in other realms of movement activity, including the framing and discourse of the movement. Future research might explore the connections between strategy, tactics, and framing.
The Insider–Outsider Continuum By examining changes in strategic outcomes over the entire history of the suffrage movement, we connect two scholarly literatures that have examined changes in political activism in the U.S. On the one hand, the social movement analytic framework (see Tilly, 1978; Tarrow, 1994; McAdam, 1996) often conceptualizes political activism as extrainstitutional. Social movements are seen as specialists in the political sphere that gain recognition by their distinct status as outsiders. On the other hand, political scientists and sociologists studying civic associations and new political lobbies at the turn of the century have emphasized the extent to which marginalized actors utilized a variety of tactics, ranging from the extrainstitutional to the more conventional (see Buechler, 1986; Skocpol, 1992; Skocpol et al., 1993; Szymanski, 2003). Rather than being fixed, the organizational repertoires of
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political activists vary extensively over time and space (Clemens, 1997; Ferree et al., 2002). This study reveals that movement strategies are more complex and more flexible than often thought, suggesting the need to rethink the insider– outsider dichotomy. McAdam and Snow (1997) state that social movements consist of at least five elements: ‘‘(1) collective or joint action; (2) changeoriented goals; (3) some degree of organization; (4) some degree of temporal continuity; and (5) some extrainstitutional collective action, or at least a mixture of extrainstitutional (protesting in the streets) and institutional (political lobbying) activity’’ (p. xvii). The element that sets social movements apart from other kinds of interest organizations in the eyes of many sociologists is an outsider strategy (for examples see Burstein, Einwohner, & Hollander, 1995; Minkoff, 1999). We suggest that definitions of social movements that rely on the presence of extrainstitutional strategy should be reconsidered. Interest groups and social movements may be more similar than different (Burstein, 1999). Distinctions between interest organizations and social movement organizations should be considered problematic rather than assumed a priori. In addition, scholars should pay attention to the broad range of activities that take place within any given movement, recognizing that not all movements are specialists. In fact, in a resource-rich society such as ours where actors may use multiple paths of influence, most movements may be generalists. The presence (and perhaps prevalence) of generalist movements challenges the basic categories that dominate much of the social movement literature. Breaking down social movement behavior into a broader range of strategic outcomes expands the research agenda for sociologists interested in studying all kinds of political behavior. Doing so pushes the research agenda in at least three directions. First, other social movement researchers may be interested in further analyzing strategic outcome as a dependent variable. Clearly, we have not exhausted all of the dimensions by which strategies may be differentiated. Future research need not be limited to insider, outsider, and generalist strategies; rather, future research can expand our knowledge about the breadth of strategies that movements utilize. Second, researchers may look at what causes organizations that we typically classify as interest groups to develop generalist strategies. What causes groups built to operate in the institutionalized space of the state (such as professional lobbying organizations) to diversify their strategy? And third, breaking down the classification scheme should lead to further cross-germination between political science and sociology. Given the vast amount of research that has accumulated in political science on interest group lobbying
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(see Baumgartner & Leech, 1998), sociologists might benefit from looking more closely at this literature, particularly as the interests of social movement researchers focuses more on outcomes and political change (see Giugni, McAdam, & Tilly, 1999). Further, by speaking to issues of interest to political scientists, sociologists can demonstrate that lobbying is not the only effective strategy for affecting policy change. Outsider tactics occupy an important and key position in contemporary American politics.
Learning and Strategic Outcomes We have argued that social movements learn strategies. We looked at how various factors internal to the social movement and in the movement’s learning environment lead to the use of one strategy among a range of alternatives. Movements learn through interaction with the environment and through direct contact with other actors, organizations, and movements. Knowledge is stored in movements’ organizations and networks and is adapted to deal with major failures or expanded to include new practices diffused via organizational linkages. We have presented learning as occurring through three main channels: retention, adaptation, and via diffusion processes. However, it is probably more realistic to consider the inter-dependent nature of these processes. As stated in the introduction, these processes may be occurring simultaneously, and as a reviewer for this paper suggested, the processes may often be intertwined. For example, movement actors may mimic a new strategy of a movement in a neighboring state as a form of adaptation. The challenge for the scholar of political action is to find the appropriate methods to model these processes. Given the complexity of social learning, the purpose of the paper was to identify those processes, make predictions as to their effects on strategic outcome, and to statistically model those net effects. Future research, however, might explore the combinatorial nature of these avenues for learning. In particular, scholars should think about the ways in which adaptation occurs as the result of both experimental innovations within movements and by mimicry of strategies from other movements. Another important aspect of learning that should be considered is the extent to which movements are related, cooperative, and potential models for mimicry. In models not shown, we included the presence of the national temperance organization (the WCTU) as an independent variable to ascertain to what extent the presence of a closely related movement influenced state suffrage movements. While this crude measure was not statistically
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significant, it is highly unlikely that specific tactics did not disseminate between the movements given the degree of overlap in movement memberships. Unfortunately, we do not have a time-varying measure of state temperance organizations’ strategies. Future research should continue to explore the extent to which movement strategies are inter-related and examine corresponding fluctuations in movement forms. A note of caution should be offered concerning the normative nature of the learning concept. Often we conceive of learning as leading to progress and improvement. However, learning does not necessarily lead to desirable outcomes. While sometimes movements may learn how to improve their strategies to better accomplish their objectives, the opposite outcome is always possible. Just as individuals learn useful knowledge and practices, they are also capable of learning bad habits, ineffective behaviors, or incorrect information. Social movements are no different. Learning does not always produce optimal outcomes. Social movements may learn, through experiences with their environment, ineffective strategies and tactics that hinder their success. While our present study did not examine the effect of the different strategic outcomes on goal attainment, some of our findings suggest that ineffective learning is a real possibility. Because movements are characterized by structural inertia, ineffective strategies may persist for quite some time, despite evidence indicating that the strategy is not producing the desired outcome. In fact, as long as a current strategy appears to be minimally effective (as in the case of state suffragists that experienced a history of legislative defeats), social movements may persist in using the same strategy. Learning, then, should be seen as a process that occurs continuously but that does not necessarily lead to improvement or even change. Learning does however ensure the survival of the movement. Movements cease to learn when they can no longer replicate past tactics or produce new tactics. Although abeyance was often a response to major defeats, sustainable movements were able to regroup and establish a new strategy or resolve to pursue the same strategy in future campaigns. The eventual success of the woman suffrage movement attested to their ability to learn strategies and to carry on the fight even in the face of stiff cultural and political opposition.
NOTES 1. Movement strategy is conceptually different from the tactical repertoires described by Tilly (1978). While a movement’s tactical repertoire consists of all of the
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tactics that a movement knows how to use, a strategy consists of the tactics that a movement puts to actual use. A repertoire then is more of a cultural template for movement activity, and strategy can be inferred from the observable action of that movement. 2. For more information on direct democracy and avenues of constitutional change (see Ranney, 1978; Magleby, 1984; Cronin, 1989; Bowler, Donovan, & Tolbert, 1998). 3. Of the 55 referenda held between 1867 and 1919, 40 (73%) were the result of legislated amendments. The others were the result of initiative and referenda (8) or constitutional conventions (7). 4. Note that picketing was not included on this chart because picketing was only used for 2 years of the movement’s history. By comparison, women attempted to vote 71 times. 5. We determine that a state movement was active by the presence of at least one known activist or movement organization in the state during that year. 6. Data limitations do not allow for analysis earlier than 1866. The final year of the analysis is 1918 because in the following year Congress passed the Nineteenth Amendment, which gave all women the right to vote. Including 1919 in our analysis might have biased results due to the sudden change in movement strategy. 7. Some states have missing data points and these years for those states are excluded from the analysis. For example, we were forced to censor Arizona from 1866 to 1880 due to missing data. We conducted sensitivity analyses, excluding the variable for which the data were missing, to ensure our estimates were not biased by the exclusion of those years. There were no substantial differences between the models. 8. Multinomial logistic models assume the ‘‘independence of irrelevant alternatives,’’ meaning that no other possible alternative nominal outcomes exist that are statistically correlated with those in the dependent variable. Using a Hausman test to assess this assumption, we found support for the null hypothesis that alternative outcomes are independent from those in the model. 9. Coefficients are specified using the Huber/White/Sandwich estimator of variance. 10. There are many ways that a bill can be defeated in the legislative process. A bill often simply died in committee and was never brought to a vote. Such defeats may have been exceptionally threatening to the suffragists’ trust in elected officials because it was indicative of their own impotence to influence change. 11. We only use three of the four indicators used in the original political openness measure proposed by Clemens. She included whether or not the state had granted women the right to vote. 12. This is measured as the difference between the number of women working in agriculture and the total number of working women, divided by the total number of women over the age of 10. As one reviewer noted, this variable is also related to cross-state differences in economic opportunities. Clearly, the changing gender relations and the economic transformations of the woman suffrage era are related, but without more precise measurements of gendered attitudes and practices we are not able to parse this effect more efficiently. 13. Note that the outsider failed referendum interaction measure is not included in the model in Table 1. As mentioned earlier in the paper, this is because we cannot
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include both interaction effects in the same model because we lack enough cases where movements used insider or no apparent strategy and also experienced referendum defeat. 14. We refer to Simmel (1971) conception of a social form as a generalizable pattern of association between social actors.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS John Torres, Kendra Schiffman, Liz Miklya Legerski, Bruce Lott, and Eric Dahlin helped with data collection. We thank Holly McCammon and Karen Campbell for use of their data. We would also like to thank Sarah Soule, Alan Schussman, and Jenn Earle for their valuable comments on earlier drafts of this paper.
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APPENDIX. CORRELATION TABLE OF INDEPENDENT VARIABLES
Variables
1 0.16 0.30 0.05 0.04 0.05 0.03 0.01 0.08 0.04 0.49 0.11 0.09 0.15 0.05 0.16 0.09 0.08 0.03 0.08 0.06
2
1 0.24 0.06 0.02 0.04 0.18 0.02 0.05 0.001 0.10 0.47 0.01 0.14 0.05 0.04 0.01 0.11 0.07 0.13 0.01
3
4
5
6
1 0.12 0.30 0.17 0.04 0.31 0.14 0.23 0.11 0.01 0.58 0.44 0.29 0.11 0.01 0.20 0.01 0.05 0.33
1 0.13 0.84 0.50 0.12 0.11 0.05 0.01 0.02 0.13 0.08 0.14 0.13 0.05 0.04 0.02 0.03 0.14
1 0.14 0.03 0.31 0.26 0.25 0.04 0.09 0.31 0.31 0.27 0.36 0.03 0.18 0.05 0.14 0.33
1 0.01 0.14 0.08 0.05 0.01 0.02 0.13 0.07 0.12 0.09 0.05 0.03 0.02 0.05 0.14
7
1 0.01 0.08 0.01 0.04 0.08 0.03 0.05 0.08 0.10 0.04 0.03 0.001 0.02 0.05
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
1 0.19 0.21 0.03 0.01 0.31 0.26 0.22 0.24 0.04 0.12 0.03 0.08 0.35
1 0.10 0.13 0.09 0.27 0.30 0.13 0.44 0.06 0.09 0.08 0.14 0.15
1 0.01 0.002 0.27 0.18 0.21 0.09 0.04 0.09 0.05 0.10 0.38
1 0.20 0.13 0.13 0.13 0.22 0.11 0.18 0.07 0.16 0.11
1 0.01 0.19 0.11 0.11 0.01 0.23 0.14 0.27 0.02
1 0.46 0.52 0.21 0.03 0.33 0.02 0.10 0.54
1 0.35 0.24 0.02 0.26 0.14 0.12 0.25
1 0.03 0.04 0.37 0.004 0.13 0.50
16
1 0.19 0.04 0.02 0.09 0.18
17
18
19
20
1 0.02 0.05 0.05 0.07
1 0.28 0.27 0.24
1 0.28 0.24
1 0.24 1
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1. Insider – lagged 2. Outsider – lagged 3. Generalist – lagged 4. Failed referendum 5. Cumulative total failed bills 6. Failed referendum generalist 7. Failed referendum * outsider 8. Party endorsement 9. Partial suffrage 10. National affiliation/hierarchical 11. Regional insider – lagged 12. Regional outsider – lagged 13. Regional generalist – lagged 14. State suffrage organization 15. Political openness 16. Women’s employment 17. Legislature met 18. 1880s 19. 1890s 20. 1900s 21. 1910s
1
TRANSNATIONAL ACTIVISM IN THE AMERICAS: THE INTERNET AND INNOVATIONS IN THE REPERTOIRE OF CONTENTION Jeffrey M. Ayres ABSTRACT In recent years, the Internet has increasingly served as an important tactical tool for protest campaigns, arguably contributing to a restructuring of the repertoire of contention. This study analyzes a recent case of Internet-backed activism, focusing on the ongoing transnational mobilization against the Free Trade Area of the America’s (FTAA) initiative. The Hemispheric Social Alliance, a coalition of hundreds of civil society organizations across the Western hemisphere opposed to the free market underpinnings of the FTAA, has employed Internet technologies to communicate, strategize, educate and pressure state authorities in an effort to promote an alternative social-developmental vision. This case of transnational contention has important implications that go beyond the Americas context. The organization of groups transnationally, combined with Internet communication and coordination strategies, suggests that popular political protest has begun to look considerably different from the time when state boundaries contained much political discourse and action.
Research in Social Movements, Conflicts and Change, Volume 26, 35–61 Copyright r 2005 by Elsevier Ltd. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 0163-786X/doi:10.1016/S0163-786X(05)26002-0
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INTRODUCTION Over the past two decades, the world economy has undergone a dramatic transformation. Of particular note have been the advancements made in the program of neoliberal economic restructuring: increased and rapid crossborder flows of capital, the privatization of public services, the push for freer trade via advances in international and regional trade deals and retrenchments in the area of social welfare state provision have been central trends in this process. In the late 1990s, however, what was once considered an inevitable process of market liberalization was slowed by a succession of protests, which seemed to accompany nearly every official meeting of business and government elites. While the protests against the World Trade Organization (WTO) in fall 1999 in Seattle first captured broad public attention, earlier mobilizations had been ongoing for some time against neoliberal globalization, including widespread protests across the developing South against the austerity measures implicit in the International Monetary Fund’s structural adjustment policies, and mobilizations against the trade regimes in North America and Europe (Walton & Seddon, 1994; Rodrik, 1997; Ayres, 1998; Mittelman, 2000). North America has been an especially fertile area for national and regional protest campaigns against neoliberal trade and investment initiatives. The ongoing mobilization campaign against the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) initiative is part of the regional evolution of contentious political activity against neoliberal policies, which can be traced back to earlier protest campaigns against the Canada–U.S. Free Trade Agreement (CUSFTA) and the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Yet, the anti-FTAA campaign clearly marks an advance in the types of organizational forms and protest tactics employed in regional opposition campaigns against neoliberalism. In addition to the contributions made by more formalized transnational social movement organizations, civil society groups have increasingly employed Internet technologies to help galvanize their campaigns and protest events against the FTAA. This paper analyzes the role of such Internet technologies in facilitating anti-FTAA protests through the April 2001 second People’s Summit of the Americas, in Quebec City, Canada. This case is conceptually valuable because it contributes to current debates concerning possible changes in the ‘‘repertoire of contention,’’ and whether the use of Internet technologies and other transnational innovations in protest strategies is heralding a ‘‘transnational restructuring of collective action’’ (Smith, 2001, p. 9). Moreover, empirically, the case of Internet-assisted anti-FTAA activism fits clearly into
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what has become a progressive pattern of regional opposition to neoliberal policy initiatives, from the CUSFTA to NAFTA and to the FTAA. There has also been little written on the anti-FTAA mobilizations outside of more popularized writings or activist observations, and these discussions have tended not to focus on the role played by the Internet in these campaigns (Drainville, 2001; Friedmann, 2001; Massicotte, 2003). Thus, while states still structure a considerable amount of the contentious claims-making that has evolved to challenge neoliberal policies, this case of transnational activism against the FTAA illustrates that Internet communication and coordination strategies are changing the forms of contemporary popular struggle, as state boundaries increasingly fail to contain all modes of political discourse and collective action.
THE INTERNET AND THE REPERTOIRE OF CONTENTION Tarrow has defined contentious politics as ‘‘collective activity on the part of claimants or those who claim to represent them relying at least in part on non-institutionalized forms of interaction with elites, opponents, or the state’’ (Tarrow, 1996, p. 874). The repertoire of contention, moreover, characterizes the collection of tools actors draw upon to make claims at particular historical junctures (Tilly, 1977, 1986). While admittedly less a precise analytical tool than a suggestive metaphor (Traugott, 1995, p. 2), the repertoire concept can nonetheless help to provide a conceptual framework for explaining how the advent of the neoliberal political–economic era has encouraged innovations in tactical claims-making. Arguably, this period of economic restructuring marks a hinge period, where changes in the global economy have encouraged tactical adaptations and thus a reorientation of the repertoire of contention. Lately, in fact, there has been an upsurge of research specifically on the transnational reorientation of protest tactics among an array of geographically diverse constituencies (Williams, 1999; Pellow, 2001; Gordon & Turner, 2001; Ayres, 2002a). The repertoire of contention has historically included a variety of possible tactics, from riots, the construction of barricades and labor marches, to wildcat strikes, factory occupations, email petitioning and sit-ins. However, Tilly stressed that the concept of the repertoire is characterized by its limited forms, minor variations and great continuity over time, so that at any given historical moment, there is a limited ‘‘inventory of available means’’ of
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collective action for claimsmakers (Tilly, 1984, p. 308). As Traugott has elaborated, similar to its theatrical counterpart, the ‘‘repertoire of collective action implies a group of actors who choose among a restricted number of performances with which they are familiar’’ (Traugott, 1995, p. 42). Change does come to the repertoire of contention, but only over long periods of time, after considerable give and take between claims-makers and their opponents, and after actors over several generations have adapted to their changed social, political and economic context. The changing forms of popular struggle are linked historically to the emergence of capitalism and the state (Tilly, 1984). Repertoire shifts occurred as people adjusted to and responded to transformations in capitalism and its impact on their current life situations. The first modern repertoire of contention emerged principally across Western Europe in the eighteenth century during the early period of state-capitalist formation. During this time the repertoire was local and communal, reacting to a still largely agrarian economy and exhibiting forms of popular struggle such as food riots, grain seizures, inter-village brawls and draft riots (Traugott, 1995). The development of the modern, increasingly urban-centered state and the advancement and spread of industrial capitalism by the early nineteenth century saw new forms of protest emerge and spread across Europe and North America. This new repertoire, responding to a changed political– economic environment, was now national, with the scale and complexity of groups contending for power undergoing major changes. Where communal groups once targeted local authorities, new nationally oriented social movements and mass-based labor unions emerged, now principally targeting the state. Typical claims-making tactics linked to this reorganized repertoire were strikes, demonstrations, electoral rallies, petitioning and other larger, visible, planned public actions against national power holders (Traugott, 1995, p. 44). Critical resources buttressing these new repertoire innovations, which would carry the new protest activities with limited variation well into the twentieth century, were the development of large-scale associations, including national political parties, and developments in national print media and its dispersal. A new repertoire rooted in the nation-state, thus solidified with limited variation throughout much of the last century, as the state served as the principal arena within which actors would contend for power and against which groups targeted their claims. However, the past two decades of neoliberal economic restructuring have begun to undercut the primacy of nationally oriented protest tactics. The reduced barriers to the rapid and free movement of capital, corporations, commodities and services, have challenged the paradigm of the national
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repertoire of collective action. Increasingly agitated by neoliberal policy initiatives, which lack transparency and challenge national regulatory prerogatives (Korten, 1996; Stiglitz, 2002), social activist groups have responded with transnational innovations in protest strategies (Ayres, 2002b). The increased influence that multinational corporations and global trade regimes now have over national policy and regulatory decisions has provoked this repertoire shift, with transnational innovations occurring in activist organizational structures, tactics and targets identified. The new tactics in the politics of contentious protest are not replacing the older tactics, but complementing the national repertoire of contention, as social actors increasingly target claims both inside and outside the state. Fig. 1 presents a summary overview of this evolution in tactical claims-making as related to changes in the political–economic environment over the past 300 years. As an increasingly prominent tool in this tactical reorganization, the Internet has proven a key component of protests against neoliberal trade and investment accords. The supposed advantages of Internet technologies as a galvanizing force behind such recent protests have been touted particularly in these campaigns: its speed, accessibility and immediacy of impact have proved influential, as activists send email messages, post bulletins to web pages and transmit strategic information to listservs for immediate scrutiny around the world. In addition, the medium has been credited for enhancing government accountability, particularly when government networks go online, and achieve a public face (Slaughter, 2000). For example, Internet technologies played an important role in transmitting international support for the 1994 Zapatista uprising in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas (Schulz, 1998; Cleaver, 1998). The Zapatista uprising began symbolically on January 1, 1994, the same day that NAFTA officially came into effect. From thereafter, the Zapatistas consistently criticized both NAFTA and the broader neoliberal roots of the accord’s origins for the anticipated negative effects that these policies would have on the well-being and livelihoods of the primarily poor indigenous peoples of southern Mexico. In 1996, the Zapatistas organized an Intercontinental Encounter for Humanity and Against Neoliberalism on Zapatista-controlled territory in Chiapas. Over 3,000 activists from around the world attended this meeting, which helped to catalyze the formation of the then still nascent international movement against neoliberal globalization. As the Zapatista protests unfolded, Internet technologies helped to broadcast strategies and inform interested members of the international community of the status of the Zapatista campaign as well as of planned meetings. In addition to the Zapatista uprising, the 1997–1998 campaign against the Multilateral
40
Political-Economic Environment
Forms of Popular Struggle
Targets
18th Century Agrarian State Capitalism
Local Tactics: food riots, grain seizures, inter-village brawls, dramaturgy
Varied Community Actors and Authorities
19th Century Urban Industrial State Capitalism
National Tactics: mass strikes and demonstrations, electoral rallies, petitions
Nation-State Policies and Authorities
Late 20th Century Neoliberal Global Capitalist Restructuring
National and Transnational Tactics: Internet activism, transnational social movements and organizations, crossborder exchange and diffusion of protest forms
Nation-State Policies and Authorities and Multinational Corporations, International Institutions and Agreements
Evolution in the Repertoire of Contention.
JEFFREY M. AYRES
Fig. 1.
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Agreement on Investment (MAI), and the protests against the Seattle WTO meetings in 1999 drew from Internet technologies to target neoliberal initiatives (Smith & Smythe, 1999; Deibert, 2000; Warkentin & Mingst, 2000; Lemire, 2000; Smith, 2001). In each of these cases, evidence points to the Internet’s supportive role in amplifying the concerns of activists and providing a public space for the development of an international discourse critical of neoliberalism. Virtual political communities have been created, with web pages and listservs devoted to the Zapatista cause and opposition to the MAI and WTO, to exchange information, coordinate activities and build and extend support for political purposes. While the Zapatista’s drama continues to evolve with the changing politics of Mexico under President Vincente Fox, the defeat of the MAI and the disruption of the Seattle WTO meetings have both been partly attributed to sophisticated Internet use by international coalitions of activists. In fact, some observers of these campaigns have not been shy in describing the Internet protest innovations as heralding an ‘‘alternative political fabric’’ (Cleaver, 1998), ‘‘an incipient global civil society’’ (Schulz, 1998; Smith & Smythe, 1999; Warkentin & Mingst, 2000) and an ‘‘ethereal non-territorial space’’ (Deibert, 2000) for civil society networks. The French government provided one of the strongest boosts to such claims when, in pulling out of the failing MAI negotiations at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in Paris in 1998, it credited the ‘‘emergence of a global civil society represented by non-governmental organizations, which are often active and communicate across borders,’’ with helping to seal the accord’s demise.1
THE CASE OF THE MOBILIZATION AGAINST THE FTAA The ongoing mobilization against the FTAA presents an intriguing case for developing a clearer understanding of the role played by the Internet in campaigns against neoliberal policies.2 First, the FTAA is one of the more highly visible policy initiatives rooted in the broader neoliberal architecture to be pursued by state and business elites since the WTO ministerial meetings in Seattle in fall 1999. Granted, numerous institutions of international governance that broadly support the neoliberal agenda of globally freer markets, privatization and deregulation have, in addition to the FTAA, become targets of demonstrations: during the year 2000 protestors disrupted
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the meetings of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund in Washington, DC and Prague, as well as meetings of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland and Melbourne. In July 2001, close to 100,000 demonstrators clashed with armed police at the Group of 8 Summit in Genoa, Italy, where the first death of a protestor involved in the international campaign against neoliberal globalization occurred (Della Porta & Tarrow, 2001). Even despite the resurgent statism and palpably more repressive atmosphere following the terrorist attacks on the United States, tens of thousands of activists from around the world met in late January 2002 and 2003 at the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, Brazil to workshop and develop strategies to counter global neoliberal policy initiatives. Yet, in terms of a concrete multilateral trade initiative with an ongoing negotiation agenda, the FTAA plans to expand to cover the entire Western Hemisphere, which if completed, would tie together the largest number of countries and populations in any trade deal to date. Moreover, Internet technologies since the ill-fated MAI and Seattle WTO talks are further advanced, have expanded and are available to a wider population outside North America.
Research Methods A variety of qualitative methods were employed in this case study. Earlier fieldwork in Canada in 1992 and 2000 complemented more recent research in spring and summer 2001. The latest period of research included the use of semi-structured, tape-recorded personal and phone interviews with activists in Toronto (Ecumenical Coalition for Economic Justice, Canadian Environmental Law Association and Common Frontiers), Ottawa (Council of Canadians) and Washington, DC (Alliance for Responsible Trade (ART) and the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions). In addition, the Internet proved to be a substantive source for gathering data about protests against the FTAA. Anti-FTAA campaign literature, strategy documents, organizational profiles and protest events were well publicized on social movement organization web pages and listservs. Joining several of the major listservs, especially the ftaa-l list, also provided critical access to daily information of the building momentum heading into the People’s Summit and the major protests surrounding the meeting of the head’s of state in Quebec City in April 2001. In fact, the wealth of available public information on the Internet related to activist organizations mobilizing against the FTAA seems congruent with
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recent research on available and useful methods for studying contention against neoliberal globalization. In studying the WTO protests in Seattle, for example, the Internet was found to be the best source of data in terms of time, research costs and breadth of social movement dynamics (Almeida & Lichbach, 2001).
The FTAA Initiative: Its Origins and Discontents The FTAA arrived on the hemispheric trade negotiation agenda on the heels of recently completed regional and multilateral trade deals. Regionally, the CUSFTA, which came into effect in 1989, and the NAFTA, which began in 1994, helped frame the logic for expanding a free trade zone across the Americas. In addition, the completion of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade Uruguay Round in December 1993, followed by the creation of the WTO in January 1995, buttressed the impression that this moment of success in trade negotiations marked the apogee of neoliberal globalization. Few anticipated the rise of sustained or coordinated international campaigns against neoliberal policy initiatives in 1995. Aside from the Zapatista rebellion in southern Mexico, advocates of neoliberal globalization across Europe and North America had the momentum; the eventual failures of the MAI, U.S. Presidential fast-track negotiating authority and the Seattle WTO talks were largely unexpected events.3 Energized by these ongoing successes in trade negotiation, the Clinton Administration resurrected former President Bush’s ‘‘Enterprise for the America’s’’ free trade initiative at the First Summit of the Americas in Miami, Florida in December 1994. There, with the noticeable exception of Cuba’s Fidel Castro, each government leader from the Americas signed a declaration committing to the idea of an FTAA. After Miami, FTAA meetings became more routinized, with a pattern emerging of alternations between gatherings of trade ministers and heads of government. Trade ministers from across the hemisphere were responsible for directing the process: they would meet, beginning in Denver in June 1995, through the spring of 2001, establishing sectoral working groups and creating negotiating committees to upgrade the process by 1998. Importantly, by November 1999, trade ministers agreed at their meeting in Toronto, Canada to have a completed draft ready by April 2001 to be presented at the third Summit of the Americas meeting in Quebec City.4 The routinized pattern of the FTAA negotiation process by 1997 had caught the attention of civil society activists across the Americas who
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had become wary of another NAFTA-style initiative laden with neoliberal prescriptions engineered hemisphere-wide. However, the seeds for crossborder protest against the FTAA were sown years prior to the 1994 start of the negotiations. For example, out of the cross-country mobilization in Canada against the CUSFTA in 1988 had emerged the Action Canada Network (ACN), a cross-sectoral umbrella coalition that served as an important reference point to civil society activists in Mexico and the U.S. during the early 1990s protests against NAFTA (Ayres, 1998). By the early 1990s, moreover, the Mexican Action Network on Free Trade (RMALC), based in Mexico City, and the ART in Washington, DC, had become the civil society coalition cousins to the ACN in Canada, all of which cooperated to varying degrees across borders to oppose NAFTA. In addition, Mexico overlapped with the experience of other Latin American countries, whose struggles with the effects of the International Monetary Fund’s neoliberal structural adjustment policies encouraged numerous protests years prior to the North American-centered contention against NAFTA (Walton, 1989; Walton & Ragin, 1989). The most important groundwork for the anti-FTAA campaign thus occurred around the debate over NAFTA. The opposition to NAFTA sparked a considerable degree of cross-border organizing between coalitions in Canada, the U.S. and Mexico. Regular cross-border exchanges and conferences between civil society organizations began as early as 1990, when discussions between government officials over a possible continental accord became more concrete, and consultations on free trade and its impact were held in Canada, the U.S., Mexico and along the U.S.–Mexico border (Thorup, 1991; Sinclair, 1992). These early discussions evolved into more substantive examples of bi- and tri-national sectoral cooperation during and immediately after the NAFTA debate (Gabriel & Macdonald, 1993; Carr, 1996; Dreiling, 1997; Cook, 1997; Macdonald & Schwartz, 2002). Moreover, in addition to cross-border activity, nationally rooted coalitions emerged to direct domestic opposition against NAFTA. These included the Council of Canadians in Canada, the ART in the U.S. and RMALC in Mexico (Dreiling, 2001; Wise, Salazar, & Carlsen, 2003). Both the national and transnational advances made in opposing NAFTA helped to cement long-term cross-sectoral and cross-border relationships, which would serve as building blocks for more sustained forms of regional contention in the late 1990s. Conceptually, these relationships and coalitions served as important ‘‘mobilizing structures’’ (McAdam, McCarthy, & Zald, 1996, p. 3; Smith, Chatfield, & Pagnucco, 1997, p. 62) from which people ultimately would build a protest campaign against the FTAA. Yet, during
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these pre-FTAA campaigns, Internet technologies were largely absent, with newspaper advertisements, paid supplements and flyers the preferred means of distributing information during the CUSFTA campaign, with faxes noticeably augmenting communication and strategizing during the NAFTA protests.5 By 1997, the increased accessibility of Internet technologies combined with key successes in campaigns against global policy initiatives to slow the progress of neoliberal globalization. U.S. President Clinton’s failure to win reauthorization of ‘‘fast-track’’ negotiating authority in 1998 (Shoch, 2000), and the collapse of talks on the MAI in Paris that spring, pierced the veneer of inevitability that had wrapped successive global trade and investment negotiation sessions. More specific to the Americas, in May 1997, hundreds of Western hemispheric civil society activists, including labor, environmental, human rights and women’s and campesino groups met, in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, in a gathering parallel to the official FTAA trade minister’s meeting. Hosted by the Central U´nica dos Trabalhadores (CUT) and two other Brazilian trade union federations as well as other non-governmental organizations, the counter-conference, dubbed ‘‘Our Americas Forum,’’ sought to develop a multisectoral critique of the FTAA initiative. The conference ended with a call for the creation of a Hemispheric Social Alliance (HSA), as a permanent coordinating consortium of civil society organizations from across the hemisphere to monitor, propose alternatives to and oppose the neoliberal FTAA initiative (Bakvis, 1999).
Electronic Activism against the FTAA Initiative The period of time from the May 1997 conceptualization of the HSA to the raucous protests surrounding the third Summit of the Americas in Quebec City, in April 2001, marked an escalation in the sophistication of the campaign against the FTAA. It is also an appropriate time period to measure the contributions and limitations of the Internet as a new protest tactic to the available repertoire of contention. In fact, the evidence clearly shows that Internet technologies did encourage innovations in protest repertoires, which helped mark clear differences between this stage of the campaign against the FTAA, and those anti-CUSFTA and NAFTA campaigns that preceded it. By the time of the tens of thousands strong mass street protests in Quebec City, the Internet had helped to galvanize protest in at least three important ways: by acting as a clearinghouse for information on the FTAA initiative; by facilitating the rapid dissemination of strategic communication
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between activist groups; and by serving as a novel medium through which activists could put direct pressure on state authorities involved in the FTAA negotiations. The Internet served in these innovative capacities on two levels: as a generally accessible resource for multiple, yet uncoordinated, campaigns, protests and meetings that helped to foster a sense of collective solidarity against the FTAA initiative; and quite explicitly as a tool for transnationally coordinated activism between hemispheric civil society groups. It is the rapid and international diffusion of information critical of the FTAA that is the most obvious sign of a shifting repertoire of contention. Whereas national print media and its dissemination helped buttress innovations in national protest repertoires in the nineteenth century – including the rise of national social movements and political parties (Tarrow, 1998) – the immediate spread of information across territorial boundaries today highlights how claimsmaking through the Internet is being internationally restructured to assist with transnational protest campaigns. The geographic boundary-crossing character of protest listservs, web sites and email communication illustrated well the transnational reach of the anti-FTAA mobilizations. Anti-FTAA organizing was facilitated by electronic listservs, which served as a kind of technological infrastructure for drawing interested people to the latest information on protest campaigns. For example, the ftaa-l was an international email list, launched in early 2001, which provided information on the FTAA and the forthcoming Summit of the Americas meeting in Quebec City.6 Moderated to share information, analysis, announcements, news, opinion articles and protest and organizing strategy, this listserv was available as ftaa-l in English, zlea-l in French and alca-l in both Spanish and Portuguese. Anyone with a computer with Internet capability and an interest in information on the FTAA and broader globalization issues from a critical perspective could join the listserv.7 Moreover, true to the pattern that had transpired since the WTO protests in Seattle, activists created a web site (http://www.A20.org), to designate the date of planned street protests against the Summit of the Americas meeting in Quebec City on April 20, 2001. This month/date pairing had become a shorthand way to communicate protest dates and information widely on the Internet. The first 4 months of 2001 were crucial to building momentum against the FTAA, and the ftaa-l was a locus of strategic information on meetings, planned teach-ins and schedules of related organizational and educational events. Groups from across North America posted news and information to provide listserv recipients with the latest updates on unfolding events. Rider
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boards were created; anyone looking for rides to Quebec City from any East coast city in the United States could find information on carpooling through the list. A list of the so-called ‘‘activist’’ French was posted, with protestorfriendly translations of cop/pig, pepper spray, ruling class, junk food, barricades and dozens of other words germane to preparing for street marches and potential clashes with police. In March a detailed anti-FTAA ‘‘survival kit’’ was posted, containing a long list of information on ‘‘what to bring to Quebec,’’ including climate-ready and pepper spray and tear gas-resistant clothing, first aid kits for demonstrators, antidotes to tear gas and pepper spray, and instructions on how to flush these substances from eyes, nose and mouth. Also in March, a ‘‘Field Guide to the FTAA Protest in Quebec City’’ arrived on the list, providing detailed information on most of the major activist groups planning to participate in the demonstrations, as well as legal information, help with exchange rates, assistance with border crossing, housing in Quebec City and maps of the city and its perimeter. In addition to this general strategic information, other groups used the listserv to encourage recipients to pressure elected local, state and federal representatives to voice their opposition to the FTAA negotiations. Public Citizen and the Council of Canadians, by now well-known public interest groups in the U.S. and Canada, and both veterans of exploiting the Internet to oppose the MAI, posted ‘‘action alerts’’ through the ftaa-l, encouraging call-ins, letter-writing campaigns, and email protests. The listserv provided the telephone numbers of the U.S. Capitol’s switchboard and Canada’s Parliament, as well as addresses and emails of Congressional representatives and members of Canada’s House of Commons. In addition, continuous streams of news articles filled the ftaa-l, providing recipients with the latest information on the ongoing FTAA negotiations, on police preparations in Quebec City and on the general tenor of national and local debates on the ftaa and other neoliberal policy initiatives. At times, the frequent cross-posting of messages sent through the ftaa-l became excessive, especially when combined with messages received from other active listservs. For instance, receiving multiple copies of the same Toronto Globe and Mail article, which focused on the police construction of a 10-foot high fence around the Summit of the Americas meeting in Quebec City, became redundant. Moreover, for someone located in the Northeast of the United States, receiving news that the internationally known activist Starhawk was putting on a series of workshops on ‘‘magical activism’’ in downtown Vancouver, British Columbia, was additional electronic clutter. Yet, the electronic burden of receiving occasional notices from a systems administrator, warning that an account was overloaded, could be counterbalanced by the
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sense of efficacy derived from reading about the groundswell of anti-FTAA activity taking place. From a Saskatoon teach-in, to an anti-FTAA caravan road show in Montpelier, Vermont, to the forming of the ‘‘Peach Arch’’ coalition between British Columbian and Washington state activists, the ftaa-l provided a rich account of widespread anti-FTAA activity, and could boost the sense that each seemingly solitary, local action was contributing to a much larger groundswell of contention against the FTAA initiative. Here the Internet was making multiple contributions to movement-building across national borders by nurturing activist solidarity, increasing tactical diffusion and even serving as a vehicle for strategic coordination.
The HSA and the Mobilization toward Quebec City, April 2001 In general, the Internet clearly helped a much larger number of people rapidly receive information critical of the FTAA initiative, marking a change from the more laborious process of providing information through newspaper inserts or even faxes as occurred during the protest campaigns against the CUSFTA or NAFTA. Yet, more specifically, the Internet also played a key supportive role in enhancing specific acts of transnational collaboration between hemispheric activists and groups that used the Internet to elaborate a cross-border critique of the FTAA initiative. Three campaigns or protest events illuminate the role played by Internet technologies in bridging cultural and geographical barriers toward transnational protest: the creation and expansion of the HSA, the drafting and editing of the document Alternatives for the Americas and the strategizing and activities surrounding the 2nd People’s Summit in Quebec City in April 2001. These campaigns of Internet-assisted transnational collaboration are summarized in Fig. 2. Following the commitment to create the HSA, which emerged at ‘‘Our America’s Forum,’’ held in Belo Horizonte, Brazil in May 1997, hemispheric civil society groups met the following April in Santiago, Chile, during the socalled People’s Summit of the Americas. This was a counter-summit held parallel to the second heads of government Summit of the Americas. This activist gathering provided a voice to hemispheric civil society groups, many of which had crafted alternatives to the FTAA initiative, and were committed to launching a social movement across the Americas to counter the neoliberal policy preferences of hemispheric political and business elites. Over a thousand representatives of hemispheric civil society groups met in a dozen sectoral forums to conduct workshops and strategize around alternative
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Hemispheric Social Alliance -membership communication and coordination via web page -individual web pages with multiple language accessibility -HSA listserv --strategic information dissemination --Spanish language access --electronically craft alternatives to FTAA
Alternatives for the Americas -drafting and editing via email and listserv -web posting of document via Common Frontiers -multiple language accessibility -public commentary via email 2nd People’s Summit in Quebec City -Summit websites --multilingual accessibility --daily web updates/press releases -Peoples March on Internet --“virtual meeting” -“Liberate Text” campaign -Leaked Draft of FTAA --posting on websites for public access
Fig. 2.
Internet Assisted Transnational Collaboration against the FTAA: Select Campaigns or Protest Events.
economic and social models. These groups further elaborated the concept of a multisectoral hemispheric social alliance at this time, and endorsed a statement expressing support for ‘‘our objective of integration based on values of democracy, equality and social justice’’ (Bakvis, 1999, p. 9). The HSA took further shape during a March 1999 hemispheric coordinating session in Costa Rica, where civil society groups agreed on principles for building what was hoped to be a transnational social movement for social and economic justice across the Americas. The HSA members elected a coordinating committee that included Common Frontiers (Canada), Civil Society Initiative on Central American Integration, Quebec Network on Continental Integration, ART (USA), Mexican Action Network on Free Trade, Latin American Congress on Rural Organizations and the Brazilian
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Network for People’s Integration and the Interamerican Regional Workers Organization.8 HSA members also anticipated that the next meeting of hemispheric leaders planned for the third Summit of the Americas in Quebec City in April 2001, would be a crucial moment for measuring advances against the FTAA initiative. Thus, members of the HSA coordinating committee identified two main strategies that would guide the activities of the HSA for the next two years: (1) affect the official FTAA negotiation process by putting pressure on national political processes, by making alternative policy proposals, educating public opinion and crafting new media strategies; and (2) build widespread support for the HSA among hemispheric civil society groups who could look to the HSA as the coordinator of a new transnational social movement. Taking into account the barriers of distance, time and the costs of hemispheric travel, both of these strategic goals would be notably advanced through application of Internet technologies to the HSA’s agenda of popular contention against the integration process. Beginning in 1999, members of the HSA coordinating committee were increasingly linked through web pages. Most of the active members of the HSA, including Common Frontiers, the Quebec Network on Hemispheric Integration, the ART and the Mexican Action Network on Free Trade had their own web sites, which could be accessed in English, Spanish or French. The HSA also constructed its own web page (http://www.asc-hsa.org) accessible in English or Spanish. These web sites became increasingly important sources of information on ongoing projects, including what each group had planned as well as the general direction of the HSA. In addition to these representative web pages, the HSA secretariat, based in Mexico City with RMALC, administered an HSA listserv to more concretely share communication and strategy between HSA members. This listserv served as an important tool for building and keeping the HSA membership connected, and was found to be a useful means to share information between otherwise extremely geographically dispersed groups.9 While not open to the public – as information germane to HSA strategizing was at times shared on the listserv – by the time of the Quebec summit, over 600 hemispheric organizations were receiving information and keeping abreast of activities of member groups. The HSA listserv was accessible only in Spanish,10 a tactic that purposefully attempts to overcome the otherwise dominant position of the English language on the Internet, and an approach that better approximates the dominance of Spanish as a language shared by most hemispheric groups outside resource-rich Canada and the United States.11 In addition to assisting the HSA in coordinating and communicating with membership, Internet technologies helped to advance alternative policy
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proposals to the FTAA initiative. In fact, the Internet proved indispensable for much of the elaboration and editing of what came to be called the Alternatives for the Americas document, most of which in later drafts was nearly entirely developed through email and listserv commentary. Civil society groups first drafted the Alternatives proposal at the People’s Summit in Santiago, Chile, in April 1998, and 6 months later a second draft was elaborated into a 60-page document posted on the Common Frontiers web site. This document represented a significant advance in the opposition to neoliberal policy initiatives; the campaigns against the CUSFTA and NAFTA had failed in part due to the inability of social activist groups to articulate and publicize a serious trade alternative to these neoliberal accords. Instead, this time groups crafted out of the Santiago sectoral forums this socialdevelopmental alternative to the FTAA. Once in its more complete second draft format, the Alternatives became an educational and lobbying tool that could be circulated rapidly through the Internet for discussion and further elaboration. During the November 1999 civil society forum held in Toronto counter to the FTAA trade ministerial meetings, HSA representatives agreed to craft a third draft of the Alternatives document in time for the Quebec City heads of government summit in April 2001. The Internet at this time played a crucial role in the continued evolution of this document, which had become available in English, Spanish, French and Portuguese on the Common Frontiers web site.12 Referred to at the site as a ‘‘living, working document,’’ it was available for continuous public commentary and updating via email sent to an address on the Common Frontiers web site.13 HSA members also relied upon the Internet to edit and exchange drafts of the document as quickly as possible as the deadline for Quebec City loomed. During the editing process, the lead coordinator for each sectoral chapter circulated drafts electronically, and once each chapter was completed, it was posted and circulated on the HSA listserv in English and Spanish, with a 2-week deadline for public commentary by national HSA representative groups before it was made public on the Common Frontiers web site.14 Without access to the speed of such Internet technologies, such rapid editing and redrafting of the document would have been impossible, and HSA representatives would not have had a third draft ready for discussion for the Quebec City People’s Summit. Planning and advertising for the second People’s Summit was also significantly aided by Internet technologies through the winter and spring leading up to the April 2001 demonstrations. The HSA organized the People’s Summit, with substantial help from its two main Canadian partners, Common Frontiers and the Quebec Network on Hemispheric Integration.
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In addition to constant updating on these and other member’s web sites, the HSA put together a specific site for the upcoming People’s Summit, at http://www.sommetdespeuples.org. This site could be accessed in the four major hemispheric languages, and contained a detailed program of the forthcoming summit, including information on the daily sectoral and thematic forums, the teach-in on Friday April 20th and the large planned demonstration on Saturday, April 21st to coincide with the opening of the official summit. During the People’s Summit, which unfolded the week prior to the official Summit of the America’s meeting (April 16–20), the HSA relied extensively on electronic tactics to rapidly, and in a novel fashion, disseminate information and strategy.15 At the end of each day, HSA member groups posted press releases, news about member group activities and clippings of press reviews of that day’s actions. Following the Friday April 20th teach-in, the HSA posted a declaration of the 2nd People’s Summit, exclaiming ‘‘No to the FTAA! Another Americas is Possible!’’ on the web site. In addition, a ‘‘People’s March on the Internet’’ was arranged for the following Saturday to coincide with the planned public demonstration. This so-called ‘‘virtual meeting’’ was designed to encourage people to support the public demonstration by logging on to http://www.marchedespeuples.org, where they would then add their name and country of citizenship to a list to ‘‘participate in this global movement’’ and ‘‘work in solidarity, against a battle that concerns all of us, with everyone who is trying to build and alternative Americas.’’16 Complying with these instructions placed one on a list on the People’s March Website, where one’s name and flag of country of origin popped up on a growing list with others from around the world who had accessed and joined the virtual meeting.17 While the Internet in all of the above instances proved helpful in amplifying activist concerns and in strategizing more easily and cheaply across geographic boundaries, there were also concrete examples where the HSA was able to put pressure on national governments using the Internet, which clearly complemented public relations campaigns through the print media.18 For instance, during the fall 2000 lead-up to the Quebec City preparations, the HSA organized a ‘‘liberate the text’’ campaign, designed to embarrasses and ultimately cajole national governments participating in the FTAA negotiations to release a copy of the official albeit secret FTAA text. By late autumn, over 300 hemispheric groups had signed and posted this declaration on member web sites, with a letter accessible in English and Spanish spelling out the HSA’s opposition to the secretive FTAA process. News reports shared over member web sites and received on the ftaa-l listserv into that spring 2001
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revealed that the HSA was on the side of public opinion on this issue. The MAI process had collapsed in part due to growing public skepticism of a similarly closed and secretive process, and the path taken by FTAA trade ministers in their negotiations only fueled suspicions of the possible contents of the evolving accord. Ultimately, on April 7, 2001, just 2 weeks prior to the start of the Summit of the Americas, FTAA trade ministers announced their intention to release the text to public scrutiny, but only after it could be translated into the four major languages of the hemisphere. In addition to putting pressure on negotiators to release the text, HSA members put the FTAA initiative under careful scrutiny, and used the Internet to publicize their concerns that the FTAA harbored a similar ‘‘investor rights’’ clause as did NAFTA. Apparently, similar to NAFTA’s Chapter 11 investment clause, the FTAA investment provision would empower corporations with the right to sue governments for monetary compensation if business practices or profits were felt to be undermined by government protectionist actions or regulations that might expropriate investment. The Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, a public interest group based in Minneapolis, and a group aligned with the HSA, posted a leaked copy of the draft FTAA investor clause on its web page on April 18, 2001, during the People’s Summit.19 Following the Summit of the Americas, the HSA kept up the pressure, releasing a critical analysis of the draft investment chapter and posting their critique on-line on June 18, 2001. Finally, under building media scrutiny and sustained pressure by the HSA, FTAA negotiators released a draft of the text on July 3, 2001. Summary Appraisal of Internet Activism across the Americas The instant and international diffusion of leaked copies of neoliberal trade and investment texts, such as happened with the FTAA initiative, highlights how claims-making is being reoriented via electronic activism. The rapid exchange and publicizing of information, the ease of developing new mobilization strategies and the new means of putting pressure on state authorities do suggest that Internet tactics are blending with more traditional national protest actions such as public demonstrations, mass strikes and sitins to help restructure the repertoire of contention. Moreover, limited but important strides have been made in linking Northern and Southern groups through the Internet, which is clearly bridging activist discourse across the hemisphere. For instance, the results of this HSA-directed, hemispheric activism have made some strides toward overcoming some of the weaknesses of earlier
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cases of campaigns against neoliberalism that depended upon the Internet. The overwhelming dependency upon English as the language of choice for activists in past campaigns against neoliberal policy initiatives was amended considerably in this FTAA case. The practical realities of working with groups across Latin America whose primary language is Spanish (the notable exception being Portuguese spoken by Brazilians) partly forced this issue. Nonetheless, groups within the HSA have been much more sensitive to the cultural divide that has worked in tandem with the digital divide to exclude groups from the developing South from more directly shaping protest campaigns. That the Alternatives document and many of the major HSA steering committee organizations provide web access in Spanish and/or Portuguese is a notable attempt to be more inclusive in the ongoing transnational strategizing against the FTAA initiative. In addition, these campaigns have received an increasing amount of input from Latin American partners, notably RMALC in Mexico, where the HSA secretariat is based, but also importantly from Brazilian and Chilean civil society actors. In summer 2002, for instance, over two-dozen Brazilian civil society organizations from the Jubilee South Campaign urged North American social activist groups to remain actively opposed to the FTAA negotiation process. In a letter distributed through an activist listserv, the Jubilee South Campaign also pledged to hold a plebiscite on the FTAA to give Brazilians a voice on the proposed accord. An appraisal of this anti-FTAA campaign, particularly between the time period of the People’s Summits in Santiago and Quebec City, nonetheless reveals some persistent limitations to the efficacy of electronic activism. First, the Internet did not replace the importance of face-to-face meetings for solidifying trust and encouraging cooperation in the ongoing mobilization efforts. The annual parallel counter-summits and strategic meetings have proved crucial to building trust between groups that are significantly separated by geography, culture and financial resources. While the Internet has proven an increasingly indispensable supplement, calls for strategy via email tend to solicit responses from activists who are familiar with each other and their organizations.20 A movement is still not made in an electronic vacuum, nor obviously can the so-called virtual meetings replace the sheer visual and physical impression made by tens-of-thousands of protestors in the streets, as occurred in Quebec City or later in Porto Alegre. Moreover, the intensity of Internet activism that did occur – and the crafting of the Alternatives document, the growth of the HSA and the preparations for the People’s Summit in Quebec City are by no means insignificant – was limited primarily to a smaller group of movement
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entrepreneurs. Usually, the core of the activists who monitor the HSA on a daily basis reside in national capitals or other large cities, and have much easier access to Internet technologies than do many of the national, grassroots organizations affiliated with the HSA, which are located in more rural and poorer regions of Latin America and the Caribbean. Thus, the activist discourse that has been developed and sustained by the Internet in the ongoing mobilization against the FTAA initiative is biased toward a smaller number of movement activists who are computer literate, have financial resources and reside in urban areas with more accessible Internet hubs. This point, however, does not negate the value of the Internet to these antiFTAA campaigns. Those movement entrepreneurs tightly linked to the HSA use email and listserv communication as a means through which to ultimately transmit education materials and strategy proposals to more faceto-face grassroots gatherings. What this strategy does show again is that the Internet has complemented traditional approaches for popular education and mobilization. These limitations echo some of the scholarly qualifications placed on other recent campaigns that used the Internet. Early enthusiasm about the Internet’s role in the Zapatista or anti-MAI campaigns, for instance, has been tempered somewhat by some observers as an over-celebration of technology (Froehling, 1997; Hellman, 1999). Yet, the point is not to disregard the role played by the Internet in activist campaigns, but to appreciate that it represents an innovation that has complemented, but not replaced, national tactics of resistance and claims-making. In addition, while the HSA promotes grassroots participation in the development of the Alternatives document, and again in the deliberation of strategies that occur within national-level grassroots associations who report back to HSA representatives, broader popular participation within the HSA remains limited. It is also clear at this juncture in the ongoing anti-FTAA mobilization that HSA strategizing has been largely limited to its North American partners in Canada, the U.S. and importantly Mexico.21 This reality does not diminish the value of the degrees of trust and collaboration that have been painstakingly established especially between Canadian and Mexican groups, and somewhat less strikingly with U.S. groups. Without question, moreover, the Internet has been an invaluable tool in shaping the evolving mobilization strategy, which is bringing in more working partners from Central and South America, as well as the Caribbean. However, the HSA has much to improve on before it can be called genuinely hemispheric in practice. A significant amount of grassroots work will likely need to unfold before the HSA has worked out the tensions between
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the necessity of having a core of professional, movement entrepreneurs driving certain projects and the need for broader popular participation to enhance the legitimacy of this transnational coalition in the eyes of a still skeptical media, business and political community and an uncertain public. In fact, in the immediate years after the September 11 terrorist attacks on the United States, the HSA, similar to many activist groups engaged in transnational collaborative work, may have to work harder within domestic settings to get its message across to the North American publics seeking security within the state (Ayres & Tarrow, 2002). In short, one important lesson from the transnational campaign against the FTAA initiative, at least through the 3rd Summit of the Americas in Quebec City, is that the Internet has not rendered the boundaries created by geography and financial resources meaningless. On the contrary, as the Quebec City case has demonstrated, as did Seattle before it and Genoa afterwards, a crucial factor in encouraging broad-based popular protests against neoliberal policy initiatives is the location of the elite summits. The majority of the protestors that rallied in Seattle against the WTO were from the United States, mainly Canadians protested in the streets of Quebec City, and primarily Europeans clashed with Italian police in Genoa, Italy during the Group of 8 Summit. Perhaps if the FTAA initiative remains a focus of anti-neoliberal protestors, the 4th Summit of the Americas, scheduled to be held in Buenos Aires, Argentina in 2005, will be a watershed event for protest against neoliberalism in Latin America. Nonetheless, while the location of neoliberal summitry still significantly influences and to an extent segregates the physical community that takes to the streets to protest, a virtual political community, however nascent in form, has evolved out of steps taken through the Internet to mobilize hemispheric civil society groups against the FTAA initiative. Internet technologies are being used creatively to generalize a sense of popular struggle across the hemisphere and to nurture a public space for the development of a discourse critical of the FTAA. Movement activists have worked to overcome language and geographical barriers by strategizing, collaborating and crafting policy alternatives to the neoliberal policy perspectives. Internet activism has not and will not replace national-level campaigns against the FTAA and related neoliberal initiatives. Yet, Internet activism is changing the way people are contending for power, making claims against state authorities and challenging policy initiatives. The organization of groups transnationally against the FTAA initiative, combined especially with Internet communication and coordination strategies, demonstrates that
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popular political action has begun to look different from the time when state boundaries contained much political discourse and action.
NOTES 1. See the French original of Rapport sur l’Accord multilateral sur l’investissement (AMI) at http://www.finances.gouv.fr/pole_ecofin?international/ami0998/ami0998.htm 2. While negotiations on the FTAA initiative continue, this study stops with the dramatic protests surrounding the 3rd Summit of the Americas meetings in Quebec City, Canada, in April 2001. 3. U.S. President Clinton failed to win reauthorization for ‘‘fast-track’’ (now known as trade promotion) authority in 1997 and 1998, opposed by a bipartisan Congress. Such authority gives the president the power to negotiate trade agreements, and in turn present them to Congress for an amendment-free vote. 4. While the progress of FTAA negotiations has been relatively easy to follow, the substance of the accord is in question. It is assumed that the FTAA accord will largely mirror the NAFTA, only extending NAFTA’s neoliberal trade and investment provisions throughout the hemisphere. 5. Personal and phone interviews, June 2001. 6. To subscribe to the ftaa-l, an interested party would send a message to http://
[email protected] with the following text only: subscribe. 7. The ftaa-l listserv had attracted such a heavy amount of information exchange, that by early April, just prior to the Quebec City protests, it became optional to subscribe to it as a daily digest to limit what had become an excessively high number of daily ftaa-l emails clogging up subscriber accounts. 8. Extensive information on the make up of the HSA is available on the Common Frontier’s web site: http://web.net/comfront/. 9. Personal and phone interviews, June 2001. 10. To join the list an aspiring individual or group must email http://www.
[email protected] 11. Obviously Spanish access to the HSA listserv would exclude many Brazilians, but the Alternatives for the Americas document, and subsequent planning for the 2nd People’s Summit in Quebec City, did accommodate the Portuguese language. 12. Alternatives for the Americas is available in English, Spanish, French, or Portuguese at the Common Frontiers web site. 13. A coordinator for ART received and sifted through the bulk of these public commentaries, the bulk of which consisted of requests for copies of the Alternatives document. Phone interview, June 2001. 14. Phone and personal interviews, June 2001. 15. Archives of the 2nd People’s Summit in the Quebec City can be found at http://www.sommetdespeuples.org, where much of the information of the activities of the HSA during this week is available. 16. Retrieved from http://www.marchedespeuples.org, April 25, 2001. 17. Whether joining this virtual meeting had any effect whatsoever on the official negotiation process is doubtful at best. However, participating in it did provide again
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a sense of belonging to a virtual political community of people opposed to the FTAA initiative, and it certainly represents a new twist in the repertoire of tactical claimsmaking. 18. The posting of the leaked copy of the FTAA investment chapter, as well as the HSA’s astute management of the press during the People’s Summit in Quebec City, caused the Canadian government’s summit advisor to publicly admit that the organizers of the People’s Summit were winning the public relations war and had done a better job of communicating their message than had the official Summit of the Americas. See ‘‘People’s Summit Outscoring America’s Summit: PM Advisor,’’ retrieved at http://cbc.ca/cgi-bin/templates/view.cgi?/news/2001/04/20/summit_pr010420. 19. See http://www.sommetdespeuples.org/en/1621/archieves/jeudi.html for the HSA press release on the leaked investment chapter. 20. During interviews, activists without exception confirmed the importance of personal friendships and physical meeting places as roots to a productive electronic relationship. 21. Personal and phone interviews, summer 2001.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This is a revised version of a paper presented at the meeting of the American Political Science Association for the panel, ‘‘The Internet as Agent of Change: Bridging Barriers to Cultural, Political and Activist Discourse,’’ San Francisco, CA, 29 August–2 September 2001. Revisions have benefited from the criticisms of three anonymous reviewers, as well as from the comments of Patrick Coy and Richard Kim Nossal. I would also like to acknowledge the funding that supported travel and research for this project, which I received from a spring 2001 Saint Michael’s College Faculty Development Grant.
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Walton, J., & Seddon, D. (1994). Free markets and food riots: The politics of global adjustment. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell. Warkentin, C., & Mingst, K. (2000). International institutions, the State, and global civil society in the age of the World Wide Web. Global Governance, 6(2), 237–258. Williams, H. (1999). Mobile capital and transborder labor rights mobilization. Politics and Society, 27(1), 139–166. Wise, T., Salazar, H., & Carlsen, L. (Eds) (2003). Confronting globalization: Economic integration and popular resistance in Mexico. Bloomfield, CT: Kumarian Press.
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MULTI-SECTORAL COALITIONS AND POPULAR MOVEMENT PARTICIPATION Paul D. Almeida ABSTRACT The article focuses on varying protest intensities of social movement activists in an authoritarian political environment. Drawing on a sample of participants in El Salvador’s El movimiento popular, the paper examines how structural location in the resistance movement’s multi-sectoral organizational infrastructure shapes the level of participation. Those motivated by state repression and maintaining multiple or cross-sectoral organizational ties exhibited higher levels of protest participation. The findings suggest that more attention be given to how the multi-sectoral network structure of opposition coalitions induces micro-mobilization processes of individual participation in high-risk collective action.
INTRODUCTION One striking feature of opposition movements that seriously challenge authoritarian regimes is the multi-sectoral nature of the protest coalition. That is, the groups threatening to replace or democratize the government come
Research in Social Movements, Conflicts and Change, Volume 26, 65–99 Copyright r 2005 by Elsevier Ltd. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 0163-786X/doi:10.1016/S0163-786X(05)26003-2
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from more than one social class or sector. Although a broad coalition certainly appears as a powerful opponent to authoritarian rule, the cross-sectoral structure of the opposition may have consequences for the micro-level of individual activism. Understanding these micro-dynamics of participation in multi-sectoral oppositional movements contributes to the recent interest in explaining collective action processes in nondemocratic contexts (Boudreau, 1996, 2002; Mueller, 1999; Osa, 2001; Wiktorowicz, 2001; Aguirre, 2001; Wickham, 2002; Schock, 2005). The existence of multi-sectoral-based movements under repressive regimes raises interesting challenges to conventional models of social movement participation. Protest participation under authoritarian conditions is a high-risk activity (McAdam, 1986; Loveman, 1998; Osa, 2003; Wood, 2003). Indeed, why would large numbers of ordinary people risk continuing their involvement in oppositional activities that may result in arrest, torture, or even death? Under what circumstances do individuals intensify their contributions to oppositional movements in such a dangerous political environment? The current study addresses these puzzling questions by examining participation among social movement activists in one nondemocratic setting. By protest participation, I mean the variation in ‘‘intensity with which one is involved in movement activities’’ (Passy & Giugni, 2001, p. 125). This paper analyzes the level of within oppositional movement participation. Specifically, I use archival and testimonial literature and draw from a sample of former participants in El Salvador’s popular movement under authoritarian rule.
THE RISE OF EL SALVADOR’S MULTI-SECTORAL OPPOSITION, 1970–1981 This study centers on participation in El Salvador’s massive wave of disruptive protest in the late 1970s – the largest in Latin America by 1979–1980 (Harnecker, 1993, p. 16). Throughout the 1970s, a mass movement mushroomed in El Salvador. The movement’s infrastructure was constructed from a number of civic institutions and organizations in the labor, educational, and church sectors that were founded in the late 1960s during a period of political liberalization initiated by the military government (Almeida, 2003). By the early 1970s, the military regime closed back down and began to repress these newly formed civic organizations and their
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memberships. At this time, surviving civil society groups emerged as the building blocks of an unprecedented network of opposition organizations that formed what became known as the movimiento popular (‘‘the popular movement’’ or ‘‘the people’s movement’’). By 1975, the popular movement had clearly entered a stage of political development witnessed in other broad struggles against repressive governments whereby the primary claims centered on the authoritarian nature of the state. Though sectoral-specific mobilizations continued through the decade around basic economic demands (e.g., price reductions of basic consumption items, wage increases, affordable land and housing), they were slowly becoming subsumed by political demands for the removal of the anti-democratic regime. Already in 1974 and 1975, the popular movement consisted of a multisectoral struggle of students, teachers, peasants, workers, priests, nuns, and urban slum dwellers contesting an authoritarian military regime that had governed for 40 years (see Alas, 1982; Armstrong & Shenk, 1982; Dunkerley, 1982; Montgomery, 1982; Lungo, 1987). In fact, Williams and Walter (1997) note that Salvadorans experienced one of the longest enduring military regimes in twentieth century Latin America. By the mid-1970s, the leading oppositional organizations called for a wide coalition of rural and urban groups to unite in order to resist authoritarian governance. Oppositional leaders and militants couched their mobilization appeals in the inclusive multi-sectoral movement identity of the ‘‘popular classes’’ whose boundaries stretched from the peasantry and urban slum dwellers to the middle classes (e.g., university students and school teachers). This widely inclusive mobilization appeal might appear improbable in most times and places, including El Salvador, and especially under authoritarian rule. However, by the mid-1970s, the in-place multi-sectoral organizational structure of the movement shaped the pattern of social interaction among activists in a manner that made the broad mobilization appeals to participate in high-risk oppositional activities plausible to large number of people as witnessed in the dramatic upsurge of mass disruptive protests in the late 1970s (see Fig. 1). The popular movement demanded democratic rule and the removal of military state managers. The opposition sustained mass protest campaigns, including large demonstrations, strikes, building occupations, and land seizures against the national government until about the third quarter of 1980 (Stanley, 1996). In 1981, the country spiraled into civil war as mass protest became too dangerous and guerrilla armies expanded in more remote rural zones and launched their ‘‘final offensive’’ (Brockett, 1993; Stanley, 1996).
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120
100
Occupy Church Occupy Workplace Occupy Government Building Occupy Embassy Land Seizure Occupy Radio Barricades
Protest
80 LP-28 (1977)
60 BPR (1975)
40 FAPU (1974)
20
19 62 19 63 19 64 19 65 19 66 19 67 19 68 19 69 19 70 19 71 19 72 19 73 19 74 19 75 19 76 19 77 19 78 19 79 19 80 19 81
0
Year
Fig. 1.
Mass Disruptive Protest, 1962–1981. Source: La Prensa Gra´fica Daily Coverage 1962–1981.
STATE REPRESSION AND THE AUTHORITARIAN POLITICAL ENVIRONMENT We know relatively little about popular movement participation in authoritarian political contexts. This may be partially attributed to the difficulty of conducting research and rigorously collecting data in such dangerous political settings (Wood, 2003). Two distinctions differentiating authoritarian contexts from more democratic ones are the political exclusivity of the regime (Goodwin, 2001) and the level of risk faced by movement
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participants (McAdam, 1986; Loveman, 1998; Wood, 2003). In El Salvador in the l970s and early 1980s, citizens were denied the right to elect their own political representatives, while activists literally risked exile, imprisonment, torture, and death for participating in oppositional political activities (Stanley, 1996). By the early 1970s, state security forces already had invaded Catholic-run peasant training centers, universities, and labor unions offices (Morales Velado, 1988). In the mid-1970s, a clear pattern of ‘‘disappearing’’ real and alleged popular movement activists emerged. During the late 1970s, El Salvador was notorious for human rights abuses in the international community as state-sponsored and para-military violence increased to extraordinary levels. By the early 1980s (1980–1982), state-sponsored repression killed on average hundreds of citizens per month (Stanley, 1996). Protest is such a high-risk activity for individual activists in authoritarian contexts largely because such regimes apply or threaten to apply repressive measures (e.g., police surveillance, arrest, torture, etc.) against opponents of their rule, while the citizenry lacks any legal recourse to protect itself from civil rights violations (Osa, 2003). Interestingly, recent work on movement– state dynamics in authoritarian contexts finds that repressive measures act as threats and at times increase the level of oppositional activity and popular contention (Goldstone & Tilly, 2001). Hence, acts of state repression may be a critical factor in igniting further protest (Goodwin, 2001). Indeed, a number of empirical studies outside of advanced industrialized democracies have shown positive effects of state repression on aggregate and groupspecific protest activities (Olivier, 1991; Khawaja, 1993; Foran, 1993; Opp, 1994; Francisco, 1995; Rasler, 1996; Loveman, 1998; Moore, 1998; Schock, 1999; Beissinger, 2001; Jenkins & Schock, 2004). In the next section, I discuss the conditions associated with state repression escalating the level of individual protest participation. State repression may generate moral outrage and suddenly imposed grievances for individual regime opponents (White, 1989; McAdam, Tarrow, & Tilly, 2001; Wood, 2003) – such as by witnessing a repressive event or experiencing the loss of a loved one due to state violence (Brockett, 1993, p. 475). Coercive state behavior breaks public convictions about expected state–civil society relations – especially when the repressive acts are way out of proportion to the types of demands and claims protesters pursue (Goldstone, 1998). Activists can use state repressive acts as empirical affirmations of the unworthiness of authoritarian officeholders to rule. These motivational appeals to participate in future protest actions in response to state coercive measures are often made within organizations and across inter-connected social sectors.
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In addition, repressive acts by governments grant occasions for emotionally charged focal events (Karklins & Petersen, 1993) to rally individuals such as funeral processions and homage ceremonies for fallen victims of state violence (Pfaff & Yang, 2001). Such activities provide the physical locations where sentiments of moral shock and outrage are shared collectively (Jasper, 1997; Wood, 2003). In nondemocratic contexts, these types of events take on especially important meaning, given that they provide a short-term protective umbrella for the opposition to congregate and express dissent as well as demand contributions from fellow activists in future rounds of mobilization. For example, in El Salvador in the 1970s, a popular chant at funeral processions motivating future collective action was, ‘‘porque el color de sangre jama´s se olvida’’ (because the color of blood one never forgets). In another example, a widely circulating homage song (A Rutilio Grande) composed in 1977 immediately following the assassination of the Jesuit priest – Father Rutilio Grande from the Aguilares/ El Paisnal region, north of San Salvador – states in the chorus, ‘‘the blood that has fallen here continues shouting in the veins of everyone that is also struggling.’’ In short, studies that find (or theoretically predict) positive effects of state repression on protest behavior suggest that the repressive acts provide an interest for individuals to participate in collective action. That interest centers on the perception that the sooner the authoritarian regime is removed or democratized via popular collective action, the nearer that citizens will be safe from harm (Goldstone & Tilly, 2001). Yet at the same time, it raises the level of risk of participating in subsequent collective action, given that the state has now shown less restraint in employing repressive measures against opponents. The micro-organizational context of the activist may very well determine if she or he will lower or raise their participation threshold, given the likelihood of future coercive actions by the authoritarian state. Although state repression may at times be a powerful motivational force sufficient for increasing levels of protest participation against authoritarian states, it is largely the organizational context of opposition that provides the individual a shared collective understanding of acts of state-sponsored coercion. More specifically, organizations set boundaries for a group-specific normative setting. Organizational members come under the influence of other organizational participants and vice versa (Kim & Bearman, 1997). Thus, in addition to taking into account the influence of state repression, the organizational dimensions of individual opposition should also be considered. Figure 2 provides an example of a public appeal for mobilization that shows the dynamic between repression and organizational participation.
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Fig. 2.
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El Diario de Hoy, Jueves 29 de julio de 1976.
It is an open call from the largest multi-sectoral broker organization (MSBO) in El Salvador during the 1970s – the Bloque Popular Revolucionario (BPR). In the announcement, the BPR invites people to participate in an homage march and rally on July 30, 1976 to pay respect and honor for over 20 university students killed by security forces during a pacific street march on this same date in 1975. The BPR lists in the invitation all of its affiliated popular organizations from multiple organized social sectors, including the peasant sector (FECCAS and UTC), neighborhood-based slum dwellers (UPT), university students (UR-19), high school students (MERS), and school teachers (ANDES-21 de Junio). Hence, an act of state repression against a single social sector (university students in 1975) is responded to one year later (July 1976) with an invitation to join in a multi-sectoral homage ceremony and demonstration. Below, the organizational dimensions of individual participation are analyzed in relation to these kinds of persuasive appeals to fashion a multi-sectoral oppositional movement in authoritarian settings.
THE MULTI-SECTORAL NATURE OF OPPOSITION IN AUTHORITARIAN SETTINGS One common property of oppositional movements struggling under authoritarian regimes is that they are multi-sectoral. That is, the opposition is
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usually a loose coalition of multiple social groups (Goldstone, 1994; Schock, 2005). It is likely that no single group in civil society is powerful enough on its own to sustain resistance to a strong and repressive regime. Authoritarian states also unintentionally create multiple oppositional groups by committing repressive acts against more than one sector (Goodwin, 2001). Hence, a repressive regime policy has a recursive relationship to the breadth of the oppositional coalition by radicalizing previously inactive or semi-active sectors by carrying out outrageous acts of violence. For example, in El Salvador by the early 1970s, the government security forces had already perpetrated human rights violations against reform-minded civic organizations in multiple social sectors, including the church, peasant cooperatives, trade unions, teachers’ associations, and the national university, eventuating in greater anti-government fervor and appeals to mobilization in each of these affected sectors. Indeed, major multi-sectoral broker organizations (MSBOs) viewed the increasing state-backed violence as assisting in their daunting task of forging multi-group alliances. For instance, in a political pamphlet released in March of 1975 by the Frente de Accio´n Popular Unificada (FAPU), the second largest multi-sectoral organization, FAPU explicitly views state coercion as bringing disparate social groups together for common purposes. In political terms, inside of FAPU there are diverse organizations and sectors that represent peasants, day laborers, middle class intellectuals (teachers, students, priests, etc.) and industrial workers. How does FAPU view it is going to be possible to coordinate the anti-fascist struggle given this diversity of organizations?y FAPU considers that in the actual political conditions the country is living, where all the popular sectors are suffering the harsh effects of the crisis and the miserable consequences of fascist escalation (repression, abusive and authoritarian laws, disrespect for human rights, etc.; IT IS POSSIBLE TO UNIFY DISTINCT ORGANIZATIONS AND CLASS SECTORS IN ORDER TO REACH CONCRETE AGREEMENTS AND POLITICAL COMMITMENTS TO ACHIEVE A COMMON OBJECTIVE: to defeat fascism’’ (FAPU, 1975, p. 3; emphasis in the original).
In fact, the three major multi-sectoral organizations in El Salvador (FAPU, BPR, and Ligas Populares 28 de Febrero (LP-28)) date their exact founding to major acts of state-sponsored exclusion or violence (Almeida, 2003). FAPU formed in May of 1974 immediately following fraudulent national parliamentary and local elections. The BPR formally constituted itself in the days after the July 30, 1975 university student massacre mentioned above. The LP-28 named itself after a major act of state violence. LP-28 formed within months of the February 28, 1977 massacre of an estimated 50–100
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demonstrators in downtown San Salvador protesting electoral fraud in the recently held presidential elections. Although a single social sector may be prominent in the oppositional coalition as a vanguard that brings other groups into the alliance (e.g., Gdansk shipyard workers in Poland in the early 1980s), multi-sectoralness does seem to be the standard for the major opposition movements resisting authoritarian rule in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries (Foran, 2003) – especially those struggles that reach a stage of seriously challenging the legitimacy of their respective governments. In Chile, the Catholic Church, organized labor, students, and shantytown dwellers formed the core of the opposition to the military regime in the early to mid-1980s (Schneider, 1995). Similar kinds of broad oppositional alliances were found in Brazil’s popular movement against military rule in the late 1960s and 1970s (Moreira Alves, 1985). The oppositional movement in Nicaragua struggling against the Somoza dictatorship in the late 1970s included students, Christian base communities, peasants, workers, and a sizable portion of the business community (Samandu´ and Jansen, 1982; Booth, 1982; Everinghham, 1996). The 1970s in Guatemala also produced a sizable multi-sectoral opposition movement (e.g., between students, trade unionists, and slum dwellers) against military rulers, especially during the General Kjell Laugerud Garcı´ a government (1974–1978) (Figueroa Ibarra, 1991). In one of the largest mass urban uprisings against an authoritarian regime in South America, public sector employees aligned with automobile workers and university students in the industrial city of Co´rdoba, Argentina in May 1969 to rebel against the repressive measures of the General Ongania government (Brennan & Gordillo, 1996). The multi-sectoral pattern of opposition is also observed beyond Latin American authoritarian regimes. The opposition to apartheid in South Africa in the 1970s and 1980s was also composed of a cross-sectoral coalition in the United Democratic Front (UDF) (Seidman, 1994; Wood, 2000; Schock, 2005). The amalgamation of groups leading to the overthrow of the Pahlavi dynasty in Iran in the late 1970s counted university students, clerics, merchants, and organized labor (Foran, 1993; Kurzman, 2004). In the 1980s, popular movements confronting authoritarian regimes in the Philippines and Burma were also constructed from alliances between multiple social groups (Schock, 1999; Boudreau, 2002). This was also the configuration of opposition in the former Soviet Union (Fish, 1995) and several of the Eastern European rebellions at the end of the 1980s (Opp, Voss & Gern, 1995; Pfaff, 1996; Mueller, 1999; Bunce, 1999; Glenn, 2001; Osa, 2003). In most of the above cases, the coalitions were made up of dozens of
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inter-connected organizations. For our interests, the individual variation in ties to the multi-sectoral coalition and its impact on levels of activism needs to be elaborated more precisely. El Salvador followed a similar path in its broad opposition to military rule. Figure 3 charts the multi-sectoral organizational infrastructure of El Salvador’s popular movement achieved by the mid-1970s. Individual members of the popular organizations participated in protest activities either within their own sector (e.g., in a student organization) and/or multiple sectors (e.g., in a student and neighborhood association). Multi-sectoral broker organizations (MSBOs) represented groupings of popular organizations from multiple social sectors (e.g., the BPR, FAPU, LP-28). The MSBOs were either founded by or drew closer to clandestine revolutionary organizations over time. The underground clandestine organizations consisted of small hermetic groups of the most dedicated or radicalized activists.
THE STRUCTURING OF A MULTI-SECTORAL OPPOSITION The convergence of mobilization appeals with a movement identity – ‘‘a collection of groups and individuals [that] perceive themselves as a force in explicit pursuit of social change’’ (Jasper, 1997, p. 86) – has been shown to be a powerful force for explaining both recruitment to specific high-risk protest campaigns (McAdam & Paulsen, 1993; Nepstad & Smith, 1999) and the level of intensity of resistance in subsequent collective action (Gould, 1995). Given the multi-sectoral nature of opposition to authoritarian regimes, it may be imperative for organizational leaders in such contexts to attempt to fashion a multi-group movement identity to sustain popular contention. Indeed, a multi-sectoral movement identity may be the cement that holds the diverse coalition together. A single social movement or oppositional group alone is unlikely by itself to launch a successful campaign or survive without the presence of other important social actors. At the same time, a cross-sectoral call for political action under authoritarian conditions is a tall order. Under what conditions do people actually respond to this catch-all appeal given the dangerous political setting? It is precisely the multi-sectoralness that gives the opposition its power. At the micro-level of individual activism, when multiple groups oppose a regime it provides the potential participant a sense of an efficacious movement with broad support across civil society. In such contexts of broad
Clandestine Organization
= Cross-Sectoral Participation = Popular Organizations
Student Sector
High School and University Student Organizations
Labor Sector
Peasant Sector
Labor Organization(s) (Unions, State Employees, Market Vendors)
Fig. 3.
Peasant Organizations
Neighborhood Sector
Neighborhood/ Shantytown Organizations
Teachers’ Sector
Teachers’ Associations
Church Sector
Church-Based Organizations
Cultural Sector
Popular Artistic Associations
Other Sectors
Women’s Organizations, Human Rights Organizations
Multi-Sectoral Coalitions and Popular Movement Participation
Multi-Sectoral Broker Organization
= Multi-Sectoral Broker Organization
Multi-Sectoral Organizational Structure of El Salvador’s Popular Movement.
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opposition, the more a person is structurally connected to multiple organizations and sectors of the opposition, the more credible is the call for protest participation in a popular movement. Hence, even within an oppositional movement there is considerable individual variation in the degree that the activist is connected to multiple organizations and social sectors. There are a variety of ways in which oppositional movements can try to construct a multi-sectoral movement identity of ‘‘we’’ (the popular movement) versus ‘‘it’’ (the authoritarian regime) (Klandermans, 1997; Mansbridge, 2001, p. 238). These strategies range from the informal, such as distributing propaganda, sponsoring festive gatherings and cultural events with protest music,1 to the formal, such as constructing a network of organizations in a way that promotes cross-group communications, mutual awareness, obligation, and solidarity (Gould, 1995; Morris & Braine, 2001, p. 31). An illustration of a multi-sectoral appeal using popular music is found in the following translated Salvadoran protest song from around the 1979–1980 period at the height of the popular movement. The song makes direct appeals to at least five social sectors (i.e., urban labor, peasants, shantytown districts, students/teachers, church, and potentially human rights groups). Even though they quiet the voice, we will continue shouting, We will continue singing for freedom Even though they kill people, we will begin anew We will organize ourselves for freedom Through the factories, in the cornfields, through the shantytowns and schools God continues shouting, God keeps demanding ‘‘Liberation,’’ ‘‘Liberation’’ God continues shouting, God keeps demanding ‘‘Liberation,’’ ‘‘Liberation’’ Even though they torture the prisoner and break their bones We will continue following their example for freedom Even though they kill a priest, we will continue to follow Christ, the blessings of freedom Through the factories, in the cornfields, through the shantytowns and schools God continues shouting, God keeps demanding ‘‘Liberation,’’ ‘‘Liberation’’ God continues shouting, God keeps demanding ‘‘Liberation,’’ ‘‘Liberation’’ Even though they surround the villages and dislodge the occupied factories we will not stop for freedomy
But under what conditions do people actually respond to these persuasive pleas to participate or continue participating in high-risk collective action? Gould (1995) notes that one of the most important functions of formal
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organizations (e.g., associations, social clubs, labor unions, cooperatives, etc.) in relation to participation in collective action is to greatly raise the scale of potential movement identity formation – well beyond what would be possible for individuals limited by informal organizational ties (e.g., in a single neighborhood, village, or workplace). This scale expansion is made possible by the greater level of shared recognition of a common fate and norms of obligation that organizations supply by connecting previously isolated individuals to one another that are experiencing similar circumstances (i.e., state persecution) vis-a`-vis the authoritarian government (ibid.). The ability of dissident entrepreneurs to make successful mobilization appeals across multiple social sectors hinges largely on the degree of organizational connectedness between the sectors that are included in the call for participation (in this case, the ‘‘popular’’ sectors). Moreover, how the individual activist is structurally embedded within this inter-organizational network will largely determine the plausibility of the multi-sectoral appeal and sense of duty to participate in the high-risk protest activities of the popular movement.2 Individual involvement in El Salvador’s opposition movement in the 1970s was nearly synonymous with membership in at least one popular organization (Armstrong & Shenk, 1982, p. 135). In addition, individual organizational membership varied along at least three important dimensions: (1) number of popular organization affiliations; (2) number of social sectors in which the activist enlisted in a popular organization; and (3) a sense of membership in one of the MSBOs (such as the BPR, FAPU, LP-28). Higher levels of organizational embeddedness along each of these dimensions should lead to greater levels of manifest protest activity. Each type of organizational membership creates normative boundaries and increases obligations to participate in oppositional activity. Moreover, it is the individual that is connected across multiple sectors that more likely experiences the strongest sense of obligation to contribute to the popular movement.
Popular Organizational Affiliations Formal and semi-formal organizations act as collective vehicles for mobilizing individuals and articulating claims on behalf of constituencies to powerholders (Wilson & Orum, 1976). Civic and political organizations offer individual participants a sense of personal efficacy (McAdam & Paulsen, 1993; Gould, 1993). Each organizational affiliation pulls activists
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further away from countervailing pressures that may impinge on individual movement activity such as relationships with persons outside the movement and/or opposed to movement participation (McAdam & Paulsen, 1993; Kim & Bearman, 1997; Gould, 2003; McAdam, 2003).3 Cross-cutting pulls on individual activists would likely be even stronger in nondemocratic contexts given the high-risk nature of participation. Nonetheless, in authoritarian settings, each tie to an oppositional organization makes it more likely that the individual will come under the direct or indirect authority of more militant cadre or activists belonging to clandestine revolutionary parties.4 Boudreau (2002), for instance, found that mass actions such as strikes and demonstrations against the Burmese military government in the late 1980s were sparked by underground militants that exercised influence over aboveground opposition associations. In addition, organizations provide important boundary-setting processes whereby the individual member’s behavior increasingly converges with the normative obligations of their respective organization. In authoritarian contexts, this alignment process often takes place during internal organizational ceremonies and rituals (e.g., meetings, study groups, funerals for fallen activists, etc.). Such ceremonies grant occasions for intense faceto-face interaction creating focused attention and shared definitions of the political situation where organizational in-group/out-group boundaries are constructed and reinforced. Most importantly, these are locations where activists are most likely to have their interests reaffirmed to continue resisting the repressive government (e.g., ‘‘the days of tyranny are almost over’’) and obliged by normative pressures to make individual contributions through active protest participation. In brief, in nondemocratic political environments the more organizational ties one has to the movement’s organizational infrastructure, the more they come under group-specific obligations to contribute to removing the authoritarian regime resulting in greater rates of protest participation. This proposition is also consistent with the ethnographic literature from El Salvador, whereby many of the rank-and-file activists and middle-level cadre affiliated with more than one popular organization (see Harnecker, 1993). Moreover, multiple organizational affiliations strengthen the individual’s duty to be an active opponent of the government and pull her/him away from countervailing influences and pressures against participation. Each additional organizational affiliation should increasingly lower the individual’s threshold for activism (Petersen, 2001). Nevertheless, membership in individual popular organizations does not ensure cross-sectoral participation. The nature and type of organizational
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membership must also be analyzed in relation to the multi-sectoral appeals of the movement. Each individual popular organization formed raises the potential scale of mobilization by connecting previously unconnected individuals within the same sector (e.g., students across university departments, peasants across villages, and workers across factories) (Gould, 1995). At the micro-mobilization level, being structurally connected to other social sectors opposing the regime likely further provides interests and obligations to increase the level of individual protest participation.
Organizational Membership in Multiple Sectors Another important dimension of organizational membership is the degree to which the individual is organizationally involved in more than one social sector. Is the activist participating only as a student or is she also a member of a labor sector organization? These cross-sectoral ties give activists a boost in confidence that citizens beyond a single social sector are opposing the regime (Brockett, 1993). Indeed, witnessing participation across sectors may be the most important evidence available to individual activists that there is widespread and organized opposition to the government, which likely raises success expectations leading to higher rates of participation (Lichbach, 1995). This kind of critical information transmission would be less accessible and credible to activists only organized within a single social sector. In addition, there may be more occasions to protest while organizationally active in multiple sectors. The extraordinarily high population density of El Salvador also facilitated the capacity of individuals to organizationally participate in multiple social sectors. In the 1970s, El Salvador had a population density of 245 people/ km2 – substantially much higher than any other country in Latin America (Huezo Selva, 1980). In ecological terms this meant that workers, peasants, students, and teachers were not that far removed from each other. Beginning in the mid-1960s, school teachers were organized nationally in an association (ANDES-21 de Junio) and remained in constant interaction with students and their parents from diverse backgrounds (i.e., peasant, worker, and shantytown neighborhoods) (Almeida, 2003). During these same years (1965–1972), the size of the labor union network also grew dramatically in the largest cities and ports of the country (Lungo, 1987). Finally, the Salvadoran Catholic Church, following the social doctrine of Vatican II (1962–1965) and Medellı´ n (1968), initiated a number of social service programs in the late 1960s and early 1970s (Nepstad, 1996) that
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brought Catholic middle school, high school, and university students into sustained social interaction with urban shantytown neighborhoods and poor peasant villages (Henriquez, 1988). The urban–rural alliance of oppositional organizations also benefited from the existence of large concentrations of church-organized peasants in the 1970s that were easily within an hour’s drive of the capital (e.g., in the municipalities of Aguilares, Ciudad Arce, Cojutepeque, El Paisnal, Guazapa, Quetzaltepeque, Suchitoto, Tecoluca, etc.). All of the above conditions favored cross-sectoral participation in El Salvador’s popular movement. Testimonial literature from individuals in the popular movement frequently reports the organizational participation of activists in multiple social sectors (Herrera, 1983; Alegrı´ a, 1987; Harnecker, 1993; Shayne, 2004). Some of this cross-sectoral participation included acts of solidarity between sectors during a particular protest campaign – especially in cases of occupations of land or buildings where the occupiers needed a steady inflow of supplies to maintain a prolonged protest. For example, a former member of the Universitarios Revolucionarios – 19 de Junio (UR-19) (a university organization) reported in a field interview the importance of cross-sectoral solidarity between students and urban workers during factory occupations in the late 1970s. There was a time in which the entire free trade zone – along the Boulevard del Eje´rcito/ Panamerican Highway on the way to San Miguel – that all the factories in the entire zone were taken over by the Bloque, FAPU, LP-28, all of these factories were occupiedy. The work of the rank-and-file members of the UR-19 during the day was to go out and gather items that would help the strikers like food and sheets. Then, in the night we would go and stay at the factories with the workers and deliver the collected supplies to the occupiers so they were able to eat (author interview, January 18, 1999, Ciudad Universitaria, San Salvador).
Beyond these critical solidarity acts between sectors was the actual organizational participation of activists in multiple sectors. For instance, a member of the Frente de Accio´n Universitaria (FAU), a university-based student protest organization, recounts her oppositional organizing in the mid-1970s across multiple sectors as follows: I did my first organizing projects with peasants in Sonsonate together with Silvia [a trade union organizer], and this is where I began to become familiar with how the peasants really are ready, aware, with much desire to cooperate in the struggle. While I was doing this work in Sonsonate, I was also studying in the National University of El Salvador. In the university I was participating in student activities as a representative, and in addition to all this, I was participating in my neighborhood where we formed a base committee in which I had the position of the general secretary (Herrera, 1983, p. 49).
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By the above account, this activist was in face-to-face contact with at least four social sectors participating in the opposition coalition (peasants, unionists, university students, and neighborhood residents), while at the same time having organizational membership in at least two sectors (university and neighborhood). This kind of multi-sectoral participation would seem to deepen the level of organizational commitment to the larger opposition movement and repel the individual activist from competing alternative loyalties inhibiting protest participation. In addition, by her cross-sectoral ties, the activist received first-hand empirical verification that peasants were willing to contribute to the opposition and could convey that information back to university and neighborhood-based organizations in the city that did not have ready access to this evidence. Her active participation in protest events would help render the credibility of her accounts of other sectors willing to participate.
Multi-Sectoral Broker Organizations (MSBOs) Some scholars of social movement participation have argued that we need to move beyond the importance of counts of organizational ties to better specify the nature of organizational affiliation and its impact on protest participation (Gould, 1991; Marwell & Oliver, 1993; McAdam & Paulsen, 1993; Nepstad & Smith, 1999, p. 35). One fundamental difference in the type of organizational affiliation in El Salvador was between individual popular organizations and MSBOs. Organizations that bring previously disconnected groups and organizations into communication or alliance with one another are broker organizations (Diani, 2003). In the context of multisectoral oppositional movements, broker organizations bring at least two previously unconnected social sectors (e.g., students and peasants) together to sustain protest campaigns. In El Salvador, these types of MSBOs emerged in the mid- 1970s.5 The MSBOs brought together organizational units from several social sectors (e.g., peasants, students, workers, teachers, slum dwellers) under a single organizational umbrella (see Fig. 3). The largest and most potent of these MSBOs in El Salvador were the FAPU, the BPR, and the LP-28.6 They each promoted a multi-sectoral movement identity by their self-entitlements (which all included the term ‘‘popular’’), organizing strategies, and emblems and symbols invoked during protest campaigns (e.g., the BPR appeal in Fig. 2). Individual activists from different social sectors would march in unity behind the banners of their respective MSBOs during demonstrations.
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Identifying as a member of an MSBO meant viewing oneself as connected to individuals in constituent popular organizations from other social sectors (e.g., students, peasants, slum dwellers, workers, etc.). Thus, members of MSBOs were more likely in interaction with movement participants from several social sectors. These individuals were more prone to share sentiments of a common fate and solidarity with social sectors other than their own. A self-identifying member of an MSBO would have a lower threshold for participating in various protest activities in the sense that they are carrying through on the multi-sectoral appeals called for by the opposition as well as personally experiencing the participation of other social sectors. Not only would a self-identifying member of an MSBO be under the strongest normative pressures to participate, but they would also be likely to place pressure on less enthusiastic others to contribute. Thus, they would need to ‘‘lead by example’’ and make a presence at most major protest events. Testimonial literature from El Salvador again provides some oral history evidence of the strength of membership in an MSBO on protest participation. A fellow activist recounts the organizational participation of his fallen comrade and lover, ‘‘Eugenia,’’ a female Catholic University Student and founding member of the MSBO the BPR in the mid-1970s: She was a part of all that was happening and at the same time occupied in helping in the countryside. She participated in the Bloc’s [BPR’s] formation in consequence of her work with the peasants, and was a guiding force in the Rural Workers’ Federation (FTC) which, as I’ve already said, is a union of FECCAS and the UTCy During 1975 and 1976 she remained entirely immersed in this grassroots work. She was always to be found in the provincesy She covered a wide number of districts and many tiny villages. Hers was a highly hush-hush enterprise, one that demanded a lot of patience, yet at the same time she was visibly active and combative during our mobilizations. There wasn’t a single mass demonstration in which she didn’t participate (Alegrı´ a, 1987, pp. 66–67).
Eugenia is a prime example of a multi-sectoral activist brokering the participation of several popular organizations in the opposition. Her multisectoral organizational membership status resulted in her high participation in manifest protest activities as she led by example. Her ‘‘hush-hush enterprise’’ of working with rural worker organizations appears similar to Boudreau’s (2002) observations of the opposition in Burma, where more militant cadre placed influence on members of the more open and aboveground organizations to participate in demonstrations against the military. Figure 4 summarizes the above predictions about structural embeddedness in oppositional networks and the level of participation in high-risk collective action against authoritarian regimes. Those who are members of zero to one popular organizations have the highest participation thresholds.
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0 – 1 Popular Organizational Affiliations (Higher Participation Threshold) Multiple Popular Organizational Affiliations (Medium Participation Threshold) Cross-Sectoral and Multi-Sectoral Broker Organizational Membership (Lower Participation Threshold)
Fig. 4.
Protest Participation Thresholds under Authoritarian Regimes.
They are more likely to face cross-cutting pressures against participation with many of their everyday social interactions involving movement outsiders, and will be less under the authority and influence of high-participation others. Those participating in multiple popular organizations have a medium-level participation threshold. Each organizational membership provides a bounded setting of inter-personal interactions in which mutual encouragement and obligation act on the individual activist’s interest to resist a repressive government. More popular organizational affiliations also increases the likelihood of exposure to the direct or indirect influence of more militant cadre that demand the individual or their respective organization increases contributions to the opposition. Finally, cross-sectoral and multisectoral broker organizational memberships have the lowest protest participation thresholds. These members need to ‘‘lead by example’’ in order to have moral suasion in convincing others to participate in a movement in which they have personally witnessed the willingness of other sectors to contribute.
RESEARCH DESIGN Research on political involvement under exclusive authoritarian regimes creates particular obstacles for social movement scholars. Since systematic
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and large-scale participation research is nearly impossible under a repressive government, analysts must make tough choices. Two of the most common alternatives are either (1) to interview the exile community outside the country (Kurzman, 1996; Aguirre, 2001) or (2) wait until the regime democratizes and then interview the participants (Opp et al., 1995; Shayne, 2004). I chose a combination of these two approaches.7 As part of a larger research project on social movements in El Salvador, an anonymous field survey was implemented in 1997. The questionnaire queried 220 Salvadoran social movement participants in the 1970–1981 period about a range of influences on becoming involved in popular organizations, level of participation, and demographic variables. The requisite for inclusion in this study was that the respondent acknowledged participating in El Salvador’s popular movement between 1970 and 1981 (based on the introduction to the questionnaire and subsequent responses to items regarding organizational membership and protest participation). All those that identified as joining the popular movement after 1981 (when the civil war was well underway) were excluded. After removing cases with missing item responses, the final sample counted 186 respondents. The questionnaire was tested in Los Angeles, California with Salvadoran popular movement participants (largely immigrants to the United States during El Salvador’s civil war in the 1980s). A purposive sampling design was used targeting particular agencies and organizations likely to have contacts with former Salvadoran political activists from the popular movement. Between November 1997 and June 1998, the first wave of surveys was administered through three Salvadoran social service agencies in Los Angeles and San Francisco, California. Each social service agency has over 15 years of experience working with Salvadoran immigrants (many fleeing political persecution) (Stanley, 1987) and holds on-going relations with many participants in the popular movement. A second wave of surveys was implemented in El Salvador between July 1998 and March of 1999. In El Salvador, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), unions, and political parties with political roots in the 1970s’ popular movement were approached to have their affiliates complete the survey. The field survey was realized in the municipalities of San Salvador, Mejicanos, Ayutuxtepeque, Soyapango, Suchitoto, Meanguera, and Chalatenango – the geographical regions where the popular movement drew some of its strongest support in the period under investigation. In the final sample, 27% of respondents (51) were in California and 73% (135) resided in El Salvador. Individuals from peasant, working-class, and middle-class backgrounds were included in the study in nearly equal proportions.
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VARIABLES Dependent Variable Protest Intensity was measured by the question: in which activities did you participate between 1970 and 1981? Followed by a list of 12 different protest tactics employed by the popular movement ranging from rallies and street marches to occupations of public buildings, factories, churches, and land and an open ‘‘other’’ category. The tactical categories used are historically grounded in the actual movement representing the dominant forms of protest used between 1970 and 1981 (especially in the late 1970s; see Fig. 1). The mean number of tactics reported by respondents was 7.0. In order for an individual to receive even a moderate protest intensity score (i.e., above 4), they would have to indicate participating in protest forms that only became part of the protest repertoire in El Salvador between 1977 and 1981 after the major MSBOs were established, such as various forms of occupations of buildings and land. Independent Variables Perceived State Repression The state repression variable was constructed based on the perception of governmental repression by the respondents as a motivation to participate in the movement. The question asked respondents how much influence military repression had in their decision to initially join the popular movement – ranging from 0 (no influence) to 4 (very much influence). The distribution of responses to this item was heavily skewed with 90% of respondents stating ‘‘much influence’’ or ‘‘very much influence.’’ Given this negatively skewed distribution, a dummy variable was constructed to better measure the variation in state repression. Those reporting the highest level of governmental repression in their decision to participate were coded 1 (i.e., high repression) (57%) and all others were coded 0 (i.e., lower repression) (43%). Popular Organization Ties The organizational affiliations variable of number of organizational ties was operationalized by asking movement respondents which of the 1970s popular organizations they participated in out of a list of 36 challenger organizations and an open-ended ‘‘other’’ category. The list represents the multi-organizational field of El Salvador’s popular movement in the 1970s
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(see Dunkerley, 1982; Armstrong & Shenk, 1982). All 36 popular organizations are listed in the appendix. The number of popular organizations that each respondent identified was totaled for a final organizational affiliations score. The mean number of popular organization affiliations was 2.9.
Multi-Sectoral Breadth Sectoral breadth was measured by asking respondents in what type of popular organization they participated in between 1970–1981 from a list of seven sectors (church, student, teacher, labor, neighborhood, peasant, cultural) and an open ‘‘other’’ category (e.g., human rights). These were the major sectors from which opposition developed against the regime in the period under study (see Fig. 3).
Multi-Sectoral Broker Organizations (MSBOs) Multi-sectoral broker organizational affiliation was measured by a dummy variable indicating if the respondent identified as a member of one of the multi-sectoral organizations (i.e., BPR, FAPU, LP-28) (coded 1) or not (coded 0). MSBOs focused on unifying and coordinating actions between different popular organizations (e.g., between slum dwellers and students, school teachers and peasants, etc.) (see Fig. 3).
Demographic Variables Control variables of education, gender, age joined the movement and year joined the movement are also included in the regression equations in Tables 1 and 2. Education was measured from the point of joining the popular movement, ranging from 0 (no education) to 7 (postbachelors degree education).8 Gender was measured as a dichotomous dummy variable with a value of 0 assigned to men and 1 for women. 24% of respondents were female, slightly under their representaton in the movement (see Luciak, 2001). Age joined the movement was measured as the self-reported age when respondent began participating in the popular movement. The mean age of joining the movement was 21, testifying to the youthful nature of the opposition. Year joined the movement was measured by the number of years the individual had participated in the movement prior to 1982. The median was 6 years, meaning that half of respondents joined the movement in 1975 or after. Descriptive statistics for all variables are located in Table A.1.
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RESULTS Table 1 presents the coefficients from an OLS regression model estimating the level of protest intensity. The demographic variables of education level, gender, age joined movement, and years spent in movement were not associated with higher levels of participation in oppositional activities. As predicted, perceived state repression increased the level of reported protest participation. This supports research in other nondemocratic contexts that finds state repression as increasing the level of contention by individual challengers (Goodwin, 2001). Perceived state repression provides an extremely poignant motivational interest in increasing protest participation against the government. The sooner the government is removed/democratized, the sooner that egregious human rights violations will diminish. Also, in Table 1 the organizational ties variable is positively related to increasing levels of protest intensity. The more organizational ties to the movement’s network structure, the more the activist participated in highrisk collective action. Each additional organizational membership provided a normative context where mutual support and obligation compel the individual to keep contributing to the resistance. Every popular organizational affiliation also increases the likelihood that the individual activist becomes exposed to more radical militants that demand higher levels of participation. Table 2 adds the multi-sectoral nature of organizational membership by introducing the variables organizational sectors and MSBO. Activists that enlisted in organizations across social sectors demonstrated increased levels of protest intensity. Also, those that identified as a member of an MSBO had higher rates of participation than those that did not. These popular movement enthusiasts and militants needed to convince others to participate in part by showing their willingness to engage in as many protest events as feasibly possible. In their movement roles as cross-sectoral and multisectoral activists they demonstrated their militancy to other would be participants by contributing beyond their fair share (Goldstone, 1994). Interestingly, the effects of state repression and popular organizational ties weaken when the multi-sectoral variables are added to the equation in Table 2, but still exhibit a significant and positive influence on the level of protest. The above models support recent developments in the individual protest participation literature that the types of organizational membership may be equally or more important than the number of organizational ties. In authoritarian contexts this may mean that cross-sectoral membership plays a critical role in both sharing information of widespread resistance and
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Table 1. OLS Multiple Regressions Predicting Degree of Protest Intensity by Demographic, State Repression, and Organizational Variables. Independent Variable Demographic Variables Education
b
b(beta weight)
0.120 (0.172)
0.047
Gender
0.472 (0.509)
0.062
Age join
0.058 (0.032)
0.120
Year join
0.023 (0.114)
0.044
1.319 (0.443)
0.201
0.593 (0.157)
0.406
State Repression State repression Organizational Ties Organizational affiliations R2 f N
0.21 8.12 186
Note: Standard errors are in parentheses. po0.01; po0.001.
convincing other sectors to participate via one’s own willingness to contribute. Movements operating under nondemocratic regimes especially need to economize on their costs of cross-sectoral communication and mobilization because of government surveillance and the urgency of the situation. They, in part, do this by a division of labor whereby key activists relay information across sectors to large groups of people at once in a single setting instead of waiting for activists to become aware of the same information through a series of individual social interactions over a period of time (Lichbach, 1995). The cross-sectoral activists’ stories of other sectors willing to participate become more convincing when they themselves show their confidence in the movement by their own high participation rates.
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Table 2. OLS Multiple Regressions Predicting Degree of Protest Intensity by Demographic, State Repression, and Organizational Variables. Independent Variable
b
b(beta weight)
0.099 (0.164)
0.039
Gender
0.430 (0.486)
0.057
Age join
0.053 (0.030)
0.111
Year join
0.022 (0.039)
0.042
1.058 (0.428)
0.161
0.286 (0.118)
0.196
0.576 (0.186)
0.224
1.562 (0.531)
0.225
Demographic Variables Education
State Repression State repression Organizational Ties Organizational affiliations Multi-Sectoralness Organizational sectors MSBO membership R2 f N
0.29 9.14 186
Note: Standard errors are in parentheses. po0.05; po0.01; po0.001.
Members of organizations in multiple social sectors and/or identifying with an MSBO were responsible for coordinating protest events across social sectors and needed to lead by example. To borrow an analogy from the garment making/alteration profession, cross-group activists served as seamstresses or tailors stitching together a wide diversity of organizational fabric into a multi-sectoral quilt of opposition. These structural roles in the opposition’s organizational network manifested themselves with higher rates
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of participation. In brief, those answering the multi-sectoral call for mobilization (by self-reported higher levels of resistance) were more likely the ones structurally connected to multiple organizations and organizations beyond a single sector. For authoritarian contexts, the structural patterning of organizational linkages may be critical to sustain high-risk collective action by ensuring the kinds of bounded social settings and inter-group interactions that encourage interested individuals to continue contributing to the oppositional movement.
DISCUSSION This study addressed an important lacuna in the social movement literature: what are the correlates to individual activists sustaining protest participation in exclusive authoritarian political settings where risks to personal safety run extremely high? Under what conditions do individuals actually answer the call to the seemingly idealistic mobilization appeal of regime change that targets a large cross-section of society? The strongest findings in Tables 1 and 2 relate to state repression and organizational membership variables. Those stating military repression as a motivating force to join the popular movement showed higher levels of subsequent protest intensity. In this case, coercive acts by the state unintentionally provided an immediate interest in opposing the government through protest actions. Organizational affiliations also mattered in sustaining that interest in removing the repressive regime by obligating activists to increase their services to the popular movement via participating in collective action. Why would the number of popular organizational affiliations be positively associated with protest intensity? Every additional popular organizational affiliation would seem to offer countervailing pressure to restrictions that inhibit activism and competing loyalties. Each organizational tie represents a structured normative setting where fellow activists maintain intense face-to-face interaction and reaffirm their interest in democratizing/ replacing a repressive government. These obligations are then put into practice by engaging in protest against authoritarian rule. In addition, popular organizational ties increasingly expose individual activists to more militant participants (e.g., members of clandestine or revolutionary organizations) that exercise influence over them directly or indirectly through their affiliated organization’s leadership demanding more contributions to the cause.
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The nature of organizational participation, though, also made a difference. Those belonging to popular organizations in multiple social sectors and/or identifying with an MSBO demonstrated higher levels of protest intensity. It was precisely persons occupying these roles that would have likely felt a greater sense of shared fate with other social sectors by their participation across social groups. Hence, these multi-sectoral activists had a higher probability of being infused with the energy of the oppositional movement and had success expectations raised by personally witnessing groups from diverse segments of society willing to engage in high-risk collective action. They were also more likely to be the enthusiasts within the movement and needed to ‘‘lead by example’’ to hold moral suasion and authority over less fervent activists and fence-sitters.
CONCLUSION The overriding importance of structural location within inter-connected popular organizations in inducing protest participation in El Salvador demonstrates the micro-mobilizing functions of multi-sectoral coalitions. Thirty four out of the 36 organizations (92%) constituting El Salvador’s domain of opposition were founded between 1965 and 1980. That is, oppositional leaders and agitators structured social interaction patterns of the movement’s multi-organizational field in a relatively short period in a manner capable of attracting, connecting, and obligating individual citizens across diverse segments of society to resist authoritarian military rule. This study also has important implications for research on movements struggling against nondemocratic regimes in general. Organizational leaders need to calibrate their mobilization appeals to the degree that people are socially related in their everyday lives or connected through existing informal and formal organizational structures (Gould, 1995). Failing to do so, will likely make persuasive calls to action fall on deaf ears and/or appear unfeasible even to the sectors that are most targeted by the message. Oppositional leaders attempting to shape a multi-sectoral movement identity in authoritarian contexts face particularly stiff obstacles even when a wide variety of groups detest the regime. Civil society is often woefully underdeveloped in terms of associational life, given the repressive circumstances. Civic organizations and trade unions are either banned or closely monitored by government agents. Hence, the establishment of opposition-encouraging organizations is extremely difficult, not to mention the task of constructing bridges between them. It is precisely, however, the work of activists in
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creating civic organizations and connecting them to one another that seems to create the kinds of settings necessary for individuals to be willing to engage in high-risk collective action under repressive regimes. Unfortunately, Salvadorans suffered an additional decade of civil war following the height of the popular movement in 1979–1980 until enjoying the fruits of peace, de-militarization, and substantial regime democratization with the signing of Peace Accords in 1992. Nevertheless, many analysts view this long-awaited positive political outcome in late twentieth century El Salvador as deriving directly from the organization of the popular movement in the 1970s (Paige, 1997; Wood, 2000).
NOTES 1. Several of the most popular protest songs in El Salvador during the 1970s encouraged a multi-sectoral identity such as the Chilean ‘‘El Pueblo Unido,’’ the hymn of the BPR, and several songs emanating from the progressive Catholic Church (e.g., el cancionero Canta Hermano). Arguably the most influential protest musical group in El Salvador during the 1970s, Los Guaraguao from Venezuela, arranged and covered songs with mass appeal that focused on each of the popular sectors (such as shantytown dwellers (e.g., Las Casas de Carto´n), peasants (e.g., El Campesino), students (e.g., ¡Que´ Vivan Los Estudiantes!), and church/workers (e.g., + Cristo al servicio de quie´n? preguntaba Jaime Obrero) as well as songs that emphasized the need for alliances between them (e.g., Juventud adelante, Obrero acepta mi mano, and Yo pregunto). 2. Indeed, Gould (1993, p. 195) states that, ‘‘properties of networks should vary widely in their effects on collective action outcomes depending on the structural positions of those who volunteer.’’ 3. McAdam (1986), for example, found that the number of organizational ties had a positive relationship on individual participation in the high-risk Freedom Summer project during the Civil Rights Movement in the early 1960s, while ties to nonparticipants had a negative effect. 4. In El Salvador, these underground revolutionary parties included the FPL (founded in 1970), ERP (est. 1972), the RN (est. in 1975), the PRTC (est. in 1976), and at times the Communist Party of El Salvador (founded in 1930). These revolutionary organizations combined consisted of a membership of around 500 cadre in early 1980 (Whitfield, 1994). 5. There were at least three early attempts in El Salvador at forming multi-sectoral coalitions. The first attempt was at the end of 1959 when a coalition of university students, labor unions, teachers, and outlawed political parties formed to protest the authoritarian rule of Colonel Lemus and called for competitive elections. This coalition was entitled the Frente Nacional de Orientacio´n Cı´ vica (FNOC) and lasted until early 1961. The latter experiments with a multi-sectoral coalition occurred during two large teachers’ strikes in 1968 and 1971. In the 1968 strike, labor unions, high school and university students, and school parents joined the teachers by
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participating in demonstrations and/or holding solidarity strikes. During the 1971 teachers’ strike, public educators and their allies formed the Frente de Unidad Popular (FUP), which included teachers, students, and unions in a short-term alliance of organizations. The more formal and enduring MSBOs began to form in 1974 and 1975 including the FAPU and the BPR. 6. At their peak in the late 1970s, the MSBOs had the following estimated membership size: BPR (56,000–80,000); FAPU (8,000–40,000); LP-28 (5,000–15,000); and the much smaller MLP (1,500) (Baloyra, 1982; Montes, 1984). 7. See McAdam (1989) on the use of retrospective surveys for individual movement participation research designs. He partially uses such a strategy to survey former movement participants in the 1964 Mississippi Freedom Summer Campaign about their subsequent political activism. The current study also uses a retrospective survey where recall error may distort the activist’s reporting of past events. The survey items were constructed in a way that aided the respondent in recalling the requested information. Most items asked very general information that the individual would not likely forget over an extended period of time such as name of organization, sector of organization, and type of protest action. 8. The mean score for educational attainment was 3.4. This substantively means the average participant had completed primary education.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Latin American Studies Association (LASA) XXV International Congress in Las Vegas, October 2004. The article benefited from suggestions by Rafael Armbruster-Sandoval, Sam Cohn, Rube´n Urbizaga´stegui, and the Instituto Universitario de Opinio´n Pu´blica in El Salvador. In addition, I wish to thank the anonymous reviewers and the RSMCC series editor, Patrick Coy, for their valuable comments. Grants from the Ernesto Galarza Research Center and the Graduate Division at the University of California, Riverside supported field research for this project. I am especially indebted to the dozens of NGOs and individuals in El Salvador and California that agreed to participate in this study.
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APPENDIX. LIST OF EL SALVADOR’S POPULAR ORGANIZATIONAL INFRASTRUCTURE
AEAS AES AGEUS ANDES-21 ARDES ASUTRAMES ATACES BPR BRES BTC CBO CUS CUTS FAPU FAU FECCAS FENASTRAS FESTIAVTCES FSR FUERSA FUR-30 FUSS FTC LL LP-28 MCP MERS MIPTES
Association of Bus Companies of El Salvador Association of Secondary Students General Association of Salvadoran University Students National Association of Salvadoran Educators Revolutionary Association of Secondary Students Association of Market Vendors of El Salvador Salvadoran Association of Agricultural Workers and Peasants Popular Revolutionary Bloc Revolutionary Brigade of Secondary Students Brigade of Rural Workers Committee of Workers Neighborhoods Unitary Committee of Salvadoran Unions Unitary Confederation of Salvadoran Workers United Popular Action Front University Action Front Christian Federation of Salvadoran Peasants National Union Federation of Salvadoran Workers The Federation of Workers in Food, Clothing, Textile, and Related Industries Revolutionary Union Federation Salvadoran Revolutionary Student Front – ‘‘Salvador Allende’’ Revolutionary University Student Front – 30th of July Unitary Federation of Salvadoran Unions Federation of Rural Workers Leagues for Liberation Popular Leagues – 28th of February Popular Cultural Movement Revolutionary Movement of Secondary Students Movement of Independent Professionals and Technicians
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APPENDIX. MPSC MRC MUCAPAS OMR STISSS STIUSA UPT UR-19
Popular Social Christian Movement Revolutionary Peasant Movement Association of Salvadoran Musicians and Singers Organization of Revolutionary Teachers Social Security Workers Union Union of United Industry Workers Union of Shantytown Dwellers Revolutionary Students – 19th of July
Table A.1. Variable Protest intensity Education Gender Age joined Year joined Repression Organizational ties Number of sectors Broker organization
(Continued)
Descriptive Statistics.
N Mean Standard Deviation Minimum Maximum 186 7.0 186 3.4 186 0.24 186 21.0 186 7.5 186 0.57 186 2.9 186 2.0 186 0.68
3.26 1.27 0.429 6.79 6.14 0.496 2.23 1.27 0.469
1 0 0 10 0 0 0 0 0
18 6 1 50 37 1 13 7 1
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‘‘YOU CAN BEAT THE RAP, BUT YOU CAN’T BEAT THE RIDE:’’ BRINGING ARRESTS BACK INTO RESEARCH ON REPRESSION Jennifer Earl ABSTRACT Using socio-legal research on arrests and the criminal justice system, this paper contests the implicit argument in recent research on repression that arrests are ‘‘softer’’ than police violence. Specifically, the paper explores the physical conditions of arrest and detention, and the extent to which arrests initiate costly interactions with the legal system that punish defendants before they are even tried (or even if charges are later dropped). Using data on arrests and police practices from mine strikes in Arizona from the early 1980s and data on arrests and police practices during urban riots in the 1960s, the paper: (1) discusses the physical realities of arrest and detention; (2) outlines the array of costs that arrests impose on protesters; (3) discusses the implications of biased policing on that set of costs; and (4) examines the costs associated with mass arrests. The paper concludes this empirical analysis by questioning the commensurability of arrests with other forms of police action, including violence, against protesters.
Research in Social Movements, Conflicts and Change, Volume 26, 101–139 Copyright r 2005 by Elsevier Ltd. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 0163-786X/doi:10.1016/S0163-786X(05)26004-4
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Numerous scholars have noted the large-scale changes in protest policing protocols that have occurred in the U.S. (McCarthy & McPhail, 1998; McCarthy, McPhail, & Crist, 1999; McPhail & McCarthy, 2001; McPhail, Schweingruber, & McCarthy, 1998), Britain (Reiner, 1998; Waddington, 1994, 1998), and many Continental European countries (Marx, 1998), including Italy (Della Porta, 1995, 1998; Della Porta & Reiter, 1998; Della Porta, Fillieule, & Reiter, 1998; De Biasi, 1998), France (Fillieule & Jobard, 1998; Della Porta et al., 1998), Germany (Winter, 1998), Spain (JaimeJime´nez & Reinares, 1998), and Switzerland (Wisler & Kriesi, 1998). This work has emphasized ‘‘the general trend since the 1970s and 1980sytoward a more tolerant, selective, and ‘soft’ policing style’’ in Western democracies (Della Porta & Reiter, 1998, p. 28). Or, as Marx puts it ‘‘there has been a general softening of social control, as the velvet glove increasingly comes to replace, or at least cover, the iron fist’’ (1998, p. 255). This transition to ‘‘softer’’ protest policing includes a number of important changes, such as an increased commitment by police to protecting peaceful demonstrators’ free expression (Marx, 1998). A particularly important, if not critical, part of this shift has been the decline in police violence toward protesters (Della Porta & Reiter, 1998; Marx, 1998; McPhail et al., 1998). Instead, police have sought to avoid confrontation through complex permit negotiations (McCarthy & McPhail, 1998), among other means. When police in Western democracies do decide to take action against protesters, they are increasingly expected to make arrests as opposed to relying on violence, with some arrests even taking on a scripted character (McPhail et al., 1998). The framing of arrests as a key component of ‘‘softer’’ protest policing has several implications. First, the relative nature of the word softer (versus soft) builds in a comparison in which various styles of policing are thought to differ in degree, allowing one style of policing (i.e., violence) to be thought of as ‘‘harder’’ while other forms (i.e., arrests) are thought to be relatively soft. This paper argues that the fundamental assumption of commensurability, which is critical to relative comparisons, is problematic. Second, this comparison of ‘‘harder’’ violence to ‘‘softer’’ arrests suggest that arrests are necessarily ‘‘softer’’ than violence in a physical sense, obscuring the physical reality of control and detention as if arrests cannot themselves be violent events. This paper will take issue with that vision of the arrest and detention process. Finally, this comparison emphasizes the in situ physical effects of police action, thereby minimizing if not entirely sidestepping the serious questions that exist about other effects and costs of different styles of protest policing. In doing so, prior work can seem to suggest that arrests are less
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detrimental to protesters and to movements when compared to police violence.1 This paper will argue that arrests carry their own sets of immediate discomforts and subsequent costs.2 Before these arguments can be made, however, it is important to review work on arrests, protest policing, and repression and incorporate socio-legal research to usefully complicate social movement scholars’ understandings of arrests and prosecution.
PRIOR RESEARCH ON ARRESTS IN POLITICAL REPRESSION Case studies of several movements from the 1960s and 1970s suggest that authorities used arrests and prosecutions to repress social movement leaders, participants, and organizations. For instance, Oberschall’s examination of the decline of the black power, student, and antiwar movements, as well as the decline of more radical civil rights organizations, argues that federal prosecutions of movement leaders allowed the government to ‘‘tie down leaders in costly and time consuming legal battles which would impede their activities and put tremendous drain on financial resources regardless of whether the government would be successful in court’’ (1978, pp. 277–278). Although Oberschall argues that these movements faced other problems as well (and in some cases were victims of their own successes), his discussion of arrests and prosecutions resonates with other research on these movements. Case studies of SDS suggest that repression hastened its fractionalization, perhaps even precipitating the formation of (and then, the decline of) the Weatherman Underground (Miller, 1983). Research on the Black Panther Party (BPP) even more clearly highlights the potentially devastating effects of arrests and prosecutions on social movements. The BPP was in seemingly constant legal battles with the criminal justice system (Davenport & Eads, 2001), which significantly damaged the national movement as well as particular chapters (see Jones, 1988 on the Oakland BPP and Jeffries, 2002 on the Baltimore BPP). While these case studies are suggestive of the negative impacts of arrests, other research builds on this suggestion by analytically focusing squarely on arrests. In particular, Balbus (1973) and Barkan (1984, 1985) wed socio-legal and social movement research in attempting to understand how arrests affected insurgents and social movements. Balbus studied mass arrests in three cities in major and minor riots as well as in everyday criminal proceedings. His findings will be reframed later in this paper to reflect on the role of mass
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arrests, so detailed discussion of his results here would be premature. In brief, though, he found differences between conviction rates, bail levels, and arrest patterns between arrests made in riot versus nonriot situations and between arrests made in minor versus major riots in different cities. His Marxist interpretation was criticized by some (Trubek, 1977) and the work did not generate much research on arrests in its wake. Barkan (1984, 1985) examined the reaction of U.S. Southern Sheriffs to desegregation campaigns in their jurisdictions. His research pointed to a central irony where law enforcement agencies adopted more violent methods of protest control, such as in Selma and Birmingham, the civil rights movement was more successful. But, when police adopted ‘‘legalistic’’ policing styles, which included making mass arrests, arranging for high bails, and prolonging pretrial periods, the civil rights movement was more likely to fail. At the time of Barkan’s study, this was particularly surprising because there was an expectation that legalistic policing would do less damage to protesters and social movements than police violence. Despite these two formative works on arrests in repression, few have centrally focused on arrests in social movement repression since.3 Barkan’s work shifted to the investigation of political trials (Barkan, 1977, 1979, 1980a, b, c, 1985; also see Findlay, 1989). His research examined how protesters used trials to publicize their causes (Barkan, 1980a, c), how judicial bias and abuses of discretion affected political trials (Barkan, 1980b), and how the role of pro se defendants worked in political trials (Barkan, 1977), among other issues. Not only have few repression researchers since Balbus and Barkan focused centrally on arrests and the pretrial stages of prosecution, few researchers interested in the intersection of socio-legal and social movements research have focused on the criminal justice system. Instead, more recent work synthesizing social movement and socio-legal research focuses on the role of civil litigation in facilitating organizing efforts (McCann, 1994) or in realizing social movement goals (Handler, 1978; McCann, 1994; Rosenberg, 1991). This is not to suggest that the police (or military) have been ignored by social movements scholars interested in repression. Quite to the contrary, scholars have approached the relationship between social movements and the criminal justice system under the rubric of repression, and protest policing more specifically. As the opening of the paper suggested, scholars have analyzed changes in protest-policing protocols over time, as well as examined how authorities allocate scarce repressive resources between potential repressive targets within a given time period (Cunningham, 2003;
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see Earl, Soule, & McCarthy, 2003 on protest policing; see Davenport, 2000a for police and military protest control). However, this work has not deeply grappled with the dynamics of arrests and prosecution, has not distinguished between various consequences of arrests and prosecution, and has frequently failed to import socio-legal insights. For instance, as Earl and Soule (2004) argue, although these scholars are ultimately examining the behavior of police officers and agencies, the institutional and organizational characteristics of law enforcement have been relatively neglected, with much of the literature focusing on the provocative characteristics of protesters or the interests of political elites. This is unfortunate because much of the power of work that does wed socio-legal and social movements research – such as work by Balbus (1973), Barkan (1984, 1985), Handler (1978), Rosenberg (1991), and McCann (1994) – stems from its ability to consider both the character of movements and the character of the legal system. This paper addresses these weaknesses and missed opportunities in the literature by bringing arrests back into the mainstream of social movement research on repression and by doing so in a way that takes socio-legal research and the peculiar organizational and institutional characteristics of the criminal justice system more seriously. To that end, this paper examines four central questions regarding arrests and repression: (1) how much pain and discomfort might result from arrests? (2) what costs does the process activated by arrests impose on protesters and the social movements to which those protesters are related? (3) how might those costs change when authorities act in malicious ways? and (4) how might those costs change when mass arrests occur?
THE PHYSICAL REALITY OF ARREST AND DETENTION Although some of the highly scripted arrests documented by McPhail et al. (1998) might be relatively polite affairs, this should not imply that the arrest and detention process is usually or necessarily physically comfortable. In fact, even a cursory review of existing research and available empirical examples discloses the difficult realities of the arrest process and pretrial detention. For instance, Choongh (1997) examined police-civilian contacts in Britain that involved short-term detention and/or interrogation, procedures roughly analogous to the arrest and booking stage in the American context.
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His research suggests that police can and do use a great deal of force in taking individuals into custody and may be aggressive in their physical searches, including conducting strip searches to assert control over their subjects. American police accept violence as necessary in making many arrests, referring to such sanctioned violence as occurring ‘‘incident to arrest.’’ Some evidence suggests that police officers in ‘‘snatch squads’’ even make arrests in ways that are meant to terrorize their subjects: plainclothes or body-armored officers lacking any identification ambush protesters, taking them quickly into custody and ‘‘whisking the person(s) from the scene immediately’’ (Boghosian, 2004, p. 52). Once in custody, subjects may have to remain handcuffed for extended periods, experience substantial pain from their handcuffs, be subject to transport in extremely cold or hot conditions, be temporarily held in difficult environs, and face verbal and/or physical abuse (Choongh, 1997). Individuals may also lack access to sufficient food and water and lack access to needed medical attention. For example, when protesters were arrested during the 2004 Republican National Convention in New York City, some arrested individuals reported the graphic results of inadequate medical attention: [An arrested bystander] spent several hours with other arrested people on a bus, where one man with Crohn’s disease suffered from a burst colostomy bag. ‘‘He was throwing up all over the back of the bus,’’ she said in an e-mail message. ‘‘The entire bus begged the officers present to please get medical attention to this man. They completely ignored us’’ (Steinhauer, 2004).
Many alleged that they were held with ‘‘little food and no access to lawyers’’ and were ‘‘confined in a pier with a dirty floor greased with chemicals’’ (Steinhauer, 2004). Mayor Bloomberg’s reaction suggests that the detention of protesters was not intended to be comfortable (although presumably not brutal either): ‘‘It’s not Club Med, don’t make any mistake about it, and it’s not supposed to be Club Medy. I don’t think there’s anyone in the city that wants to make it Club Medy. This is not supposed to be great.’’ (Steinhauer, 2004). The President of the Correction Officers’ Benevolent Association shed light on the usual conditions of detention by comparing the temporary detention facility at Pier 57, where most protesters were held, to a permanent city jail, Rikers Island: [H]e thought the pier was better than some jails he has seen, and that he would be the first to complain if his officers were working in a poorly maintained facility. ‘‘They [the arrested protesters] would not be happy going through Rikers Islandy. The rats, the roaches, the mice, the alleged rapes and sodomies. They should count their blessings.’’ (Steinhauer, 2004)
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In addition to the format of the arrest and the conditions of detention, there is, of course, the fact that individuals are detained and thus deprived of their liberties. Although the events in New York may seem to lie at the extreme, Choongh’s (1997, 1998) research suggests that police regularly take individuals into custody in order to exact ‘‘street justice’’ and control ‘‘undesirable’’ elements of society. Although he is not specifically concerned with insurgents, protesters, strikers, or rioters, Choongh’s observations at English police stations prompted him to introduce a ‘‘social disciplinary’’ model of justice that explains police encounters with citizens that are not necessarily meant to generate legal prosecutions: In these cases arrest and detention are used in order to achieve police goals as opposed to criminal justice goals, and from the outset the police view the station as the end rather than the beginning of the process. Those arrested do not conceptually fit into legally accepted categories: they are detainees not suspects. Here, arrest activates a police system of summary punishment in which the police station becomes the site in which the ongoing conflict between the police and particular individuals, groups and classes is played out. In this context, the police station is detached from the judicial process for which it is supposed to be the point of entryy. It represents instead a self-contained policing system which makes use of a legal canopy to subordinate sections of society viewed as anti-police and innately criminal (Choongh, 1998, p. 625).
When considering these types of arrests in relation to protest control, Choongh’s research would seem to suggest that arrests without hope of successful prosecution may be a way for police to control and summarily punish protesters. The empirical examination later in the paper will consider the extent to which other cases support these arguments.
‘‘THE PROCESS IS THE PUNISHMENT’’: UNDERSTANDING THE COSTS OF ARRESTS AND PROSECUTION One of the main arguments of this paper is that even though being arrested and temporarily detained are often quite unpleasant, the costs for arrested protesters do not stop there. In other words, in order to further understand the role of arrests in repression, scholars need to return to a first-principal question with fresh eyes: beyond the act of arrest, why might the process that arrests initiate be harmful to protesters and the movements with which they are associated? Although Barkan suggested in a general sense that legalistic tactics could harm a movement’s chances for success, work from
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the sociology of law can help to more finely parse why prosecutions, particularly their pretrial components, are so detrimental. ‘‘You Can Beat the Rap, but You Can’t Beat the Ride’’ An old police officer adage – ‘‘you can beat the rap, but you can’t beat the ride’’ – summarizes the situation many defendants who are exonerated find themselves in: although they may ultimately be found innocent of the crime of which they have been accused, they nonetheless have to pay a price to contest their innocence (or even to plead guilt). The proverbial ‘‘ride downtown’’ sets the criminal justice system in motion, and initiates a series of costly interactions with that system for all defendants. Whether through bail money, attorney’s fees, lost wages due to lost time from work, etc., the costs of defending one’s innocence can be significant. Yet, from the police officer’s perspective, justice can be realized through the costs associated with ‘‘the ride’’ because every defendant processed by the criminal justice system must bear those costs even before they are found innocent or guilty. That is, even if suspects are ultimately cleared of wrongdoing by the criminal courts, the police nonetheless mete out street justice through their arrests and the criminal justice process that those arrests begin; as officers say, even if suspects beat the rap, they ‘‘can’t beat the ride.’’ In the socio-legal literature, the thrust of this adage is captured in Feeley’s (1992 [1979]) classic work, The Process is the Punishment. Feeley studied lower courts’ processing of misdemeanors and minor felonies. At the time of his research, a number of new due process protections had been put in place and Feeley was interested in the use of these protections by lower court defendants. Much to Feeley’s and other scholars’ surprise, relatively few of the defendants that Feeley observed availed themselves of these due process protections, such as the right to an attorney, and no defendants elected to have a trial by jury. Moreover, the majority of defendants either pled guilty or failed to show altogether at their appointed court date. According to Feeley, the explanation for these striking findings lay in the literal prices for due process and entanglements with the criminal justice system. Feeley documented the expenses associated with arrest and prosecution: bail and lost work time due to incarceration until bail was set and paid (or greater amounts of lost work if bail could not be made); legal fees for a private attorney or the opportunity cost of using a free legal aid attorney if a private attorney was not hired; fees for investigative work; and significant financial burdens relating to court continuances as defendants have to repeatedly miss work and pay attorneys for short pretrial court
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appearances. As these potentially substantial costs associated with arrest and prosecution mount, defendants weigh the costs of an uncertain day contesting the charges against them in court (after all, they could still be found guilty) versus the costs of pleading guilty in exchange for a lighter sentence. In Feeley’s study, most defendants who pled guilty were sentenced to a fine that was less than the average bail amount and little, if any, jail time. Taking these facts together, Feeley argued that the ‘‘process was the punishment’’ and that many defendants sought to lessen their punishment, ironically, by pleading guilty or not showing up to their trials. An important implication of Feeley’s work is the observation that the costs imposed on defendants through their sheer entanglement with the criminal justice system are imposed on the innocent and guilty alike. All who are processed by the criminal justice system bear these costs to varying extents, with those contesting their guilt bearing the heaviest burden. Further, due process and the invocation of due process rights extend the length of encounters with authorities, even while protecting defendants from many egregious constitutional violations. In turn, this means that the expansion of and/or invocation of due process rights increases the punishment meted out through the process, although it reduces the likelihood of criminal punishments being erroneously meted out at the conclusion of a trial. Thus, according to Feeley’s argument, as due process expands, all defendants suffer more, but fewer defendants suffer substantial constitutional deprivations. The punishing nature of the process that an arrest initiates – regardless of the outcome of a trial – is made more serious by the relatively low bar set for lawful arrests. Officers making arrests without a warrant must have probable cause for their arrest. Put most simply, officers should reasonably believe that the person they are arresting has committed an offense or is presently committing an offense in order to make an arrest without a warrant. In order to be reasonable, there should be evidence that would lead a prudent person to such conclusions (U.S. v. Puerta 982 F.2d 1297). If officers fail to show probable cause, the initial arrest may be invalid and evidence gained as a result of the arrest may be inadmissible. However, in civil cases where a plaintiff seeks monetary damages for false arrest or malicious prosecution, the burden falls to the plaintiff to show that the probable cause did not exist. This can be a difficult burden to overcome, particularly in a protest situation. Probable cause is a much more lenient standard than the ‘‘beyond a reasonable doubt’’ standard required for criminal convictions at trial. Many individuals are arrested and either are never tried or are never convicted; such a gap partly exists because the more lenient probable cause standard
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can be met but the much stricter beyond a reasonable doubt test cannot. What seems like a common observation becomes more interesting when combined with attention to the physical act of arrest and temporary detention as well as Feeley’s insights. That is, the standard for probable cause is low enough than many individuals can be legally arrested, experience the physical and emotional discomfort of arrest, and be punished using the process of the criminal justice system than can be punished through guilty pleadings or guilty verdicts. This also means that, assuming probable cause exists, both innocent individuals and guilty individuals are punished in the act of arrest and through the process that arrest initiates. In a protest situation, where police departments have historically had lenience in establishing probable cause, this means that wide arrays of protesters are at risk of lawful arrests, and therefore also at risk for punishment through the criminal justice process, no matter their innocence or guilt.4 In order to demonstrate how these socio-legal insights can advance scholars’ understanding of arrests and prosecution in repression, the next section considers the physical conditions of arrest and temporary detention in addition to applying Feeley’s insights to arrests made in several related Arizona mining strikes. In doing so, the nature of protest arrests and the costs associated with the prosecution of those arrests can be more precisely identified.
THE ARIZONA MINE STRIKES The Arizona copper mine strikes were a series of strikes that began in 1983 against Phelps Dodge (PD), a major copper mining and production company. The strikes began after PD defied ‘‘patterned bargaining’’ agreements already accepted by other copper mining companies in Arizona for the 1983–1985 contract cycle. Two of the larger and longer strikes occurred at the Morenci/Clifton, Arizona facility and the Ajo, Arizona facility. In fact, in 1985, even after the union had been decertified at the Morenci facility, many in Morenci, and nearby Clifton, felt the strike was still viable and that the unions should keep fighting.5 For decades prior to the early 1980s, labor unions representing Arizona copper miners had routinely struck every 3 years while contract negotiations for the next 3-year cycle were undertaken. Both industry and unions regarded these strikes as expected and largely ceremonial. Union members would take their families on extended vacations and the mining facilities would undergo important maintenance and repairs, which could not be easily completed while the mine was operating.
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Strikes had for decades been settled using ‘‘patterned bargaining.’’ In this process, the first contract signed by a facility and the unions representing employees at the facility would serve as a baseline agreement for the rest of the Arizona mining industry and this contract was often simply ratified by union locals and companies in subsequent negotiations at other Arizona facilities In 1983, several companies were undergoing contract negotiations with unions at the same time, including Kennecot, Magma Copper Company, Asarco Inc., and PD. As the July 1, 1983 deadline for a new contract approached, Kennecot, Magma, and Asarco reached agreements with the unions representing employees at their facilities. However, citing declining copper prices and massive losses (PD reported a loss of $74.3 million dollars in 1982), PD refused to follow the patterned bargaining procedure and demanded that unions make several major concessions. In order to reduce labor costs, PD wanted to lower the beginning wage of new workers, create a cost-sharing program for employee health benefits, reduce the amount of holiday and vacation time that current and new employees received, and, most importantly, to eliminate the automatic cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) that employees received to compensate for inflation. The unions found the COLA request unacceptable and both sides quickly reached an unexpected stalemate. On July 1, 1983 at midnight, workers on the night shift at PD plants across Arizona walked off the job. While strikes at some facilities in Arizona were short lived, suffering from massive levels of picket-crossing by union members who were already economically crippled by the recent recession, the strikes at the PD facilities in Ajo and Morenci/Clifton were intense, lasting well into 1985. During this period, the PD plants were kept open by requiring nonunion, salaried workers to take on mining responsibilities and by hiring strikebreakers. The Morenci strike garnered the majority of the media attention. In part, this was due to the size of the strike: 2,300 workers from the 13 unions representing employees from the Morenci facility struck on the first day of the strike (Aulette & Mills, 1988). The attention was also due to the intensity of the strike – several injunctions against strikers were issued and the National Guard was called in on more than one occasion. Finally, the role of the Morenci Miners Women’s Auxiliary in the strike effort generated media and scholarly interest (Aulette & Mills, 1988; Kingsolver, 1989).6 The strike began with a great deal of animosity. Days before the strike, PD announced that it would keep its facilities open despite the expected strike and hired extra security guards in case of strike-related violence. As early as June 29, 1983 Cass Alvin, spokesman for the Steelworkers of
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America (which was the lead union in contract negotiations), indicated that he thought PD was intent on breaking the union. He suggested that PD was engaged in ‘‘bullet bargaining’’ and was ‘‘trying to turn back the clock’’ on labor to a time ‘‘when copper barons ruled over labor’’ (as quoted by Garcia, 1983a). Picket lines formed immediately and workers attempting to enter the plant were harassed by picketers. On July 1, 1983, workers crossing the picket lines in Morenci and Ajo were allegedly met with shouts, eggs, and spit. Local sheriff officers and State Department of Public Safety troopers were on hand to keep the picket line contained and controlled. Court orders were issued within the first few days of the strike that limited the picket line to small groups (5–10 strikers depending on the facility). In reaction, the women of Morenci, most of whom were not technically striking workers and therefore not covered by the injunction, took to the picket lines to replace their barred husbands. As tempers continued to flare and the picket line remained well staffed, PD took steps to ensure the jobs of union members who agreed to cross the picket line, as it would later do when it hired replacement workers. On July 11, 1983, the first strike-related arrest was reported. It occurred in Ajo where a woman associated with strikers was arrested for allegedly making a threatening phone call to a strikebreaker’s wife (Garcia, 1983b), although the defendant disputed this claim (Kingsolver, 1989, p. 33). The first reported arrest in Morenci occurred on July 14, 1983 when a male striker was charged with two misdemeanors for allegedly dumping roofing nails along the access highway to the plant (Garcia, 1983c). On the same day, PD announced that renters of company houses who had been receiving discounted rents would no longer receive those discounts, which effectively doubled many strikers’ rent payments. Days later, PD began dismissing employees accused of impropriety on the picket line in Morenci. The Steelworkers filed a grievance with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) alleging that PD was retaliating against strikers. With tensions rising, serious violence erupted at the end of the first month of the strike. Several fires were set in Morenci, allegedly by striking workers, and Chandra Tallant, the 3-year-old daughter of an Ajo worker who crossed the picket line, was hit in the head by a stray bullet shot into the Tallant home. Sheriff investigators labeled the shooting ‘‘strike related’’ and PD offered a $100,000 reward for information about the shooter’s identity. Despite talks between the unions and PD the following weekend, the strike continued. On August 5, 1983, PD announced that it would hire replacement workers, who PD later termed ‘‘permanent replacement
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workers.’’ In the wake of this announcement, tensions on the picket lines and in the town of Morenci grew. On August 8, 1983, Arizona Democratic Governor Bruce Babbitt, later called Bruce ‘‘Scabbit’’ by strikers, called for PD to temporarily close its Morenci facility. The initial 24-hour shut down was increased to a 10 day ‘‘cooling period’’ after picketers threatened returning workers with bats. The Arizona Daily Star headline that announced the cooling period read, ‘‘P-D says lawmen didn’t do job’’ and the jump page headline read ‘‘Phelps Dodge blames deputies, Department of Public Safety (DPS) for ‘mob rule’’’ (Arizona Daily Star, August 10, 1983). The cooling period did little to reduce tensions. Talks were reopened and ended unsuccessfully, the strikers kept pressure on the picket line, and PD announced that it intended to evict strikers accused of misconduct from company housing. The cooling period lasted until August 19, 1983, when PD reopened the Morenci plant under heightened protection from 1,000 DPS officers and backup units from the National Guard. The officers carried heavy weaponry; sharpshooters visible to strikers were also stationed above the picket line. The next major confrontation with authorities in Morenci would not come until the 1-year anniversary of the strike on July 1, 1984, although many minor encounters with authorities and many arrests marked the passing of those 10 months. On July 1, 1984, a rally for strikers was planned to mark the 1-year anniversary of the strike. The rally and small march occurred without incident and most of the strikers returned to their homes. According to Kingsolver (1989), only about 40 people had not dispersed and only 15 strikers were on the picket line when the shift change for PD began. As was typical, strikers yelled ‘‘scab’’ at the workers as they changed shifts. Commanding DPS officers who were watching the shift change from a close vantage overheard the yelling and believed that they heard rocks hitting cars as well (Steelworkers v. Milstead 705 F. Supp. 1426). As they approached, strikers began yelling at the commanders, which was also typical. However, in this instance the commanders reported fearing for their safety, and despite appeals from the mayor and vice mayor of Clifton, the commanders ordered the DPS troops to march on the remaining strikers. In the ensuing clash between protesters and police, over 20 arrests were made, 65 wooden bullets were fired at protesters, and several CS tear gas canisters were deployed. Of particular concern was the decision to throw tear gas into a private business where strikers were suspected of hiding from police. As noted in the ruling from a subsequent civil suit, CS was for outdoor use only and should not have been fired into a closed building (Steelworkers v. Milstead 705 F. Supp. 1426).
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The animosity that afternoon sponsored grew until September 15, 1984 when strikers shifted their attention to a recent decision by the NLRB. The NLRB declared that the replacement workers could be considered permanent employees, clearing the way for a union decertification vote. Despite legal maneuvering, the decertification vote was held in January 1985. However, all of the legal arguments surrounding the vote were not resolved until 1987. The Impacts of Arrests and Prosecution on Protesters Of the over 100 arrests made during the strike, only one felony conviction was obtained and this conviction was later overturned (Kingsolver, 1989). Several defendants pled guilty to lesser misdemeanor charges but few were convicted of misdemeanors at trial. In fact, most protesters who fought their charges had the charges dropped by county attorneys who lacked evidence of wrong doing (Kingsolver, 1989). The reportedly low conviction rate, the high dismissal rate, and failure to ultimately convict any strikers of felonies led an attorney for many strikers, Antonio Bustamante, to argue that ‘‘this was just a classic case of the use of excessive force to break a strike,’’ adding that ‘‘the county attorney in Clifton was perfectly willing to use the law in this underhanded way’’ and that the county attorney knew that the ‘‘charges against the strikers amounted to nothing’’ (as quoted in Kingsolver, 1989, p. 192). Without reference to the arguments discussed above, it would be hard to understand how Bustamante could suggest that arrests could constitute a ‘‘classic case of the use of excessive force.’’ His characterization certainly does not fit with the ‘‘softer’’ vision of arrests in repression research. After all, without further analysis, arrests seem to play a minor role: there were not that many arrests relative to the length of the strike, only a fraction of the misdemeanor arrests and no felony arrests ultimately resulted in convictions, the sentences imposed on convicted protesters were fairly light since they were all for misdemeanors, and many of those convicted actually pled guilty instead of being found guilty after pleading innocent. However, applying the arguments discussed above renders Bustamante’s position more understandable and the costs involved in arrests and prosecution more apparent. The Act of Arrest and the Conditions of Detention The experience of being arrested and the immediate period of detention following arrest were difficult times for many strikers and strike-supporters. In particular, individuals experienced physical discomfort during their arrest, particularly from overtightened handcuffs. As civil litigation following
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the strike showed, at least one protester allegedly suffered longer term physical damage from tactics used in and subsequent to the arrest. Further, there was a social and emotional side to the pain that arrested strikers and supporters reported. Most of the strikers and allies that were arrested had never been on the defensive with respect to the criminal justice system. Thus, for most defendants, arrest was entirely discordant with prior life experiences, their self-image, and their social standing. Many of those arrested reported embarrassment regarding their arrest generally, or the way in which the arrest was conducted. Kingsolver quoted a Clifton resident who reported: We’ve had countless individuals arrested in their homesy. Women have been arrested in front of their children. As many as a dozen DPS officers have encircled homes (as quoted in Kingsolver, 1989, p. 48).
Describing her arrest for allegedly throwing rocks, one Clifton resident’s experiences make the social embarrassment and emotional turmoil involved in arrests apparent: We were watching the World Series the night they came to get mey. Six DPS came up to the house and said they had a warrant for my arresty. I told them I didn’t do ity. At the bottom of the stairs they handcuffed me and wrapped me up in chains. They cuffed my hands to my sides, and then they got a chain and put it through each of my belt loops, and wrapped it around and around my legs, all the way down to the my feet. Then they took these padlocks and locked the chain – one on the side, one on the back, and one through the handcuffs. My little girlywas five at the time. When she saw them put the chains on me she started crying (as quoted in Kingsolver, 1989, p. 60).
In addition to the experience of being arrested and temporarily detained, these arrests had additional implications: they set the criminal justice process in motion, ushering in additional costs. The Pecuniary Costs of Arrests The array of pecuniary costs that arrested strikers had to bear were substantial, particularly given that many individuals and families were not working and only receiving minimal strike pay from their unions. Further, strike pay was worth less and less as privileges accorded only to employees in the company towns of Clifton and Ajo, such as discounts on rent for the company houses, were lost by strikers. Bails were often substantial, with routinely high bails that ranged up to $20,000. These high bails drained personal resources and ‘‘bankrupted union coffers overnight’’ (Kingsolver, 1989, p. 33). If individuals contested the charges against them, they faced attorney’s fees. One cost that strikers ironically did not face but that other
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protesters would: the cost of lost time from work stemming from arrest, pretrial appearances, and trial. Considering the cost associated with counsel and bail alone, strikers could quickly accumulate bills that were substantial in comparison to their strike income. Amplifying Discomfort and Pecuniary Costs Defendants faced the potential of additional discomfort as well as increasing pecuniary costs when pretrial release was made more difficult through specific police tactics. One such strategy was to move defendants from local jails to more distant jails, as occurred with many strikers as they were moved from jails in Ajo and Clifton to facilities in larger cities such as Tucson. Barkan (1984) discussed the use of this tactic by Southern Sheriffs in their attempts to defeat local civil rights campaigns. By moving defendants to farremoved locations, the police could increase the time it would take relatives and friends to secure the release of the defendant and increase the costs associated with that release by producing travel costs for attorneys, bail providers, and families. This case highlights the fact that transporting defendants elongates the physically uncomfortable conditions of arrest, including extending the time arrestees are in handcuffs, elongating exposure to the extreme heat of Arizona in the summer, and decreasing access during transport to food, water, and air conditioning. In the case of the Arizona mine strikes, a defendant from Clifton described her transfer to a distant jail this way: [T]hey said we couldn’t stay here in Clifton because the facilities weren’t working, that the water wasn’t any good. But I don’t get it – the DPS were drinking water out of the fountain. They took me down to Safford for the night. I think they took me just, you know, to take me (as quoted in Kingsolver, 1989, p. 60).
Defendants not only had to deal with the costs that distance could impose, but also with the costs that long times until trial imposed. These costs included increasing attorneys fees, increased time until bail could be returned, and long periods of uncertainty for defendants regarding their future. According to Kingsolver, many arrests made in May 1984 were dismissed over a year and a half later after the state failed to take action or drop the cases. The Long-term Costs of Guilty Pleas An important implication of Feeley’s work is that defendants may plead guilty to crimes that they did not commit. The pecuniary costs of arrests and prosecution accumulate as charges remain pending against defendants.
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According to Feeley, when defendants are strapped for resources, these mounting costs place them on the horns of a major dilemma: do they stay in the system and contest their charges, thereby further increasing the pecuniary costs associated with prosecution, or, do they cut their immediate losses by pleading guilty. According to Feeley, many defendants have no other financial option but to plead guilty and defendants are made to believe (perhaps correctly) that their ultimate sentences will be lighter if they plead guilty versus being found guilty. In the case of the Arizona mine strikes, Kingsolver did, in fact, note alternative motives for guilty pleas by some presumably innocent strikers: In retrospect, Bustamante felt it was unfortunate that many people had accepted plea bargains. Dozens were arrested and charged with felonies at the June 30 rally, for example, but the state offered to reduce the charges against any who would plead guilty to misdemeanors instead. Because they were working with such limited finances by that time, the weary unions thought it wise to avoid going to court. But some of those who were arrestedyrefused the plea bargains and demanded their day in court. They never got it. ‘‘Whenever anybody persisted, the county attorney dropped them like flies,’’ Bustamante said (Kingsolver, 1989, pp. 192–193).
Instead of admitting to guilt because they did in fact commit crimes, it would seem that instead dozens of fearful protesters pled guilty to lesser charges in hopes of minimizing their engagement with the criminal justice system and limiting the likelihood of longer sentences if convicted of more serious, but contested, charges. In many ways, these protesters are no different than the defendants Feeley studied, who often pled guilty or failed to appear for their trials in hopes of minimizing the costs associated with their arrests. Nonetheless, because most people assume that guilty pleas only result from actual guilt, the implications of guilty pleas by potentially innocent strikers are likely to haunt them for years to come.7
Costs to Social Movements Arrests also produce costs for social movements associated with arrested strikers and protesters. These costs can be divided into three categories. Diminished Participation and Leadership The viability of mobilizations, including strikes, depends on the ability of social movements to turn out participants. In the Arizona mine strikes, arrests directly reduced the number of strikers and strike-allies that could participate in protests. Part of this reduction is obvious: a striker in jail
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could not also be on the picket line. Part of this reduction is less obvious: many strikers felt unable to participate while charges were still pending against them, or were forced to eschew further strike participation as part of a plea bargain. This issue becomes more serious when one considers that law enforcement agencies often arrest leaders of protests in hopes of draining movements of leadership and morale (Oberschall, 1978; Jones, 1988). Kingsolver suggests that many in Ajo and Clifton believed that perceived leaders were indeed targeted by police for arrests: ‘‘Some people who were perceived to be leaders of the strike were forced into silence or forced out of town’’ (Kingsolver, 1989, p. 193). Diminished Resources Just as arrests tapped strikers’ and strike-allies’ resources, so too did arrests drain union resources. Barkan’s (1984) discussion of legalistic repression highlights this set of costs for movements because movement organizations often try to absorb some or all of the cost of bail and legal representation, if they are able. Work by Oberschall (1978) on movements in the 1960s and work by Jeffries (2002) and Jones (1988) on the decline of the Black Panther Party support this claim. Cunningham’s (2003) work highlights the way in which attacks on organizers have amplified repressive effects because the capacity for future mobilization is diminished. Thus, it is particularly noteworthy that arrests of strikers quickly exhausted union resources (Kingsolver, 1989). Diminished Legitimacy This case study suggest that arrests can serve as a powerful symbol in media coverage of protests. Arrests paint protesters as violent and lawless even while creating an image of police action that is justified and measured. Kingsolver notes this effect where the mine strikes were concerned: Perhaps the most important effect of all was the legal offensive helped to turn away public sympathy. Newspapers were crowded for days at a time with accounts of arrests, police actions, and felony charges against the strikers. It is a cultural peculiarity of the United States that we believe our citizens don’t run into trouble with the law unless they have done something wrong. Attorney General Edwin Meese said it himself, in 1987: innocent people don’t get arrested. (Kingsolver, 1989, p. 193).
Guilt pleas further substantiate negative portrayals of arrested strikers and strike supporters because guilty pleas are accepted by the public as admissions of guilt, even though they might be more accurately understood as the product of a stream of costs that outweighed the sentence for the alleged offense.
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Punishing Classes: The Social Disciplinary Model Revisited The arrests during the Arizona mine strikes were followed by a low conviction rate and high dismissal rate. In fact, many of those that were determined to be guilty actually pled guilty versus being adjudicated so. Significant arrests coupled with low conviction rates and high dismissal rates suggest that police might be taking advantage of the large gap between the evidence required for probable cause for lawful arrest and the evidence required for conviction using the ‘‘beyond a reasonable doubt’’ standard. In fact, as the paper will discuss shortly, Balbus considered low conviction rates as a measure of the veracity of arrests, which when applied to the Arizona mine strikes arrests would suggest weak justifications for arrests. Bustamante, who represented many of the accused, criticized many of the arrests: [T]he state knew that these charges were ridiculous. The point is that they didn’t care about prosecuting these people; they only wanted to intimidate them. This is a way of controlling a population – it’s so easy, so convenient. Just slap them with some charge or other, set a huge bail, and make them sit in jail. Or harass them to the extent that with any move they make they’ll accumulate more charges against themselves. Eventually they have to leave town in order to breathe. It’s very effective. It doesn’t even matter that later the charges will never hold up in court – the damage is already done (as quoted in Kingsolver, 1989, p. 193).
Instead of assuming that Bustamante’s statement is the expectedly hyperbolic rhetoric of a defense attorney, further inquiry suggests an important confluence between Choongh’s and Feeley’s work. Although Choongh framed his social disciplinary model as applying to individuals who were arrested but for whom prosecutions were not expected, Feeley’s work suggests that the costs of contesting criminal charges also allow groups or classes of individuals to be summarily punished through the criminal justice system prior to any determination of guilt or innocence. That is, Choongh’s model could be extended to cases where prosecution was expected, even if the prosecution was not expected to be successful. One of Feeley’s central findings was that the criminal justice process punishes all defendants, not just guilty defendants. Indeed, when the punishment from the process is meted out, defendants have yet to stand trial. This is precisely the substantive justice that police officers refer to when they admonish arrestees that ‘‘they can beat the rap, but they can’t beat the ride.’’ This form of procedural punishment suggests that arrests and the process of prosecution allow for what legal sanctions against protest cannot; procedural punishments allow strikers and protesters to be punished as a class
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(through the process of arrest and prosecution) even though strikers and protesters cannot be punished as a class through a verdict and sentence. That arrested strikers and protesters are likely to be exonerated at trial is of little importance or solace while they suffer through the process. As Feeley’s research suggests is likely, far more strikers were detained than were ever tried, let alone convicted, which made the process far more punishing for protesters than the ultimate disposition of the case. To summarize, individual strikers and unions faced significant physical, emotional, social, and pecuniary costs as a result of arrests and prosecutions. Further, it is important to note that the foregoing discussion does not require any unlawful behavior by police, assuming probable cause is met or a warrant existed for the arrest. That is, for the foregoing discussion to be accurate, police officers do not need to choose to use arrests because arrests paint protesters in a poor light and police in a better light, or because arrests can both punish innocent and guilty protesters alike and drain monetary and human resources from a protest campaign. Police only need to be trained to use arrests as a major part of protest policing, which is often the case even where police agencies are committed to protecting the free speech rights of protesters (Earl, 2002). Thus, whatever the motivation for protestrelated arrests, there are several important consequences of the use of arrests. Of course, as the next section discusses, these effects can be further amplified if police are more malicious in motivation and/or practice.
GOOD COP, BAD COP The foregoing discussion only assumed that police were interested in controlling protest and strikes, but it did not assume that officers or police agencies were motivated to police protesters or strikers more severely than other citizens. Evidence from the Arizona mine strikes suggests that the difficulties associated with the punishing criminal justice process only increase when individual officers or entire law enforcement agencies are not evenhanded. As the PD strike stretched into the second month, union workers increasingly crossed the picket lines. PD continued its full court press against strikers, including allegedly asking law enforcement officers to step-up their policing of picket activities and downplay illegal acts by replacement workers (Kingsolver, 1989). Kingsolver portrays the extent to which strikers and their supporters felt targeted by police: ‘‘Strikers in Clifton were questioned not only for walking but for standing, driving, and speaking. They were
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issued traffic tickets for driving too slowly, and arrested for carrying tirechanging tools in their cars’’ (Kingsolver, 1989, p. 48). It is important to note that unless an illegal pattern in arrests is proven to exist, the selective enforcement of laws, such as prohibitions against slow traffic by driving too slowly, is a part of everyday policing. Nonetheless, a significant amount of research on policing suggests that police must choose which illegalities to respond to from an environment that includes a veritable abundance. Prior research also suggests that the decision to arrest does not usually turn on the mere (suspected) commission of crime, but instead on other motives of police (Bittner, 1967a, b; Hartjen, 1972; Lundman, 1980; Pastor, 1978; Wilson, 1968). Choongh’s (1997, 1998) research suggests that social discipline is one such motive. Coupling these research results with the low evidentiary bar that probable cause sets, it would seem that officers have a great deal of discretion in deciding how and whom to police. Even with large amounts of discretion, at times police overstep their authority. Two civil cases for which public records are available suggest that police in Ajo and Morenci/Clifton did just that. In the civil case involving Morenci/Clifton, the case revolved around the viability of arrests made when DPS arrested a small band of picketers who had remained after the 1-year anniversary picnic and rally (as well as the decision of the DPS to deploy tear gas in an enclosed building on the same evening). Specifically, protesters filed suit alleging that: (1) excessive force had been used (the firing of CS gas into a building); (2) upon their arrest, defendants had been mistreated by being cuffed too tightly and for long durations; and (3) they were falsely arrested given that no warrants had been issued and that probable cause could not be established for any arrest except one. The long period with tight cuffs allegedly resulted in injuries ranging from soreness and bruising to a loss of sensation in one protester’s arms for a prolonged period after release. After several rounds of appeals, the courts ultimately ruled that all plaintiffs had been falsely arrested, that the procedures to ensure that information about each arrest was recorded had eroded, that supervisors failed to correct this procedural failure despite their knowledge of the failure, that the protesters were held for several hours after it was clear that no officer could identify the defendants or suggest why they had been arrested, and that the plaintiffs had suffered physical and/or emotional injuries as a result of their unlawful detainment (Steelworkers v. Milstead 705 F. Supp. 1426). A second suit filed by strikers alleged improprieties on the part of Pima County Sheriff officers, DPS officers, the Pima County Attorney’s office,
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and the Ajo Justice of the Peace. Several facts in the case suggested impropriety. First, there was continued contact and coordination between PD officials and law enforcement officials. In particular, a meeting was held on August 11, 1983 during which PD reviewed with the Pima County Sheriff a list of people PD hoped would be arrested and suggested that high bail amounts be awarded so as to keep the strikers off the street. Subsequently, most of these individuals targeted by PD were in fact arrested and many had bails set at $15,000. Further, the Justice of the Peace, Helen Gilmartin, who signed the arrest warrants and set bail ‘‘was on furlough from her job as a Phelps Dodge security guard and could have returned to this job at any time with full seniority,’’ ‘‘she obtained her judicial position through a nomination by Phelps Dodge’s security chief,’’ ‘‘her car bore the personalized license plate ‘PD Ajo’’’ (i.e., Phelps Dodge, Ajo), ‘‘both Phelps Dodge and the Pima County Sheriff’s Department employed her close relatives,’’ and she, as well as many Sheriffs and DPS officers, ‘‘lived in housing rented from Phelps Dodge’’ (Steelworkers v. Phelps Dodge 865 F.2d. 1539). The arrest warrants approved by Gilmartin were completed without any sworn testimony or a determination of probable cause and were then stored in a safe by Gilmartin for 2 weeks upon which time she dated and signed the warrants, allowing the warrants to be served. During this time, the strike was actually more peaceful than usual and officers were being withdrawn. However, 2 days before the warrants were served, Gilmartin and law enforcement officials visited the PD office building and her presence happened to coincide with the presence of PD attorneys. On the day the arrests were made, the Sheriff met with PD security officials about the arrests but the meeting log was mysteriously lost according to court documents. Finally, as to the bail hearing, the court indicated: The Justice of the Peace also followed unorthodox procedures in setting $15,000 bail for those arrested. She made no effort to individualize bail according to community ties, ownership of property in Ajo, ability to pay, likelihood of appearance, or whether an individual had turned himself in. Nor did she inquire, as she normally would, whether the strength of the case against each individual warranted bail in that amount (Steelworkers v. Phelps Dodge 865 F.2d. 1539).
The suit also alleged that law enforcement officials routinely ignored legal infractions by nonstriking workers. For instance, a ban on handgun possession was enforced against strikers, but not against nonstrikers even though the court order applied equally to each group. The findings of the courts in these two suits, along with anecdotal evidence, suggest that strikers were systematically targeted by law enforcement
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officials without respect to the actions they actually undertook on the picket line or the legality of their actions. Thus, it would appear that Bustamante’s statements were not simply the rhetorical claim of a biased attorney, but instead appeared to reflect the reality of protest policing in the Arizona mine strikes of 1983. It would also appear that Choongh’s (1997, 1998) argument that police use detention as a way of summarily punishing targeted categories of people has at least some limited applicability to the American context. Given the court’s determination that some law enforcement and judicial officials had acted illegally, the remaining question focused on the damages. Compensation could not include a favorable end to the strike for the unions or workers, nor could it erase the actual injuries – social, physical, and otherwise – that wrongly detained strikers and their allies suffered at the time.8 Thus, for many strikers, that compensation was too little, too late. From an academic standpoint, it is clear that the costs associated with arrests and the array of protesters subjected to arrest can be substantially increased when law enforcement officials are not evenhanded in their policing. Even though the courts might ultimately provide some remedy for biased policing through compensation to victims, such compensation is not likely to compare to the real costs of the arrests in protesters’ lives and to the movements that they were supporting, nor can subsequent compensation limit the real-time repressive effects of biased arrest practices.
MASS ARRESTS AND PROTEST CONTROL The Arizona mine strikes case study featured only a few instances of multiple arrests; instead, most individuals were arrested alone or in small groups and most arrests were carried out some time after the wrongdoing had been alleged to occur. Although research on the temporal patterning of arrests does not exist, it seems reasonable to believe that the arrest pattern observed in the Arizona mine strikes would be more common for strikes and less common in mass protest events or riots. In contrast to the long, slow business of strike policing, mass protest events and riots require quick action by police who wish to control escalating disorder. Further, arrests have become an increasingly important part of police responses to large, fractious events (Earl, 2002). Therefore, it is important to consider what effect mass arrests may have on the repressive dynamics of individual arrests. Reframing data collected and discussed by Balbus (1973) on major riots, this paper argues that the
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dynamics of mass arrests tend to heighten the extent to which the process is the punishment for arrested protesters by increasing the punishment meted out through the process and subjecting a broader group of protesters to such punishment than would be the case were selective arrests employed. Balbus (1973) examined arrests and prosecutions in major and minor riots in Los Angeles, Detroit, and Chicago. In general terms, Balbus argued that arrests and prosecutions of suspected riot participants delegitimized the political concerns of rioters, focused discussions on what should be done with suspected rioters instead of whether suspected rioters were in fact guilty of any crimes (i.e., arrests focused discussions on the severity of punishment, not the question of innocence or guilt), and served to limit the number of potential rioters in major riot situations by detaining large numbers of arrestees for a minimum of several days. In some cities, the conditions of detention were harshly criticized and in all three cities evidence suggests that individuals arrested during riots were punished more severely through preadjudication detention than through the less frequent and less severe punishments meted out in response to guilty pleas or findings of guilt. Specifically, in all three cities, police tended to arrest individuals without probable cause and without capturing evidence that could be used to convict arrestees. High bails were set, or bail processing slowed down (as was the case in Chicago), so that arrestees were forced to wait out the remainder of the riots in jail. Once the riots were over, charges were often dropped or adjusted downward (along with lowering bail). Balbus also observed a lower than normal conviction rate and few individuals serving any time in jail beyond the period of their pretrial confinement. As Balbus summarizes: Most obviously, in all three cities normal police arrest procedures were subordinated to the overriding pressures on the police and military to contain and end the revolts. Thus in Los Angeles, Detroit, and Chicago arrests were made in a sweeping, indiscriminate fashion; a ‘‘dragnet’’ process was evoked in which the ordinary canons of evidence necessary to arrest and the normal constraints of limited police manpower were largely ignored in an all-out effort to clear the streets. This overriding imperative produced arrest reports that were fragmentary or even nonexistent as well as a booking process in which uniform rather than individualized charges were employed. Given that the overwhelming bulk of police manpower was engaged in ‘‘riot control,’’ the normal police post-arrest screening function of gathering evidence and marshaling witnesses was almost totally abandoned. The result in each city was not only an unusually large volume and high proportion of requests for prosecution, but also abnormally high proportion of requests for prosecution of cases which by ordinary canons of evidence would be considered ‘‘bad cases’’ (1973, p. 232).
In Los Angeles, for instance, pretrial detention rates were much higher than during nonriot time. This was partly due to the significantly more expensive
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bail schedule that was used for suspected rioters. This high level of pretrial detention not only insured that all of those arrested in riot areas – no matter their guilt or innocence – were punished with at least several days in jail. For example, the majority of felony arrestees were still in custody 8 days after their arrest. Further, facilities became so overcrowded that many arrestees had to be shipped to more distant jails for holding, as occurred in some of the Arizona mine strikes arrests and in Barkan’s (1984) study. When preliminary hearings were finally conducted, they were perfunctory and chaotic, which led to many individuals being bound over for trial that would have otherwise been released at that point. Despite this substantial pretrial detention, a lower percentage of arrestees than normal were convicted in the end. Taken together, it would appear that in Los Angeles, the bulk of the punishment happened before trial: Since 30 percent of the 1,133 defendants prosecuted for misdemeanors were not convicted, and since 50 percent of those convicted were not committed, approximately 65 percent or almost two-thirds of all persons prosecuted for misdemeanors received no time in jail at all other than that spent prior to bailing out or coming to trial. Minimal sentences were imposedy (Balbus, 1973, p. 72).
The same was generally true for felonies, leading Balbus to findings that are strikingly similar to Feeley’s but without Feeley’s theoretical interpretation: [T]he ‘‘guilty’’ were scarcely more severely punished than the ‘‘innocent.’’ The great majority of sanctions were imposed prior to the determination of guilt, involving presentence detention time imposed uniformly by court authorities on all of those arrested in an effort to aid in the management of the revolt. Over 85 percent of those arrested during the revolt received no further confinementy. In order to resolve the contradictions made manifest by such a massive instance of collective violence, then, Los Angeles court authorities not only drastically reduced the normal severity of their criminal sanctions, but also virtually abolished the distinction between guilt and innocence as a determinant of criminal sanctions (Balbus, 1973, p. 85).
Detroit had a major riot in July 1967 in which 6,000 arrests were made. As had been the case in Los Angeles, high bails were set without any attempt to individualize bail and despite difficulties in processing and investigating so many arrestees. In fact, judges were openly hostile to defendants and denied arrestees their habeas corpus rights through practice, although not through decree. The holding conditions were punishment in and of themselves: The catalog of horrors produced by these emergency detention measures has been vividly documented by Detroit newspapers, the Kerner Commission Report, and the Michigan Law Review Report. The reader interested in the potential for man’s gross inhumanity to
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man would do well to refer to these accounts; suffice it to say that thousands of arrestees – prior to any appearance in court or even a determination to prosecute – spent several days in detention facilities scarcely fit for cattle (Balbus, 1973, p. 116).
Major pretrial releases only occurred because of substantial outside political pressure and the threat of a jail riot over the holding conditions. As was true in Los Angeles, extended pretrial detention was coupled with a lower conviction rate and smaller penalties for those convicted. Penalties rarely exceeded the time already served: only about 4% of those convicted of misdemeanors and only 3% of those convicted of felonies served additional jail or prison time. Further, many of the convictions were obtained by pressuring defendants to plead guilty: ‘‘In the absence of the concerted and successful effort to induce large numbers of guilty pleas it is likely that a conviction rate vastly lower than even the unusually low conviction rate (convictions/bindovers) of 75% would have prevailed, andypossiblyythe majority of cases would have been dismissed’’ (Balbus, 1973, p. 143). Chicago differed slightly in that the major rioting that occurred there happened after Detroit and Los Angeles, allowing Chicago to develop a clear riot control plan. It also had a chance to practice its plan before major disturbances occurred. A letter of protest from the ACLU outlined the city’s plan: The police moved in quickly on any volatile situationy. As a ‘‘preventative’’ measure, many persons are arrested, including those who may be innocent bystandersy. Most of those arrested are simultaneously charged with mob action, disorderly conduct and interfering with a police officer or alternatively resisting arrest. All of which are misdemeanorsy. [T]he court apparently out of indignation, routinely sets bail at $5000 to $50,000 at the request of the Corporation Counsel and without the benefit of a hearingy. In effect, the mere act of arresty. means imprisonment for a week or longery. without a fair bond hearing (as quoted in Balbus, 1973, pp. 166–167).
Judges and prosecutors also allegedly preferred probation in sentencing arrestees from these smaller riots in hopes of limiting any future protest or riot involvement by probationers. Ironically, the plan was so effective at using the legal system to squelch protest, it was invalidated in a court challenge prior to the major riot Chicago experienced. Nonetheless, Chicago was still more prepared for mass arrests even without the formal plan. The police department made mass arrests but did not ask for high bails. Instead, bail-processing facilities slowed the processing of arrestees until after the riot. Many suspected that the slowdown at these facilities was by design so as to ensure that bail could not be made until after the riot. Because of the low bail amounts, though, when bail-processing facilities sped up after the riot ended, arrestees were
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able to easily bail out, thereby ensuring that Chicago would not face postriot overcrowding in its detention facilities. As was true in Los Angeles and Detroit, most of the punishment occurred with the arrest and pretrial detention, not through conviction and sentencing. Only 7% of those convicted of misdemeanors served any additional jail time. Felonies were more uncommon in Chicago and required much firmer evidence against defendants and more serious alleged wrongdoing, but still only 27% of the convicted felons served additional jail or prison time. Balbus argues that the significant disruptions from normal criminal justice protections and proceedings, such as heightened bail, long-pretrial detention periods, and overcrowded conditions, were tolerated by the public because of the obvious stress that mass arrests placed on the system. That is, Balbus’s research suggests that under conditions of mass arrests, the public might actually be more tolerant of punishment delivered by the process, and hence more tolerant of punishing the innocent and guilty alike before trial. Yet, it is precisely in the situation where seemingly indiscriminant mass arrests are made that classes of people become criminalized in practice, even though protesters cannot be formally criminalized as a class.
COMMENSURATION AND REPRESSION: UNDERSTANDING THE PLACE OF ARRESTS Having reviewed these cases, it is now possible to address the issue of commensuration between repressive tactics. The concept of commensuration implies that two different types of things can be evaluated against one another using a common metric, assuming that a common metric can be determined. In a research setting, the commensurability of different social actions or outcomes is a serious issue in operationalization and measurement. At a practical level, researchers must decide whether a measure should be discrete, ordinal, or continuous. In scholarship on repression, researchers often implicitly assume that there is a latent concept of ‘‘repressiveness’’ that is continuous. In this conceptualization, repression is a complex phenomenon made of commensurable elements whose combination produces a composite measure of the latent concept of repression.9 Thus, the incorrect assumption of a common metric allows different types of repression to falsely be regarded as commensurate, and it allows the construction of a composite, continuous measure of repression even where this may be unfounded. For example,
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Davenport (1995a, b) follows many political scientists in using Taylor and Jodice’s (1983) measure of ‘‘negative sanctions’’ to operationalize aggregate regime repressiveness. This measure includes ‘‘censorship, defined as limitations and/or intimidation of the popular media, as well as political restrictions, defined as limitations and/or intimidation of individuals and political parties’’ (Davenport, 1995b, p. 694). Davenport even attends to the characteristics of the distribution of this continuous variable by taking its natural log. According to Davenport’s (2000b) later review of measures of repressiveness, over 30 published research pieces use this measure. Scholars have also used continuous measures of state terror and human rights violations (Davenport, 2000b). Rasler (1996) is quite straightforward in labeling her dependent variable ‘‘government repression,’’ which is measured: as the frequency of actions taken to coercively demobilize the opposition. Less severe or low levels of repression include breakup of assemblies, mass arrests during and after demonstrations, or the arrest of a major opposition leader. High (severe) forms of repression involve general politics, such as bans on assemblies, press censorship, and martial law (emphasis in original; p. 138).
Where scholars do not use continuous measures of repressiveness, it is often the case that their data was too limited to allow for the creation of a continuous measure, and thus a more limited measure is used as a proxy for the continuous latent concept. For instance, Koopmans (1993) lumps all but ‘‘conspiratorial’’ police action together into a dummy variable coding for the presence of any police action, including arrests and violence. Only a few scholars have argued on theoretical grounds that repression should be operationalized as a categorical measure (Earl et al., 2003). Others argue for separate analyses of different types of repression: White (1999) argued that the dynamics of two forms of repression – internment and weapons seizures – might be distinctive and therefore require a separate analysis. Instead of using a categorical measure, he creates a continuous measure of internment and a separate continuous measure of weapons seizures, modeling each separately. In light of this paper’s discussion of the costs associated with arrests, the commensurability of different repressive actions seems more contestable theoretically than the existing literature would suggest. Put most bluntly, in order to combine arrests with violence into a scale of repressiveness, scholars must decide how to weight each of these actions in an absolute sense (if a continuous measure is produced) or at least in a relative sense (if an ordinal measure is produced). Yet, this paper has shown that arrests function to
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sanction protesters and hamper social movements by producing a series of short- and long-term costs that are likely to differ from the short- and longterm costs produced by police violence.10 Thus, deciding whether arrests or violence are ‘‘more repressive’’ is a difficult and subjective decision. Indeed, even when scholars do not create complex measures, but simply assert the relative ‘‘softness’’ of arrests, they are suggesting an ability to compare arrests and police violence using some common metric. Even this seemingly simple assertion is challenged by the arguments of this paper. That is, it may be accurate for scholars to say that styles of protest policing have changed, each of which produces different processes of repression that have distinctive costs. However, it is more difficult to defend the assertion that one form of protest policing is ‘‘harder’’ than another. Further, since the types of costs, not just the level of costs, may differ between violence and arrests, the effects of arrests and police violence on social movement outcomes and future mobilizations may also differ. Indeed, the central thesis of Barkan’s (1984) article on arrests in civil rights campaigns was that police violence generated significant physical and psychological costs, but paradoxically improved the chances of movement success because it was seen as illegitimate by wider publics. In contrast, arrests generated significant physical, emotional, social, and pecuniary costs and reduced the chances of movement success because arrests made social movement actors seem illegitimate to wider publics. Similarly, the processes that produce arrests versus violence may also differ. Indeed, Earl et al. (2003) show that there are important differences between the explanatory factors associated with different types of police strategies, including the use of arrests versus the use of violence. For instance, their findings indicate that as the size of a protest event increases, the probability of police making arrests declines but the probability of police taking no action and the probability of policing using violence both increase. Those differences could not be understood, or even recognized, using a measure of repressiveness that combines arrests and violence into an ordinal or continuous measure. To summarize, not only do the severity and impacts of arrests need reconsideration, but the fundamental assumption of commensurability between violence and legal reactions to protest by authorities also needs to be reconsidered. Even at the extremes, it is debatable whether scholars can definitively determine whether a political murder is more repressive than a life sentence on political charges in a dirty, cruel, and inhumane detention center. More pointedly, which of these two actions is more repressive is a normative question for which scholars only have descriptive answers.
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CONCLUSIONS Students of repression have noted a distinctive shift in many Western democracies away from confrontational protest-policing protocols and toward more negotiated and preventative protest-policing protocols. This shift has also been associated with a purported decline in police violence, as authorities are increasingly expected to make arrests when action is needed. Portraying this shift as a movement toward ‘‘softer policing,’’ scholars have argued that the iron fist has been replaced by the velvet glove. This paper has challenged this innocuous view of arrests, pointing out both the physical realities of many arrests and the short- and long-term costs associated with the criminal justice process that arrests initiate. Using Feeley’s socio-legal insights about the punishing nature of the criminal courts, I have argued that arrests and the process they initiate impose a wide array of costs on participants and the social movements to which they are related. Using arrests made in the Arizona mine strikes of the early 1980s, this paper has discussed the physical reality of arrest as well as shown empirically the significant price that arrests can exact. Further, because most of these costs are imposed prior to trial, these costs must be paid by all of those who are arrested, and particularly by those that contest their guilt. This leads to a situation in which protesters that are innocent of any crimes and protesters that are guilty of crimes effectively receive the same punishment. It also creates a situation where innocent individuals are given short-term incentives to plead guilty. Such a punishment regime effectively allows protesters as a class to be punished through the criminal justice system with only the minimal requirement of probable cause in order for this punishment to be lawful. Further, officials who are biased in their policing may be able to take advantage of the relatively low bar set by probable cause and maximize the pecuniary and social costs of arrests by making arrests in front of friends or family and moving protesters to far removed detention centers. As occurred in the Arizona mine strikes, arrests exert significant negative pressure on protesters and social movements, whether or not illegal acts actually occurred. Even when protesters and organizations are able to recover some compensation for clearly illegal policing, this compensation is generally too little, too late. The paper also considered mass arrest situations. Using the extensive data collected by Balbus on arrests following riots in the late 1960s, I was able to show that Feeley’s argument that ‘‘the process is the punishment’’ fits this data fairly well. In fact, law enforcement and court officials clearly telegraphed their desire to keep potential rioters detained until riots were
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controlled, whether or not there was any evidence that particular detainees had committed crimes. Few questioned the preventative detention; the practical denial of the right to habeas corpus was seen as the circumstantial outgrowth of mass arrests and accepted either as desirable or at least unavoidable. Finally, the commensurability of different repressive actions was challenged. Where many scholars assume that violence is more repressive and/or ‘‘harder’’ than arrests, this paper has questioned those assumptions as well as scholars’ ability to answer such questions using descriptive data. Through the course of this investigation, the seriousness and distinctiveness of arrests as a form of repression has been emphasized. It is important to note that these findings should not suggest that arrests never have positive effects on activists or the movements with which they are associated. In fact, arrests may have some positive impacts on activists and social movements such as increasing (and demonstrating) activists’ commitment to their cause (Hirsch, 1990) and increasing particular activists’ visibility inside and outside of the movement (although Gitlin, 1980 problematizes visibility). Further, as Martin Luther King, Jr. so eloquently wrote, when an individual is arrested for engaging in civil disobedience, she ‘‘willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice’’ (King, 1963), thereby using the arrest itself as a way to further her cause. Research has also shown that activists may use their trials as forums for publicity and public education (Barkan, 1977, 1980a, 1980c, 1985). Nonetheless, these potential positive repercussions of arrests do not diminish the kinds of costs and damages created by arrests, which have been analytically and empirically explored in this paper. Further, Barkan’s (1985) work suggests that the balance of costs and benefits to movements is contingent on internal and external factors to the movement. If we are to understand this balance, we must be able to be more precise about the range of costs imposed by arrests and the process they initiate. It is also important to evaluate the extent to which the particular episodes I have discussed – the Arizona mine strikes and mass arrests following urban rioting in the 1960s – were unique in the way that arrests operated. At first glance, the results of this analysis are consistent with case studies of 1960s social movements (Oberschall, 1978), SDS (Miller, 1983), and the Black Panther Party (Jeffries, 1992; Jones, 1988). However, further research should evaluate whether the experience and costs of more contemporary protest arrests are consistent with the historical cases reviewed in this paper. At least some research on the practices of a variety of American police departments suggests that arrests have continued to be used as a form of
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punishment, particularly through the use of false charges and high bails (Boghosian, 2004). Research on protest arrests made in New York City during the 2004 Republican National Convention might offer further support for the continuing relevance of arguments made in this paper. According to police records, 1,821 people were arrested, of which 56 were arrested for felonies, 282 for misdemeanors, and 1,480 for violations (three were juvenile arrests; Steinhauer, 2004). Defense attorneys for arrested protesters argued that ‘‘what the city did amounted to illegal preventive detention, a calculated effort to limit the chances of confrontation and possible embarrassment’’ (Dwyer, 2004) because police arrested individuals allegedly without appropriate evidence and identification. Further, it is alleged that the police held individuals for lengthy periods without access to attorneys, medical care, and adequate food and water. These lengthy detentions included many who would ultimately be released with only tickets after spending up to 2 days in jail (Dwyer, 2004). Some protesters who were denied medical care allegedly suffered significant acute pain (Steinhauer, 2004). In summarizing the patterns of lengthy detentions over small charges and the provisional dismissal of 600 arrests by mid-September, one reporter painted a picture congruent with the main theme of this paper: ‘‘police detention amounted to a more severe punishment than any the courts would impose’’ (Dwyer, 2004). City officials have denied these charges, arguing that ‘‘they did nothing wrong in policing the protesters or in detaining them at Pier 57’’ (Cardwell, 2004). While it will undoubtedly take extensive investigation to determine what actually happened in New York during the Republican National Convention, early reports suggest that it is a ripe opportunity for replicating the research reported on here. Beyond speculating about the continued relevance of these arguments in the American case, it is important to consider whether these findings are likely to be applicable to protest occurring in nations with similar criminal legal systems. At least some evidence suggests so. Research on the British Coal Mine Strikes of 1984–1985 suggests that the British police used many of the tactics discussed in this paper: – the conditions of detention were often difficult (including reports of lacerations from overtightened handcuffs and reports of abuse, Green, 1990, pp. 58, 63; see Waddington, Wykes, Critcher, & Hebron, 1991 for similar reports); – strikers felt as though they were constantly at risk of being arrested on fabricated charges (Green, 1990);
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– strikers felt that they were being targeted for arrest as a class, as opposed to being arrested for their individual behavior, legal or illegal (Green, 1990); and – ‘‘in many instances the charges themselves were considered by pickets as largely irrelevant – the arrest itself being all important’’ (Green, 1990, p. 57) because bails were made conditional on the accused desisting from further picketing (which effectively removed them from the front lines of protests; Green, 1990; Render, 1995; Waddington et al., 1991). The use of preventative arrests was coupled with unusual bails. In the English system, bails for common offenses would not usually be required. In this case, bails were required and tended to be exorbitant and/or were coupled with conditions that prevented further strike participation, (Christian, 1985; Green, 1990). In fact, upwards of 85% of arrested miners reported bail-related restrictions on their strike activity (Green, 1990, p. 96). As was also true for the American cases discussed above, the costs of arrests were increased because of malicious actions on the part of some police and the mass nature of many arrests. For instance, it seemed that judges were complicit in this use of state social control (Green, 1990; Waddington et al., 1991). Miners were heard by the court in groups instead of individually and were often assigned bail conditions using prearranged agreements between the judges and police. Prosecutors also lengthened the process, allegedly engaging in a variety of delaying tactics that spread the costs of arrests across longer periods (Green, 1990, p. 98). Although Waddington et al. (1991) suggest that there were differences between the actions of local police and police coordinated through Scotland Yard, as well as differences in policing across different cities involved in picketing, the 11,312 arrests made during the strike and the feeling on strikers part that they were ‘‘guilty until proven innocent’’ make evident the importance of arrests to controlling the strike (Waddington et al., 1991). In terms of further research, scholars also need to uncover and explore additional complicating factors in understanding arrests and the pretrial costs of prosecution. For instance, in the U.S., are the costs of arrests being extended to material witnesses, who are not even formally accused of wrongdoing? The FBI has increasingly taken individuals into custody for questioning as part of America’s ‘‘war on terror.’’ Their detention is legally justified by labeling these individuals as material witnesses. If such changes further lower the bar for detention, from probable cause to being a potential material witness, detentions could be used to sanction an even wider array of protesters. Cunningham (2004) suggests that the FBI had been criticized
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before September 11th for overstepping its authority, but that the tragic events of that day entirely changed the debate around FBI action to focus on its effectiveness instead of its appropriateness. If this remains the case, the ability of law enforcement authorities to legally engage in de facto summary punishment will require substantial academic investigation.
NOTES 1. Although not all of the authors discussing changes in protest protocols may consider arrests to be ‘‘soft,’’ that connotation has, at the least, gone uncontested in the literature and remains a subtle but clear suggestion in this work. 2. As I note in the conclusion, arrests may also have some positive consequences. This is also true for violence against social movements: violence against white civil rights workers in Freedom Summer had positive, strategically anticipated, and important consequences for the civil rights movement (McAdam, 1988) as did nationally publicized violence against black civil rights activists in certain Southern cities (Barkan, 1984). Even still, the ‘‘costs’’ of both arrests and violence can be substantial and should be important academic concerns. 3. Some scholars have used arrests as variables or components of complex variables. This issue is discussed later in the paper and thus is bracketed at this point. 4. Boghosian (2004) suggests that chilling effects from arrests are also likely. However, because these effects cannot be studied using the data available for this paper, I bracket the question of chilling effects in the hope that future research will consider it further. 5. This account of the Arizona mine strikes relies heavily on Aulette and Mills (1988) and Kingsolver (1989), as well as specifically cited Arizona Daily Star articles. Attempts were made to independently collect arrest and prosecution data, but the dated nature of the arrests as well as the commonness of many of the surnames of the arrested made independent collection impossible. 6. Given the wealth of information available on the Morenci strike, this paper will also favor the Morenci case over the Ajo strike even though they cannot be considered as completely independent strikes. 7. Of course, for individuals who did commit crimes, there remains an unresolved normative question about whether police action should be considered repressive or not. This is an issue that this paper does not address. 8. Although this goes beyond the scope of this paper, future research could address whether there is a difference in the success rate of civil suits brought against police for physical abuse versus false arrest/improper conditions of confinement and whether there is a difference in the size of awards made to successful plaintiffs in each kind of case. If juries follow much of the social movements literature in thinking of physical violence by police as much more harmful than unlawful arrests and confinement, then a major discrepancy would exist in both success rates of civil cases against police and the size of their awards. 9. It is true that scholars sometimes use a count of a singular activity, such as arrests, as a proxy for repression. When scholars do not link the count to an
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underlying continuous, complex, latent variable for which they cannot gather adequate data to fully measure, a concern nonetheless remains: there is a lack of theoretical specificity as to the form of repression and its determinants or consequences. That is, explanations of repression should not be ‘‘one size fits all’’ explanations but should instead be sensitive to the type of repression under study (Earl, 2003). Further, because this scholarship does not grapple with the process of arrest and prosecution, it misses opportunities for more informed research. For instance, future research could focus on the percentage of arrests that are dismissed, the difference between arrests and conviction rates, and the length and conditions of pretrial detention. Without the deeper perspective offered by this paper, these three potentially important measures would not seem consequential. 10. Most scholarship on violence assumes physical and psychological costs of violence to individuals and potential chilling effects of violence on movement participation. Although future research could suggest additional cost dimensions to violence that have not been entertained by scholars, I do not discuss this question at length since the focus of this paper is on the relatively less-considered costs of arrest and prosecution.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 2001 Pacific Sociological Association Meetings. I would like to thank the editor and anonymous reviewers for their comments on earlier drafts and Katrina Kimport for her research assistance.
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Trubek, D. M. (1977). Complexity and contradiction in the legal order: Balbus and the challenge of critical social thought about law. Law and Society Review, 3, 529–569. Waddington, D., Wykes, M., Critcher, C., & Hebron, S. (1991). Split at the seams? Community, continuity and change after the 1984–1985 coal dispute. Philadelphia: Open University Press. Waddington, P. A. J. (1994). Liberty and order: Public order policing in a capital city. London: University College London Press. Waddington, P. A. J. (1998). Controlling protest in contemporary historical and comparative perspective. In: D. della Porta & H. Reiter (Eds), Policing protest: The control of mass demonstrations in Western democracies (pp. 117–140). Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. White, R. W. (1999). Comparing state repression of pro-state vigilantes and anti-state insurgents: Northern Ireland, 1972–1975. Mobilization, 4(2), 189–202. Wilson, J. Q. (1968). Varieties of police behavior. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Winter, M. (1998). Police philosophy and protest policing in the Federal Republic of Germany, 1960–1990. In: D. della Porta & H. Reiter (Eds), Policing protest: The control of mass demonstrations in Western democracies (pp. 188–212). Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Wisler, D., & Kriesi, H. (1998). Public order, protest cycles, and political process: Two Swiss cities compared. In: D. della Porta & H. Reiter (Eds), Policing protest: The control of mass demonstrations in Western democracies (pp. 91–116). Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
Cases Cited Steelworkers v. Milstead 705 F. Supp. 1426 Steelworkers v. Phelps Dodge 865 F.2d. 1539 U.S. v. Puerta 982 F.2d 1297
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PART III: SELECTING AND SILENCING IN THE NEWSPAPER COVERAGE OF SOCIAL MOVEMENTS
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ADDRESSING THE SELECTION BIAS IN MEDIA COVERAGE OF STRIKES: A COMPARISON OF MAINSTREAM AND SPECIALTY PRINT MEDIA$ Andrew W. Martin ABSTRACT Despite an increase in research that examines the media’s selection of protest events for coverage, two areas of study have been left undeveloped. First, the type of protest examined is limited to common forms of the demonstration (march, vigil, rally). A second drawback of this literature is its focus on mass audience newspapers. The goal of the current study is to address these two issues by comparing coverage of a previously ignored form of protest, the strike, across two different media sources, the mass audience New York Times and the Daily Labor Report, a newspaper which targets industry and labor leaders and garners its revenue from subscriptions, not advertising. Due to specific differences between the two newspapers (primarily readership and revenue base), it is expected that
$
An earlier draft of this paper was presented at the American Sociological Association meeting in Anaheim, CA, 2001.
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certain strike characteristics (industry) will play a greater role in the New York Times’ selection of strikes than in the Daily Labor Report. Using government data to construct the population of events, I find that both newspapers select strikes in a manner that resembles coverage of other forms of protest. Important variables include size, length, and disruptiveness. The main difference between the two newspapers is the New York Time’s attention to strikes in industries that affect the public and consumers and its strong regional bias. These findings indicate that not only do similar media selection processes work for both protest and strikes, but also that, despite some differences, media type did not affect selection greatly.
1. INTRODUCTION Given the lack of readily available data on social movement activity, scholars have relied on media sources, primarily daily newspapers, to study diverse forms of collective behavior, from carefully coordinated protest activity (Jenkins & Perrow, 1977; McAdam, 1982; McAdam & Su, 2002; Soule, 1997) to relatively spontaneous events, such as riots (Gurr, 1968; Myers, 1997; Olzak, 1992; Spilerman, 1970). Recently, however a growing body of research has addressed the methodological issues that scholars face when using media sources as data on collective behavior (Barranco & Wisler, 1999; Franzosi, 1987; Hocke, 1999; McCarthy, McPhail, & Smith, 1996; Oliver & Maney, 2000; Oliver & Myers, 1999; Olzak, 1989). Specifically, these studies indicate that certain characteristics of the event, including size, violence, and location play an important role in determining the event’s newsworthiness, which in turn affects the likelihood of media attention. While this literature has expanded our knowledge of how the media select events for coverage, two areas of study have been left underdeveloped. First, prior research has focused on collective behavior that occurs in public spaces potentially open to any interested participant. Thus, the two most researched forms of protest are the riot and variations of the demonstration (rally, march, picket, and vigil, for example). But researchers have also used media sources to analyze other forms of contentious behavior, such as industrial strikes (Franzosi, 1995; Shorter & Tilly, 1971; Snyder & Tilly, 1972). In many respects the strike is similar to other forms of protest – it involves a group of actors (workers) making a collective claim against a specific target, which is usually a business enterprise, except in the case of public sector
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employees. Also, strikers have relied on other forms of protest, such as marches, rallies, and civil disobedience, to mobilize potential allies who are not initially involved in the conflict (Beckwith, 2000; Manheim, 2001). Given this level of commonality, the strike should be selected by the media in a manner comparable to other forms of protest. Despite these similarities, strikes differ from other forms of collective action in some important ways. First, much of the empirical research on strikes and their causes has developed largely independent of the social movement literature, focusing on various factors, including economic (Harrison & Stewart, 1989; Rees, 1952; Vroman, 1989), bargaining (Card, 1990; Farber, 1978), and political (Hibbs, 1976, 1978; Korpi & Shalev, 1980) to determine the rate of strike activity in a country.1 Second, whatever the particular issue driving a strike may be (wages, working conditions), it represents a direct challenge to the authority of the employer in the workplace, what Burawoy (1985) and Stepan-Norris and Zeitlin (1991) refer to as the ‘‘political regime of production.’’ What unites this research is that it focuses on strikes as an action firmly embedded within the economic production of goods and services, which is not explicit in other forms of protest, including those that specifically target economic interests, such as boycotts. In addition, the fact that strikers are by definition employees limits participation in the actual strike itself to employees. While the previous selection bias literature provides an excellent point of departure for examining strike selection bias, the distinctiveness of strikes means it is also necessary to examine how the relative uniqueness of this protest form will affect media coverage. In order to address this, while also ensuring that these findings can be generalized to the selection bias literature, I conceptualize strike specific measures (industry, persondays lost, and union affiliation) using constructs that have been employed in previous research on protest selection (issue salience, disruptiveness, and organizational characteristics). A second shortcoming of the selection bias literature is its almost exclusive focus on daily mass audience newspapers.2 Despite the variety of sources examined, these newspapers all share some common characteristics – they target the general public, they generate most of their revenue from advertising, and, in the case of the New York Times and many European newspapers, they are both local and national in scope. Because of this rather narrow focus, certain explanations of event selection cannot be fully examined. For example, the corporate hegemony model developed by Herman and Chomsky (1988) argues that the mass media, as a profit driven enterprise controlled by large corporations, presents the news in a manner that supports the existing power arrangements in capitalist societies. This is especially
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relevant for the current study since the strike is one of the most direct ways in which corporate power may be challenged. By examining alternative media that are not owned by other corporations and/or dependent on advertising for revenue, this perspective can be systematically examined. Also, it is important to remember that research on selection bias has been partially in response to the problems that stem from relying on newspapers as sources of protest data. By expanding this field of research to the selection bias of other media, the utility of new strike data sources can be established. I examined the strike coverage of two very different newspapers, a typical mass audience daily and another that is unique in terms of important variables (readership, revenue base, and ownership). The mainstream newspaper is the New York Times (hereafter NYT), the most common source of data on protest events, and hence the most researched. The newspaper that is used as a contrast to the NYT is the Daily Labor Report (hereafter DLR), a specialty newspaper well suited for the study of labor disputes and one that differs from the NYT in all the important ways noted above. The NYT was chosen primarily because it represents the most prominent and well-respected mass audience daily newspaper in America. According to data supplied by the NYT, it is presently read by over 10 million people monthly and has a circulation of over 2 million copies for the weekday editions and over 3 million for the Sunday edition. The average reader of the weekday edition tends to have a college degree (67%), a median household income of over $100,000 (46%), and is employed as a professional/manager (54%). While the NYT targets the general public, it appears that its readership tends to have higher than average socioeconomic status. Also, supporting the claim that this newspaper is both local and national in scope, 27% of the readership resides in New York City, compared with 7% of the total U.S. population.3 The DLR was selected primarily because it is a leading source of news on industrial relations in America. In addition, this specialty newspaper receives no revenue from advertising (it is supported by subscription fees); this allows me to assess the corporate hegemony perspective. Also, it is operated by the Bureau of National Affairs, Inc. (BNA), a company owned by its employees, not a publicly held corporation with fundamental interests in corporate capitalism. The DLR is published daily, except on weekends and major holidays, and its stories are written by BNA correspondents (journalists who write for all BNA publications, which include a variety of industry and law newspapers) located in 22 cities across the United States. In addition to a current events section that ranges between 10 and 25 pages in length, it includes general statistics about the labor force and court cases
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that pertain to labor issues. Finally, the DLR has a unique audience, described by the BNA as follows: DLR is designed for labor relations professionals who are decision makers and policy makers. These individuals need to track cases, legislation, employment trends, bargaining settlements and other developments that may affect labor relations policies and programs within their organizations. Prospects are corporations that employ industrial relations or labor relations directors, attorneys representing unions or management, union leaders, management and trade association officials, civil rights organizations, federal contractors, federal officials charged with administering labor laws or issuing procurement contracts, arbitrators, university librarians, and labor law professors.
Because of its unique focus, audience, revenue base, and ownership, the DLR provides a useful contrast to the mainstream NYT. It not only allows further examination of theoretical perspectives such as corporate hegemony, but it also represents a wealth of information on labor disputes in particular and industrial relations in general.4 Despite the differences between the two newspapers, most of the hypotheses developed below are based on findings of previous literature that are not contingent on specific characteristics of the media source examined. Therefore, it is only when I expect difference between the two newspapers to affect coverage that separate hypotheses are developed for the two newspapers. In order to examine how strikes are selected by the NYT and DLR, I begin with a series of testable hypotheses about how key strike characteristics should influence media selection of the event. This section is divided into two subsections; one that deals with those strike characteristics that are common to all forms of protest (size, length, and location), and based on general concepts that link seemingly unique characteristics of strikes (industry, persondays lost, and union affiliation) back to the broader protest literature. Next, the research design of the project is described. This includes the methodology employed to electronically search both newspapers for indicators of industrial conflict and a brief description of the government data sources used to construct the population of events. Using logistic regression, those factors that affect the likelihood that a strike will be covered by either newspaper are evaluated. The results indicate that both newspapers select strikes in a manner similar to other forms of protests on most key variables. Finally, while variation in selection does exist across the two newspapers, a careful comparison of the overall coverage indicates that the NYT and DLR are similar in most respects, indicating that standards of newsworthiness transcend different types of media.
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2. LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1. Current Research in Selection Bias of Protest Events Despite the fact that newspapers such as the NYT are regarded as the most comprehensive source of information on protest events, their reliability as a source of data on collective action has been called into question in recent years (Oliver & Maney, 2000; Swank, 2000). Studies of the biases inherent in media coverage of protest events have regularly shown that the media are not simply neutral transmitters of events, but rather select those events that are believed to be the most newsworthy. Snyder and Kelly’s (1977) study of media coverage of racial conflict finds that certain event features, including size, violence and conflict, duration of the event, and the distance of the event from the media source all affect the probability of event coverage. Again, while this research applies to demonstrations and riots, I believe that it is useful for identifying important factors that affect the selection of strikes by the two newspapers in question. One of the most consistent findings of the previous selection bias literature is the overwhelming importance of event size in determining coverage. Regardless of other characteristics, large events receive disproportionate media attention. McCarthy et al. (1996) found that size was the most important predictor of coverage of demonstrations in Washington, DC by the NYT and the Washington Post. Similar size biases were found in studies of protests covered in the national newspaper of Switzerland (Barranco & Wisler, 1999) and national and international newspaper coverage of events leading to East Germany’s transition to democracy (Mueller, 1997). The powerful effect of size on media coverage is strong enough to remain stable during major historical events. For example, local newspapers in Minsk, Belarus, continued to use size as an important criterion for protest selection during the post-Soviet transition period, a time when newspapers transferred from state to private control (McCarthy, Titarenko, McPhail, & Augustyn, 2003). The consistent finding that size is related to coverage results in the first hypothesis. Hypothesis 1. The probability that the NYT or DLR will cover a given strike event is positively related to the number of workers involved in the strike. Despite the fact that some newspapers such as the NYT attempt to cover national events, a common finding is that these newspapers display a sharp
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regional bias, paying closer attention to those events that occur close to the media outlet’s primary audience. For example, protest events in Washington, DC were covered at a higher rate by the Washington Post than by the NYT (McCarthy et al., 1996). This regional bias is also found among many European national newspapers, which have considerably less geographic area to cover than do U.S. newspapers (Barranco & Wisler, 1999). Given the strong regional bias exhibited by the NYT in previous research, which is likely the result of a readership that is geographically concentrated (in New York City) and a local section devoted to these readers, the following hypothesis is expected for the NYT. Hypothesis 2A. Strike events that occur close to New York City will be more likely to be covered by the NYT than strikes that occur further away. Because the DLR does not have a geographically concentrated audience and local section devoted to these readers (unlike the NYT), it is expected that this newspaper will not exhibit a specific regional bias. However, it relies on BNA correspondents located in key cities (22) throughout the country for stories. Based on the news routine argument, which claims that reporters are more likely to cover events that occur on their established beat, it is likely that strikes in cities and states with a BNA correspondent will be covered at a higher rate by the DLR than strikes located in other areas (because I do not have data on the actual routines of these reporters, a positive correlation between correspondent location and strike coverage indicates only initial support for the news routine perspective). This unique characteristic of the DLR leads to the next hypothesis. Hypothesis 2B. Although the DLR is not expected to exhibit a specific regional bias, strikes that occur in cities and states with a BNA correspondent will be covered at a higher rate than strikes located in other areas. Another factor that influences the probability of coverage of an event is its length. Oliver and Maney (2000) point out that protests compete with other events such as elections for coverage. Because newspapers have a limited newshole (the amount of newspaper space devoted to a particular topic), only a select number of events can be covered in any news cycle. If other newsworthy events (for example, elections and natural disasters) occur at the same time as the strike, competition for the newshole will be high and the strike may not receive media attention. As the length of the event increases, there is more space to report it, thus escalating the probability of
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coverage. While Snyder and Kelly (1977) found that length was positively related to newspaper coverage of racial conflict in the 1960s, more planned protests (marches, rallies) are relatively short lived. Thus the strike, which can last for years, allows me to examine the importance of length on coverage in a more premeditated form of collective action. Hypothesis 3. The probability that the NYT or DLR will cover a given strike event is positively related to the length of the strike in days. 2.2. Strike Uniqueness and Its Effect on Coverage One primary argument of this study is that strikes are merely one unique form of protest that have been ignored by previous selection bias research.5 To substantiate this claim, I define protests and strike events. Rucht and Ohlemacher (1992, p. 77) define a protest event as ‘‘a distinct collective action pursuing an explicit goal by the use of confrontative, disruptive or even violent means.’’ The Bureau of Labor Statistics (2003) defines a strike as ‘‘a temporary stoppage of work by a group of employees (not necessarily union members) to express a grievance or enforce a demand.’’ These definitions show that the industrial strike is indeed one form of protest – a claim making activity by a group of actors that involves disruption (of the production process). However, the strike has certain characteristics that can only be linked to other forms of protest using broader concepts than the ones used above (size, location, and length). In this section, three such constructs are identified: issue salience, disruptiveness, and attributes of the protest organization. Although these constructs are purposely general enough to be linked to previous research, the actual variables used here provide a new way of measuring existing concepts. Therefore, in the analysis below, the variables described here are categorized as unique to strikes, even though the concepts they measure capture characteristics of protest events as well. The first theoretical construct is issue salience, which is operationalized as the industry within which the strike occurs.6 Just as the impact of protest on different segments of the population varies depending on the issue(s) raised, so too will the effect of strikes differ depending on the industry within which they take place. Given the link between the issue of protest and probability of coverage found in previous research (Barranco & Wisler, 1999; McCarthy et al., 1996), it is expected that strikes in certain industries will receive elevated levels of coverage in the NYT, though not the DLR, for a number of reasons that I will now discuss.
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First, it is no surprise that the mass media tends to disproportionately focus on celebrities, including actors and sports figures, to appeal to the interests of the public (Corbett & Mori, 1999; Krajicek, 1998). Like employees in any other industry, celebrities often employ the strike to achieve concessions from management. Thus, it is expected that strikes in the entertainment industries will receive increased attention by mass media sources such as the NYT. Hypothesis 4A. Strikes in the entertainment industries will be covered at a higher rate by the NYT than strikes in other industries. Because the DLR’s audience is not the general public, but rather individuals including labor leaders, corporate executives, and policy makers who are unlikely to find strikes in the entertainment industries particularly noteworthy, the following hypothesis is expected to hold for the DLR. Hypothesis 4B. Strikes in the entertainment industries will not be covered at a higher rate by the DLR than strikes in other industries. One of the important reasons for comparing the NYT to the DLR is to fully examine the corporate hegemony perspective, which argues that mass media sources like the NYT will portray labor issues and actions, including strikes, in a negative manner (Parenti, 1993). The Glasgow University Media Group (1976) argues that the corporate media will disproportionately cover those strikes which inconvenience the public and make strikers appear selfish and concerned with their own interests. The impact of the strike on the public varies by the industry within which the strike occurs. Particularly relevant industries include human transportation and public services, such as health care and education. These strikes not only interrupt the normal routines of the general public (taking the train to work, attending school), but in some cases can be potentially life threatening (health care, firefighters). Because of the inconvenience they pose, strikes in these industries should receive disproportionate attention by the NYT. In addition, the corporate hegemony perspective argues that the media regards readers as doubly important because they represent potential consumers of goods and services offered by advertisers. The Glasgow University Media Group likens the negative effect of strikes in consumer-oriented industries to the aforementioned strikes that inconvenience the public. Therefore, strikes in industries such as retail/food services and the production of consumer goods should also be disproportionately covered by the NYT because of their interference of normal consumption patterns. Given
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these expectations, which are based on the corporate hegemony perspective, the following two hypotheses are developed for the NYT. Hypothesis 5A. Strikes in the human transportation and essential services industries will more likely be covered by the NYT than strikes in other industries due to their negative impact on the normal routines of the public. Hypothesis 6A. Strikes in consumer industries will be more likely to be covered by the NYT than strikes in other industries due to their disruption of normal consumer activities. The DLR, on the other hand, is not beholden to corporate interests (it is not dependent on advertising for revenue, nor is it a subsidiary of a larger corporation), and should not regard these strikes in these industries as particularly newsworthy, which leads to these counter hypotheses. Hypothesis 5B. Because the DLR is a newspaper less clearly controlled by corporate interests, it is expected that strikes in the human transportation and essential services industries will not be significantly more likely to be covered by the DLR than strikes in other industries. Hypothesis 6B. Because the DLR is a newspaper less clearly controlled by corporate interests, it is expected that strikes in consumer industries will not be significantly more likely to be covered by the DLR than strikes in other industries. By comparing the NYT and DLR in their selection of strikes in these industries, I am able to explore if variation in the characteristics of the media source, including ownership and revenue base, affect the selection of strikes that generally have negative consequences for the public or consumers. The next theoretical construct I examine is the disruptiveness of the strike (beyond the industries previously discussed). The strike, like all protests, involves some degree of disruption. In previous selection bias research, especially studies that examine race riots (Snyder & Kelly, 1977), disruption is commonly measured by the number of injuries or deaths that occur during an event. For protest events, measures such as arrests, presence of counterdemonstrators, and use of illegal or disruptive tactics (sit-ins) also capture the disruptiveness of the protest event (Barranco & Wisler, 1999; McCarthy et al., 1996; Oliver & Myers, 1999). Unfortunately, the government does not collect data on any of these activities. However, while these indictors are obviously important, the disruptiveness of the strike lies in its ability to interrupt the normal flow of
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production within a firm, what dell della Porta and Diani (1999) refer as the ‘‘logic of material damage.’’ In this study, the disruptiveness of the strike is measured by the number of persondays lost (size times length) during the conflict, which is commonly used in the strike literature to assess the economic impact of the strike (Hibbs, 1976; Shorter & Tilly, 1974).7 While the strike is not the only form of economic protest (boycotts and anti-globalization demonstrations are examples of others), the straightforward measure used here provides the first opportunity to assess the important role that economic disruption plays in the media selection of protest events. Given the previous literature, which finds that other measures of disruption are positively related to coverage, the following hypothesis is created. Hypothesis 7. The probability that a strike will be covered by the NYT or DLR is positively related to the number of persondays lost. A final concept examined here is the characteristics of the organization sponsoring the strike, a measure not often included in the selection bias literature. The obvious reason for this omission is that since previous research focuses on a variety of protests across a diverse range of issues, it is very difficult to collect data on every organization involved. When organizational measures are included, they are usually very broad, such as organizational type or issue (Oliver & Myers, 1999). Because formal organizations are increasingly the initiators of protest (Minkoff, 1994a, b), it seems reasonable to assume that certain organizations will be more successful at garnering media attention, which has become an important mechanism through which social movements are able to shape public discourse (Lipsky, 1968). Because the strike is an event associated with one type of organization, the labor union, I am able to narrow my focus to examine how variation across labor unions on key characteristics affects media selection of the strikes unions organize. Like protest and advocacy organizations, labor unions are very concerned with their portrayal in the press and often devote resources to media relations (Manning, 1998). The goal here is to identify certain characteristics of the striking union that may increase the probability of coverage by the media.8 Based on Barker-Plummer’s (2002) finding that the strategies and resources employed by the National Organization of Women were key in developing a successful media campaign, I identify two characteristics of labor unions that should increase their ability to garner media attention while engaged in a strike. The first is to identify those unions that have been consistently able to develop strategies that make effective use of the media. Using two separate
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sources (Fiorito, Jarley, & Delaney, 1995; Manheim, 2001), 10 unions were identified as particularly well adept at media relations.9 The criterion for selection was that all 10 made use of the corporate campaign, a broad-based initiative that in addition to various social movement activities requires an effective media strategy to pressure the corporation into meeting the demands of the union (Manheim, 2001). To the extent that these 10 unions are particularly skilled at shaping media coverage of their activities, the following hypothesis is expected. Hypothesis 8. Strikes conducted by media savvy unions will be covered at a higher rate by both the NYT and DLR than strikes organized by unions that are not as adept at media work. Along with effective media strategies, Barker-Plummer (2002) argues that organizational resources are important for positive media attention. One such resource is the size of the organization, which is related to both legitimacy and availability of other resources (Hannan & Freeman, 1977; Scott, 1998). In this study, it is expected that strikes conducted by unions affiliated with large internationals should receive increased newspaper attention because the labor union has both greater legitimacy associated with its larger size and increased resources which can be devoted to media work. This leads to the ninth hypothesis. Hypothesis 9. For both the NYT and DLR, the size of the international affiliated with the striking union is expected to increase the probability of coverage. The three concepts identified above, issue salience, disruptiveness, and organizational characteristics, allow me to examine the effect of variables that are unique to strike events (industry, persondays lost, and union affiliation), while continuing to categorize strikes as one form of protest. Before turning to the strategy used to examine the NYT and DLR’s coverage of strike events, I describe one final measure that is common to all protest activity, but here thought to have a particularly strong impact on strike selection – year of event. This study examines strikes that occurred in 1987 and 1997. There are a number of reasons for the choice of these two years. First, a 10-year gap allows me to examine how changes in both newspapers, especially the NYT, affect coverage – specific changes will be discussed in conjunction with Hypothesis 10. Second, while the gap is significant, both sources are available in electronic archives for both years, which is important for my research strategy. Finally, while they are only 10 years apart the context within which strikes occur has changed fairly
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dramatically across these two years. Specifically, I believe that strikes occurring in 1997 should be covered at a higher rate for the following reasons. First, as Fig. 1 illustrates, the number of strikes in the U.S. has been declining rather steadily at the end of the twentieth century. Other things being equal, if the newshole for strikes remains stable (the number of strikes covered remains constant), a higher percentage of strikes will be reported in 1997 than in 1987. Second, the figure also indicates that membership in labor unions has also declined during the 1980s and 1990s (actually this trend began in the 1950s), possibly explaining the declining strike rate. Despite the weakening position of organized labor (Goldfield, 1987), much has been written about the rise of John Sweeny to the president of the AFL-CIO in 1995 and the revitalization project he began (Mantsios, 1998; Tillman & Cummings, 1999; Turner, Katz, & Hurd, 2001; Welsh, 1997). Therefore, it is likely that many institutions, including the media, may view the labor movement in a more positive light since Sweeny’s rise to power. Finally, the political climate was more favorable in 1997 as Bill Clinton, a moderately pro-labor Democrat strongly backed by organized labor, was President, while Ronald Reagan, universally regarded as anti-labor, was President in 1987. These three reasons lead to the expectation that a greater proportion of strikes will be covered in 1997. As in the link between union characteristics and coverage, reasons two and three – union revitalization and political climate – are based on Parenti’s (1993) claim that omission is the most
20.0
1400
18.0
1200
12.0
800
10.0 600
8.0 6.0
400
4.0
Union membership rate Number of strikes
2.0 -
200 0
Year
Fig. 1.
Strike Frequency and Union Membership Rate by Year.
Frequency
1000
14.0
19 84 19 85 19 86 19 87 19 88 19 89 19 90 19 91 19 92 19 93 19 94 19 95 19 96 19 97 19 98 19 99
% of labor force
16.0
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common form of misrepresentation and that events favorable to labor should lead to increased coverage of their activities. While the differences between the two years indicate that strikes in 1997 may have a greater probability of coverage by both newspapers than those in 1987, these factors focus on the environment within which the strike takes place. Certain changes in the media industry, which pertain primarily to the NYT, may act to weaken this expectation of heightened coverage in the 1990s. First, the importance of labor issues among journalists, the so called ‘‘labor beat,’’ has been declining as a legitimate area of professional development, potentially leading to a decline in the coverage of labor activities (Puette, 1992). Second, the newshole of most major newspapers has been steadily shrinking as more space is being devoted to advertising (Parenti, 1993). If these two trends increased from 1987 to 1997, it is likely that the NYT would cover fewer strikes in 1997. The DLR, conversely, has remained more stable across the 10-year period: the number of pages devoted to current events has remained virtually unchanged, there is no advertising for either year, and the number of BNA correspondents writing for the newspaper is also constant. Because I cannot measure the extent to which the NYT is actually affected by these two trends, the hypothesis that strikes occurring in 1997 will be covered at a higher rate than strikes in 1987 is expected for both newspapers, though the effect may be smaller for the NYT. Hypothesis 10. Given important trends that occurred between 1987 and 1997 (decline in strike frequency, revitalization of the labor movement, and the election of Bill Clinton to President), strikes are more likely to be covered in 1997 than in 1987 for both newspapers. However, due to general trends in the media, the difference in coverage between the two years may be small or nonexistent in the NYT. I now turn to a description of my research methodology, which will allow me to test the hypotheses developed above.
3. RESEARCH DESIGN I begin with a description of the sources used to create the population of strike for these two years. This is followed with an account of the collection of newspaper coverage data. Finally, the measures used to test the hypotheses presented above will be described.
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3.1. Population of Strike Events The most common way to examine media selection of protest events is to compare those covered by the media to a population of independently enumerated events. The best studies rely on government sources, usually police records (Barranco & Wisler, 1999; Hocke, 1999; McCarthy et al., 1996; Oliver & Maney, 2000; Oliver & Myers, 1999) to construct the population of events. A similar methodology is employed here. Strike data from three government agencies, the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (FMCS), the National Mediation Board (NMB), and the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) were merged to create the event population.10 The FMCS records the majority of the strikes, 1,313 (99%), for the two years. This agency seeks, as its name implies, to resolve labor disputes in most industries and is alerted to strikes either by the parties involved or by its mediators that work in the field. Like the rest of the agencies, it collects its data directly from the parties involved. The second government agency, the NMB, was created by the Railway Labor Act to monitor labor disputes in the transportation industries. Because the NMB has sole jurisdiction in transportation, there is no overlap between the NMB and the FMCS. For these two years, the NMB measured only three disputes. Its data collection methods are similar to the FMCS. The third government source used is the BLS, which, until 1981, gathered information on all labor disputes involving six or more individuals. Because of federal funding cutbacks, it now limits its data collection to strikes involving over 1,000 workers. Although the FMCS should capture all strikes measured by the BLS, of the 68 strikes recorded by the BLS for both years, 17 of them were not included in the FMCS data. Unlike the other agencies, the BLS also relies on state offices and newspapers to discover strike events. From this small number of strikes (20) added by the two supplemental data sources, future analyses of industrial conflict may want to rely solely on the FMCS.
3.2. Collection of Newspaper Data In this section I describe the process by which the two newspapers were searched for any trace(s) of strike coverage. In evaluating whether an event constituted a strike, the BLS’s definition of a work stoppage was employed – ‘‘a temporary stoppage of work by a group of employees (not necessarily union members) to express a grievance or enforce a demand.’’11 The
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Lexis-Nexis newspaper archive was used to collect stories on the NYT’s selection of strikes, while the BNA’s web site was searched for strike stories in the DLR. However, because the BNA did not archive the DLR before 1993, the Lexis collection was used to search the 1987 DLR.12 The following Boolean keyword search string was used for each search engine: ‘‘strike,’’ ‘‘lockout’’ (the government does not distinguish between strikes and lockouts), ‘‘walkout,’’ ‘‘labor dispute,’’ or ‘‘work stoppage.’’ The keywords in the search string were separated by an ‘‘or,’’ as to capture the greatest number of stories. I also searched the entire text of every story, not just the headline. Because of the ‘‘broad net’’ cast for strike stories, I believe that all conflicts covered by either source are included in the data.13
3.3. Measurement of Key Variables This section describes how the key variables discussed in the hypotheses above are operationalized. Data for all of the independent variables were drawn from the government data sources. Given the detail of government data, most of the measures were collapsed into broader categories. Table 1 includes both a shortened version of each of the hypotheses developed above and the measures taken from the government data set that are used to test them. As this table illustrates, most variables are coded either as dummy variables (location, year, industry,14 media savvy unions) or scales (size, length, persondays lost, and union size). As none of the industry measures are expected to affect coverage for the DLR, Hypotheses 4B, 5B, and 6B all predict no relationship between industry and coverage in the DLR. I now turn to my results section, where the effect of strike characteristics on coverage in both newspapers is examined.
4. RESULTS The two major research goals of this project are to: (1) identify those characteristics of domestic strike events that increase their probability of coverage in the NYT and DLR and (2) examine the similarities and differences between the NYT and DLR in their coverage of industrial conflict. I first analyze the selection criteria of each newspaper, beginning with the NYT. I then compare differences in selection bias across the two newspapers, noting
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Table 1. Hypothesis
Hypotheses and Measures Employed to Test Them. Variable Type
Hypothesis 1
Scale
Hypothesis 2A
Hypothesis 3
Two dummy variables Two dummy variables Scale
Hypothesis 4A
Dummy
Hypothesis 2B
Hypothesis 4B Hypothesis 5A
Measurement Used Number of employees: 2–25 ¼ 1 26–100 ¼ 2 101–1,000 ¼ 3 1,001–10,000 ¼ 4 10,000–100,000 ¼ 5 4100,000 ¼ 6 1 New York State (local) ¼ 1 2 NJ and CT (regional) ¼ 1 1 BNA City ¼ 1 2 BNA State ¼ 1 Length in days: 1–10 ¼ 1 11–50 ¼ 2 51–100 ¼ 3 101–500 ¼ 4 4500 ¼ 5 Entertainments/sports, and communication (entertainment) ¼ 1
Two dummy variables
Human transportation ¼ 1 Government, education, and health care (essential services) ¼ 1
Two dummy variables
Retail/wholesale/service and food manufacturing/distribution/sales (retail/food services) ¼ 1 Manufacturing ¼ 1
Hypothesis 6B Hypothesis 7
Scale
Hypothesis 8 Hypothesis 9
Dummy Scale
Hypothesis 10
Dummy
Number of persondays: 1–100 ¼ 1 101–1,000 ¼ 2 1,001–10,000 ¼ 3 10,001–100,000 ¼ 4 100,001–1,000,000 ¼ 5 41,000,000 ¼ 6 Media savvy unions ¼ 1 Membership: 1–10,000 ¼ 1 10,001–100,000 ¼ 2 100,001–1,000,000 ¼ 3 41,000,000 ¼ 4 1997 ¼ 1
Hypothesis 5B Hypothesis 6A
The communication industry is included because many strikes in this industry occur in the
entertainment world (e.g. television).
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any differences between the two, hypothesized above or not. For all analyses, multivariate logistic regression is used. The strike was coded one, if the particular newspaper covered it; zero, if it did not. For both newspapers, a model was first run with the protest specific variables (size, location, length), and then the unique strike measures (industry, persondays lost, union measures) and year were added. By doing so, the effect of variables not commonly used in previous selection bias research can be evaluated. Before I turn to the multivariate analysis, I offer a brief description of the coverage of strikes for both newspapers.
4.1. Description of Coverage in the NYT and DLR Table 2 documents the number of strikes that each of the two sources cover by year. What is most striking about this table is that both newspapers fail to cover the vast majority of strike events. In general, it appears that neither newspaper remotely comes close to providing a census of strike events in either 1987 or 1997. Also, the DLR’s coverage of strikes is much more stable than that of the NYT, resulting in a higher proportion of strikes covered in 1997 than 1987, given the declining strike rate.15 The number of strikes covered in the NYT indicates this newspaper’s newshole as shrunk between 1987 and 1997, which supports Hypothesis 10. In addition to the small proportion of strikes covered by both newspapers, the level of overlap that exists across the two newspapers was somewhat unexpected. Figure 2 illustrates this overlap with respect to the total population of strikes available for coverage during the two years. What is remarkable is that although only a small percentage (about 8%) of the 1,300+ strikes received any media attention, nearly half of those covered were by both newspapers. The rate of overlap (41%) was identical across the two years – 25 of 61 in 1987 and 20 of 49 in 1997. These findings alone indicate that the newsworthiness assessment employed by both newspapers is remarkably similar. In addition, it is possible that journalists for each newspaper rely on the other for information on important strike events, which would also lead to an increase in overlapping coverage. I now turn to Table 2.
1987 1997
Number of Strikes Reported in the NYT and DLR by Year. Reported in NYT
Reported in DLR
Total
46 (5.1 %) 26 (6.1%)
40 (4.4%) 43 (10.1%)
909 424
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Selection Bias in Media Coverage of Strikes 2% 3% 3%
% of strikes not covered % of strikes covered by both sources % of strikes covered only by the DLR % of strikes covered only by the NYT
92%
Fig. 2.
Breakdown of Strikes by Coverage for both 1987 and 1997.
a careful examination of how strike characteristics drive coverage in both the NYT and DLR.
4.2. NYT Selection Bias The first model in Table 3 presents the effects of the protest covariates on strike selection by the NYT. These include size, location, and length. Immediately apparent is the strong effect of size on coverage, which supports Hypothesis 1. A one-unit increase in the log size scale increases the odds of coverage by nearly 13 times. Alternatively, a strike that idles over 100,000 workers has odds of coverage that is over 60 times higher than a strike that falls in the smallest size category (2–25). Not surprisingly, the probability that such an event will be covered is a virtual certainty, just under 1.0.
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Table 3. Coefficients for Logistic Regression of Selection of Domestic Strikes by the NYT and DLR (Numbers in Parentheses are Odds Ratios). Model 1: NYT Protest
Protest Measures Size scale New York Times Location New York (NYT local) CT and NJ (NYT regional)
Model 2: NYT Protest and Strike
2.538 (12.655)
1.574 (4.825)
1.853 (6.381) 0.922 (2.515)
2.056 (7.816) 2.105 (8.204)
BNA location Cities w/BNA reporter States w/BNA reporter Length scale
0.424 (1.528)
Strike Measures Industry (Other is reference category) Entertainment Human transportation Essential services Retail/food Services Manufacturing Persondays lost scale Union measures Media savvy unions Union membership Year (1997) Constant 2 log likelihood Chi-square Number of cases
11.758 344.633 215.673 1333
0.359 (0.698)
Model 3: DLR Protest
2.921 (18.551)
1.682 (5.375)
0.560 (1.751) 0.299 (1.348) 0.329 (1.389)
0.311 (1.365) 0.240 (1.271) 0.564 (0.569)
6.781 (880.831) 5.428 (227.745) 3.013 (20.344) 2.299 (9.960) 2.345 (10.435) 1.868 (6.475)
3.398 (29.909) 0.878 (2.406) 0.806 (2.240) 0.742 (2.100) 0.255 (1.290) 2.101 (8.186)
1.233 (0.291) 0.000 (1.000) 0.189 (1.209) 16.372 251.967 308.339 1333
0.180 (1.197) 0.205 (0.815) 1.439 (4.131) 14.707 292.274 329.321 1333
12.560 359.887 261.707 1333
NYT Model comparison: Chi-square difference Model 1 vs. Model 2 ¼ 92.666 DLR Model comparison: Chi-square difference Model 3 vs. Model 4 ¼ 67.614
po0:05; po0:01 (two-tailed test).
Model 4: DLR Protest and Strike
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The result of this coefficient is consistent with findings of previous research: large events receive the lion’s share of media attention. Hypothesis 2A predicts that strikes that occur in or near New York will be disproportionately selected by the NYT. To test this hypothesis, two strike location dummy variables are used: (1) New York state (NYT local) and (2) New Jersey or Connecticut (NYT region). As with size, the results here indicate that the NYT’s coverage of strike events mimics its coverage of other forms of protest. Strikes in the state of New York are over six times as likely to be selected by the NYT than strikes in other states, while strikes in NJ and CT have a probability of coverage significantly higher than strikes in other parts of the country. The reasons for this, as discussed earlier, are that the NYT has a geographically concentrated readership and a local section devoted to events in the New York area. Hypothesis 3 predicts a positive relationship between the length of the strike and its probability of coverage by the NYT, which is supported by Model 1. The variability that exists across strikes with respect to their length (1–1,230 days) allows a unique opportunity to further analyze the importance of length on coverage, which is often not included in protest (as opposed to riot) selection research because of the short time span of most protest events. To determine if the relationship between length and coverage is nonlinear, Model 1 was rerun with the addition of a quadratic length function (not shown). The model indicates that the relationship between length and coverage is actually curvilinear – a negative main effect and a positive quadratic effect, both significant. The results from the model are graphed in Fig. 3, which illustrates the effect of length on the predicted probability of coverage in the NYT (the similar effect for the DLR is also graphed, and will be discussed below). From Fig. 3, it is clear that, when controlling for location and size, length is only related to coverage for very long strikes, which are quite rare (only 0.8% strikes last longer than 500 days). While much of the previous research that examines the effect of length has focused on riots, this finding indicates that length is also positively related to coverage in more carefully planned forms of collective behavior. As discussed above, the reason offered for this relationship is that as the length of the strike increases, the newshole also expands, thus providing more space for coverage. The second model in Table 3 includes the addition of important strike specific measures (industry, persondays lost, union affiliation and size, and year). The addition of these measures did have some effect on the protest coefficients in Model 1. First, both location coefficients actually increased in strength, adding further support to Hypothesis 2A. Conversely, the size and
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0.14 NYT 0.12
DLR
0.1
P
0.08
0.06
0.04
0.02
0 1-10
11-50
51-100
101-500
>500
Length in Days
Fig. 3.
Relationship between Length of Strike and Predicted Probability of Coverage in the NYT and DLR.
length coefficients both declined in magnitude, with length becoming negative, though insignificant. A possible reason is that because the persondays lost scale is constructed from the size and length measures, these variables will be highly correlated. This is indeed the case – the correlation between size and persondays lost is 0.6 and the correlation between length and persondays lost is 0.63. Using the variance inflation factor (VIF), the presence of multicollinearity between length and size and persondays lost was confirmed. To address this, Model 2 was rerun excluding persondays lost (not shown). In this reduced model, the effect of size and length was similar to that of Model 1, indicating that some of the variance that is explained by persondays lost is due in part to its correlation to size and length. Finally, the chi-square comparison of Model 1 and Model 2 indicates that the addition of the strike specific measures significantly improved the fit of the model, indicating the overall importance of these measures when predicting strike selection by the NYT. The industry measures are included to test Hypotheses 4A, 5A, and 6A. The reference category is made up of construction, electricity/natural gas, maritime, mining, and petrochemicals, those industries that were not expected to be related to coverage. Therefore, the results for the industry covariates indicate the likelihood of coverage compared to the reference
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category. Hypothesis 4A, which predicts that strikes in the entertainment industries will have an increased probability of coverage, is strongly supported. The odds of strikes in these industries being selected for coverage by the NYT are over 800 times of those strikes in the reference category, supporting the general claim that mass media sources such as the NYT consider the activities of celebrities to be particularly newsworthy. The next two hypotheses, which are based on the corporate hegemony, claim that unpopular strikes will receive disproportionate attention by the mass media, also receive strong support here. First, strikes that affect the everyday routines of the public (those in the human transportation and essential services industries) have a significantly higher probability of coverage than strikes in the reference category. The effect of transportation is nearly as powerful as the entertainment coefficient. The retail/food services and manufacturing industries variables indicate support for Hypothesis 6A, strikes in industries that interrupt normal consumption patterns are significantly more likely to be covered than those strikes in the reference category because of their negative impact on consumers. Because manufacturing includes the production of goods not directly consumed by the public, but rather other businesses, the corporate hegemony explanation may not be the entire reason why strikes in these industries are highly covered. A better measure, which is not available here, is to examine the NYT’s coverage of strikes in industries that produce highly valued consumer goods. Despite this, Hypotheses 5A and 6A indicate support for the corporate hegemony perspective: the NYT disproportionately selects strikes in industries that have a negative impact on the normal routines of the public and consumers. Although the industry coefficients indicate support Hypotheses 4A–6A, they all are dependent on comparisons to the reference industry. In order to determine the difference in strike selection between industries, Model 2 was rerun so that each industry category was used as the reference (not shown). The two most highly covered industries are entertainment and transportation, which are not significantly different from each other in terms of coverage. The essential services, retail/food services, and manufacturing industries are all statistically similar to one another in the probability of strike selection. Strikes in these industries have a significantly lower probability of coverage than strikes in the transportation and entertainment industries, yet are significantly more likely to be selected than strikes in the reference category. Finally, to assess the overall impact of the industry variable as a whole, Model 2 was rerun without any industry measures (not shown). Comparing the chi-squares, the inclusion of the industry variable significantly improves the fit of the model, supporting the overall claim that
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the industry of the strike is of particular importance to the NYT in evaluating its newsworthiness. In addition to the importance of issue salience (industry), this model supports Hypothesis 7, which predicts that the probability of coverage is positively related to the disruptiveness of the strike, which is measured here by the number of persondays lost. Although other indicators of disruption (arrest, injuries/deaths, and illegal activities) would also be expected to be related to the likelihood of coverage, the persondays lost coefficient captures a dimension of protest not commonly used in the previous literature, the degree of economic disruption caused by the event. This coefficient, which is actually more powerful than the effect of size, clearly indicates that the NYT pays close attention to strikes that are particularly disruptive to the production process of a firm. This finding indicates that coverage of other forms of economic protests, such as the boycott, might also be positively related to the economic damage they cause. The next two hypotheses focus on the characteristics of the striking union and how they relate to coverage. Hypothesis 8 predicts that strikes conducted by unions with media experience and knowledge will be disproportionately covered by the NYT. Clearly, this is not the case; strikes by media savvy unions actually have a lower probability of coverage. There is also little support for the expectation that the size of the striking union should be positively related to media attention due to increased resources and legitimacy (Hypothesis 9). One possible reason for the lack of importance of these union measures is that strikes are conducted primarily by local unions, while the measures used here, especially size, capture characteristics of the international. Although local union characteristics would be preferable, the number of strikes analyzed necessarily limits my measurements to the international affiliates.16 Finally, the effect of year on coverage fails to reach significance, demonstrating no support for Hypothesis 10. Table 2 indicates that although the number of strikes declined between 1987 and 1997, so did the newshole of the NYT. In fact, it covered almost the exact same percentage of strikes in both years. Changes in the mass media, including the decline in the labor beat and the increasing proportion of space devoted to advertising, may have offset factors that led to the expectation that a greater percentage of strikes would be covered in 1997 (smaller number of strikes, revitalized labor movement, and favorable political climate) though further research is necessary to explore this possibility. Having outlined the results of using strike characteristics to predict coverage in the NYT, I now examine their effect in the DLR.
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4.3. DLR Selection Bias The first DLR model in Table 3 (Model 3) presents the effect of protest coefficients on strike selection by this newspaper. As with the NYT, the DLR is expected to select strikes in a manner similar to other forms of protest. Supporting this is the strong and positive effect of size on coverage (Hypothesis 1). Given these findings and the work of previous research on protest event selection, it appears that size is consistently one of the strongest predictors of coverage across media source, time, event form, and nation. The lack of significance for both the BNA city and state dummy variables indicates no support for Hypothesis 2B, which predicts that the DLR will cover a disproportionate amount of strikes that occur near BNA correspondents. The basis of this hypothesis is that although the DLR does not have a geographically concentrated audience and a local section, it is likely that BNA reporters will pay greater attention to strikes they encounter during the normal course of their beat (essentially a news routine argument). While this finding does not lend strong support to the news routine argument, I lack data on the actual reporting practices of the BNA correspondents. This model also demonstrates support for the positive relationship between the length of the strike and coverage (Hypothesis 3). As in the case of the NYT, the model was rerun including a quadratic length function term (not shown). The result of this model illustrated in Fig. 3 indicates a curvilinear relationship between length and coverage similar to the one in the NYT. Strikes over 500 days have a probability of coverage of 0.09, which is only slightly lower than the probability of coverage by the NYT for the highest length category (0.12). It appears that, controlling for location and size, the positive effect of length applies only to the longest strikes. Because other forms of protest are usually quite short, there may be no significant relationship between length and coverage, though is possible that length will be important for coverage of events that take place within a broader protest campaign, which can often last for years. I now turn to Model 4, which includes strike specific measures. With the addition of these variables, the effect of size is reduced, while the length coefficient becomes negative and significant. As before, the VIF indicates the presence of multicollinearity between these two variables and persondays lost. Again, by rerunning the model excluding persondays lost (not shown), the effect of size and length was similar to that of Model 3 (as in the case of the NYT, both coefficients increased slightly in magnitude). Also, as indicated by the comparison of the chi-squares of Models 4 and 5, when the
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strike specific characteristics are included the fit of the model improves significantly, indicating that the DLR, like the NYT, draws upon the unique characteristics of strikes to assess their newsworthiness. I now examine the effect of these covariates. Because of the particular characteristics of the DLR (readership, revenue base, and ownership), the industry coefficients are expected to be unrelated to coverage in the DLR, unlike the NYT. The results from this model indicate that this is not necessarily the case. Hypothesis 4B, which predicted that strikes in the entertainment industries would not be covered at a higher rate than strikes in other industries by the DLR, is not supported. These strikes are significantly more likely to be selected than those occurring in the reference category. This indicates that like mass market newspapers such as the NYT, the DLR also regards strikes by celebrities as newsworthy, although the reason used earlier to explain this effect in the NYT (the public appeal of celebrities) does not seem as likely for the DLR given its readership. Despite this unexpected finding, support here is given to the corporate hegemony perspective. The DLR, a newspaper that is not dependent on advertising for revenue nor is owned by another corporation, does not regard strikes that inconvenience the public (transportation and essential services) and consumers (retail/food services and manufacturing) as newsworthy. This lends support to the claim that media outlets less clearly dominated by corporate interests are less likely to view strikes that interrupt the normal routines of the public and/or consumers as important, supporting Hypotheses 5B and 6B. This was further confirmed when Model 4 was rerun using each industry category as the reference (not shown). With the exception of the entertainment industries, there was no significant variation among the industry categories in the probability of selection, indicating that, with one exception, industry is not an important criterion for strike coverage in the DLR. Turning to the importance of disruption on selection, Hypothesis 7 is supported; persondays lost is significant and positively related to coverage in the DLR. This measure captures the extent to which the routine production capacity of a firm is altered by the strike. However, as Perrone (1983, 1984) notes, the measure used here, persondays lost, is a relatively crude one. A preferable alternative would be the actual financial cost of the strike, which, unfortunately, is unavailable. Despite this shortcoming, the importance of this measure does indicate that the economic disruptiveness of a protest, like other measures of disruption (arrests, violence), is an important predictor of selection. Given the DLR’s audience, it is not surprising
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that strikes that have a real impact on the economy should receive disproportionate attention in this newspaper. The next two hypotheses, 8 and 9, predict that the DLR will be more likely to cover strikes conducted by media savvy and large unions. As in the case of the NYT, little support is offered for either of these hypotheses, as both coefficients fail to reach statistical significance.17 A possible reason for this lack of importance that applies specifically to this newspaper is that the DLR targets both leaders of labor unions and corporations, and that any apparent favoritism toward one side or one particular labor organization could damage the credibility of the newspaper. Obviously the media strategies of these unions and the reporting practices of BNA correspondents would need to be examined to support this claim. Hypothesis 10, which predicts that strikes occurring in 1997 will be more likely to be covered than those that occurred in 1987, is also supported. As Table 2 indicates, the DLR covered almost the exact same number of strikes in both years, but because there was less strikes in 1997 the probability that an individual strike in 1997 would be covered increased. Unlike the NYT, the DLR newshole for strikes remained stable across the 10-year period.
4.4. Comparison of Coverage in the NYT and DLR Figure 2 indicates that the selection of strikes is very similar for these two different media sources. Here I compare how important predictors of coverage varied (if at all) across the two sources. Most of the hypotheses developed above predicted that certain strike characteristics (size, length, persondays lost, union characteristics) would have a similar effect for both newspapers. For the most part these expectations are borne out by the models in Table 3. The strong effect of size on coverage is quite similar for both newspapers. The positive (though not linear) relationship between length and coverage provides initial support for a newshole explanation of coverage: the greater the available space, the higher the likelihood of coverage, regardless of newspaper. The powerful effect of the persondays lost variable on coverage for both the NYT and DLR indicates that both newspapers regard economically disruptive events as newsworthy. Also, although it was unexpected for the DLR, both newspapers assess strikes in the entertainment industries as important events. Finally, it appears that union characteristics played little role in either newspaper’s selection of strikes for coverage, though better measures of the striking local are needed to fully explore the effect these organizations have on strike selection.
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Despite these similarities, variation in coverage did exist. With the lone exception of the entertainment industry, which was positively related to coverage in both newspapers, the effect of industry is much stronger for the NYT than for the DLR. Strikes that affected the normal routines of the public (transportation, essential services) and consumers (retail and foods services and manufacturing) received disproportionate attention in the NYT, but not in the DLR. Although the hypothesized relationship between coverage (or noncoverage) and industry was based on the corporate hegemony perspective, which claims that unpopular or inconvenient strikes will be covered at a higher rate by corporate media sources to discredit organized labor, a more mundane explanation is possible. These strikes have a real impact on the lives of the NYT’s readership, while the DLR is more concerned with strikes that impact the general framework of industrial relations, not those that affect the ability of their readership to get to work on time. Unfortunately, neither of these explanations can be fully supported here, only the outcomes they would predict. Finally, the location of the strike is much more important for the NYT than the DLR. Strikes that occur in or near New York are disproportionately covered by the NYT, while strikes that occur near BNA correspondents in the field do not have a higher probability of coverage in the DLR than strikes that occur in other areas of the country. This finding provides little support for the news routine argument (reporters will cover events they are in contact with), though changes in communication technology have expanded the ‘‘beat’’ of today’s journalist. In sum, the selection of strikes by the two newspapers, both in terms of the overlap in actual strikes covered and the specific strike characteristics used to assess newsworthiness, is quite similar. Although the NYT and DLR differ in many ways (readership, newshole, reporters, revenue base, ownership), both use general characteristics of the strike such as size to assess the newsworthiness of the event. This lends support to the claim that a general standard of newsworthiness exists across these events, and all journalists, regardless of employer, recognize an important strike when they see one.
5. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION This paper set out to fill two gaps in the literature: first, to examine how the print media selects strikes for coverage, and second to compare strike selection in a mainstream mass audience newspaper commonly used to study
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other forms of protest (NYT) to a specialty newspaper that focuses solely on industrial relations (DLR). The most striking finding is the low rate of coverage found in both newspapers; only 8% of all strikes received any media attention. While this figure may appear quite low, it actually parallels the findings of prior selection bias research on the NYT. For instance, Swank (2000) finds that only 4% of the 1,322 Gulf War protests received attention by the NYT. And, the NYT was found to have covered only about 2.75% of the 3,065 demonstrations that occurred in Washington, DC in 1982 and 1991 (McCarthy et al., 1996). In contrast, Jenkins and Perrow’s (1977) comparison of NYT coverage of farmworkers’ activities in California to coverage in the Los Angeles Times and Chicago Tribune in three separate months found that of the 35 events reported, only one did not appear in the NYT, which had a more complete coverage rate than either of the other two newspapers. Finally, Snyder and Kelly (1977) found that of the 120 protests occurring between May and October 1968, 18.3% were reported in the NYT. In general, this comparison indicates that while coverage of strikes in the NYT is low, it is not substantially different from coverage of other forms of collective behavior, especially those with a very large number of participants (for example, protests in Washington, DC). As expected, both newspapers selected strikes in a manner consistent with other forms of protest events. Especially important for both newspapers was the importance of size on the likelihood of selection. The NYT also exhibited a strong regional bias, overselecting strikes that took place in or near New York. In addition, unique characteristics of the strikes, especially disruptiveness (measured by person days lost), and, for the NYT, industry, played an important role in determining coverage. Although economic disruption often defines the strike tactic, it is not the only form of protest employed by workers to raise the economic costs to a target. While other strategies, such as the boycott, can generate noticeable economic damage, tactics such as the demonstration can also be economically disruptive, particularly when they are designed to raise awareness about the activities of a particular corporate actor, such as the use of sweatshop labor to manufacturing consumer goods. Based on the findings here, it is likely that potentially more ‘‘costly’’ protests would receive disproportionate media attention. Obviously the economic impact of a protest is very difficult to measure, though strategies such as comparing a corporation’s revenue before and after a protest campaign is one possibility. Finally, despite some major differences between the two newspapers (revenue base, audience, and location), strike selection was remarkably similar across most key variables. In both 1987 and 1997, 41% of all strikes selected were covered in both
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newspapers. The extent to which the two sources mirrored each other supports the argument that there is a general standard of newsworthiness and that it shapes coverage across relatively diverse forms of media. An overarching goal of this paper is to assess the viability of employing media-based sources for data on industrial conflict. In one respect, the results suggest caution in interpretation – when combined, both newspapers only accounted for 8% of all strikes that occurred in 1987 and 1997. This clearly indicates that a single newspaper cannot provide comprehensive cover to such a large population of events (1,333 in two years). However, despite this limitation, newspapers are an invaluable source of data on industrial conflict, and indeed all forms of protest. Government data sources on events of interest, while useful, are also not without difficulties. Research on strike statistics (Franzosi, 1989; Shalev, 1978) and police records of protest (Barranco & Wisler, 1999; Maney & Oliver, 2001) indicates that these ‘‘official’’ records are often incomplete. Government records of strikes, for example, often fail to capture very short events as well as spontaneous wildcat strikes, while police records of protest often miss those protests that have not been ‘‘officially’’ permitted. As indicated earlier, the FMCS, the more comprehensive government source of strikes, missed 17 large (1,000+) strikes recorded by the BLS. Even when government sources are thought to be reasonably complete, media traces of events can provide useful data missing in official records – the FMCS data set lacked information on a variety of important strike characteristics, including the issue(s) addressed by the strike, its outcome (settlement), whether it was accompanied by violence, and use of strikebreakers, to name a few. The incompleteness of government strike sources, in terms of both events and characteristics, makes alternative sources such as newspapers an important addition to strike research. Of course, if newspapers are useful for supplementing existing statistics, then they are invaluable for studying events that are not recorded by government sources. What then, is the solution for scholars interested in either supplementing government data on certain events, or using media traces to construct a population of events? The best strategy, I argue, is to rely on a variety of different sources. Given the strong regional bias exhibited by most media sources, a range of local newspapers would be needed to fully explore national trends in events such as strikes. Oliver and Maney (2000) find that the two newspapers in Madison, WI covered nearly half of all protest events in that city. Databases such as Lexis-Nexis provide a straightforward mechanism for collecting data from regional and local newspapers (see Woolley, 2000 for a discussion of cautions about these electronic archives).
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In addition, scholars should explore alternative media as possible sources of data on events of interest. In this study, the DLR covered 11 more strikes than the NYT. The BNA Inc. alone publishes numerous daily newspapers on topics that could be useful to scholars in a variety of fields. In the case of strikes, newspapers like the Wall Street Journal and various industry publications could be used to collect more detailed reports on domestic strikes, although the shape of description bias can be expected to vary across such sources.
NOTES 1. Efforts have been made, however, to examine strikes using a distinctively social movement perspective. For some examples, see Brecher (1972); Franzosi (1995); Shorter and Tilly (1974). 2. Some studies (Glasgow University Media Group, 1976; McCarthy et al., 1996) also examine the selection bias of mass audience television. 3. Statistics are from the Spring 2002 survey of NYT readers by MRI. 4. Scholars (Jarley & Maranto, 1990; Manheim, 2001; Northrup, 1994) have relied on the DLR for information on specific labor disputes. 5. A great deal of research (Beharrell & Philo, 1977; Downing, 1980; Hartmann, 1979; Morley, 1976; Puette, 1992) has focused on labor and the media. However, much of this research focuses on description bias, not selection bias. 6. An alternative way to measure this variable would be the cause of the strike (wages, union recognition, etc.), but the government does not measure this characteristic, so I rely on industry. As noted by an anonymous reviewer, the issue salience of protest can range from the general issue raised by the movement (civil rights, environment) to the extent of change sought (reform vs. revolutionary). I acknowledge that my measurement of issue salience captures at best only one dimension of this concept. 7. Of course, it is possible that the firm would hire strikebreakers to continue operations, which could increase the disruptiveness of the event as strikers clash with scabs. Also, this measure does not capture the actual amount of economic damage inflicted by the strike both within the targeted firm and on other dependent firms (Perrone, 1983, 1984; Wallace, Griffin, & Rubin, 1989). Neither of these variables, however, is measured by the government. 8. Of course, media selection is only the beginning of the process – the coverage must also be positive. However, according to Parenti (1993, p. 192), ‘‘the single most common form of misrepresentation is omission.’’ [italics original]. Therefore, selection is the first step in favorable media attention. This, of course, contradicts Hypotheses 5A and 6A, which predict that the NYT selects strikes in an effort to discredit labor. However, while it is likely that much variation exists within this newspaper over how organized labor is portrayed, this cannot be examined until the content of the NYT’s coverage of strikes is assessed. For the current study, I assume that strike selection can be both positive and negative for organized labor.
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9. These unions include: Communication Workers of America; International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers; Laborers’ International Union of North America; Service Employees International Union; International Brotherhood of Teamsters; American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees; Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees; United Steelworkers of America; United Food and Commercial Workers; and Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees (UNITE was formed in 1995 as a merger of the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union and the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union, so for 1987 there were 11 unions). 10. While government records are the most popular source for population data on various forms of collective behavior, scholars that study protest and industrial conflict (Barranco & Wisler, 1999; Davenport & Ball, 2002; Franzosi, 1989; Maney & Oliver, 2001; Shalev, 1978) note the shortcomings of these ‘‘official’’ data. Specifically, in the case of strikes, they may not be a census of the population of events. For example, the FMCS missed 17 events that were identified by the BLS. Also, they fail to measure unofficial ‘‘wildcat’’ strikes, and probably fail to record very short work stoppages. The weaknesses of official statistics will be discussed further in the conclusion. 11. To this broad definition the following five conditions were added. First, it must involve two or more persons acting together (thus constituting a collective action). Second, the strike must occur within the United States. Third, it must fall within one of the years studied, either 1987 or 1997 (because some strikes for both years began before and/or ended after the two years, I began my search in November of the previous year and ended it in February of the following year to cover a greater time period). Fourth, both wildcat strikes (strikes not authorized by the union) and lockouts are included as they are included in the government data, although not differentiated from other strikes. Fifth, there was no minimum length requirement. 12. Maney and Oliver (2001) discuss the potential strengths and weaknesses of relying on electronic vs. manual searches. However, for 1987 the print version of the DLR was also searched manually. Both the manual search and the electronic search captured the same events, thus giving the search methods increased reliability. 13. Over 70% of all stories that were identified by the search string were deemed not to pertain to any strike. 14. The reference category for industry, not described in Table 1, consists of construction, electricity/natural gas, maritime, mining, and petrochemicals. This is the only industry category not expected to be related to coverage. 15. While the DLR was searched electronically in both 1987 and 1997, because the archives used differed (BNA in 1997, Lexis in 1987), it is possible that the results produced were incomplete for one of the archives. However, because the same Boolean string was used to search the full-text stories in both archives, it is highly unlikely that the variation in coverage exhibited in Table 2 is an artifact of the use of two different electronic archives. 16. International involvement in strikes conducted by their local affiliates is possible, especially in high-stakes disputes – those that are large, long, or involve a high loss of persondays (for example, see Juravich & Bronfenbrenner, 1999). To determine if international union characteristics mattered in these strikes, an interaction between the media saviness dummy and size, length, and persondays lost was created
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and a model was run that included these measures (not shown). Only the length interaction was significant and positive, indicating that as the length of the event increases, coverage in the NYT is more likely for those unions affiliated with a media adept international. A possible reason for the relationship between international involvement and length is that unions engage in short strikes when they are in a position of power in the bargaining relationship, while weaker unions often conduct long strikes, usually during downturns in the business cycle (Grant & Wallace, 1991; Vroman, 1989). It is possible that unions involved in longer strikes may appeal to the international for assistance, thus increasing the likelihood of coverage for unions affiliated with media-friendly internationals. Unfortunately, this explanation cannot be systematically tested until data on the actual media strategies of the international during the strike are collected. 17. Again, a model was run that includes the interaction between the media saviness dummy and size, length, and persondays lost. In the case of the DLR, however, none of the interaction terms were significant.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The author would like to thank Lee Ann Banaszak, Mark Wardell, David Croteau, and three anonymous reviewers for all of their helpful comments. The author is especially indebted to John D. McCarthy, for without his careful comments, suggestions and readings, this project could not have been completed.
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WILDERNESS OR WORKING FOREST? BRITISH COLUMBIA FOREST POLICY DEBATE IN THE VANCOUVER SUN, 1991–2003 Mark C. J. Stoddart ABSTRACT I examine how four distinct episodes of environmental policy debate have been depicted in the Vancouver Sun, British Columbia’s largest daily newspaper. Discourse analysis is applied to the Protected Areas Strategy, the Forest Practices Code, the Working Forest and the Results-based Forest Practices Code. The network of power/knowledge constructed through these texts limits debate to the hegemonic alternatives of ‘‘ecomanagerialism’’ and ‘‘eco-capitalism.’’ This textual reality is constructed from three major organizational standpoints: government, industry and environmentalists. The voices of First Nations and forestry labour are marginalized, as are discourses that challenge the hegemony of the ‘‘treadmill of production.’’
FRAMING THE PROBLEM The media are a key site for the construction of social reality. Through media texts, we form ideas and opinions about people, places and public Research in Social Movements, Conflicts and Change, Volume 26, 179–198 Copyright r 2005 by Elsevier Ltd. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 0163-786X/doi:10.1016/S0163-786X(05)26006-8
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issues beyond the realm of our everyday lives (Tuchman, 1978; Gitlin, 1980). Through the media, speakers from government, industry and other ‘‘important’’ news sources work to structure the social world beyond our daily experience. This textual reality consistently privileges a selective group of media sources, while marginalizing countless other voices from public debate. As Ericson et al. note: [The news] offers a perpetual articulation of how society is socially stratified in terms of possession and use of knowledge (Ericson, Baranek, & Chan, 1989, p. 3).
In short, a sociological analysis of the news media is important because the discursive reality created by the news is linked both to the maintenance of hegemony and to struggles to transform the political, ideological, and economic structures of the society (Fairclough & Wodak, 1997). Environmental problems are among the prominent public issues that are constructed and contested through the mass media (Hannigan, 1995). Whether we examine old-growth logging, global warming, or endangered species legislation, public knowledge about environmental conflict and environmental policy is shaped through interaction with media texts. In the case of British Columbia (BC), forestry conflict has been a central area of environmental activism and policy conflict. As George Hoberg writes: Forests are an essential part of the heritage and identity of British Columbians, and forest policy has long been central to BC politicsyin the early 1990s the issue erupted into one of the most dominant concerns of government (Hoberg, 1996, p. 272).
Beginning from the centrality of forest policy conflict, I have examined how the Vancouver Sun has framed parks and forestry policy debate, under both the present Liberal government (2001) and the previous New Democratic Party (NDP) government (1991–2001). In 1991, the NDP introduced their ‘‘Protected Areas Strategy,’’ (PAS) whereby 12 per cent of the provincial land-base was protected as parkland. During their time in power, the NDP also introduced the Forest Practices Code, which increased the regulation of logging on crown land. While there are ecological critiques of both these policies, they did place meaningful restrictions on the power of resource corporations over provincial forestry resources (M’Gonigle, 2000; Wilson, 2001; Hoberg, 2001). By contrast, the Liberal Party has introduced a ‘‘results-based’’ Forest Practices Code, which has created more space for ‘‘self-monitoring’’ by the forest industry. In 2001, the Liberal government also introduced ‘‘Working Forest’’ legislation. Initially, the Working Forest appeared to be the inverse of the PAS. In its nascent form, the Working Forest would have defined
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forestry as the primary use of all forested Crown land not currently in parks or other protected areas. However, by July 2004 the legislation had been transformed to a ‘‘symbolic’’ gesture of recognition for the importance of the forest industry to the BC economy (Western Canada Wilderness Committee, 2004). Despite the proclaimed ‘‘victory’’ for the BC environmental movement represented by the Working Forest, the two policy initiatives demonstrate that the Liberal government is interested in re-inscribing the control of forestry capital over forest resources. In this paper, I present a synthesized reading of these four case studies. I argue that the network of power/knowledge constructed by the Vancouver Sun limits debate over environmental policy to the hegemonic alternatives of ‘‘ecomanagerialism’’ and ‘‘eco-capitalism.’’ According to Luke, ecomanagerialism takes as its guiding mission the ‘‘redefining and then administering the earth as ‘natural resources’’’ (Luke, 1999, p. 104). While eco-managerialism implies a more active role for the state, eco-capitalism emphasizes the importance of ‘‘the market’’ as a tool for solving ‘‘even the most serious manifestations of ecological crisis’’ (Adkin, 1998, p. 318). By limiting debate to these dominant discourses, the Sun represents opposing opinions on environmental policy issues, without offering a substantive critique of the underlying political economy of the forest industry. Finally, this network of power/knowledge is constructed from three major organizational standpoints: government, industry and environmentalists. News sources that speak from First Nations and labour perspectives are generally marginalized from the Sun’s coverage of these episodes of environmental policy debate. When these groups are acknowledged, they are more often spoken about than allowed to speak for themselves. The marginalization of forestry labour and BC First Nations voices from these episodes of policy debate is an important patterned silence. While we cannot infer the systematic marginalization of these voices from the Sun’s construction of reality from an analysis of four specific archives, my findings do suggest that First Nations and labour voices are lower on the ‘‘hierarchy of credibility’’ than news sources from government, industry and environmental organizations (Ericson et al., 1989).
METHODOLOGY A Foucauldian approach to discourse analysis was used for this project. Discourse analysis is the set of qualitative research methods that chronicle and interpret the social use of language, or discourse. From a Foucauldian
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perspective, discourse is a medium of social power. He writes, ‘‘there can be no possible exercise of power without a certain economy of discourses of truth’’ (Foucault, 1980, p. 93). As Apperly writes, Foucauldian discourse analysis: locates power at the level of discursive formations which make possible specific truths and knowledges and which also make possible specific kinds of agents and structures (Apperly, 1997, p. 15).
Foucault uses the term ‘‘archeology’’ to describe the method of examining how discursive formations come into being, as well as how discursive formations construct social objects (Foucault, 1972). Through archeology, we attempt to describe how discourse ‘‘restricts, limits and arranges what can and cannot be said’’ about a given subject (Prior, 1997, pp. 70–71). Archeological analysis looks at the ways in which ‘‘discourse empowers certain agents to create representations,’’ thereby privileging certain social actors and marginalizing others from the practices that shape our social realities (p. 71). In documenting how social knowledge is constructed through discourse, archeology describes how ‘‘sanctioned forms of rational discourse’’ are linked to ‘‘governing systems of order, appropriation and exclusion’’ (Gordon, 1980, p. 233). Thus, archeology is concerned with the ways in which the production of discourses of ‘‘truth’’ perpetuates relationships of social power. For this project, I collected texts from the Vancouver Sun during a period from the beginning of 1991 to the summer of 2003. These texts covered four specific environmental policy initiatives: the NDP’s PAS; the NDP’s Forest Practices Code; the Liberals’ Results-based Forest Practices Code; and the Liberals’ Working Forest initiative. In gathering texts from the Sun, I followed the qualitative convention of using theoretical, or purposive sampling, rather than the method of random sampling associated with quantitative forms of textual analysis. As Silverman notes: Purposive sampling allows us to choose a case because it illustrates some feature or process in which we are interested (Silverman, 2001, p. 250).
Purposive sampling is inherently flexible and can emerge as research proceeds. Small groups of texts can be selected as required to illuminate theoretically interesting social processes (Miles & Huberman, 1994). By the time I had reached saturation, I had sampled and coded 84 texts, approximately 20 texts for each of the four policy initiatives. To collect newspaper texts, I did keyword searching using two different online databases: Canadian NewsDisc and Canadian Newsstand. I chose to
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include all types of articles, rather than focusing only on news texts, because editorials, columns and letters may have as important a role as news stories in shaping the textual social reality of the Sun. To collect articles on the PAS, I did a keyword search for ‘‘protected areas’’ or ‘‘Parks Legacy’’ (a term used later in the NDP period to describe the PAS) in the full text of articles. After removing articles that were irrelevant, I was left with a set of 27 texts. I imported these into N6, a software package for qualitative data analysis (QSR, 2002). A further keyword search of Canadian Newsstand led to the inclusion of 10 more texts. In order to collect texts on the NDP Forest Practices Code, I searched Canadian Newsstand during the period from 1991 to 1994. Keyword searching for ‘‘Forest Practices Code’’ in the Sun turned up several hundred articles. I limited this sample by searching for articles that contained the keywords ‘‘Forest Practices Code’’ and either ‘‘NDP’’ or ‘‘New Democratic Party’’ in the article text. This gave me a set of 12 texts, which I imported to N6. I then searched Canadian NewsDisc, using the same keyword search strategy. A search of the full article text turned up over 100 articles, so I reduced the set of articles by doing a lead paragraph search for the keywords ‘‘Forest Practices Code’’ and either ‘‘NDP’’ or ‘‘New Democratic Party.’’ This turned up a set of seven articles. I did a further search of Canadian NewsDisc for ‘‘Forest Practices Code’’ as a keyword in the lead paragraph of news and op-ed articles from 1994 to 1996. This allowed me to focus on the period immediately leading up to, and following, the introduction of the Code. This gave me seven additional texts to work with. Finally, I searched Canadian NewsDisc for ‘‘Forest Practices Code’’ as a keyword in the lead paragraph of articles published from 1996 to 2001. Focusing only on front-page articles, I imported another seven articles to N6. To complete this second stage of sampling, I imported two front-page articles, which were published between 1991 and 1994 that contained ‘‘Forest Practices Code’’ as a lead paragraph keyword. The third textual archive focused on the Liberals’ ‘‘Results-based’’ Forest Practices Code. I searched Canadian Newsstand for the keywords ‘‘Forest Practices Code’’ and ‘‘results based code’’ in the full article text of articles, published between May 2001 and the summer of 2003. By limiting my search to article citations and abstracts, I arrived at a set of 20 texts, which I imported to N6. The final group of articles dealt with the Liberals’ Working Forest Initiative. For this set, I searched for ‘‘working forest’’ as a keyword in the full-text of articles. This gave me a set of 26 relevant articles, which I imported to N6.
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After each phase of sampling, I coded and analyzed the different sets of texts. The coding process involved reading through the texts in small groups (subsamples from the original groups), which were chosen through a process of purposive sampling. That is, each subset of three–five texts was selected on the basis that they were theoretically interesting. One general principle that guided my selection of subsamples was a desire to maintain an approximate balance between news texts, on one hand, and editorials, op-ed pieces and columns, on the other. I did not create a comprehensive coding scheme prior to engaging with my data. As Silverman notes, while coding schemes are useful for helping us to move quickly through data, they also ‘‘furnish ‘a powerful conceptual grid’ from which it is difficult to escape’’ (Silverman, 2000, p. 825). By adhering to a preconceived coding scheme, the ‘‘uncategorized activities’’ within the data are likely to go unnoticed (p. 825). In an attempt to address this problem, I created codes as I read through the data. While this resulted in a makeshift ‘‘coding scheme’’ that was often redundant and required work to pare down, I believe it was worth coding from the data to avoid putting on the conceptual blinders of a predefined scheme. Thus, my conclusions were built up in a manner suggested by the ‘‘grounded theory’’ tradition of qualitative sociology (Glaser & Strauss, 1967). I coded each text I read for the ‘‘bibbits’’ that felt relevant. As Kirby and McKenna note, a bibbit is a ‘‘snippet or bite of information’’ that feels important (Kirby & McKenna, 1989, p. 135). The bibbits were originally coded to ‘‘free nodes’’ in N6, which are stand-alone categories used to collect similar pieces of data (QSR, 2002). Once I had created a substantial number of free nodes, I sorted these into a ‘‘node tree,’’ which orders the nodes in relation to each other. For example, nodes were organized into trees based on who was speaking within the text; whether the bibbits demonstrated some facet of a particular type of discourse; or whether the bibbits were drawn from news texts or editorials. As I worked through several readings of the texts, I also made document memos and annotations, which allowed me to build up observations until I reached a degree of saturation that allowed me to form conclusions about the data. Finally, the conclusions that were drawn through working with N6 were primarily ‘‘descriptive,’’ rather than analytical or interpretive (Wolcott, 1994). That is, I initially attempted to summarize the data without engaging in extensive theoretical interpretation. Only after I finished working through the coding and analysis phase of all four groups of texts did I attempt to draw more ‘‘interpretive’’ conclusions, where I theorized the results.
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CONSTRUCTING THE NDP In this section, I will consider the Sun’s construction of the NDP government. In the PAS texts, government discourse is dominated by a ‘‘compromise’’ theme. In the textual world of the Sun, the state governed by the NDP acts as a mediator, seeking to balance the interests of environmentalists and the forest industry. The following excerpt provides a typical example of this theme: Scott Benton, the B.C. parks official who tried to keep the talks on track, says they signed the draft deal this spring because everyone realized they wanted a less uncertain future. ‘‘Not everybody got what they wanted, but everyone had something to gain – a little more certainty in their lives,’’ he says. ‘‘That’s what kept people at the table.’’ (Bohn, 1993, p. B4)
The creation of new protected areas, totalling 12 per cent of the province, is generally seen as an accomplishment. In several instances, the Sun constructs an evolutionary narrative in which the period of the ‘‘war in the woods’’ is succeeded by an emergent period of compromise. For example: Last August, after some 15 months of deliberation, an agreement was reached by representatives from the B.C. forest industry, the provincial government and outdoors, environmental, labor, mining and tourist groupsy. Endorsed by the provincial government and announced in October, it was hailed as bringing peace to our troubled forests and ending years of strife (Not a Class Act: Threats to Disrupt Logging Undermine Hard-won Forests & Parks Accord, 1997, p. A14).
Through ‘‘compromise,’’ environmental values are articulated with a politics of eco-managerialism, wherein the non-human world is parcelled out into protected areas, to be governed by the state, and productive areas, which are the domain of capital. By contrast, the Sun’s portrayal of the NDP in texts that deal with the Forest Practices Code is marked by three successive dominant discourses. Initially, the Code is constructed as an environmentally progressive piece of legislation. The Sun treats the Code as an example of Premier Mike Harcourt’s willingness to get ‘‘tough’’ with capital in the pursuit of environmental sustainability. This is illustrated in the following excerpt: The New Democratic Party government, which has felt enormous political heat over its decision to allow limited logging to continue in Clayoquot Sound, hopes the code will convince many environmentalists that past, shoddy forestry practices will no longer be tolerated (Baldrey, 1993, p. A1).
Here and elsewhere, the Sun promotes an image of a ‘‘green’’ NDP. This construction of the NDP and the Code is echoed by environmental news sources.
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However, this discursive construction of the NDP quickly shifts. Soon, the Code is represented as too costly for business. The NDP are constructed as overly bureaucratic enemies of capital. The Code is invoked by news sources from the Liberal Party, the forest industry, and economic ‘‘experts’’ as an example of a government that ‘‘strangles’’ economic development. In the following example, the Code is used as a discursive resource to construct the NDP as antibusiness. Industry officials say the code’s provisions, intended to protect the environment and ensure forest sustainability, have burdened them with costs and bureaucracy that is driving them out of business (Hamilton, 1996, p. A1).
In 1997, Premier Glen Clark introduced revisions to the Forest Practices Code that followed the critique of the Liberals and the forest industry. The ‘‘bureaucratic’’ requirements of the code were streamlined, to the approval of the forest industry and the consternation of environmentalists. According to government news sources, the Code is defined as an essentially good idea in need of revision, due to the financial harm it imposes upon industry. The revised Code is defined as less bureaucratic, but also ecologically sound. Thus, the Clark NDP is not entirely willing to abandon its claims to environmental legitimacy. This is illustrated in the following example: To right the wrongs, the government intends to include economic values in the code’s preamble, which currently emphasizes sustainability, conservation, and the spiritual and recreational values of the province’s forestsy. McGregor defended the decision to add economic values to the code, saying they will not outweigh environmental values (Hamilton, 1997, p. A1).
We see that Clark offers a more business-friendly re-construction of the Code, which foreshadows many of the changes since made by the Liberal government. Still, the media construction of the NDP remains generally hostile. Finally, after the Liberals gain power, the media construction of the NDP remains negative. When the NDP are invoked, they are defined as responsible for the decline of the forest economy in British Columbia.
CONSTRUCTING THE LIBERALS By contrast, the Liberals were objects of conflicting media constructions throughout their time in government. Overall, the Sun constructs a Liberal government that is a proponent of the corporate interest, which is articulated with a general ‘‘public interest.’’ For example, in promoting the Working Forest, government speakers emphasize the need to create
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‘‘certainty and stability’’ for the forest industry as a means to ‘‘revitalize’’ the industry. This is illustrated in the following excerpt: ‘‘I’m sending a message to the investment community that British Columbia is open for business and that we’re bringing certainty to the land base,’’ Minister of Sustainable Resources Management Stan Hagen said. He said the working forest will also create greater stability for the families and communities that depend on the forest industry (McInnes, 2003, p. A1).
In comparison with the NDP, the Liberals’ discourse gives a more explicit impression of a state–industry bloc, where the government acts on behalf of the general interest of capital. Within Liberal discourse, such a state– industry bloc is beneficial to BC as a whole. This is illustrated in the following speech by Premier Gordon Campbell, which was reprinted in the op-ed section of the Sun. We all know that our forest industry is a critical component of our heartlands economies. Over the last five years, our forest industry has been in serious trouble. Since 1998 we have lost $600 million in provincial revenue from forestry. Twenty-six mills have closed for good since 1997. Literally thousands of people have lost their jobs. That simply can’t continue. We have to make changes (Campbell, 2003, p. A21).
Within the textual world of the Sun, Liberal government discourse articulates the interests of forestry capital with the ‘‘general interest’’ of BC as a whole. From this perspective, the Working Forest recognizes the value of the logging industry to the province. Through this discourse, the interests of capital are articulated with the general interest and the needs of rural communities. A similar discourse appears in the texts that deal with the Liberals’ ‘‘results-based’’ version of the Forest Practices Code. However, Liberal news sources continue to articulate a vague discourse of environmentalism with the government’s politics of deregulation. While government discourse focuses on the creation of a pro-business public self, environmental values are also invoked. This is seen in the following example: B.C. chief forester Larry Pedersen said sustainability will continue to be the goal of the provincial government. ‘‘It is entirely possible to move towards a more results-based code without putting forest values at risk,’’ Pedersen said y ‘‘This isn’t a free-for-all. There will still be standards of conduct for forest management. It’s just a different way of attaining those standards’’ (Beatty & Hamilton, 2001, p. D1).
Liberal news sources are unwilling to ignore environmentalism completely. Through the articulation of a pro-business discourse with a discourse of environmental values, Liberal news sources attempt to construct an ecocapitalist public self. Whereas the NDP were defined through a discourse of
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compromise between capital, labour and environmentalism, the Liberals are seen to be more explicitly aligned with forestry capital. Thus, the Liberals come to represent an eco-capitalist alternative to the NDP approach of ecomanagerialism, wherein environmental resources are integrated into a system of management by the state. While Sun editorialists and columnists generally present the Liberal government in a sympathetic light, there is an important – though less frequent – oppositional discourse that portrays the Liberals’ business-orientation as antagonistic to the public interest. This critical discourse attempts to disengage the general interest from the interests of capital. Within the Working Forest archive, this discourse appears most explicitly in letters to the editor written from ‘‘environmentalist’’ perspectives. A letter by Jim Cooperman, of the Shuswap Environmental Action Society illustrates this. The ‘‘drunk with power’’ Gordon Campbell Liberal government is now planning to increase the corporate control of our forests through its proposed working forest legislationy. Forestry companies already have a stranglehold on our forests and this legislation would only further limit opportunities for uses other than industrial forestry. Those concerned about the negative impact that industrial forestry has had and continues to have on wildlife, recreation and watersheds need to let the government know that the working forest proposal must be scrapped (Cooperman, 2003, p. A11).
In the Results-based Forest Practices Code archive, there is a similar discourse of the ‘‘public interest,’’ that is mobilized to critique the Liberal government. Within this critical discourse, government is too accommodating to industry and fails to take into account the public interest in environmental protection. From this critical perspective, the eco-managerialist approach of the NDP is preferred to the eco-capitalist approach of the Liberals. The assumption that the state is the rightful guardian of forest resources underlies environmentalist news discourse. In environmentalist discourse, government regulation is necessary to ensure corporate accountability and the public interest in Crown forests.
CONSTRUCTING FORESTRY CAPITAL Two broad discursive constructions of the forest industry emerge from the textual archives under analysis. The first is generally promoted by Liberal and industry news sources, as well as by many Sun editorialists and columnists. Here, forestry capital is defined as an integral and leading part of the BC economy. As such, the interests of forestry capital appear to coincide with the interests of both forestry labour and the general public. While it is
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necessary for business to adapt to changing environmental values, this can be done within the context of a capitalist marketplace. This can be illustrated with reference to the PAS archive. Here, forest industry discourse adopts a theme of ‘‘compromise,’’ which articulates an acceptance of the PAS with its own political agenda. In the following excerpt, Tom Stephens, the President and CEO of MacMillan Bloedel (MB), uses his support of the PAS to construct a ‘‘greener’’ public self for the forest industry. When the B.C. government introduced its protected areas strategy aimed at expanding public parklands, it made an assurance that ‘‘fair compensation would be provided’’ to dispossessed tenure holdersy. MacMillan Bloedel is strongly committed to operating with a social licencey. We need to be in tune with today’s attitudes and values, which will be tomorrow’s laws. That is why MB is ending clearcutting on lands that we manage in B.C., whether public or private, and increasing protection of old-growth forests. We are doing this in part as a response to our customers’ demands but also because it is the right thing to do (Stephens, 1998, p. A15).
While a couple of forestry news sources are explicitly opposed to the notion of an expanded protected areas system, most use the PAS to construct an eco-capitalist public self. Through the representation of this industry discourse, the Sun constructs a forest industry that is reasonable and open to environmental reform. By contrast, a critical discourse challenges the articulation of the interests of capital with those of forestry labour and the general interest. Here, forestry capital is seen as inherently ecologically irresponsible. If we take the Working Forest as an example, this Liberal policy initiative is constructed as a form of corporate enclosure of public lands that will make it more difficult to allocate forest-land for non-industrial uses. The following example comes from a letter to the editor by Tom Lester, of the Sierra Club of Canada: Not surprisingly, the Liberals are trying to portray their working forest concept as a panacea for forest communities and jobsy. However, handing corporations private-like rights to 45 million hectares of a publicly held resource is nothing of the sorty So, is the working forest in the best interest of forestry-dependent families? Absolutely not. Is it a flagrant attempt to line the pockets of the industry players who contributed to the Liberals’ election campaign? You bet (Lester, 2003, p. A15).
Here, the connection between the public interest and the interests of capital is challenged. Instead, the ‘‘public interest’’ is re-articulated with an environmental politics that opposes the Working Forest. From this perspective, the alternative is eco-managerialism: the state’s ability to regulate capital and the use of natural resources must be increased. From both the ecocapitalist and eco-managerialist perspectives, Forestry capital is normalized as an integral part of the BC political economy. The main question under
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debate is how much of state regulation is required to ‘‘green’’ the forest industry.
CONSTRUCTING ENVIRONMENTALISM Environmentalist discourse in the Sun is characterized by a succession of dominant discourses. In earlier texts, there appears to be a self-conscious move away from recreational and aesthetic constructions of the environment towards more ‘‘scientific’’ discourses. Within the Sun’s coverage of the PAS, ‘‘biodiversity’’ emerges as a dominant discourse for those speaking from an ‘‘environmentalist’’ standpoint. The following example is illustrative: Survival is what B.C.’s new parks are all about. The importance of biodiversity is the real reason behind their establishment. Human evolution may well depend on keeping as many species alive as possible. For that, they need undisturbed land, all different types of land, in sufficient quantities to survive and grow (Scott, 1995, p. A11).
Another dominant environmental discourse, which is related to the biodiversity discourse, centres on ‘‘wildlife values.’’ Wildlife discourses focus on animals, which are endangered (and charismatic), such as the grizzly bear and the spotted owl. The following example is illustrative: But the scheme [part of the PAS] will also free up a substantial amount of land for commercial logging that is currently held in study – in areas that may include nesting areas of the endangered spotted owl. The bird is on Canada’s official list of endangered species and has been a flash point for clashes between environmentalists and loggers (Hunter, 1995, p. A1).
The dominant discourses of biodiversity and wildlife values represent a move away from an environmentalism grounded in recreational values towards a more ‘‘scientific’’ discourse. The scientific-environmental discourse legitimizes the creation of protected areas by invoking the ‘‘needs’’ of the natural and non-human environment. By representing the needs of nature through these discourses, environmental news sources may displace their own agency in calling for the increased protection of ‘‘nature.’’ In later articles, the discourses of ‘‘scientific’’ environmentalism appear less frequently. Instead, environmentalist discourse focuses on more ‘‘democratic’’ themes, such as the ‘‘public interest’’ and corporate accountability. The main environmentalist discourse that emerges in both the Working Forest and results-based Forest Practices Code archives centres on issues of corporate control of forestry resources. Here, the articulation of the public
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interest with the interests of capital is challenged. Instead, the ‘‘public interest’’ is re-articulated with an environmental politics that opposes the working forest. This is demonstrated in the following excerpt: ‘‘How can the Campbell government justify even contemplating any move to push through the Working Forest, when 99 per cent of the feedback they got through their own public input process clearly opposes the Working Forest?’’ He [Ken Wu of the Western Canada Wilderness Committee] described the legislation as an ‘‘anti-forest protection act’’ that would zone 100 per cent of B.C.’s unprotected public forests as permanent logging zones (Hamilton, 2003, p. D2).
This critical discourse redefines the state–industry bloc favoured by the Liberals as harmful to the public interest. Within this oppositional discourse, the government is too accommodating to industry and fails to take into account the public interest in environmental protection.
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION In this paper, I have presented a discourse analysis of four textual ‘‘archives’’ from the Vancouver Sun, which address land use and forest policy debate in BC. First, the PAS texts are dominated by a narrative of compromise. The PAS is generally treated as a good news story that contrasts with the prior ‘‘war in the woods’’ news discourse. Thus, the PAS is constructed by the Vancouver Sun as an example of successful mediation by the NDP between environmentalists, capital and labour. By contrast, the Liberals’ Working Forest initiative is dominated by two conflicting discourses. Here, the Liberal-industry discourse of providing ‘‘certainty and stability’’ for the forest industry is opposed by an environmental discourse of corporate accountability and the public interest. Third, the texts that deal with the NDP Forest Practices Code may be read as a narrative of two distinct NDP governments. In earlier articles, the Sun defines the Code as an example of the government’s environmental legitimacy and its willingness to get tough with irresponsible forestry corporations. Initially, the Code is supported by environmentalists, as well as by capital. However, there is a substantial shift in the news discourse following Glen Clark’s ascendancy as Premier. In this second period, the Code is constructed as overly bureaucratic and costly. Here, the NDP is eviscerated by industry and Liberal Party news sources, as well as by Sun editorialists and columnists. If the PAS is constructed by the Sun through a discourse of success, the Forest Practices Code is defined primarily through a discourse of failure.
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Finally, the Liberals’ Results-based Forest Practices Code is characterized by two competing discourses. On the one hand, the Liberals are constructed as saviours of the logging industry, which had been strangled by NDP red tape. In opposition to a discourse of deregulation is a discourse that focuses on issues of corporate accountability and responsibility. As in the news coverage of the Working Forest, there is a general shift in environmental discourse away from the ecological-scientific discourses that were prevalent under the NDP. Instead, environmentalists are shown to mobilize discourses that might be broadly defined as ‘‘democratic.’’ That is, environmental discourse is more often focused on notions of corporate accountability and the public interest. There are important patterned silences that emerge from my analysis of these four episodes of environmental policy debate. The textual reality that is constructed by the Sun is dominated by news sources from government, industry and environmental organizations. However, several authors have included First Nations and forestry labour among the key organizational actors in forest policy debate in BC (Hoberg, 1996; Salazar & Alper, 1996; Wilson, 1998). Forestry labour and First Nations appear infrequently in all four sets of articles. When these groups are acknowledged, they are more often spoken about than allowed to speak for themselves. The invisibility of forestry labour and BC First Nations voices is the largest patterned silence to emerge from my analysis of these four archives. However, this conclusion must be approached cautiously. We cannot generalize about the systematic marginalization of First Nations and forestry labour news sources from environmental news from an analysis of four specific archives. A more systematic review of the Vancouver Sun’s environmental news would be required to make such a generalizable claim. However, we might still ask whether the invisibility of these news sources from these four archives reflects a process of active exclusion, or whether these organizational actors have not engaged in attempts at news-making activity. There is evidence that First Nations and labour have tried to participate in these particular environmental policy debates. For example, the International Woodworkers of America (IWA) website contains two press releases that challenge the state–capital bloc’s dominant discourse that articulates Liberal forest policy with the general interest of forestry labour. In the IWA construction of Liberal forest policy, the Working Forest and the Results-based Code should be opposed on the basis that increased corporate power is not matched by requirements for companies to invest in local communities. Thus, Liberal forest policy works to sever the ‘‘social contract’’ forged between labour, capital and the state (IWA, 2003a, b).
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The IWA website also contains a joint policy statement issued by the IWA, CEP, First Nations Summit and the BC Federation of Labour (Coles, Haggard, John, & Sinclair, 2003). This release opposes Liberal forest policy on the basis the government has neglected to account for the interests and voices of labour and First Nations. Here, First Nations interests, the health of forestry communities and environmental sustainability are articulated together in opposition to the dominant discourse on Liberal forest policy. While the evidence I have presented here is limited, it does support the notion that labour and First Nations are interested in participating in public debate over environmental policy in BC. Their exclusion from the Sun does not seem due to lack of interest. Rather, their voices are likely not deemed important enough to gain entre´e to the Sun’s system of power/knowledge where these particular issues are concerned. Drawing on the work of Ericson, Baranek and Chan, we may infer that First Nations and labour news sources occupy a lower position on the ‘‘hierarchy of credibility’’ than sources from government, industry and environmental organizations (Ericson et al., 1989). Again, it is important to emphasize that this conclusion is specific to the four textual archives examined here. Conclusions about the general marginalization of First Nations and forestry sources from the Vancouver Sun cannot be inferred from an analysis of only four episodes of environmental policy debate; this remains a question for further research. Still, the findings of this project are consistent with the conclusions that emerge from Perigoe and Lazar’s content analysis of racialized patterns of representation in Canadian television news. These authors conclude: It is especially rare to see a Native Canadian speaking on matters of concern to all Canadians. Those stories that did include interviews with visible minorities were usually concerned with individuals or issues in, and specific to, those communities, while stories involving Native Canadians not specific to their community were extremely negligible compared with the overall sample (Perigoe & Lazar, 1992, p. 271).
From my research, I would conclude that the Vancouver Sun produces a system of power/knowledge that limits environmental debate to the alternatives of eco-managerialism and eco-capitalism. The former position views environmental resources as something to be managed by the state, while the latter places an emphasis on the ability of capital and the market to manage ‘‘nature’’ for long-term sustainability. In the textual reality constructed by the Sun, the eco-managerialist position is generally adopted by the NDP and environmental news sources. By contrast, Liberal government news sources and speakers from forestry corporations tend to speak from an
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eco-capitalist standpoint. By limiting debate to the poles of eco-capitalism and eco-managerialism, the Sun consistently portrays ‘‘two sides’’ of environmental policy debate, without offering a substantive critique of the underlying political economy of the forest industry. The results of this project may be located within the theoretical framework offered by Alan Schnaiberg. The ‘‘treadmill of production’’ is defined by Alan Schnaiberg as the web of social groups who have a stake in the ongoing depletion of natural resources that underlies capitalist production (Schnaiberg, 1980; Schnaiberg & Gould, 2000; Gould, Pellow, & Schnaiberg, 2003). While capital benefits from the smooth working of the treadmill, other groups benefit as well. Workers are integrated into the treadmill, both as wage earners and as consumers of the goods and services provided by capital. Likewise, the state is integrated into the treadmill because it is dependent upon the continued good will of capital and because it must maintain the consent of the governed. However, as the treadmill comes up against ecological limits to production, there are two options for altering the nature–society relationship: ‘‘managed scarcity’’ or ‘‘ecological synthesis’’ (Schnaiberg, 1980; Gould, Weinberg, & Schnaiberg, 1993). Managed scarcity is a sort of environmental triage. Here, environmental health and pollution are allocated according to existing structures of economic power, without altering the underlying treadmill of production. By contrast, ecological synthesis involves a radical re-orientation of the treadmill according to environmental and social justice values. Drawing on Schnaiberg’s theoretical work, I would argue that both ecomanagerialism and eco-capitalism represent forms of managed scarcity. From both perspectives, the worst ecological harms of modern capitalism are moderated, without addressing the ‘‘treadmill of production’’ that underlies the relationship between capitalism and ‘‘nature.’’ Counterhegemonic discourses that move beyond a managed scarcity approach to environmental politics are rendered invisible. Furthermore, the environmental discourse represented by the Sun is easily articulated with a politics of managed scarcity. Even where environmental news sources challenge the articulation of the corporate interest and the public interest, an alternative that moves beyond eco-managerialism is never made explicit. Environmental discourses that raise questions about corporate accountability seem to rely on a preference for the eco-managerialist orientation represented by the NDP. Therefore, we may conclude that the Sun works to reproduce the hegemony of the treadmill of production. At the same time, this research points to the futility of viewing the news media as a simple vehicle for the transmission of elite ideology. While the
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Sun may work hegemonically, its construction of environmental policy debate is not homogenous. In The Missing News, Hackett et al. argue that while dramatic environmental events do receive a great quantity of coverage, the media tends to ignore the systematic and ongoing connections between global environmental degradation and the ordinary every-day workings of the economy, including the pursuit of corporate profit and the promotion of consumerism and materialism as the path to personal fulfillment (Hackett, Gruneau, Gutstein, Gibson, & NewsWatch Canada, 2000, p. 169).
This claim is certainly supported by my own research. At the same time, there are substantial ‘‘cracks in the monolith’’ of the mass media (Hackett, 1991). Environmentalists are able to use their access as news sources to question the legitimacy of state and corporate elites. Oppositional discourses do emerge that question the accountability of logging companies and which assert the importance of democratic values for resource management. While I have illustrated how oppositional discourse may be contained within a broadly hegemonic framework, it is important to acknowledge that the environmental movement is able to use the media as a site for posing an important, though limited, challenge to corporate power over ‘‘nature.’’
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to acknowledge the invaluable assistance of my thesis supervisor and committee: Dr. William K. Carroll, Dr. Martha McMahon, Dr. Jeremy Wilson and Dr. Michael M’Gonigle. In addition, I would like to thank the editor and anonymous reviewers of RSMCC for their comments on this paper. Finally, I would like to thank Dr. R. Alan Hedley, Dr. Alison Thomas and Dr. Susan C. Boyd for their input during the development of this project.
REFERENCES Adkin, L. E. (1998). The politics of sustainable development. Montreal: Black Rose Books. Apperly, A. (1997). Foucault and the problem of method. In: M. Lloyd & A. Thacker (Eds), The impact of Michel Foucault on the social sciences and humanities (pp. 10–28). New York: MacMillan Press. Baldrey, K. (1993). Tough new forestry code puts cutting rights on line. Vancouver Sun(Nov. 9), A1. Beatty, J., & Hamilton, G. (2001). Victoria takes axe to FRBC, prepares to ‘streamline’ forest practices code: Industry warm to changes to management system, now termed ‘costburdensome’. Vancouver Sun(Oct. 25), D1.
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Bohn, G. (1993). Peace finds a home on the range: After two years of talkin’ and cussin’, cowboys, Indians, loggers and miners in the chilcotin make a deal that everyone can live with. Vancouver Sun(Jul. 3), B4. Campbell, G. (2003). We’re on the right track. Vancouver Sun(Feb. 13), A21. Coles, D., Haggard, D., John, E., & Sinclair, J. (2003). Joint statement on the provincial Government’s proposed forest policy, from http://www.iwa.ca/news/media/0500-03 forest%20legislation-joint%20statement.pdf Cooperman, J. (2003). Industry already has a stranglehold on forests. Vancouver Sun(Jan. 27), A11. Ericson, R. V., Baranek, P. M., & Chan, J. B. L. (1989). Negotiating control: A study of news sources. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Fairclough, N., & Wodak, R. (1997). Critical discourse analysis. In: T. A. van Dijk (Ed.), Discourse as social interaction (Vol. 2, pp. 258–284). London: Sage Publications. Foucault, M. (1972). The archaeology of knowledge (A. M. Sheridan Smith, Trans.). New York: Pantheon Books. Foucault, M. (1980). Two lectures (C. Gordon, Trans.). In: C. Gordon (Ed.), Power/knowledge: Selected interviews and other writings 1972–1977 (pp. 78–108). New York: Pantheon Books. Gitlin, T. (1980). The whole world is watching: Mass media in the making & unmaking of the new left. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Glaser, B. G., & Strauss, A. (1967). The discovery of grounded theory: Strategies for qualitative research. Chicago: Aldine Press. Gordon, C. (1980). Afterword. In: C. Gordon (Ed.), Power/knowledge: Selected interviews and other writings 1972–1977 (pp. 229–260). New York: Pantheon Books. Gould, K. A., Pellow, D. N., & Schnaiberg, A. (2003). Interrogating the treadmill of production: Everything you wanted to know about the treadmill, but were afraid to ask. Paper presented at the Symposium on Environment and the Treadmill of Production, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI. Gould, K. A., Weinberg, A. S., & Schnaiberg, A. (1993). Legitimating impotence: Pyrrhic victories of the modern environmental movement. Qualitative Sociology, 16(3), 207–246. Hackett, R. A. (1991). News and dissent: The press and the politics of peace in Canada. Norwood, NJ: Ablex. Hackett, R. A., Gruneau, R., Gutstein, D., Gibson, T. A. & NewsWatch Canada. (2000). The missing news: Filters and blind spots in Canada’s press. Ottawa & Aurora, ONT: Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives & Garamond Press. Hamilton, G. (1996). Forest code shift aimed at speeding harvest, revenues: A review is planned to cut red tape that has strangled both the industry and forest ministry staff since the code became law. Vancouver Sun(Oct. 8), A1. Hamilton, G. (1997). Forest code gets major overhaul: Proposed amendments will reduce logging costs in B.C. by up to $400 million a year, minister claims. Vancouver Sun(June 10), A1. Hamilton, G. (2003). B.C. to spend $8.6 million marketing wood to world. Vancouver Sun(June 12), D2. Hannigan, J. A. (1995). Environmental sociology: A social constructionist perspective. London & New York: Routledge. Hoberg, G. (1996). The politics of sustainability: Forest policy in British Columbia. In: R. K. Carty (Ed.), Politics, policy and government in British Columbia (pp. 272–289). Vancouver: UBC Press.
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Hoberg, G. (2001). The 6 percent solution: The forest practices code. In: B. Cashore, G. Hoberg, M. Howlett, J. Rayner & J. Wilson (Eds), In search of sustainability: British Columbia forest policy in the 1990s (pp. 61–93). Vancouver & Toronto: UBC Press. Hunter, J. (1995). Spotted owl faces threat to nesting areas. Vancouver Sun(June 8), A1. IWA. (2003a). First nations and labour leaders demand immediate withdrawal of BC liberal forest legislation. Press Release: May 5, 2003, from http://www.iwa.ca/news/ web-bulletins/05-May-03.htm IWA. (2003b). Unions take forest policy message to communities. Press Release: April 29, 2003, from http://www.iwa.ca/news/media/nr-29april03.pdf Kirby, S. L., & McKenna, K. (1989). Experience, research, social change: Methods from the margins. Toronto: Garamond Press. Lester, T. (2003). Working forest plan doesn’t address real threats. Vancouver Sun(Jan. 28), A15. Luke, T. W. (1999). Eco-managerialism: Environmental studies as a power/knowledge formation. In: F. Fischer & M. A. Hajer (Eds), Living with nature: Environmental politics as cultural discourse (pp. 103–120). New York: Oxford University Press. McInnes, C. (2003). B.C.’s forests open for business. Vancouver Sun(Jan. 23), A1. M’Gonigle, R. M. (2000). The political ecology of biodiversity: A view from the western woods. In: S. Bocking (Ed.), Biodiversity in Canada: Ecology, ideas and action (pp. 391–414). Peterborough: Broadview Press. Miles, M. B., & Huberman, A. M. (1994). Qualitative data analysis: An expanded sourcebook (2nd). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications. Not a class act: Threats to disrupt logging undermine hard-won forests and parks accord. (1997). Vancouver Sun(Apr. 10), A14. Perigoe, R., & Lazar, B. (1992). Visible minorities and native canadians in national television news programs. In: M. Grenier (Ed.), Critical studies of Canadian mass media (pp. 259–272). Toronto & Vancouver: Butterworths. Prior, L. (1997). Following in Foucault’s footsteps: Text and context in qualitative research. In: D. Silverman (Ed.), Qualitative research: Theory, method and practice (pp. 63–79). London: SAGE. QSR. (2002). N6 [CD-ROM]. Victoria, Australia: QSR International. Salazar, D. J., & Alper, D. K. (1996). Perceptions of power and the management of environmental conflict: Forest politics in British Columbia. The Social Science Journal, 33(4), 381–399. Schnaiberg, A. (1980). The environment: From surplus to scarcity. New York & Oxford: Oxford University Press. Schnaiberg, A., & Gould, K. A. (2000). Environment and society: The enduring conflict. Caldwell, New Jersey: The Blackburn Press. Scott, A. (1995). Preserve a tree (in a park), save someone you love (may be). Vancouver Sun, July 19, p. A11. Silverman, D. (2000). Analyzing talk and text. In: N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds), Handbook of qualitative research, (2nd ed., pp. 821–834). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Silverman, D. (2001). Interpreting qualitative data: Methods for analysing talk, text and interaction (2nd). London: SAGE. Stephens, T. (1998). Finding our way in the woods: Macmillan Bloedel’s man at the top argues the new methods of harvesting British Columbia’s forests require substantial re-thinking of ownership policies. Vancouver Sun(Apr. 2), A15.
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Tuchman, G. (1978). Making news: A study in the construction of reality. New York: The Free Press. Western Canada Wilderness Committee. (2004). Working forest 2003–2004 archive. Retrieved February 4, 2005, from http://www.workingforest.org/ Wilson, J. (1998). Talk and log: Wilderness politics in British Columbia, 1965–1996. Vancouver: UBC Press. Wilson, J. (2001). Experimentation on a leash: Forest land use planning in the 1990s. In: B. Cashore, G. Hoberg, M. Howlett, J. Rayner & J. Wilson (Eds), In search of sustainability: British Columbia forest policy in the 1990s. Vancouver & Toronto: UBC Press. Wolcott, H. F. (1994). Transforming qualitative data: Description, analysis, and interpretation. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
PART IV: IDENTITY AND EMPOWERMENT ISSUES IN SOCIAL MOVEMENTS
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WE DON’T AGREE: COLLECTIVE IDENTITY JUSTIFICATION WORK IN SOCIAL MOVEMENT ORGANIZATIONS Belinda Robnett ABSTRACT Through an analysis of the leaders of the 1960s Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) this paper highlights the importance of individual identity work, and argues for an expanded theoretical treatment of social movement identity processes that takes account of partial identity correspondence (a partial alignment between an individual identity and the movement identity) to include degrees of identity congruence. Actors can embrace a movement, but remain in a state of conflict regarding some dimensions of its identity. Extending James Jasper’s ((1997). The art of moral protest: Culture, biography, and creativity in social movements. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press) identity classifications, the data suggest that participants engage in identity justification work when incongruence among personal identity (biographical), collective identity (ascribed, i.e. race, gender), and movement identities exist. This work may not reflect the organization’s efforts to frame or reframe the movement identity. This study finds that individuals manage incongruence with organizational and tactical movement identities by employing three identity justification mechanisms: (1) personal identity modification of the Research in Social Movements, Conflicts and Change, Volume 26, 201–237 Copyright r 2005 by Elsevier Ltd. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 0163-786X/doi:10.1016/S0163-786X(05)26007-X
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movement’s identity; (2) individual amplification of the common cause dimension of collective identity; and (3) individual amplification of the activist identity through pragmatic politics. Rather than dismantling the past, as Snow and McAdam ((2000). In: S. Stryker, T. J. Owens, & R. W. White (Eds), Self, identity, and social movements (pp. 41–67). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press) propose, actors incorporate their biographies as a mechanism to achieve feelings of community and belonging. It is not so much an alignment with the organization’s proffered movement identity as it is a reordering of the saliency hierarchy of their identities. Unlike Snow and McAdam’s conceptualization of identity amplification, the reordering of an identity hierarchy and the amplification of certain identities is precipitated by the actor’s, not the organization’s, efforts to align her/his personal identity, collective identity, and movement identities.
INTRODUCTION Social movement scholars have identified the importance of collective identity to the development of a social movement organization. Groups must cultivate collective identities to engender group consciousness, solidarity, and commitment. They emphasize an ‘‘us’’ vs. ‘‘them’’ binary so that those inside and outside the organization can clearly distinguish the boundary. This boundary between ‘‘us’’ and ‘‘them’’ is not always clear. Many activists participate in organizations even when they do not completely agree with the proffered collective identity. Numerous studies document that factionalism and group dissolution arise from such disputes. The focus of this paper, however, is on the mechanisms and collective identity processes that sustain support and participation when a partial alignment or partial identity correspondence exists between an actor’s identity and the social movement organization’s collective identity. Although collective identity correspondence is viewed as processual, relational, and negotiated, (e.g. Snow & McAdam, 2000; Taylor & Whittier, 1992; Whittier, 1997) there is a tendency in the literature to discuss the outcome of collective identities as either congruent, when the personal identity and collective identity are in alignment or incongruent. Incongruence is generally discussed in terms of factionalism. Little discussion centers on partial correspondence and the individual’s mechanisms for sustaining participation. With few exceptions (e.g. Benford, 1993; Platt & Fraser, 1998; Platt & Williams, 2002; Williams & Blackburn, 1996; Williams & Kubal,
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1999), scholars hold a binary understanding of collective identity correspondence in which activists/participants are viewed as either in congruence with or divergence from the ideology and goals of the social movement organization. Even when scholars have emphasized the lack of congruence among participants and adherents, little is known about the identity processes. Williams and Kubal (1999, p. 230) note, ‘‘The ‘consensus’ that a social movement achieves is clearly partial, and often less cognitive than affective and identity-driven.’’ There is considerable evidence that numerous groups are composed of individuals and subgroups that do not always share complete identity correspondence (e.g. Gamson, 1997; Hunt, 1991; Reger, 2002; Whittier, 1995, 1997; Valocchi, 2001). For example, Joshua Gamson’s (1997) study of The International Lesbian and Gay Association, that eventually expelled the North American Man/Boy Love Association, and the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival that refused entry to transsexuals suggests that groups can maintain members who do not completely share the collective identity. These subgroups were excluded because their public participation challenged the collective identities of the respective groups. Interestingly, in both cases, the excluded subgroups felt they belonged to these organizations. While these findings raise the issue of boundary maintenance, and much work addresses this issue, little is known about the participation of groups or individuals within social movement organizations that hold partial collective identities. Rebecca Klatch (2001) shows that feminists who participated in Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) did not always share the organization’s collective identity and that they were oppressed by fellow male leftists. Early participants in SDS became feminist activists because of their experiences of discrimination in the work world not because of their role in SDS. Klatch suggests that early SDS women focused on individual characteristics to explain women’s unequal treatment. Randy Stoecker (1995, p. 114) has argued that, ‘‘collective and individual identities are too fluid for complete convergence to be maintained. Although Stoecker (1995) discusses degrees of identity convergence, he, too, employs a structural analysis of the interactions between groups, i.e. community vs. social movement organization, etc. While he acknowledges the importance of the individual, the mediating mechanisms and processes through which individual/subgroup congruence or incongruence take place are not explored. Given that people with diverse identities participate in organizations and still feel they share a collective identity, how do they reconcile the differences between their personal identity and those of the organization? Snow and
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McAdam (2000, p. 2) note, ‘‘[T]he link between a movement’s collective identity and the personal or individual identities of movement adherents has received almost no attention in the literature.’’ Recently, K. L. Broad (2002, p. 317) in her study of Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays, illustrates how parents ‘‘do selves’’ by engaging in individual ‘‘everyday interactional identity work to construct affiliation.’’ While parents draw upon the coming out identity talk of the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender movement, they actively engage in a construction of self as a ‘‘bridge’’ between heterosexuals and gays. Still, we do not know how this daily work affects individuals that do not share entirely congruent collective identities with the movement organization. If organizations possess multiple collective identities, which ones necessitate congruence? Scott Hunt and Robert Benford (2003, p. 445), state that, ‘‘little research has been done that takes into account the multiplicity of collective and personal identities associated with social movement participation.’’ They ask, ‘‘How are these identity correspondences negotiated, managed, and experienced?’’ Platt and Williams’ (2002) study of anti-civil rights letters sent to Dr. Martin Luther King, provides insight into the mechanisms employed by individuals to bring about congruence with a social movement. The authors conclude that ‘‘movement adherents’ ideologies are experientially designed versions of the past, present, and future social order and that these ideologies organize adherents’ cognitive, moral, and emotional practices (2002, p. 330).’’ Their study argues that individuals use their ideological interpretations as cultural resources. Adherents from different parts of the country ‘‘particularized’’ or invoked experientially relevant ideologies to align themselves with the countermovement. Their letter writers, however, were not active members of a social movement organization that had already framed and defined its identity. Instead, they were individuals trying to make sense of a social crisis and to figure out what they could do about it. In this regard, the countermovement was more defuse and the adherents were freer to ‘‘particularize’’ the ideologies to fit their specific circumstance. As Steinberg (1998, p. 857) notes, ‘‘[Actors] are bounded in the selection process not only by the social contests of contention, but also by the possibilities for combining discourses themselves within a field.’’ Still, this strongly suggests that adherents actively engage in identity justification work to bring about congruence with a movement’s identity. It is unclear to what extent movement members are able to invoke these mechanisms in organizations that have already defined and framed the collective identity and the movement ideology.
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Just as Williams and Kubal (1999) clarify the complexity of ‘‘wider’’ cultural influences on social movement-framing, this paper argues for a more complex understanding of collective identity processes beyond the influences of the social movement context emphasizing the ways in which these processes are impacted by biographical influences and ascribed group identity, such as one’s race, or gender.
MULTIPLE IDENTITIES AND COLLECTIVE ACTION FRAMES It is useful here to elaborate James Jasper’s (1997, p. 87) identity distinctions and William Gamson’s (1992) conceptualization of collective action frames because in combination they provide the analytical framework to understand how actors continue to participate in social movement organizations when they do not agree with the collective action frame. Gamson (1992, p. 7) has shown that collective action frames are in part comprised of an identity component that ‘‘refers to the process of defining this ‘we,’ typically in some opposition to ‘they’ who have different interests or values.’’ Such frames symbolize and shape the formation of a movement identity, ‘‘a ‘we’ who will help to bring the change about’’ (Gamson, 1992, p. 8). In this way, movement activists negotiate collective action frames to forge, in Jasper’s terms, a movement identity rather than a collective identity, though the former may influence the latter, and vice versa. Moving beyond the social movement context and structural definitions of collective identity, James Jasper (1997, p. 87) distinguishes among personal identity, which is biographical, collective identity which is ‘‘part of the broader culture’’ i.e. race, class, sexual orientation, and movement identity which is a product of internal movement and broader culture interactions. Jasper’s (1997) identity distinctions are useful because they allow us to better delineate the multi-dimensional character of identity in the social movement context without treating it as a solitary entity. He does not conceive of movement identity as synonymous with collective identity. Collective identity is akin to community-identity consisting of boundaries and group distinctiveness. Movement identity consists of three identity sublevels, organizational or identification with a particular group, tactical or identification with a particular tactic, and activist or identification with a subculture that may be reflected in many groups. These distinctions enable us to better understand how actors continue to participate in organizations when
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they disagree with the organization’s collective action frames. The collective action frame may conflict with only one or a few of the identities; and the identities may conflict with only one or a few of the collective action frames as they represent the social movement identity. Which conflicts matter? Conceptually, partial correspondence is expanded to include multiple identities and the complexity of movement identity. In this regard, we can determine which identity is incongruent with the movement’s collective action frame. This suggests that actors may experience correspondence with one or more movement identities while simultaneously experiencing incongruence with others. Extending the work of these scholars, this paper treats collective action frames as symbolic and representative of the movement identity. The collective action frames define and shape the movement identity. Snow (2004, p. 391) notes that ‘‘framing processes and personal and movement identities are linkedy[b]ut these arguments have been based more on theoretical argumentation and anecdotal evidence then systematic investigation.’’ Likewise, Jasper suggests that there is some sort of interaction among the three types of identity, but little empirical evidence has been conducted to highlight this process. Jasper’s (1997, p. 89) conceptualization, however, requires expansion because the level of movement identity he is discussing is unclear. Is it the entire movement or an organization within a larger movement of organizations? In his definition of movement identity, persons identify with an organizational identity (a particular organization), a tactical identity (‘‘being in some wing of a movement’’), and an activist identity that may extend to other movements. Jasper’s conceptualization glosses over the relationship between a particular organization and the movement sector or groups of organizations that make up the movement. This matters because organizations try to define their movement identity within the movement sector (Zald & Ash, 1966). As Table 1 indicates, organizations have movement identities including organizational (how they are founded, by whom, and how they are organized, i.e. hierarchical, egalitarian, etc.), tactical (particular tactics used that may set them apart from other organizations in their movement), and activist (that is particular to this organization, but dovetails with the broader movement activist identity). There is a complex array of identity interactions among the movement sector, movement organizations, and participants. I propose a dynamic, interactive relationship among the various identities. Jasper seems to waver between a conceptualization of movement identity as located in the interaction between society and the organization or movement, and its location in the minds of activists. I contend that it is
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Table 1.
Organization movement Identity.
Organizational
Tactical
Activist
How the organization is founded, by whom, and how it is organized, i.e. hierarchical, egalitarian etc.
Particular tactics used that may set them apart from other organizations in their movement
Attributes and characteristics particular to participants in this organization, but that dovetail with the broader movement activist identity
Table 2. Personal Identity
Biographical, personal experiences
Participants in Organizations.
Collective Identity
Identification with a distinctive group. A shared feeling of community and a common cause
Movement Identity Organizational
Tactical
Activist
Identify as a member or founder of a particular organization. Adhere to its organizational structure
Identify with the organization’s tactics that symbolize the membership’s identity
Identify with the attributes and characteristics particular to participants in this organization that dovetail with the broader movement activist identity
located in both in a relational fashion. I extend Jasper’s typology to movement actors who have a personal identity, a collective identity, and a movement identity (organizational, tactical, and activist). Individuals seek to define and make sense of their participation. In Table 2 these identities appear discrete; in point of fact they are relational. Participants draw upon their biographical and collective identities to construct personal movement identities that may or may not be entirely congruent with that of the organization. One’s personal history and sense of collective identity may influence which organizational, tactical, and activist identities resonate. While actors may seek to influence or negotiate the organization’s movement identity, they are not always successful. This paper addresses these issues through an analysis of the 1960s Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and answers the following
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questions: (1) How do social movement actors reconcile their experience of partial identity congruence with the social movement organization’s collective action frames? (2) In what types of identity work do partially congruent participants engage? (3) Do identity construction processes take place only through social movement framing processes, and/or movement collective action as Snow and McAdam (2000, p. 53) suggest, or is personal identity and collective identity also important to participation sustenance?
IDENTITY CONSTRUCTION PROCESSES: INFLUENCES BEYOND THE SOCIAL MOVEMENT CONTEXT Collective Identity Snow and McAdam (2000, pp. 47–49) distinguish between identity convergence and identity construction processes as two distinct forms of identity work that bring about identity correspondence. Identity convergence indicates a preexisting alignment between the individual identity and that of the collective. Correspondence is achieved when individuals either actively seek out groups that reflect their beliefs (identity seeking), or when leaders and activists appropriate existing solidary networks that rest on shared relations, common fate, and lifestyles (identity appropriation). Identity construction work is necessary in the absence of a preexisting alignment between personal identity and movement identity. The identity construction process requires a modification of the personal identity that can range from a slight realignment of the salient identity hierarchy (or what one deems as the most important aspects of one’s identity) to major shifts in one’s self-definition. As mentioned earlier, the authors indicate that these processes take place primarily within the social movement context. This conceptualization of identity construction processes as well as those of collective identity processes focuses exclusively on the influences of the social movement context and/or the organization’s framing processes. In order to understand the processes through which personal identity becomes congruent with movement identity, we need to include a broader conceptual and theoretical understanding of both identity construction processes and movement identity processes that are not bound by the political context. Adhering to a constructionist/symbolic interactionist view, Melucci (1992, pp. 50–51) defines collective identity as a ‘‘product of conscious action and the outcome of self-reflection more than a set of given or
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‘structural’ characteristics. The collective actor tends to construct its coherence and recognize itself with the limits set by the environment and social relations.’’ Larana, Johnston and Gusfield (1994, p. 17) note that ‘‘This tradition points to interaction among social movement participants as the locus of research on identity processes.’’ They argue that such a focus neglects other important influences (p. 19). Polletta and Jasper’s (2001, p. 3) definition of collective identity includes a broader array of influences. They define it as: yan individuals’s cognitive, moral, and emotional connection with a broader community, category, practice, or institution. It is a perception of a shared status or relation, which may be imagined rather than experienced directly, and it is distinct from personal identities, although it may form part of a personal identity. This social constructionist approach embraces the idea that collective identities are ‘invented, created, reconstituted, or cobbled together rather than being biologically preordained or structurally or culturally determined’ (Snow, 2001, p. 5).
McAdam, Tarrow, and Tilly (2001, pp. 55–56) emphasize the importance of a relational approach to the study of collective identity, arguing that collective identity mechanisms are best understood as a part of social relations and interactions. Identities, in their view, are multiple, dynamic, and include contested boundaries. This paper is consistent with their approach, but differs in significant ways. While they profess to move us beyond cultural and rational conceptualizations of collective identity, collective identity processes are viewed as outside of ‘‘individual minds.’’ Identity, in their view, is formed through interactions at sites. Although unclear about what constitutes a ‘‘site,’’ one can surmise that they are referring to a variety of political and social interactions. Just how these ‘‘sites’’ influence individuals is unclear, and herein lies the problem. Later, the authors explain that individuals are influenced by social ties and networks, something that is not new and for which I have no quarrel. But this, too, does not elaborate the mechanisms of collective identity formation beyond what we already know. They distinguish between embedded identities and detached identities, both of which pertain to the degree of ‘‘connections with routine social life’’ (p. 135). Yet, we still do not know how or why individuals become embedded or detached. The authors then resort to structural explanations that they view in relational terms. It is ‘‘all these relations to government’’ including the household, ‘‘that become contentious’’ (p. 135). Their conceptualization does not move us much beyond the confines of structural determinism. It is only structures that are viewed in relational terms and these relations are confined to the social movement context. While the authors note the multiplicity of identity, i.e. mother, worker, sister, radical etc., their focus is
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exclusively upon the political context. The emphasis on interacting structures or ‘‘sites,’’ no matter how relational, and the focus on political orientations, has led some social movement scholars to neglect the complexity of collective identity processes. Framing Processes As scholars have noted, the social movement literature attempts to account for identity congruence through analyses of the influence of social networks (Snow, 2001, p. 14; Snow & McAdam, 2000), and variants of rational choice processes (Friedman & McAdam, 1992; Laitin, 1998). These have proven unsatisfactory because they often assume an a priori alignment between personal identities and the social movement organization’s proffered collective identity (Snow, 2001, pp. 14–15). In an effort to account for the mechanisms that contribute to identity correspondence when personal identity and collective identity congruence are absent, Snow and McAdam (2000) posit four identity construction processes: identity amplification, identity consolidation, identity extension, and identity transformation. In Snow, Rochford Worden, & Benford’s (1986) earlier work, these processes were the work of social movement organizations in an attempt to establish identity congruence, through framing, with potential recruits and activists. Framing is defined as ‘‘signifying work [or] processes associated with assigning meaning to or interpreting ‘relevant events and conditions in ways intended to mobilize potential adherents and constituents, to garner bystander support, and to demobilize antagonists’’’ (Benford, 1997, p. 416). Movements offer collective action frames or ‘‘action oriented sets of beliefs and meanings that inspire and legitimate social movement activities and campaigns’’ (Snow & Benford, 1992). All of these processes are orchestrated by the SMO in an effort to gain and sustain participation. The identity processes are also aimed exclusively toward congruence with the social movement’s collective identity. For example, identity amplification is defined as, ‘‘the embellishment and strengthening of an existing identity but not sufficiently salient to ensure participation and activism’’ (Snow & McAdam, 2000, p. :49), and frame alignment through value amplification is defined as, ‘‘elevation of one or more values presumed basic to prospective constituents but which have not inspired collective action’’ (Snow et al., 1986, p. 469). Snow and McAdam make clear that the mechanisms or processes mediating identity construction, which bring about congruence, ‘‘can be accounted for largely by framing processes, by engagement in collective action itself, or by a combination of both’’ (Snow & McAdam, 2000,
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p. 53). They argue that framing processes are ‘‘the most important mechanisms facilitating identity construction processes, largely because identity constructions are an inherent feature of framing activities’’ (Snow & McAdam, 2000, p. 53). Still unclear, is the extent to which the identity process and the framing process are independent, interdependent, and/or overlap. In this regard, it is difficult to distinguish the organization’s collective identity framing processes from the collective identity processes of participants. While Snow and McAdam are clearly making the case that the organization’s collective identity-framing processes interact with participant collective identity processes, they do not sufficiently take into account the subjective processes that may account for the congruence of personal and collective identity. In the earlier work of Snow and Benford (1988), as in this work, framing which draws upon a ‘‘stock of folk ideas and beliefs’’ is the mechanism through which the movement’s message is conveyed and resonates with potential recruits and activists. Although this conceptualization is clearly inclusive of extra-movement influences, the identity construction mechanisms employed by individuals to bring about congruence is left unanalyzed. Individual identity construction processes are a response to the organization’s collective identity framing processes. For example, when an organization attempts to amplify and make salient a particular identity, the individual may accept it, reject it, or negotiate its place in the organization’s identity hierarchy. Most of the literature focuses on the negotiation of collective identity frames and the ways in which organizations shift or fail to alter these frames through interactional processes. It is a mistake, however, to infer that these processes entirely reflect those of individuals. What we do not understand are the mechanisms through which individuals or subgroups come to modify or fail to modify their personal identities. These processes are not entirely reflected in the organizations’ framing outcomes. Snow and McAdam’s examples of identity modifications reflect the efforts of the social movement organization to bring about the changes. The authors provide an example of identity extension or the broadening of the movement role so that it becomes indistinguishable from personal identity, as when ‘‘members of the Nichiren Shoshu Buddhist Movement in Americaywere constantly instructedythat whatever they did, whether in the context of family, work, school, or leisure, was to be done with interests or identity of the movement in mind’’ (pp. 50–51). Accordingly, one member expressed, ‘‘We are expected to behave at all times and in all situations as representatives of the movement.’’ This certainly suggests that individuals engage in identity extension, but we still do not know how they do it. We
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only know that some members do so, and that it reflects the collective identity framing efforts of the social movement organization. Benford (1997, p. 422), in his critique of framing concepts, notes that individuals bring an array of frameworks to the social movement context. On a day-to-day basis participants actively engage in reality negotiations and testing processesy Each brings her/his own biographical and experiential background to the movement encounter which she/he seeks to fit with the movement group’s already constructed versions of reality. In other words, frame alignment and construction processes are interactive processes. We know little about these complex processes.
These interactive processes are not limited to the social movement context or to the organization’s framing processes. Individuals invoke identity construction processes of their own that help them align their personal identity with that of the organization. Though attempting to imbue individuals with agency, Snow and McAdam’s and their colleagues’ conceptualization of these processes render actors relatively passive recipients to the organization’s collective identity framing processes because collective identity is not established through any other mechanism. There is little accounting for influences that may enhance or inhibit the participants’ collective identity formation outside of social movement organization interactions and events. While Snow and McAdam (2000, p. 54) are mindful of the necessity of mediating mechanisms/processes, the ones they outline are themselves imbedded within the context of the social movement. They view collective identity as occurring via the organization’s framing process through ‘‘the course of identity talk among adherents and activists.’’ Like Benford and Snow (2000), the authors emphasize discursive interactions between participants and the social movement organization. While this lends agency to the actor, it is limited because it is only present in the organization’s framing process in an effort to forge a collective identity among the participants. Snow and McAdam make it clear that potential recruits and participants interact in the process and that collective identity can form through social movement activity, but the question as to how an individual activist brings about congruence, rejects the proffered frame, or comes to accept partial congruence is left unanswered.
THE STUDY The SNCC study used a number of qualitative data sources, including telephone interviews, primary and secondary sources, and archival materials to
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uncover the identity work in movement identity processes. The use of multiple data sources enhanced the validity of the findings through triangulation (Fielding & Fielding, 1985).
Interviews Sixteen open-ended, in-depth, tape-recorded telephone interviews were conducted with black and white women who were former leaders of the SNCC. The interviewees were involved in the organization between 1960 and 1965. The interviews were conducted between 1989 and 1992. All 16 of the interviews are used for this study. While, initially, the study focused on African-American women’s leadership in the civil rights movement, the interviews were not rigidly structured. In keeping with feminist methods of research, the method was to ask specific open-ended questions and to follow the subjects’ line of thought with additional questions. Many women spoke candidly about various topics including the daily practices and issues surrounding the group’s movement identity and their relationship to it. Members were located through a list provided by the Martin Luther King Center for Non-Violent Social Change in Atlanta, Georgia, and by snowball sampling. Many previous studies illustrate how leaders cultivate movement identity mobilization by framing personal and collective identities (e.g. Taylor, 1996, 2000; Whittier, 2000). A focus on leaders is also appropriate because leaders often initiate and facilitate social movement framing processes, and the assumption would be that they possess complete movement identity congruence. The interview data was tape-recorded and transcribed. All data were hand coded for prevailing themes and patterns according to the methods of grounded theory (Glaser and Strauss, 1967) and Lofland and Lofland’s (1995) qualitative techniques.
Primary and Secondary Sources and Archival Material Given that I only interviewed women, I needed to locate data written by or about male leaders in SNCC. There were four central male leaders between 1960 and 1965, James Forman, Bob Moses, Stokely Carmichael, and John Lewis. All wrote autobiographies including, Radical Equations (2001) by Bob Moses and Charles E. Cobb, Ready for Revolution (2003) by Stokely Carmichael with Michael Thelwell, The Making of Black Revolutionaries
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(1985) by James Forman, and Walking With the Wind (1998) by John Lewis. All four books were used. Data gathered on SNCC included archival materials obtained from the SNCC Papers and located at the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Non-Violent Social Change in Atlanta, Georgia. The archival material (e.g. meeting minutes, documents, position papers), included information about movement identity framing efforts, and responses. I examined these materials looking for debates that specifically addressed SNCC’s collective action frames that included Christian principles as manifested through nonviolence, and an adherence to democratic principles as manifested through a participatory democracy. Analyses of discourse are often used to understand framing processes (Gamson & Modigliani, 1989; Steinberg, 1999). Through an examination of the archival data, secondary sources, and interviews, it was clear that framing contests emerged over nonviolence and the extension of democratic principles to include intimate interracial relationships and gender equality. Four meeting minutes were selected because they provided lengthy and in-depth discussion of nonviolence and included frame resolution. Interview data, autobiographies, and secondary sources were employed to identify framing contests over democratic principles as they extended to intimate interracial relationships and gender equality. The Method Employing the analytic techniques outlined by Lofland and Lofland,(1995) the data were analytically coded, and memoing was employed (1995, pp. 192–197). First, the meeting minutes, documents, interview data, autobiographies, secondary sources, and position papers were analyzed to ascertain the results of the framing contests. When the collective action frame was established, I examined both the interviews and the autobiographies, looking for statements regarding nonviolence and democracy as it extended to interracial relationships and gender equality. The data were coded using memos to denote congruence or incongruence with the proffered collective action frame. When incongruence was present, I analyzed the material to determine the types of explanations used to sustain participation. I coded the data employing James Jasper’s (1997, p. 87) conceptualizations of identity including personal identity (biographical), collective identity (ascribed, i.e., race, gender), and three types of movement identity (organizational, tactical, activist) in an effort to understand how actors resolve the incongruence between the movement identity and their personal and collective identity.
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The analysis revealed that even among the leadership there was incongruence with SNCC’s collective action frames. Nine of the 20 leaders experienced incongruence with one or more of SNCC’s collective action frames. I then classified the mechanisms employed to sustain participation, and identified three: (1) Personal identity modification of the collective identity; (2) Individual amplification of the collective identity or common cause; and (3) Individual amplification of the activist identity through pragmatic politics.
COLLECTIVE ACTION FRAMES The SNCC was founded at a conference on the campus of Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina between April 15 and April 17, 1960. The brainchild of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference seasoned leader and activist, Ella Baker, its focus was to promote coordination and information between youth active in sit-in movements throughout the country. SNCC’s collective action frames promoted a movement identity that included an adherence to liberal democratic principles, a belief in nonviolent direct action, support of humanistic religious doctrine, and a commitment to class equality. As early SNCC founders Diane Nash and Peggi Alexander wrote in ‘‘Non-violence Speaks to the Movement,’’ ‘‘The structure of the movement should emerge from the philosophy’’ (SNCC Papers A Series I Box 1 #11). SNCC’s organizational identity was that of a participatory democracy that included everyone. Former SNCC Executive Secretary James Forman (1985) said, ‘‘We wanted no part of the denial of the importance of people – especially poor people. We believed in community organizing, in the power of the people to develop their own strength and direction’’ (p. 419). SNCC targeted organizations and framed ideational appeals to the particular constituency, such as liberal churches, New Left organizations, or Democratic student organizations. The ‘‘Statement of Purpose’’ in one of SNCC’s first newsletters, espoused both democratic and religious principles: We affirm the philosophical or religious ideal of nonviolence as the foundation of our purpose, the pre-supposition of our faith, and the manner of our action. Non violence [sic] as it grows from Judaic-Christian traditions seeks a social order of justice permeated by love y Through nonviolence, courage displaces fear; love transforms hate. Acceptance dissipates prejudice; hope ends despair. Peace dominates war; faith reconciles doubt. Mutual regard cancels animosity. Justice for all overthrows injustice. The redemptive community superseded systems of gross social immorality.
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Love is the central motif of nonviolence. Love is the force by which God binds man to himself and man to man. Such love goes to the extreme; it remains loving and forgiving even in the midst of hostility. It matches the capacity of evil to inflict suffering with an even more enduring capacity to absorb evil, all the while persisting in love. By appealing to conscience and standing on the moral nature of human existence, nonviolence nurtures the atmosphere in which reconciliation and justice become actual possibilities (Prepared by – Rev. J. M. Lawson, Jr. Saturday, May 14, 1960).
The religion collective action frame emphasized love. As activist Diane Nash indicated, One of the things that was highly publicized, and I think that this was one of the most significant movements for social change ever, because it used love. Love is an energy. It is a power. We loved our opponent. But the truth is that there was not only just love or the opposition, but we loved each other (Nash Interview, 1990).
While love was openly discussed in SNCC, race was not. Although Martin Luther King explicitly discussed race, it was not articulated in SNCC. As I have written elsewhere (Robnett, 2004), Race was not initially framed in SNCC although the frame of liberal democracy as implemented served to shape race interactions and relationships. While many might argue that race was framed by SNCC’s adherence to a band of brothers/sisters and brotherly/sisterly love, and gender was framed by a broader culturally normative repertoire, frame development, as defined by Snow and Benford, entails three essential processes: discursive, strategic, and contested (1988). Discussions, strategies, and contestations regarding raceywere not present in SNCC’s early years. During that time, liberal democratic practices framed raceyinteractions.
Citing scholars Zinn (1964), Carson (1981), and Polletta (2002), I have (Robnett, 2004) argued that ‘‘‘race’ was practiced in SNCC prior to 1963 but not framed beyond its embrace of integration as an extension of democratic principles.’’ The framed linkage of Christian precepts, morality, and democratic principles provided the basis for much of SNCC’s mobilizing efforts. This connection was clearly illustrated in a 1962 Albany Movement Position Paper, a product of SNCC’s organizing protests in Albany, Georgia during 1961–1962. It stated, ‘‘We are convinced that segregation is a moral evil pitted against the noble precepts of our Christian democratic heritage. Recognizing the essential unconstitutionality and immorality of segregation, we cannot in all good conscience cooperate with the system. In the spirit of Christian love and nonviolence, we pledge ourselves to the task of eliminating totally this unjust system’’ (King Papers MLK Center, EI Box 134 ]21).
That Christian morality should be linked to democratic principles is not surprising. Martin Luther King Jr. extended black theology to include
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democratic rights and a call for action-oriented Christianity. SNCC was equally innovative and extended and framed its democratic and religious movement identity to include the empowerment of the unlettered and the poor. This was evident in its November 1965 report to the Friends of SNCC, which stated, ‘‘SNCC workers bring people ideas, information, and tools; they seek not to lead but to bring forth leadership’’ (November 1965, ‘‘Report to the Friends of SNCC’’ SNCC Papers MLK Center, A: XV, Box 103 ]190). SNCC clearly framed an allegiance to democratic principles, a commitment to the empowerment of the poor, and an unwavering belief in Christian doctrine (Robnett, 2004). The nonviolent collective action frame contributed to SNCC’s movement identities including the organizational identity, the tactical identity, and the activist identity. Organizationally, SNCC practiced its doctrines through its townhouse style of consensus-seeking participatory democracy. Tactically, it embraced nonviolence, and the nonviolent activist subculture extended beyond its organization. Many SNCC participants experienced personal identity congruence with the nonviolent movement identity. They embraced nonviolence as a ‘‘way of life,’’ particularly the Nashville group that included many of SNCC’s founders. As Stoper (1989, p. 27) notes, ‘‘One of them believed that nonviolence meant not merely ‘turning the other cheek’ but learning to live in a community and to love oneself and thus to love other human beings. He felt that carrying a gun for self-defense was a hostile act and therefore not nonviolent. In his view, a man should present himself naked and defenseless to those who threaten him with violence and then he can love and live.’’ SNCC Chairman John Lewis adhered to nonviolence as both a tactic and as a way of life (Lewis, 1998). Former SNCC leader, Diane Nash, indicated that her leadership image was ‘‘real good’’ because ‘‘[she] took truth and love seriously, the basic tenets of non-violencey.’’ (Nash Interview, 1990). One could gain respect by an adherence to the nonviolent movement identity. Not all members, however, experienced such congruence.
ORGANIZATION MODIFICATION OF THE COLLECTIVE ACTION FRAMES We would expect that most of SNCC’s members embraced the nonviolent movement identity – the complete embrace of nonviolence. Throughout SNCC’s history, there were multiple discussions about the meaning of nonviolent direct action, and by 1964 the frame was altered to reflect nonviolence as a tactical identity. Howard Zinn (1964, p. 221) states,
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y SNCC’s view of nonviolence is more complicated than that simple statement of faith in the power of love. Although there are some in the organization who would hold to that original credo without qualification, most SNCC people, in different degree and with a great individuality of response, would probably deny that love, conscience, and morality alone could end segregation. The actions of SNCC in the last four years have in themselves fashioned a more complex attitude towards nonviolence than is shown in the [Statement of Purpose]. Not that SNCC has adopted violence, or has even considered adopting violent tactics. But between the use of violence and complete reliance on moral suasion, there is a vast range of possibilities within which the thoughts and actions of SNCC people fluctuate.
There was a wide array of thinking about nonviolence. Individuals found themselves grappling with the issue as the organization struggled to find a middle ground. Although there were numerous meetings focused on the role of nonviolence within SNCC, the organization remained wedded to a nonviolent collective action-frame that reflected the tactical identity. Largely employed as a tactic, it nonetheless embodied the organization’s ‘‘political identity[y] and moral vision’’ (Jasper, 1997, p. 237). Jasper argues tactics are not neutral, and are ‘‘emotionally and morally salient’’ (p. 237). Consequently, the tactic came to symbolize the movement identity and, therefore, the identity of its participants. In meetings, it was hotly debated, so in this regard social movement scholars are correct that collective identity processes take place in the social movement context. These contests are a part of the process, but they do not always provide movement identity resolution and congruence with personal and collective identities. At a staff meeting that spanned several days, June 9–11, 1964, SNCC debated nonviolence as a tactic. James Jones, a Mississippi staffer, explained that a decision was made to protect the office in Mississippi by keeping guns in the office. SNCC participant Charlie Cobb argued that, ‘‘Staff members thought they would be killed. They got guns for the house and the office with the idea of self-defense, to protect against the organized violence which is developing.’’ Member Sam Block raised the issue about the use of guns by locals in Mississippi, ‘‘Mrs. McGee’s house was almost bombed – she has guns and has been able to stop some violence. What are we to say to her[?]’’ Activist Courtland Cox replied that ‘‘the problem of self defense goes beyond Mississippi’’ and is a problem in New York and Cambridge, Maryland. He acknowledged that ‘‘people are afraid for their lives,’’ but argued that ‘‘Self defense can only maintain the status quo, it can’t change the existing situation.’’ Charlie Cobb was less concerned about the moral issue and instead moved the discussion to practical considerations. He wanted reassurances
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that SNCC would support a worker living in a home with a local who used a gun to defend herself. He asked, ‘‘If Charlie were there would SNCC stand by him, even though SNCC advocates nonviolence [?]’’ Willie Blue shifted the focus to a personal choice and suggested that, ‘‘We don’t know how far we will let the man push us before we defend ourselves. It’s a personal thing.’’ Prathia Hall refocused the discussion to include moral issues. When the kids in Birmingham were killed I wanted to pick up a gun until I realized that by destroying lives we don’t preserve them. I can’t take a life knowingly. We talk of a man defending his home. If you kill an attacker ourside [sic] the window you lose your home anyway because the townsmen will come to the defense to the attacker and take everything from you. We must just bring the reality of our situation to the nation. Bring our blood on to the white house [sic] door. If we die here it’s the whole society which has pulled the trigger by its silence. How much can we deal with self defense [?](SNCC Papers Box A 4 7 #1 7 of 14)
Ruby Doris Smith Robinson, SNCC leader and eventual chair of SNCC, questioned Hall’s assertion that ‘‘violence brought to the doorstep of the White House’’ would have any affect. She pointed out that, ‘‘No one in Birmingham rose after the shootings and bombings.’’ Participant Mike Sayer expressed his ambivalence over the use of guns by locals because, ‘‘defending your home is dignity,’’ but it could ‘‘lead to a holocost [sic].’’ The group eventually returned to Charlie Cobb’s question about SNCC support for staff living in homes where locals use weapons and achieved consensus that SNCC would ‘‘stand behind the position that a man [sic] has the right to defend himself [sic] and willydefend anyone caught in [the] home of another person who is armed.’’ SNCC, however, retained its position that SNCC members could not carry guns and must maintain a nonviolent collective action frame. The participants negotiated a frame alteration that applied to local constituents and, pragmatically, they had no choice. If they wanted continued support in local communities, they could not reasonably demand an adherence to their nonviolent frame (also see Forman, 1985, p. 374). In this interactional context, SNCC members managed to avoid the moral issues and to find closure on pragmatic grounds. It would support and defend its members, ‘‘put in that position’’ (June 9–11, 1964 Staff Meeting minutes, SNCC Papers Box A 4 7 #1 7 of 14). Even though SNCC achieved a resolution at the 1964 meeting, it was only temporary. The nonviolent frame continued to cause debate, and increasingly SNCC members were carrying guns. At an April 13, 1965 SNCC Executive Staff Meeting in Holly Springs, Mississippi, staffer John Washington of Ocilla, Ga. told of SNCC members arrested for ‘‘carrying three
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pistols’’ who faced a ‘‘$ 1,000 fine and 12 months on a chain gang if convicted.’’ Roy Shields, who was in charge of that office, was asked by SNCC Chairman, John Lewis, whether he ‘‘encouraged or discouraged people carrying guns.’’ He replied, ‘‘I don’t do either. I feel people have a right to defend themselves.’’ SNCC leader, Marion Barry, suggested that ‘‘this is very serious and that if staff is carrying guns, this could be very bad for the organization.’’ Pine Bluff, Arkansas, Field Secretary Ben Grinage stated, ‘‘yI don’t believe that any of us should carry guns for any reason.’’ Jessie, whose last name and affiliation was not provided, stated that, ‘‘If a person has a permit, they can carry a gun. I would never be in an organization that would tell me not to protect myself.’’ The participant is indicating that if the organization cannot allow him to reconcile his incongruence in his own way, then he cannot remain in the organization. Future SNCC Chairman, Stokely Carmichael, concurred indicating that, ‘‘We are not King or the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.). They don’t do the kind of work we do nor do they live in the areas we live in. They don’t ride the highways at night. To King and the SCLC nonviolence is everything. To us, we use it as a form of tactic and in demonstrations we are nonviolent’’ (April 13, 1965 SNCC Executive Staff Meeting minutes, SNCC Papers A 3 6 #4 3 of 3). Once again, SNCC took a pragmatic position and the members agreed to provide legal assistance to those in jail for carrying the weapons. The subject was dropped, and the nonviolence as a tactic collective action frame was left in tact. At a November 29, 1965 Staff Meeting, the issue arose once again. SNCC member Frank Smith stated, ‘‘Be honest – I believe in protecting [my] own self with [a] gun – Stokely has been thinking of taking over Lowdnes Co. courthouse – I think he might be thinking of guns, deputizing, etc. We here, aren’t thinking of being killed like we know we would be in South Africa.’’ Interestingly, the conversation shifted to issues of Vietnam and selfdetermination. The issue of the use of guns is brought up later in the meeting by future Chair, James Forman. He discussed it in tactical terms arguing that, ‘‘It would be a tactical mistake to shift [the] focus on what we are doing,’’ and that they should ‘‘continue to work for peace’’ (November 29, 1965 Staff Meeting minutes, SNCC Papers Box A 4 7). He was not in disagreement about the use of force, but argued that he ‘‘volunteered and was brainwashed.’’ If not for this, he ‘‘would not do so today.’’ Pragmatically, Forman who did not believe in nonviolence, advocated sustaining the
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tactical focus on peace and nonviolence. He worked within the confines of the frame even though, personally, he was in disagreement. The conversation shifted once again to a focus on Vietnam, until an unidentified speaker revisited the issue on moral grounds, stating, ‘‘Don’t do away with people by killing them – only another will rise. [We] [m]ust work toward construction – work toward a new society. Oppression & discrimination causes problems. [W]e have the answer is not killingy If you kill someone you don’t like, you have to continue to kill all those you don’t like,[sic] their [sic] you become like one of them’’ (SNCC Papers Box A 4 7). In response, Marilyn [last name not provided], suggested that the organization ‘‘be named Student Nonviolent Anticolonial [sic] Committee.’’ As Stokeley Carmichael, former Chair of SNCC states, ‘‘There were real issues to resolve, a clear role to define, and a collective identity to agree on (Carmichael & Thelwell, 2003, p. 301).’’ Summing up the conclusions drawn after many long meetings, he states, Conclusion: SNCC is officially nonviolent. This organization will not buy, store, or distribute weapons. SNCC workers will not carry guns. But we certainly cannot and will not be asking folks living in the teeth of the Klan to unilaterally disarm. But a few people wondered openly if that was in ‘the true spirit of nonviolence.’ Dr. King says that ‘the tactic of nonviolence without the spirit of nonviolence can be a form of violence’ (Carmichael & Thelwell, 2003, p. 303).
These meetings ended with little resolution of the collective action frame other than that SNCC would retain the nonviolent title and tactically focus on peace.
IDENTITY DISSONANCE AND IDENTITY JUSTIFICATION WORK This interaction, however, tells us little about how individuals resolve incongruences between their personal identity and movement identity. SNCC participants that did not completely embrace the nonviolent action frame and corresponding movement identity engaged in personal identity justification work to sustain and justify their participation. This work serves to reduce cognitive dissonance or a ‘‘discrepancy between one’s behavioral and attitudinal cognitions’’ (Worchel & Cooper, 1979, p. 119). Cognitive dissonance theory states that individuals may reduce the dissonance by changing cognitions to make them consistent, or by altering the importance of the discrepant and consonant cognitions (Worchel & Cooper 1979, p. 118).
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While psychologists tend to limit these mechanisms to what takes place in one’s head, they need not be so restricted. These mechanisms, then, apply to the ways in which actors reconcile identity dissonance or the discrepancy between their personal and/or collective identity and one or more movement identities. In doing so, they engage in identity justification work (designed to justify continued participation when the personal identity and/or collective identity do not align with one or more of the movement identities). This is accomplished by modifying the collective action frame, and amplifying one or more of their identities including their personal identity, or biographies, collective identity as African American, and the activist component of movement identity. Such work serves to sustain participation in the face of an incongruent tactical and/or movement identity.
Personal Identity Modification of the Movement Identity Actors personally modify frames in ways that may not be reflected in the organization’s discourse or framing processes. While individuals may extend their understandings to fit the movement’s frame, they also may extend the frame to fit their understandings. Longtime member Julian Bond recalls feeling shocked by the revelation that SNCC members were carrying weapons. There was a big debate in SNCC once about carrying guns, whether or not we should carry guns, and two or three of the guys from Mississippi said, ‘This is all academic. We been carrying guns. I got mine here.’ The rest of us were shocked: ‘We can’t carry guns. We’re nonviolent.’ Guy said, ‘Don’t tell me I can’t carry my gun. I been carrying this for a year or more.’ Guy had a little automatic. Almost everybody with whom we stayed in Mississippi had guns, as a matter of course, hunting guns. But, you know, they were there for other purposes, too (Quoted in Raines, 1977, p. 267).
Clearly, some members did not embrace SNCC’s nonviolent collective action frame, but instead one that included carrying weapons and engaging in self-defense. Difficult to embrace was an adherence to the proffered movement identity that called upon activists to suffer beatings with folded arms without striking back. Many members resolved the problem by avoiding situations that directly placed them in conflict with the movement identity. SNCC activist Faye Bellamy recounted her struggle to reconcile the nonviolent frame with her personal identity. She explains, Getting arrested, going to jail, I’ve done it, but it’s not necessarily my make-up. I did it just to see what it was like, or what I would do or whether I was really nonviolent. And, I stopped doing it because I found out that I am not really a nonviolent person. What
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I did a number of times in demonstrations is if the policeman looked like he was going to hit me, I hit him first. And so this is to say, this is not what I should be doing because I could get other people hurt. The demonstration, if it’s a non-violent demonstration, has to be respected as that. So I just couldn’t tolerate it. I just can’t let anybody hit me. So I can’t be in that kind of environment too often. But that was my personal choice and other people chose other things that they did (Bellamy Interview, 1990).
Like many others, Faye Bellamy respects the tactical identity, but retains her personal identity as one who employs self-defense. She modifies the movement identity to include individual choices, and to accommodate her personal ‘‘make-up.’’ Others modified the tactical identity by narrowing its scope to only the demonstration. SNCC did not condone the use of guns by its members, yet Gloria Richardson suggests that many were willing to use them outside of the demonstration. If the man went to work, then the woman was home and they had the guns available, or vice versa. After we got through demonstrating non-violently, the men were out in the fields and whatnot guarding the perimeter of the second ward, which was the black one (Richardson, G. Interview, 1992).
Activist Muriel Tillinghast, an organizer in Mississippi, suggests that outside of demonstrations, the use of violence was necessary for survival. She explains, What I had to worry about was getting beaten and I had to worry about my people in the other two counties, who could’ve gotten killedy Lynch mobs were chasing them and I had to go there in the middle of the night and get people. While we were non-violent, many of those locals realized that this was aylisten, I got my piece, I got a piece for you too under the floor. So, we’re getting it down. It was like if you’re out here you better have your stuff and if you don’t have your stuff you better walk with somebody who does (Tillinghast Interview, 1992).
SNCC leader, James Forman, explicitly modified the frame to incorporate not just self-defense, but the use of violence as needed. He stated, ‘‘I saw both violence and nonviolence as just different forms of struggle. So long as one did not advocate nonviolence dogmatically, to be used at all times and all places, I could work with it’’ (Forman, 1985, p. 158). He believed that ‘‘decisive victories’’ could not be won ‘‘if they are not coupled with armed revolutionary organization and struggle’’ (Forman, 1985, p. 375). John Lewis commenting about Forman stated, ‘‘He had never accepted the philosophy of nonviolence. He’d never accepted the concept of an interracial democracy, of a truly biracial society. It always irked him to hear me preaching love and tolerance and nonviolence’’ (Lewis, 1998, p. 366). As early as ‘‘May of 1962,’’ Forman (1985, p. 448) disagreed with SNCC’s nonviolent organizational identity as reflected in the Statement of Purpose.
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He recalled, ‘‘ysomeone tried to initiate debate on the statement with a view to changing it. We bogged down in ideological conflicts and dropped the matter, most of us feeling that the statement didn’t matter anyway. Almost everyone felt that the emphasis on love and nonviolence was an anachronism which we could simply ignore.’’ Forman and at least a few others in his circle disagreed with it, but did not simply ignore it. They modified the frame to include their personal identity that embraced selfdefense and/or the use of violence as needed. Participants not only modified organizationally contested frames, but uncontested ones as well. Religion was an uncontested collective action frame and organizational identity. The use of churches to rally participants during the civil rights movement is widely known. Culturally and historically, African Americans responded to the religious base upon which the movement rested (See Morris, p. 1984). As member Judy Richardson notes, There was an importance of going to church. There was a way that people who were part of the organization and part of the community behaved (Richardson, J. Interview, 1992).
The importance of the church was echoed by activist Dorie Ladner, All of us came from the church. I can’t think of anyone who didn’t go to church in Mississippi unless they had backslid or they had gone to church and then stopped going. yso you bought with you the church (Ladner Interview, 1992).
While many of SNCC’s members were religious, this was not the case for all participants. Constance Romilly, a SNCC participant, states, I was not raised in a religion, first of all. And I went down there [to the South] and I had to, not only go to church all the time and pray to God all the time and do all this stuff. I hadn’t even been raised this way. But, I had to use these words when I talked to people, like when I talked to cops, I had to say things like, ‘God Bless You’, so it would make them get really mad. I did all that stuff, it was kind of a game, not a game the right word. It was something I was having fun sort of doing even though I wasn’t really religious. But, when I got into those churches got those mass meetings, it really didn’t have anything to do with God even though it was in a church (Romilly Interview, 1992).
For this white activist, the religious frame did not resonate, yet she modifies the meaning to better fit with her personal identity where God and religion are unimportant. Instead, the religious collective action frame as an organizational identity is relocated to a tactical identity because the church and religion facilitate mobilization. Nonviolence as an organizational and tactical identity, and religion as an organizational identity were each modified by actors to include new meanings, e.g. violent self-defense, and religion as a tactical identity, that were not reflected in the organization’s resolution of the framing contest. In both
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situations, participants’ decisions to remain in the organization in which they rejected the movement identity rested on their personal identity modification of the movement identity.
Individual Amplification of the Collective Identity or Common Cause Individuals often reconcile incongruent identities by identifying with and amplifying congruence with the common cause component of the collective identity. This amplification, however, draws upon their ascribed identities that include shared experiences of injustice and oppression. James Forman, supported SNCC in spite of his incongruence with SNCC’s nonviolent movement identity, ‘‘I became convinced that we needed a mass movement of blacks, a popular movement that would awaken our people, show them that ‘niggers’ can get together, and create a desire to go on to the next step’’ (Forman, 1985, p. 104). Forman was not particularly upset about the debate between nonviolence and self-defense, because of his shared collective (racial) identity with most of SNCC’s participants. Forman drew upon this to sustain participation, believing that nonviolence was just one step in the development of black people. It was a means to raise consciousness among the masses. Nonviolence was one stage in the historical process that would eventually propel blacks towards a revolution that would probably employ violence. Rather than a source of reconciliation, the collective identity of subgroups can also interfere with congruence. Other participants did not converge with SNCC’s democratic frame as it extended to race because it conflicted with their collective identity as African-American women. As discussed earlier, race was not specifically framed until the mid-1960s. In the interim, race was practiced as an extension of democratic principles and ideals. As documented by numerous scholars (i.e. Carson, 1981; Zinn, 1964), SNCC was well known as an egalitarian organization that practiced brotherly/sisterly love. Scholar Francesca Polletta (2002) explained that ‘‘In a daily way, the young staffers of the SNCC lived the beloved community. They lived it in the seriousness with which they sang the ‘Black and White Together’ verse of ‘We Shall Overcome,’ arms linked and hands clasped’’ (p. 55). SNCC leader Bob Moses (2001, pp. 72–73) recalls that ‘‘SNCC itself had never really resolved what it meant by integration. Could SNCC integrate itself and live as kind of an island of integration in society’s sea of separation? How?’’ Many members stated that in SNCC’s early years it succeeded in creating just such an oasis. Both African-American and white members felt
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themselves to be a part of a ‘‘circle of trust,’’ and described the relationships in the years prior to 1963 in terms of family. African-American activist Jean Wheeler Smith Young describes it as ‘‘a very warm interracial environment’’ (Young Interview, 1992). Faith Holsaert explains that for a week, she and black activist Joyce Ladner took refuge in a church in Southwest Georgia, ‘‘we barely knew one another but there was a sense of we were family, we had to take care of one another (Holsaert Interview, 1992).’’ JoAnn Grant, who is African American, notes, This was such an exciting thing that we didn’t think about race. We really didn’t. I mean we were there together to protect each other and to do our thing and we were there fighting racism and our backgrounds didn’t have anything to do with it. We were loving, protective comrades (Grant Interview, 1992).
White activist, Dottie Zellner concurs, I believe right down to the bottom of my feet that people of different races can establish the closest most trusting relationships. That’s what SNCC showed me. There is one human race. And insofar as it was possible for those very brief years to establish that kind of trust, I think we were able to do it (Zellner Interview, 1992).
Former SNCC chairman, Stokely Carmichael agreed stating that, for a brief moment it had been possible to believe – , in SNCC, it was as true as it is likely ever to be in this society – that race, class, and indeed even gender did not really matter. It would become clear that SNCC’s spirit – internally – was like a dream within a bubble, a thing insulated, but only for a time, from the realities of class, color, status, and education in the larger society (Carmichael & Thelwell, 2003, p. 309).
Members of this family, however, did not always agree with this organizational identity. Several African-American women struggled with the conflict between their collective identity as black women, and SNCC’s embrace of Christian democratic principles as they extended to interracial sisterly/ brotherly love. Constance Curry, a white SNCC member explains that, ‘‘a lot of black women were very irritated and very hostile about that’’ (Curry Interview, 1992). Activist Prathia Wynn Hall explains that although she was very close to many white women in the movement, she could not fully accept black/white intimate relationships, There was tension. I’m an ethicist and I guess the conflict then, for me, was not very different from what it continues to be. On a moral level I know that people have the right to interact with whomever they choose to and socially and sexually should be able to interact with whomever it is that they are attracted to, wherever that is mutual. And of course that is a theoretical position. And I know it’s right (Hall Interview, 1992).
Here, Hall defended SNCC’s movement identity but she cannot reconcile it with her subgroup collective identity as a black woman. She continues,
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That doesn’t stop me from [being], since I operate from a primary base in terms of my own socio-historical location, I am a black woman, extremely committed, as black women have been historically to the survival of the race. But even as an ethicist who has a moral, theoretical position that says people have a right to be together, that part of me that is so desperately concerned about the future, about survival, has to be impacted. I would say that those conflicts existed however close we were, whatever our friendships were those conflicts still existed and created a kind of ambivalence. Anglo-Saxon standards of beauty and the whole tortuous thing that black women go through regarding their physical image suffers terribly when black men choose white women. And your moral intellectual position does not erase that.
It is clear that Hall struggled to reconcile SNCC’s Christian democratic movement identity regarding race with that of her subgroup collective identity as a black woman. She invokes her collective identity as black to sustain her participation. The survival of the race depends on her securing equality and justice. Yet, as a black woman the extension of this frame also means accepting interracial relationships. Such relationships are perceived as a threat to black survival. Another activist who wished to remain anonymous experienced similar conflict. I, early on, resented white women sleeping with black men. I thought this was such a wonderful array of black men. I wanted them all to myself but in terms of these women and what does that do to the brother’s perception of our struggle, do you understand what I’m saying? (Anonymous Interview1, 1992)
She, too, expresses a concern over the effect of interracial relationships on the black cause. Prathia Hall also experienced conflicting feelings when faced with the Waveland Paper, a document written by white women in SNCC protesting gender inequality in the organization. While SNCC professed equality for all that included race, gender inequality remained unquestioned. Veteran white activist Casey Hayden, one of the authors of the paper, claimed that sexism conflicted with nonviolence and democratic principles (Hayden, 1989). She explains, At the Waveland meeting it was in the question of SNCC’s overall direction that the issue of nonviolence in style and substance as reflected in internal structure and in program, was being raised. In my mind, given the nature of SNCC heretofore, this issue was the issue of feminism and patriarchy (Hayden 1989).
Understanding these conflicts, Prathia Wynn Hall once again struggled with her subgroup collective identity. She states, I remember when it was distributed. I had a personal reaction of conflict. And it is a moral dilemma of black women and it has not ceased to be a dilemma. And that is, how you handle the convergence racism and sexism in terms of black women. The fact that the paper was written by two white women was significant. I don’t think at the time
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I reacted to anything in the paper as being untrue. So that’s a conflict. What I felt was conflict between the need to critique this behavior as a justice issue and that other ethos that I talked about, which comes out of black men and women’s equity and suffering, so that I think for me, I was still among the black women of the generation before me who wanted to see black men in leadership (Hall Interview, 1992).
These women were struggling to reconcile their subgroup collective identity as black women with SNCC’s movement identity that emphasized egalitarianism. Hall’s sense of herself as situated in social and historical terms speaks to the strength of multiple identity processes in the congruence process. Both women emphasize the importance of the black cause for equality and justice and view the interracial couplings as antithetical to black survival. Individual Amplification of the Activist Identity through Pragmatic Politics Equally important in identity justification work is the activist identity that stimulates pragmatic politics or the ‘‘action component of collective identity’’ and the ‘‘corresponding sense of collective agency’’ in ‘‘pursuit of common interests’’ (Snow, 2001, p. 2). In SNCC’s case, the action component in pursuit of common interests centered less on identity politics or internalizing a ‘‘true’’ minority identity, than on political pragmatism or fighting against discrimination, prejudice, and oppression (see Alexander, 1999; Brookey & Miller, 2001 and Butler, 1990 for a fuller discussion of identity politics). Members who were incongruent with the organization’s nonviolent movement identity still professed strong movement identities based on a pragmatic politics anchored in their activist identity (Brookey & Miller, 2001). The participants were empowered to participate in their organization through their broader movement identity as an activist, and those who were incongruent with the tactical identity made the activist identity aspect of their participation more salient. They did so by invoking a pragmatic politics. Although James Forman strongly supported self-defense and was not opposed to the use of violence, he remained in the organization and supported nonviolence as a tactic because of his ‘‘disgust with the lack of aggressive action by black people and the need to formulate a program based on anything that would get people into motion protesting the injusticesy I was searching for ways that we could move as a people (Forman, 1985, p. 105).’’ He was particularly influenced by the writing of Kwame Nkrumah that linked nonviolence to direct action. For Forman, the action component was the most important aspect of the nonviolent direct action. He criticized those ‘‘armchair revolutionaries’’ that argued against the use of
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nonviolent tactics but did not offer an alternative, believing their inaction was a waste of time (Forman, 1985, pp. 105–106). Forman’s goal was to motivate people to action. Anonymous Interviewee2 concurs, expressing her strong collective identity as black and the centrality of her activist identity. Driven by experiences of injustice in her state, she explains, ‘‘Little Rock happening in ’57, the Supreme Court decision [of] ’54, and the lynching of Emmett Till, the air was loaded in terms of movement for black people.’’ She recalls that when SNCC came to her hometown, ‘‘There was a group of blacks who were ready to move. It’s one thing to want to participate; it’s another one to know how to do it or what to do.’’ She and others made demands on the president of her college. This action, she suggests, ‘‘really shows, where we were in terms of understanding who was going to actually do the action.’’ Action for black liberation took precedent over her feelings about interracial relationships. She situates these relationships in terms of youth sexual experimentation, and as personally unimportant, stating, The only thing I can say is that when it comes to, say, sexual activity in the movement, you were dealing with teenagers and young adults who were sexually active. There was a certain amount of playing out this black man/white woman stuff. But it was like part of the stuff that went on, not central to what the movement was and it was not central to the social experiences I had. So that I think there might be white women who could tell you a very different story than what I’m telling you (Anonymous Interview2, 1992).
While some participants experienced feelings of incongruence between their collective identity as African-American women and the organizational identity that supported such liaisons, this activist dismisses the incongruence as inconsequential. Although activist Judy Richardson was, ‘‘not pleased about it [interracial relationships]’’ she too deemphasizes the importance of the incongruent identity while emphasizing her activist identity. Interracial relationships were not, ‘‘what was integral, what was important about the movement.’’ Rather, ‘‘it was how we protected each other, how we helped each other growyyou know, the politicalyhow your politics got forged in the movement that continued with you through the rest of your life’’ (Richardson, J. Interview, 1992). Richardson recalls a similar reaction from longtime activist and SNCC leader Ruby Doris Smith Robinson. According to Richardson, who paraphrased Robinson’s meeting paper, Robinson expressed, ‘‘We have to stop talking about the personal and start talking about the political; we really have gotten off what our commitment should be to our community. We can’t get off course’’ (Richardson, J. Interview, 1992). For these activists, staying on course meant ignoring anything that would detract from
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mobilizing for political action. Similarly, anonymous interviewee1, who spoke fervently against interracial liaisons, and anonymous interviewee2, who disregarded the significance of this organizational identity, amplified her activist identity emphasizing the need to get the job done, Because I used to tell them, I’m not interested in your bedroom politics. Do you understand what I’m saying? I don’t care who you’re sleeping with but when you come to this meeting talk to me straight up. Do you understand? There were people who coupled interracially etcetera and that wasn’t looked upon as a negative thing. What was looked upon was that you weren’t doing your job. Okay? (Anonymous Interview1, 1992).
This interviewee amplifies her activist identity. She disagrees with the organizational identity, but what matters is that action not be impeded. White activist, Penny Patch, expresses incongruence with the organizational identity that accepted interracial relationships because, Of the racism and the culture and all the racial attitudes carried by black men and white women. I think that people used people [but] that does not mean that there weren’t some very wonderful relationships,ybut I think that it would be very difficult for most black men and most white women to not have some other agenda running also. And that’s the most loaded, but equally loaded in a different way is white men and black women and that it would have it’s own set of agenda operating. I had feelings about white men only wanting to date black women and I know I had those feelings because I had some things I wrote down at the time. I had a degree of annoyance about it at the time (Patch Interview, 1992).
Patch is sustained by her personal identity and her activist identity. She explains, I grew up in a family that was politically liberal, and very politically active so what I did followed certain family patterns. My family was very supportive of what I did even though they were afraid. The why is a combination of really profound belief in what I was doing, and that it was important and the right thing to be doing and then my own personal psychological reasons for propelling myself into those circumstances (Patch Interview, 1992).
Equally important to her is that these relationships, while ‘‘interwoven’’ with the work they performed, did not impede their activism. She elaborates that, ‘‘in all of these relationships there is a level of which there was a working relationship and the work very rarely took a back seat.’’ Clearly, actors may reorder the saliency hierarchy of movement identities, with the activist identity superceding the organizational identity. The reordering, however, is not independent of but interacts with collective identity and personal identity. For some interviewees, the organizational or tactical identity was not as salient as the combination of their activist identity, personal identity, and
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collective identity. As previously discussed, Prathia Wynn Hall experienced conflict between her collective identity as a black woman, and SNCC’s Christian democratic organizational identity. Her decision to participate in SNCC rested on its appeal to action combined with biographical dimensions of her personal identity and her collective identity as black. She reflects, It of course felt right that this was something that young people were doing, but you’d have to understand a little something about my background. I was raised by a very raceconscience parent, and my father was a minister in Philadelphia. I felt that all my life I was being prepared so that when the issue arose and it was a time for action, there was no question about what I would do (Hall Interview, 1992).
The combination of her activist identity, her collective identity as black, and her personal identity which included an allegiance to black liberation inspired by her upbringing allowed her to embrace a feeling of belonging in spite of her incongruence with SNCC’s organizational identity. Similarly, activist Dorie Ladner draws upon this identity combination and largely dismissed the relevancy of interracial relations. She explains that as a young girl she was very ‘‘intense’’ about segregation, and suggests that it was because of ‘‘my mother’s teachings very early in life telling us never to allow any white person to mistreat us, always look white people in the eyes when you talk to them.’’ Other influences included members of the NAACP in her community, and the tragic death of Emmett Till, a fourteen-year-old boy who was lynched for allegedly whistling at a white woman. The strength of her collective identity and her personal identity forged, thus making interracial relations relatively unimportant to her. She elaborates, I came into the movement, as I described earlier, with an agenda. I had my own agenda. All of us from Mississippi had our own agenda.yrunning from the Ku Klux Klan and trying to find a meal and working in the hot sun and trying to find a place to sleep, you wouldn’t have time to think about that (Ladner Interview, 1992).
A pragmatic approach that amplifies the activist identity coupled with a strong collective identity and/or personal identity sustains participation when incongruence exists with the organizational identity, and may include deemphasizing the latter. Personal Identity, Collective Identity, and the Activist Component of Movement Identity Rather than dismantling the past, as Snow and McAdam (2000) propose through identity transformation, the actors incorporate their biographies as a mechanism to achieve feelings of community and belonging. It is not so
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much an alignment with the organization’s proffered movement identity as it is a reordering of the saliency hierarchy of their identities that sustains their participation. The activists draw upon salient biographical memories, amplify common cause aspects of their collective identity, and invoke pragmatic politics to amplify their activist identity. Unlike Snow and McAdam’s conceptualization of identity amplification, the reordering of an identity hierarchy and the amplification of certain identities is precipitated by the actor’s not the organization’s efforts to align her/his personal identity, collective identity, and movement identities. They are correct that the salience hierarchy is rearranged, but their conceptualization of identity amplification treats the activist identity as autonomous. In their view, participants or potential adherents reorder their identities with the activist identity on top. In other words, members reorder their activist identity making it a priority, thus sublimating other identities such as that of mother, wife, teacher etc. What this study indicates is that identity is multifaceted and contains many components that interact to sustain participation. The activist identity is but one part of a participant’s movement identity. In addition to personally modifying the movement identity, actors draw upon their personal identity, collective identity, and activist identity, to make more salient the action and common cause components of the organization’s movement identities. These mechanisms sustained their participation in the face of incongruence with the organization’s movement identities. Such personal efforts are not always successful. As the disagreements heightened, and SNCC chose to embrace a black power stance more in line with that of Forman, those that believed in a nonviolent movement identity left the organization. John Lewis, who was ousted out of his position as Chairman by Forman and his supporters explained that, ‘‘My life, my identity, most of my very existence, was tied up in SNCCy We denied and denounced ourselves that night. It was a very sad thing, very tragic (1998:368). The organization was riddled with bitterness and talk of retaliation and violencey I felt I owed an allegiance to a higher principle than SNCC, and so it was time for me to leave’’(1998, p. 372).
CONCLUSION Actors must reconcile competing identities not only within the context of the social movement, but within the space of their lives. This paper illustrates that social movement participants make complex identity determinations and sometimes live in an incongruent state. They can choose to join a social
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movement organization and remain in it even when their personal identity and collective identity conflict with its organizational identity, tactical identity, and activist identity. While the movement’s message must resonate with prospective recruits, individuals employ identity processes that include personal modification of the movement identity, individual amplification of the collective identity or common cause, and individual amplification of the activist identity through pragmatic politics in an attempt to reconcile the incongruence. The result is not always complete correspondence, but rather a partial congruence. The data suggest that actor’s personal and/or collective identities must be congruent with one or more of the movement identities, and that congruence with the activist identity may be more important than congruence with the organizational identity or tactical identity. In this regard, there is a need to expand our binary conceptualization of identity correspondence to include degrees of identity congruence. As already discussed, social movement scholars often conceptualize participants as either in congruence or not. This study makes clear that individuals, even leaders, can maintain various degrees of identity congruence. I understand that many participants likely enjoy complete collective identity correspondence. Admittedly, I do not have numbers on exactly how many participants invoke identity justification mechanisms. Still the data indicate that nearly half of the leadership experienced incongruence with one or more of SNCC’s collective action frames and the movement identity they represent. This study highlights overlooked processes of movement identity formation and offers insight into the mechanisms through which participants identify with an organization even when incongruence is present. While the number of participants examined is small, the in-depth nature of the analysis provides a starting point to understand the ways in which movement identity processes do not rest exclusively on the framing efforts of the organization. This study indicates that actors can maintain participation in an organization when they disagree with the organizational identity and tactical identity. Individuals can embrace a movement, but remain in a state of conflict regarding some dimensions of its identity. They may even lead the organization as long as they support the activist identity. What we do not yet know is where the tipping point lies between movement sustenance, where personal identity, collective identity, and an activist identity sustain participation, and movement identity alienation, where participants decide to leave. We also do not know if the type of organization matters. Do different social movement structures impede or enhance identity justification work? SNCC, as part of a movement for citizenship, may have required less
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congruence with the organizational identity and the tactical identity. Weaker personal identity and collective identity congruence may not sustain participation in post-citizenship movements. Previously, scholars focused on collective identity as an exclusive byproduct of social movement framing efforts, to the exclusion of individual identity work. They concluded that identity construction processes do not take place among those that share relations, common fate, and lifestyles (e.g. Snow & McAdam, 2000). This study finds that even among those predisposed to participation, active identity work is required. To be certain, organizations can and do amplify and make salient identities that are congruent with the movement identity, but individuals also perform this work. They make more salient those identity aspects that will help to sustain their participation. It is not the case, then, that only social movement interactions matter. Individuals engage in identity justification work to bring about an alignment with incongruent movement identities. This paper’s findings lead us to believe that identity incongruence may be more pervasive than previous research suggests and that such congruence exists on a continuum.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank the editor, Patrick Coy, as well as the reviewers, for their enormously helpful comments and suggestions.
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CONSTRUCTION OF RELATIONSHIP FRAMES IN THE ABORIGINAL RIGHTS SUPPORT MOVEMENT: THE ARTICULATION OF SOLIDARITY WITH THE LUBICON CREE OF NORTHERN CANADA Neil Funk-Unrau ABSTRACT This article describes the creation of specific solidarity relationship frames within an Aboriginal rights support network in Alberta, Canada. Advocacy relationship frames are discussed in the context of literature on social movement action framing processes as well as literature on solidarity relationships within social movements. After a brief explanation of research methods, the Lubicon Cree land rights conflict is introduced as a specific example of non-Aboriginal advocacy of an Aboriginal cause. In the Lubicon situation, supporters understood their solidarity as a commitment to those who were socially marginalized but this commitment was complicated by various factors such as the power imbalance between Lubicon and their advocates as well as the cultural differences between the Research in Social Movements, Conflicts and Change, Volume 26, 239–264 Copyright r 2005 by Elsevier Ltd. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 0163-786X/doi:10.1016/S0163-786X(05)26008-1
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two sides. The relatively passive framing of the solidarity relationship may also have contributed to a subsequent dissipation of support and a lack of ongoing direct and personal connection with the Lubicon people.
INTRODUCTION The purpose of this paper is to examine one of the unique aspects of a particular type of social movement – a movement committed to acting as advocates on behalf of Aboriginal societies in northern Canada. The paper begins with a theoretical overview of social movement framing and solidarity relationship issues. This is followed by a brief discussion of research methods and the background of the Lubicon Cree land conflict, before presenting the results of research into Lubicon solidarity frames. The Lubicon case study challenges our understanding of social movement framing process on several levels, by extending the framing process to cover the development of specific key movement relationships and by demonstrating the complexity and internal contradictions within a frame held differently by various sectors within the movement. For an advocacy movement, the framing of relationships is central; the movement is driven by the articulation of a solidarity relationship with the prospective beneficiaries of the collective action of the movement. At the same time, various overlapping movement articulations of solidarity produce partially overlapping and partially dissonant articulations of the solidarity relationship frame, each with the potential to influence the future shape of the movement as a whole.
SOCIAL MOVEMENT FRAMING PROCESSES The concept of frames was introduced into the social movement literature through the work of David Snow and colleagues (Snow, Rochford, Worden, & Benford, 1986) who appropriated the concept of meaning creation through a process of framing from Goffman (1974). Social movements are continually engaged in the production of meanings for participants, antagonists and observers (Snow & Benford, 1988). A frame in this context refers to ‘‘an interpretive schema that simplifies and condenses the ‘world out there’ by selectively punctuating and encoding objects, situations, events, experiences and sequences of actions within one’s present or past environment’’ (Snow &
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Benford, 1992, p. 137). Framing processes can then be defined as ‘‘the conscious strategic efforts of movement groups to fashion meaningful accounts of themselves and the issues at hand in order to motivate and legitimate their efforts’’ (McAdam, 1996, p. 339). Contemporary analysts have built on this concept to demonstrate how social movements frame specific events and situations in order to emphasize grievances, attribute blame, recruit new members, acquire resources, select targets and mobilize action (e.g. Gerhards & Rucht, 1992; Klandermans, 1997; Coy & Woehrle, 1996; McCaffrey & Keys, 2000). While adding to the wealth of empirical data and depth of theoretical constructs, this proliferation of scholarship on social movement collective action frames can also reinforce the unfortunate tendency noted by some scholars to oversimplify framing activities and neglect the multilayered complexities of frames (Benford, 1997). In response, some scholars are reinforcing the centrality of framing as a process (rather than the analyzing given frames as a relatively static conveyors of collective meaning) by intensively examining the important dynamics of this process. Steinberg (1998) emphasizes the need to problematize the role of discourse within framing processes, noting that while frame analysis is generally recognized as a process of signification, the discourse used to establish and maintain the frame is too often assumed to be a straightforward carrier of meaning rather than a process of joint meaning creation and contestation. Benford and Snow (2000) agree that the discourse behind frame articulation and amplification must be seen as dynamic processes which highlight certain issues, events or beliefs as most salient and which serve to continually reconstitute the collective action frame during the course of movement member interaction. Given the current myriad uses of the term within social movement literature, Williams and Benford (2000) also provide some useful leads for the further research of the production of meaning through framing processes in their analysis of frame as grammar vs. frame as a contextualized symbolic package. The debate between Oliver and Johnston (2000) and Snow and Benford (2000) regarding the relationship between framing and ideology in the transmission of political ideas also points to the necessity for a deeper understanding of collective action framing as a collective process. The complexity of the collective action framing process when this process is understood as a contested and reconstituted production of meaning over time is further heightened as we turn our attention to use of framing for analysis of other social movement processes. Significant for this paper is Benford and Snow’s (2000) brief overview of the role of framing in facilitating the alignment of individual and collective identity within a movement
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Table 1. Social Movement Frames Awareness of injustice Collective identity Desire and commitment to respond to injustice
Framing an Advocacy Social Movement. Advocacy Movement Frames Awareness of injustice against an outside party Collective identity influenced by relationship to wronged party Desire and commitment to act as advocate to wronged party
because their article hints at the potential (and the dangers) of extending frame analysis in this direction. Particularly noteworthy here is suggestion of the use of framing processes as a means of creating a linkage between individual and collective identities, a process that has implications for the analysis of the type of frame to be discussed here. The Lubicon case study presented below highlights certain specific framing processes within a type of social movement labeled here as an advocacy social movement – a type of social movement motivated to respond altruistically to a population outside of its own membership. For participants in movements such as the Lubicon support movement, collective action must be framed in the context of a particular collective identity – that of an advocate for some specific definable group – and a particular collective relationship to the group being advocated for. This analysis of the articulation of a solidarity relationship by the Lubicon support movement suggests that, for an advocacy social movement, the framing of the collective relationship is at least as significant (and also as complex) as the direct framing of collective action. If collective action can be framed in terms of a sense of injustice, an awareness of collective identity, and a feeling of potential agency (e.g. Klandermans, 1997), this injustice, identity and agency within an advocacy movement must be framed according to the relationship between the advocacy movement and the potential beneficiaries of the movement’s actions. The framing of the relationship then shapes the response of the movement to the specific grievances and injustices under consideration (Table 1).
CREATION OF SOLIDARITY ADVOCACY FRAMES Any collective attempt to express support for the Lubicon Cree required the construction of a specific type of advocacy relationship with the Lubicon. The creation of this working alliance with the Lubicon mirrors the tensions
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and contradictions within recent attempts to develop a positive relationship between Aboriginal societies and overtly sympathetic elements of nonAboriginal society. Churchill (1999) refers to non-Aboriginal North Americans as members of the ‘‘settler society,’’ a term that captures the distrust and painful history that must be overcome for a mutually beneficial relationship to be possible. Recognizing the complexity of this construction of an advocacy relationship is also crucial in understanding the public articulation of the relationship with the Lubicon during the 1980s and 1990s. This type of advocacy relationship is often framed in terms of ‘‘solidarity,’’ a term which adds to the complexity of the topic by introducing its own baggage into the discourse. Within social movement literature, solidarity refers to the social processes whereby group members identify with each other and enhance a collective commitment to the group as a whole through affirmation of common grievances, interests and goals for action (Warskett, 1992). Oberschall (1993, p. 59) describes the development of solidarity as a facilitator of social group mobilization, suggesting that the existence of psychological gratification from group solidarity can be used to explain mobilization processes. Fantasia (1988) uses several case studies of labor struggles in the United States to analyze solidarity as a set of relationships that emerge through collective action. These relationships serve to enhance interpersonal bonds, articulate common values and develop a common class consciousness. Through collective action, Fantasia’s workers were able to combine patterning structures and symbolic elements into new collective ‘‘cultures of solidarity’’ – emergent sets of counter-hegemonic practices and meanings. Although critiqued for a lack of specificity in conceptualizing both culture and solidarity (Hart, 1996), Fantasia’s approach does have the benefit of demonstrating that solidarity is more than the development of interpersonal bonds; it also includes the formation and articulation of common values systems and action frames. However, this emphasis on the development of a collective commitment through some sort of framing process can also lead to a tendency to treat solidarity as simply a manifestation of collective identity. The complex process of constructing and managing some form of collective identity within a particular social movement, studied by some contemporary social movement scholars (e.g. Larana, Johnston, & Gusfield, 1994; Melucci, 1995, 1996), has implications for a more complex and nuanced understanding of solidarity. As noted by Melucci (1995), the concept of collective identity facilitates the exploration of levels of analysis external to the actions of a given social movement, such as the analysis of the negotiation of relationships with allies, adversaries and others. Polletta and Jasper (2001) also
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define collective identity as fluid and relational, describing it in terms of a negotiated commitment to a particular set of loyalties and strategies. Given this context, solidarity can be viewed as a concept related to but also distinct from the range of factors implicated in the concept of collective identity as a whole. For example, Gamson (1992) defines solidarity as distinguishable from collective identity but, like collective identity, implicated in the processes required to enhance loyalty and commitment to a social movement. Solidarity processes influence the relationship of social movement participants to movement carriers (i.e. those actors who publicly represent the movement) and the promotion of movement participation through the preexisting social relationships and organizational forms that sustain participants within the movement. Thus it is possible for a movement member to embrace a collective identity without committing to this solidarity relationship with the specific movement carriers. For Oberschall, Fantasia and Gamson, social movement solidarity terminology refers to development of common bonds and values within a group. However, as this terminology is used within the Aboriginal rights context (particularly by interchurch and faith-based supporters), solidarity refers less to the development of a common group identity and more to the development of some sense of common purpose across differing identities. Instead of creating a common culture of solidarity, the relationship is one which crosses, while still acknowledging, the boundaries of very different cultures. Thus this solidarity relationship is both more diffuse and complex than the relationship studied by Fantasia, for example. The solidarity discourse prevalent within the interchurch sector of the Aboriginal rights movement can be traced back to the discourse of Latin American liberation theology and the North American interchurch social justice movement, which drew on liberation themes. The following quote from one of the most influential of the Latin American liberation theology texts demonstrates how solidarity was articulated within this context. In today’s world the solidarity and protest of which we are speaking have an evident and inevitable ‘‘political’’ character insofar as they imply liberation. To be with the oppressed is to be against the oppressor. In our times and on our continent to be in solidarity with the ‘‘poor,’’ understood in this way, means to run personal risks – even to put one’s life in danger. (Gutierrez, 1973, p. 301)
Solidarity is defined by Gutierrez in terms of moral imperatives of participation in the struggles of socially marginalized groups rather than a description of group cohesion and/or consciousness-raising processes. This definition points outside the group and dictates an ideal location vis-a`-vis a
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particular target group, expressing some common bonds across the differences without attempting to eradicate these differences. It also locates solidarity as an act of resistance entailing significant personal risk and enacted within specific social and political contexts (also see Baum, 1990). Within the Canadian Aboriginal rights context, the call to solidarity does not carry the same degree of personal risk as in Latin America but it still includes the challenge to resist State structures and systems, which marginalize certain sectors of society. In his appeal to the Canadian church constituency for increased support of the Aboriginal rights agenda, social activist and researcher Murray Angus describes solidarity in terms of social change on the basis of common interests shared by different groups: True solidarity arises out of situations where different groups discover their own reasons for wanting to achieve the same goals. The coming together of otherwise disparate groups on the basis of common interests provides the basis for true communityy. In order for solidarity to occur, it will be necessary for non-Native Canadians to discover their own reasons for reshaping Canadian society in ways that would also benefit Native people. (Angus, 1991, pp. 74–75)
John Olthius, an Aboriginal rights lawyer with extensive experience with public interest coalitions, also identifies structural change as a central expression of solidarity: Working to change the structures and policies of non-aboriginal society and government is the most difficult but also the most effective way for non-aboriginal people to stand in solidarity with aboriginal people. (Olthius, 1992, p. 205)
A more nuanced and problematized image of solidarity is offered in Barron’s (1998) study of the politics of solidarity within the support work with another Aboriginal society in northeastern Canada. Barron notes that efforts to create a solidarity relationship are marred by the tendency to use deeply rooted cultural lenses for projecting Aboriginal peoples as culturally ‘‘Other,’’ thereby labeling them as objects for salvation or the projections of the desires or longings of non-Aboriginal supporters. Thus both structural and cultural factors appear to be problematic aspects of a solidarity relationship frame.
METHODOLOGY This analysis is adapted from a dissertation study, undertaken in 1997–2000, of the articulation, implementation and dissolution of the advocacy relationship between the Lubicon First Nation, located in northern Alberta,
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Canada, and a regional interchurch Aboriginal rights support network based in Alberta’s provincial capital city, Edmonton. This network arose as a specific response to the Lubicon and several similar situations in the early 1980s under the name of the Edmonton Interchurch Committee on the North (EICN). In 1992, the group took on a more widespread Aboriginal constitutional rights agenda and changed its name to Edmonton Interfaith Coalition on Aboriginal Rights (EICAR). Much of the information presented here was obtained from recorded qualitative interviews of 31 individuals. Interviewees included 12 members of EICAR and/or former members of EICN (39%), 5 local church-based social activists who were not EICAR or EICN members (16%), 7 local nonchurch-affiliated social activists (22%), 4 national interchurch social activists (13%) and 3 Aboriginal representatives (10%) (Table 2). Interviews averaged approximately an hour in length and in all but four cases were taped and transcribed. These four cases include three interviews with Aboriginal respondents within which the use of recording equipment would have been too intrusive and one other situation when the equipment malfunctioned. Detailed field notes were compiled as soon as possible after each of these interviews. The interview process proceeded by building a ‘‘conversational partnership’’ and then initiating a semistructured (or openended) ‘‘guided conversation’’ in the manner described by Rubin and Rubin (1995) and Kvale (1996). Each interview began with a series of basic questions designed to elicit personal narratives and reflections. More specific follow-up questions were used to explore the narratives and themes uncovered as the ‘‘conversation’’ proceeded. Most of the interviewees were eager to tell their stories and did not require extensive questioning to prompt the sharing of detailed narratives. Interview transcripts were analyzed by eliciting general themes from narratives and reflections and then coding more intensively those specific
Table 2.
Composition of Interview Sample.
Interviewee Background Member of EICN and/or EICAR Edmonton-based interchurch social activist Edmonton-based nonchurch social activist National interchurch social activist Aboriginal representatives Total
Number of Interviewees
Total (%)
12 5 7 4 3 31
39 16 22 13 10 100
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sections that related most directly to the major themes of interest (Rubin & Rubin, 1995), according to a process similar to Johnston’s (1995) method of developing a hierarchy of frame-related schemas and themes. This analysis included a particular emphasis on the examination of the narratives and stories used by members of the Lubicon support networks to make sense of the particular events, which brought them into closer contact with the Lubicon people. As much as possible, the narratives were analyzed in relation to their conversational context. The stories told by interviewees provided some information about specific events but these stories also served another role within the interview encounter. Fine (1995, pp. 135–136) notes how social movement narratives, which he classifies as ‘‘horror stories’’ (accounts of situations justifying participation in the action), ‘‘war stories’’ (accounts of experiences during participation) and ‘‘happy endings’’ (accounts of benefits and positive results of the collective action) serve to construct shared meanings, create group cohesion and contribute to the group’s organizational identity. Some of the narratives regarding direct interaction with the Lubicon fulfilled similar purposes in the encounter between members of EICAR and the researcher as a new and marginal participant in EICAR. From a social movement framing perspective, Lubicon support narratives could be used by supporters to make their situation meaningful and organize their experience so as to enhance their group identity and mobilize further group participation. Interview data were supplemented by (1) 2 years (1997–1999) of participant observation of EICAR as a member of the network and a regular participant in EICAR monthly planning meetings and (2) the analysis of official records and media accounts. Official records included the archives of EICAR and EICAR’s predecessor, the EICN, organizational newsletters and minutes of meetings and archive material from various regional and national church offices. Media accounts included a wide range of press clippings and transcripts of audio and television news stories on the Lubicon conflict.
BACKGROUND OF THE LUBICON DISPUTE AND LUBICON ADVOCACY The Lubicon Cree land rights conflict in northern Alberta, Canada, can be traced back to the years 1899 and 1900, when negotiators for Treaty ]8 bypassed the Lubicon in two separate series of treaty negotiation meetings in this region of what was then part of the Northwest Territories. After
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several decades of lobbying for recognition of Aboriginal status and land rights (McNeil, 1997), the Lubicon Lake Cree was recognized as a distinct Band and a reserve was surveyed in 1940. However, the proposed reserve was never officially established after the outbreak of World War II. Instead, most of the Lubicon established a community, Little Buffalo, a location several miles distant from the proposed reserve in order to gain access to school facilities in the area. Life in Little Buffalo continued relatively undisturbed until 1978 when a road was completed into the Lubicon territory to facilitate oil and gas exploration (Goddard, 1985, 1991; Churchill, 1999). The impact of oil and gas exploration on wildlife resources and on the Lubicon lifestyle was devastating (Hill, 1995). In the face of this disruption to their lives and community well-being, the Lubicon leadership renewed their call for recognition of Aboriginal title and control over local resources, only to confront an overwhelming coalition of government and industry interests. Court actions throughout the 1970s and into the 1980s failed repeatedly to gain some measure of compensation (Ryan & Ominayak, 1987). In the early 1980s, Chief Bernard Ominayak and Lubicon advisor Fred Lennarson began to enlist the aid of concerned non-Aboriginal Canadians and to establish what was to become the Lubicon support network. Aboriginal rights supporters in Edmonton, the major Canadian city closest to Lubicon territory, were first introduced to the situation facing the Lubicon Cree in January 1984, when Ominayak and Lennarson met with the EICN and representatives of EICN’s national partner, Project North (PN). The first public response to the Lubicon situation was a highly publicized tour of several regional and national church leaders to Lubicon territory organized by EICN and PN, a few months after the January 1984 meetings. The tour group held a press conference when they returned from Little Buffalo and issued a public statement noting the loss of traditional lifestyle as a result of oil company encroachment, calling on the federal government and the Alberta government to exercise legal and moral responsibility for the band, as well as challenging the churches to educate and mobilize their constituencies and the general public (‘‘The Last Stand of the Lubicon,’’ Globe and Mail, April 7, 1984). Public support for the Lubicon grew rapidly after the 1984 interchurch press conference. By 1985, labor organizations (such as the Alberta Federation of Labour and the Canadian Labour Congress) and provincial and national Aboriginal organizations (including the Indian Association of Alberta, the Metis Association of Alberta and the National Assembly of
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First Nations) joined forces with the interchurch Aboriginal support network to publicly express their support for the Lubicon (July 1985, EICN Newsletter). The number of individuals and groups who expressed their support through letter-writing campaigns and participation in public forums steadily increased in subsequent years. The Lubicon situation quickly became a popular cause for EICN members and for the growing national interchurch Aboriginal rights movement as an example of a relatively isolated and formerly cohesive Aboriginal community now devastated and victimized by the energy resource industry. The Lubicon cause represented everything that was wrong in the relationship between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Canadians, according to one member of the support network. It wasn’t just a matter of saying, ‘‘We’re going to become a PR committee for the Lubicon.’’ It was a matter of ‘‘We think the Lubicon have an issue that expresses clearly a bigger problem in the country and therefore we will choose this issue as the issue that will get at some of the problems that the rest of the country is facing in terms of its relationship to Natives.’’
For members of EICN and for the non-church members of the Lubicon support network, the Lubicon situation symbolized the Aboriginal struggle for justice within a non-Aboriginal society. As noted by another network member, this symbol was all the more potent because this particular Aboriginal community was geographically much more accessible for concerned Edmontonians than other threatened northern Aboriginal societies. Then for us, myself included, the Lubicon was so close to home. Even though they’re quite a few hours away, yet somehow still close to home because we [knew] them. We’ve had so much contact, indeed, such controversy, such a hard, painful struggle all the 50, going on 60 years now, since the time they were first missed [by treaty negotiators].
In addition to being viewed as an isolated culture on the verge of destruction, the Lubicon also symbolized a particular form of resistance to the prevailing patterns of industrial development and pro-industrial governance. It’s a symbolic thing, how it gets such focused, public attention, focused for a lot of years now, especially in the last 10 or 15 years. If the Lubicon could just win, government and the industry would lose such face, and not just face but the ability to do the same again anywhere. I guess it all could get up and goy. It has to do with sacrifice. You know, they’re prepared to sacrifice these people.
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SOLIDARITY FRAME EXPRESSED AS A COMMITMENT TO THE OTHER The interchurch sector of the Aboriginal movement was mobilized through a particular moral imperative which was frequently summarized in terms similar to the comments made by one movement member: Well, I think the Bible speaks a great deal about justice and love for the neighbour and doing well by those who are marginalized, being a voice for the voiceless and not standing with power but standing with people, especially people who don’t have power, and I think the whole thrust of the Gospel is very much in that way. You know, the Old Testament prophets certainly say that and Jesus certainly reiterates it in a number of ways.
This approach was reflected by the stance taken by EICN and church-based allies – a stance which was described by some supporters as a total lifetime commitment to the Lubicon people energized and given courage by a sense of moral justice and a spiritual strength. The following sentiments were reiterated in some similar form by most of the former members of EICN and by members of EICN’s successor organization, EICAR, interviewed in 1998 and 1999. I think, that part of the dynamic that has happened in this committee [EICN] is that, it’s not always articulated, but those who are involved and stay involved are there because of a very strong commitment and conviction about justice, particularly by Aboriginal peoples. And we need to be in solidarity with them.
The physical and emotional cost of taking such a stance was articulated most emphatically by activists who represented the national interchurch partners within this alliance. I was very clear, and I think the others were too, I had no doubt but that we were there to witness and that it was part of [my] peace testimony that to see the injustice, to be willing to be seen, to stand with the survivors of the injustice, we were not neutral when we went in. There was no intent to be neutral. I’ve never been neutral in the solidarity work that I’ve doney. That’s what solidarity is, the point of being willing to say, ‘‘And if my life is lost in this, then that’s just the way it is’’ because part of how they break the solidarity, those for whom the lack of solidarity and power is the injustice, is by making us afraid.
For EICN members, the moral and ethical stance defined as solidarity was empowered through a very specific set of relationships. It’s out of those relationships that are built between the network groups and the Aboriginal people in the middle of the struggle over land rights and self-determination issues, it’s out of those relationships that the energy comes and some of the analysis
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comes and where a lot of the excitement comes, but I think it speaks to ultimately what the solidarity work is all about. It’s not about theoretically changing the state of the world. It’s about changing relationships.
Such a relationship was enacted through EICN responses to Lubicon requests for assistance. In terms of being in solidarity, for me it was very easy to be in solidarity because they had a very clear, they were coming and saying, ‘‘We need your support.’’
This support was rendered through the public education and mobilization tasks that EICN and the wider church constituency could take on. Since EICN activity was not clearly differentiated from the activity of the church structures represented within EICN, a solidarity working relationship also included the use of wider church structures to muster greater public credibility than EICN could provide on its own. EICN identities and commitments were often articulated in the context of specific denominational identities. My involvement, for example, was on behalf of the United Church, being involved in whatever EICAR was doing. Individually,y it was, there’s gonna be a Lubicon event or campaign, we’d be there and I’d be going or I’d go to the United Church and get appropriate resolutions from time to time about the Lubicon issue just like everybody else did and also get to hear about,y. A multi-pronged thing, I guess, multi-strands of solidarity probably was the way that worked. So, in many ways it really didn’t matter who you were representing at a particular time. All the churches and so on had appropriate resolutions. So you just showed up and stuffed the papers and went.
A relationship based on the provision of assistance is endangered when the beneficiaries of this assistance no longer request help from those who would want to be in solidarity with them. This has implications for the current situation of EICAR, EICN’s successor organization, as discussed in several of the monthly meetings I attended as a researcher, such as the one in which the following exchange took place (names replaced with acronyms to ensure anonymity): NN: ‘‘What does solidarity mean when Natives really won’t ask us for help anymore?’’ EH noted that Natives are doing much more for themselves now. NL: ‘‘We’ve always taken direction from them but now seem to have no contact with them. Injustices still abound, but where do we connect?’’ (fieldnotes, March 3, 1999)
The distinction between the solidarity relationship frames established by faith-based and secular advocates for the Lubicon is significant. Comments from secular environmental and labor activists implied a solidarity relationship between the Lubicon and their supporters with more clearly defined roles and responsibilities for both sides. Instead of the moral and faith-based
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imperative described above, the relationship was based on a strategic commitment to each other arising from mutually compatible goals for social change. An environmental activist described his view of Lubicon solidarity in the following term. It seems to me that one of the things that’s necessary for ongoing solidarity with Native people is, like I don’t think you can borrow somebody else’s vision. I think you have to have your own vision and when it coincides with other people’s vision of something, then, I think, you got something going. But at any rate, I think you have to have a strong personal vision or a strong individual group vision of what’s important and how things might be and so on, before you can make a contribution over a period of time. And my, well, I guess it was sort of, I’ve always had this feeling that people should be their own masters and in charge of their own destiny.
Such a strategic commitment could require supporters to join with the Lubicon on their chosen strategies even if these strategies were seen as flawed. The same activist described his reluctant participation in a public hearing process that he believed would hinder rather than further the Lubicon cause. But that was a losing cause from the get-go, I think. I think somebody in the band screwed up, signed something they shouldn’t have and then it was, and- But, and you can’t do that. You got to, I mean it’s, you’re at a enough of a disadvantage already and then, and then when you give the other side some legal maneuvering room, then you don’t stand a chance. So that was sort of a depressing thing but the network sort of plugged in out of solidarity with Lubicons. That sort of, there goes your solidarity. And you’re probably not going to win but you fight just for the sake of your contacts there.
Within this frame, the Lubicon were expected to commit themselves to the strategies and tactics promoted by their supporters but this expectation was not always fully met. The environmentalist also expressed his frustration at the refusal of the Lubicon to lobby the provincial and federal government very intensively at a particular time when the onset of elections created a potential window of political opportunity. I think [the Lubicon] were too polite when they should have been tougher. And it was hard to, as much as we wanted to support the Lubicons, it was hard to, I mean, it’s a two-way, solidarity is a two-way street. And, I don’t know, maybe in retrospect, some of us should have talked a little tougher with the Lubicons and said, ‘‘Well, we backed you and now it’s your turn to back us. And, we’re all, maybe we’ll all succeed together if we really give it to [the federal and provincial leaders]’’
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CLASS CONSCIOUSNESS AND DIFFERENTIATION If you have come to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because our liberation is bound up in mine, then let us work together. (Lilla Watson)
This statement, attributed to an Australian Aboriginal woman, was frequently cited by Aboriginal rights activists in the 1980s and 1990s as the basis for a solidarity relationship, thereby distinguishing solidarity from support. The statement is consistent with the consciousness-raising processes within class-based movements that Fantasia (1988) describes as a creation of solidarity. It also implies a joint response against a joint antagonist, identified as the structures and powers that maintain the hegemony of the State. However, the statement glosses over the reality that Aboriginal communities and those who would express solidarity with them do not belong to the same social classes, that the joint response to social and political structures must be intensively negotiated between parties from very different class locations. The ideal solidarity relationship was frequently articulated in terms of work undertaken jointly in response to injustices faced jointly. After the taping [of an interview], SA reacted with a raised voice and sudden hand gestures to [a previous] comment on the struggle of acting in solidarity when nobody is asking for help, saying that it is wrong to put the attention on those different from us. Rather, solidarity requires us to focus on the changes we can make here and now and thereby improve the situations of those further away, as well. (fieldnotes, August 18, 1999)
Despite the shared tasks, the ideal of common interests and common goals in reaction to common antagonists was held in tension with the recognition of a power imbalance between the two sides – an imbalance which placed the Aboriginal First Nations and their non-Aboriginal supporters in a very different social locations, as noted by one of these supporters. But the other piece, I think too, is the recognition that the power lies inywhite folks who are, they have the corporations and in politics and have access to media and all these things, and the people who are primarily affected and impacted by a lot of this stuff, are folks that don’t have access to [this]. They’re the powerless, the powerless in terms of, I guess how, you know, not in any way to be demeaning to this comment, but in terms of access to the power structures, the decision-making structures that we have in our society, there isn’t very much acceptability for a lot of Native people.
The initial reaction to this otherness and the initial motivation to overcome it arose for some supporters from a sense of guilt. We recognize that, as people of mostly European descent, there is a real complicity that we have to own with respect to justice. And so, maybe part of it, what drives us, is guilt.
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In response to this class and power difference and to a history of Christian imposition upon Aboriginal societies, the interchurch Aboriginal rights movement insisted that the solidarity relationship remain sensitive to the potential for the imposition of a church-based non-Aboriginal agenda upon the Lubicon. From this perspective, it was entirely appropriate for interchurch supporters to wait for requests for help and not to expect the Lubicon to join in and fully participate in collective actions they had not identified as central to their own agenda. One supporter described the working relationship between the Lubicon Chief, Bernard Ominayak, and his closest advisor, Fred Lennarson, as a model of an ideal solidarity relationship. It is very clear, I have watched Bernard and Fred work together intimately over four years. Fred will say what he thinks but when Bernard makes a decision, Fred implements. And all people who were working in solidarity were working on the same basis that Fred and Bernard are working, the whole solidarity struggle would be really differenty. I mean, Fred knows his role and Fred has never set the agenda and has never decided the strategy. That has been Lubicon all the way.
National representatives of the interchurch support network also developed a relationship with First Nations like the Lubicon by placing valuable resources and expertise under Aboriginal direction. Within this context, the ideal of ‘‘not speaking for the Natives’’ became part of the generalized discourse of interchurch solidarity with Aboriginal peoples. The context of this ideal usually included at least a verbal recognition and, at times, an expressed desire to renegotiate the structural disparities and power imbalances implicit in this relationship. I know that about five years ago I was in Ottawa and we had a meeting with the then Minister of Indian Affairs, Conservative, and immediately he started the meeting by, wanted to put us on the defensive and said, ‘‘Here you are. You’re a group of white people. You’re well-intentioned, you really want to do the right thing but why do you think that, as middle-class white people, you can speak for the Natives?’’ And immediately I could respond by saying, ‘‘We’re not speaking for the Natives. They can speak for themselves. We’re speaking for ourselves that as the dominant society, as rich, middle-class people, we feel very uncomfortable in our role as to what has happened to date, is what we’re saying and we’re not saying ‘We’re speaking for them’. We’re saying our level of discomfort in terms of government policy, the history of it and, more importantly, the future of Native people across this country.’’
However, by framing solidarity as passively waiting for the Lubicon to ask for help while simultaneously subordinating their local agenda to the national Aboriginal rights network agenda, EICN may eventually have marginalized itself from the struggle. To the extent that EICN increasingly viewed itself as a local representative of a national network rather than an
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autonomous actor on its own, responding to what was largely defined as a national conflict, the coalition had little incentive to offer local resources or expertise in competition with its national partners. Eventually, there was comparably little incentive for the national partners to value any unique aspect of EICN participation in the struggle other than as a channel for information and action requests to the local church congregations. Over time, the ideal of not imposing an agenda on the Lubicon was reworked into a relatively passive stance of simply waiting to be asked for help by the Lubicon or by national church activists, with few expectations of having any unique expertise or resources to offer.
COMPLEXITY OF POWER RELATIONS While lacking in material resources and in the political clout required to force government policy changes over the long term, the Lubicon did possess the power to mobilize a strong and vocal support movement throughout the 1980s. EICN members and other supporters credit two factors as crucial to the temporary success of this movement – the charismatic leadership skills of Lubicon Chief Bernard Ominayak and the extensive communications network established by several non-Lubicon advisors, especially Fred Lennarson. The following comment is typical of the way Ominayak was described by most of the non-Aboriginal interviewees. Bernard Ominayak, yeah, I didn’t know very much about him, had never met him, and his strength of character under unbelievable conditions that sustained so long, you know, conditions, and just keeping his integrity, to keep him perfect, to stay true to it from, pretty amazing, pretty amazing person. And he always came, very humble, sense of humour and very kind.
Other interviewees used adjectives such as ‘‘gentle’’ and ‘‘soft-spoken’’ to describe the chief. The descriptive language was inevitably a language denoting resilience, tenacity and peacefulness, rather than overt aggression and combativeness. The descriptive language also denotes Ominayak as a quiet but articulate presence, an impression which readily endeared him to church audiences as a speaker and a spiritual leader. From some Aboriginal interviewees, this reverence for Chief Ominayak verged on the idolization of a human being and could create one more romanticized stereotype blocking non-Aboriginal attempts to relate to the Lubicon people on a more intimate interpersonal level. Barron’s (1998)
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concern, noted above, about the danger for supporters of Aboriginal rights of projecting their own values on those whom they are supporting is relevant in this regard. A similar concern was voiced by an Aboriginal spiritual leader interviewed in Edmonton. Non-Natives tend to put Bernard on a pedestal, to see him as a Lone Ranger hero figure. This is wrong for Bernard and wrong for everyone. It lays too many expectations on him, without allowing him his humanity. Also, it says very little for the rest of the community and its ability to take care of itself. (paraphrased in fieldnotes)
Also significant was the role of Ominayak’s non-Aboriginal advisors in generating public awareness and in channeling the communication to and from the Lubicon leadership. These advisors, particularly Lennarson who was the most vocal spokesperson of the group, received mixed reviews from members of the support network. For example, while some supporters valued Lennarson’s role in implementing Lubicon directives, others were critical of an aggressive and abrasive style, which could alienate government representatives and decrease the likelihood of substantive Lubicon negotiations with provincial and federal authorities. Lennarson’s major impact on the Lubicon support campaign was exerted through the collection and dissemination of a massive amount of information to a mailing list of several hundred Canadian and foreign Lubicon supporters from 1984 to 1993. Almost every week for 9 years, supporters received copies of newspaper and magazine articles about the Lubicon conflict and other similar Aboriginal rights struggles, transcripts of audio interviews and radio call-in shows, copies of support letters sent to the media and/or political leaders, and Lennarson’s caustic commentaries on negotiating sessions and other events or activities relevant to the Lubicon cause. These mailings served to motivate and mobilize Lubicon supporters by providing extensive detail on the conflict, framing this detail in terms of Lubicon priorities and values, and extending this frame to include news and analysis of other similar Aboriginal struggles. The interchurch solidarity frame borrowed extensively from this information and commentary in its emphasis on the need for structural social change and its challenge to the structural disparities that oppressed the Lubicon first nation. However, a solidarity relationship constructed on this base was also tempted to reinforce an image of the Lubicon as helpless and powerless, while denying the complexity of the power relations that did exist between the Lubicon and their supporters. The imperative to ‘‘not speak for’’ was articulated as a deliberate response to this perceived powerlessness,
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a conscious attempt to protect the powerless from the interests of the powerful, including the relatively powerful churches. These tensions within the solidarity relationship also influenced EICN’s successor organization, EICAR, during the period of time I was present as a participant-observer. The tension between a desire to assist and a desire to hold back on EICAR agendas resulted in many intensive debates about how best to respond to specific Aboriginal issues – debates, which also included the awareness of EICAR’s identity as part of a national interchurch structure with its own commitment to the Lubicon situation. NN noted the difficulty in identifying clear context and issues for further action. ‘‘We struggle to develop good contact with Native leadership but that can’t grow without a clear sense of what we should be doingy. We don’t want to act without consultation but we don’t know who to consulty. The Lubicon scene is an issue because it is on the ARC agenda but that’s not a popular thing with other Native groups.’’ (fieldnotes, EICAR meeting, September 17, 1997) EH noted a feeling that we were not as busy as we should be. NN attributed this to the waiting situation the group was in – a situation of waitingywaiting for something concrete to work on the Lubicon issue, etc. She also struggled with a sense of not being pro-active enough. Maybe we should have been more assertive in checking back regularly with Lennarson and in discerning the role that EICAR could fulfill. (fieldnotes, EICAR meeting, May 14, 1998)
The contradiction between viewing Aboriginal communities such as the Lubicon as powerless and yet also gaining in power created further ambiguities and uncertainties in the process of defining a new relationship to these communities. Members of EICAR faced these contradictions, for example, during a discussion about the possibility of seeking donations from several oil-rich Aboriginal first nations in order to fund further activity on behalf of the Lubicon. This action was viewed as politically controversial because of the complex relations between different First Nations in the region and because of the enduring perception of the church as much economically wealthier than Aboriginal communities. ER suggested approaching Native bands which appear to be fairly well off, but admitted to mixed feelings about such a move. ‘‘I know I’m getting pressure from some of the Native people on our board to approach Native bands for funds for our centrey. I always thought all bands are poor but this is no longer the case.’’ NN: ‘‘Politically, asking for money for the Lubicon project is dangerous, what with Indian solidarity and all that, but on a general level, we do need to look at that.’’ (fieldnotes, EICAR meeting, October 22, 1998)
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In closing this section, it is worth citing the following definition of an ideal solidarity relationship as seen from the perspective of the Aboriginal leader interviewed in Edmonton. Non-Native supporters can be most effective when they know what to do and simply do it in a way which does not get in the way of what the community needs to do for itselfy. Non-Natives can best support by engaging in public education, taking the message from the Lubicon and passing it on to the constituency. To fight politically, you need to first educate yourself and then respond to the dominant ideals of assimilation. (paraphrased in fieldnotes)
According to this definition, the Lubicon set the agenda, which their supporters then implement and communicate further afield. Supporters are left to decide for themselves how best to assist the Lubicon, as long as they do not ‘‘get in the way of what the community needs to do for itself.’’ The reference to assimilation adds to the discourse a factor beyond that of class differentiation and power relations – an acknowledgment of a social identity, which sets one apart from the dominant identity, and a fear of losing this difference. Exploration of this level of otherness, typically defined as cultural, adds another level of complexity to the support network’s attempts to construct a solidarity relationship with Aboriginal peoples.
RESPONSE TO CULTURAL OTHERNESS Some supporters of the Lubicon described the conflict in terms of a cultural conflict between Lubicon on one side and the resource extraction industries and the various levels of government on the other. The following comment illustrates this tendency to see the conflict in terms of cultural difference. Do not enter the picture unless you have interest to understand, in understanding this thing from a different cultural perspective. And this is not to advance a position of a culture that was a romantic past, return to that, hunting. It’s not in that sense but the Weltanschauen of the Lubicon Cree is not at the same place that the entrepreneurial grab what you can, go West young man, harvest the exploitation, the resources. Those two minds are not meeting. They are not meeting; they’re on different levels. They miss each other thoroughly and one is expected to give trust to the other, namely Lubicon Cree, but when they accord that trust, that trust is then taken advantage of and then in an intrusive way, make off with the resources. That’s the situation.
Interviewees differed in their responses to the relevance of cultural difference for the construction of a solidarity relationship. Several EICN members preferred to set such differences aside, refusing to let cultural differences negate or obstruct the process of working together toward a common goal.
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All of the guilt and then different cultures, we operate a certain way and they operate a different way and so many of those barriers that, for some reason or other, on this one the barriers don’t matter. They don’t really give a shit that I’m white and I operate differently than they do and I don’t really care that they do either. On one level, I mean, I do on other levels but in terms of being in solidarity, for me it was very easy to be in solidarity because they had a very clear, they were coming and saying, ‘‘We need your support’’ and we don’t want to go through a whole lot of stuff about different cultural analysesy. Although it happens as a side-product, but in many ways we’re not sitting down in circles in angst trying to understand each other, you know. That happens just as you go about the business of trying to be in solidarity with each other.
As long as the interaction between the Lubicon and their supporters focused on specific tactics and tasks, as long as the supporters could respond to specific requests for help, cultural differences could be laid aside. However, any change in this clearly outlined relationship created tensions and a sense of culture shock for the well-meaning supporter. One supporter who lived with the Lubicon for a summer in the mid-1980s tells the following incident as an example of the Lubicon community’s struggle to respond to wellintentioned visitors wanting to come and help but without any clearly defined task or process for doing so. And the one fellowy. I couldn’t even tell you what his name is, it would be in my notes, but I just refer to him as ‘‘The Swede.’’ And he stayed, well, basically, he showed up in the community kind of half-unannounced. Well, where are we gonna dump this guy? And drove up to my door, ‘‘Here you go.’’ So I kind of babysat the guy for a couple of weeks and basically, like he says, ‘‘Well, I’m here. Now what can I do?’’ And I said, ‘‘Well, by all means, you can come along with me but I’m working. Well, I’m doing this and that. You know, hang out, go visit, like really it’s entirely up to you.’’ But that was kind of his whole thing. And after a while, or I don’t know, it was still summertime, he said, he was getting very frustrated because he didn’t, he felt that he couldn’t get in anywhere and he says, ‘‘You have a job, you have something to do. I don’t, I’m just here’’ and was very discouraged about coming here to support these people and yet having no ‘‘Come in.’’
The EICAR group that I observed and worked with from 1997 to 1999 had lost the direct connection with the Lubicon, which allowed individuals to transcend or ignore cultural differences by engaging in common tasks. The general exploration of Aboriginal cultural otherness was emphasized more than appeals for direct participation in specific Aboriginal land rights conflicts. Group dialog about future priorities and commitments often included a discussion about the significance of public cultural awareness workshops targeted at the non-Aboriginal constituency. AI suggested repeating the ‘‘Walking Together’’ workshops [annual Aboriginal cultural awareness events sponsored by EICAR for several years during the mid-1990s] since these involved smaller, more intimate groups and good interaction between Natives and
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non-Natives. NN noted we needed to start at the very basic point of bringing people together. NL: ‘‘It’s my sense that we’re not there to educate the Native people. They have to educate themselves in their own context. We need to teach the non-Natives.’’ NN: ‘‘The cross-cultural workshops brought together people experientially. It wasn’t for teaching Aboriginal peopley. So our target population is non-Aboriginal.’’ (fieldnotes, EICAR meeting, February 18, 1998)
While supporters from Edmonton and the rest of the country participated in several significant collective actions (most notably a series of protests and a 5-day blockade) in the 1980s, a direct relationship with the Lubicon was difficult to maintain during the periods of inactivity between the actions. The EICN response of waiting to be asked for assistance coupled with perception of the Lubicon as culturally ‘‘other’’ appears to have led to a gradual distancing from the Lubicon people during the 1990s. As a result, solidarity advocacy shifted from specific collective actions together with the Lubicon to a more general and a more distant educational role on behalf of the Lubicon and other Aboriginal people.
SOLIDARITY FRAME SUMMARIZED The Lubicon conflict was defined by supporters and activists as a cause and as a symbol used for the mobilization of public support on behalf of the Lubicon, as well as on behalf of a more generalized Aboriginal rights agenda. This understanding of the conflict led directly to the construction of a social relationship with the Lubicon people in the context of a solidarity/ advocacy frame. The solidarity frame is significant as an expression of the support network’s commitment to working in partnership with a people generally defined as different than network members. Factors that generally reinforce and reify this otherness included class differentiation, unequal balance of power and cultural differences. The solidarity relationship with the Lubicon envisioned by members of EICN (and subsequently members of EICAR) was driven by a faith stance and moral imperative, which urged participation in social justice struggle on behalf of those facing injustice. The relationship was also empowered by the interpersonal relationships fostered by those engaged in a common struggle. For EICN members, the solidarity commitment was enacted through responses to requests for help and by efforts undertaken to educate the public and mobilize further public support. This image of a particular type of social relationship stands in tension to an image of a more contractual solidarity relationship described by some
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secular Lubicon supporters – a relationship that commits both sides to act on behalf of each other as requested. When viewed in this light, such a relationship would be sustainable only insofar as both sides were willing to support the agenda and the tactics promoted by the other, something that might not always be feasible within the Lubicon situation. Responsive and contractual perspectives both implied a definition of the ideal solidarity relationship in terms of jointly engaging in activity against a common antagonist – an antagonist usually identified as the social and political structures, which benefited from exploitation of Aboriginal peoples and their resources. However, the Lubicon and their supporters were located in very different class positions vis-a`-vis these structures. Churchbased and secular supporters responded to this disparity in social power and political clout by emphasizing the importance of not imposing their own agenda on those whom they wished to aid. This could lead to a tendency to label the Lubicon as powerless, but the image of Lubicon helplessness was mitigated by a recognition of particular Lubicon resources such as Chief Ominayak’s charismatic leadership and advisor Lennarson’s dissemination of information and commentary. The Lubicon conflict was also perceived by some supporters as a cultural conflict, consistent with the framework of traditional culture imperiled by uncontrolled resource development. Cultural differences could be overcome as long as Lubicon leadership and EICN representatives were able to develop direct personal relationships and work together toward a common goal. Culture became more of a visible problematic entity as supporters attempted to gain entry directly into Lubicon community life without awareness of culturally appropriate ways of doing so and without a clearly defined joint strategy or reason to be there. The relationship with the Lubicon was framed in such a way to reinforce Lubicon ‘‘otherness’’ and to emphasize the importance of waiting to be requested to help. By not taking initiative to maintain contact regularly, the Edmonton-based coalition lost the opportunity for a sustained closer direct relationship. Over time, requests for assistance become much more rare as the Lubicon turned to a few specific individuals and organizations that did try to stay in touch. An interesting example of an exception to this tendency to drift apart is the experience of volunteers sponsored by Mennonite Central Committee Alberta (MCCA) who continued to live in the community and to assist in several local community development projects and thereby were able to develop and sustain an ongoing relationship. As noted by Funk-Unrau (2001), the MCCA emphasis on sustained community presence and
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relationship-building with the Lubicon appears to have created more long-term opportunities for support and advocacy than did EICN’s and EICAR’s emphasis on specific joint events and on waiting for requests for assistance.
CONCLUSION In conclusion, this paper proposes the extension of the concept of social movement framing to include the framing of significant ally relationships, especially the relationship between an advocacy movement and the beneficiaries of the collective action of such a movement. Through the analysis of a particular solidarity relationship frame, the paper also draws attention to the complexity and the potential internal contradictions within a given social movement frame across sectors of that movement and over time. The implications of a particular frame articulation for the future development of a particular movement require much further debate and analysis. In this case, it appears that the relationship with the Lubicon was framed in such a way that it initially created a great incentive for participation in specific actions, but then resulted in a loss of motivation and interaction over time in the face of seemingly insurmountable barriers of cultural and social ‘‘otherness.’’ The challenge for an advocacy social movement, such as the Canadian Aboriginal rights movement, remains one of maintaining momentum over time through deliberate efforts to strengthen the direct relationships with the Aboriginal people, especially during those times when no specific request for assistance is forthcoming. A deeper understanding of the dynamics of solidarity movements in this and other situations is crucial for an adequate response to this challenge.
REFERENCES Angus, M. (1991). And the last shall be firsty: Native policy in an era of cutbacks. Toronto, ON: NC Press. Barron, J. (1998). Just so stories: Cultural narratives and the politics of solidarity in support of the Labrador Innu. Unpublished MA thesis, York University, Toronto. Baum, G. (1990). Compassion and solidarity. New York: Paulist Press. Benford, R. D. (1997). An insider’s critique of the social movement framing perspective. Sociological Inquiry, 67, 409–430. Benford, R. D., & Snow, D. A. (2000). Framing processes and social movements: An overview and assessment. Annual Review of Sociology, 26, 611–639.
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Churchill, W. (1999). Struggle for the land: Indigenous resistance to genocide, ecocide and expropriation in contemporary North America. Toronto, ON: Between the Lines. Coy, P. G., & Woehrle, L. M. (1996). Constructing identity and oppositional knowledge: The framing practices of peace movement organizations during the Persian Gulf War. Sociological Spectrum, 16, 287–327. Fantasia, R. (1988). Cultures of solidarity: Consciousness, action and contemporary American workers. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Fine, G. A. (1995). Public narration and group culture: Discerning discourse in social movements. In: H. Johnston & B. Klandermans (Eds), Social movements and culture (pp. 127–143). Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Funk-Unrau, N. (2001). The path to aboriginal advocacy: Mennonite interaction with the Lubicon Cree. Journal of Mennonite Studies, 19, 65–77. Gamson, W. (1992). The social psychology of collective action. In: A. D. Morris & C. M. Mueller (Eds), Frontiers in social movement theory (pp. 53–76). New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Gerhards, J., & Rucht, D. (1992). Mesomobilization: Organizations and framing in two protest movements in Western Germany. American Journal of Sociology, 98, 555–595. Goddard, J. (1985). Last stand of the Lubicon Cree. Equinox, 21(May/June), 67–77. Goddard, J. (1991). Last stand of the Lubicon Cree. Toronto, ON: Douglas and MacIntyre. Goffman, E. (1974). Frame analysis. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Gutierrez, G. (1973). A theology of liberation. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books. Hart, S. (1996). The cultural dimension of social movements: A theoretical reassessment and literature review. Sociology of Religion, 57, 87–100. Hill, D. J. (1995). Lubicon Lake Nation: Spirit of resistance. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON. Johnston, H. (1995). A methodology for frame analysis: From discourse to cognitive schema. In: H. Johnston & B. Klandermans (Eds), Social movements and culture (pp. 217–246). Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Klandermans, B. (1997). The social psychology of protest. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell. Kvale, S. (1996). Interviews: An introduction to qualitative research interviewing. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Larana, E., Johnston, H., & Gusfield, J. R. (1994). New social movements: From ideology to identity. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press. McAdam, D. (1996). The framing function of movement tactics: Strategic dramaturgy in the American Civil Rights Movement. In: D. McAdam, J. D. McCarthy & M. N. Zald (Eds), Comparative perspectives on social movements: Political opportunities, mobilizing structures and cultural framing (pp. 338–355). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. McCaffrey, D., & Keys, J. (2000). Competitive framing processes in the abortion debate: Polarization-vilification, frame saving and frame debunking. Sociological Quarterly, 41, 41–61. McNeil, K. (1997). The meaning of aboriginal title. In: M. Asch (Ed.), Aboriginal and treaty rights in Canada: Essays on law, equality and respect for difference (pp. 135–154). Vancouver, BC: UBC Press. Melucci, A. (1995). The process of collective identity. In: H. Johnston & B. Klandermans (Eds), Social movements and culture (pp. 41–63). Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
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Melucci, A. (1996). Challenging codes: Collective action in the information age. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Oberschall, A. (1993). Social movements: Ideologies, interest and identities. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers. Oliver, P. E., & Johnston, H. (2000). What a good idea! Ideologies and frames in social movement research. Mobilization: An International Journal, 5, 37–54. Olthius, J. (1992). Stewardship and solidarity. In: D. Engelstad & J. Bird (Eds), Nation to nation: Aboriginal sovereignty and the future of Canada (pp. 204–205). Concord, ON: House of Anansi Press. Polletta, F., & Jasper, J. M. (2001). Collective identity and social movements. Annual Review of Sociology, 27, 283–305. Rubin, H. J., & Rubin, I. S. (1995). Qualitative interviewing: The art of hearing data. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Ryan, J., & Ominayak, B. (1987). The cultural effects of judicial bias. In: S. L. Martin & K. E. Mahoney (Eds), Equality and judicial neutrality (pp. 346–357). Toronto, ON: Carswell. Snow, D. A., & Benford, R. D. (1988). Ideology, frame resonance and participant mobilization. International Social Movement Research, 1, 197–217. Snow, D. A., & Benford, R. D. (1992). Master frames and cycles of protest. In: A. D. Morris & C. M. Mueller (Eds), Frontiers in social movement theory, (pp. 133–155). New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Snow, D. A., & Benford, R. D. (2000). Clarifying the relationship between framing and ideology. Mobilization: An International Journal, 5, 55–60. Snow, D. A., Rochford, E. B., Jr., Worden, S. K., & Benford, R. D. (1986). Frame alignment processes, micromobilization and movement participation. American Sociological Review, 51, 464–481. Steinberg, M. W. (1998). Tilting the frame: Considerations on collective action framing from a discursive turn. Theory and Society, 27, 845–872. Warskett, R. (1992). Defining who we are: Solidarity and diversity in the Ontario Labour Movement. In: C. Leys & M. Mendell (Eds), Culture and social change (pp. 109–127). Montreal, PQ: Black Rose Books. Williams, R. H., & Benford, R. D. (2000). Two faces of collective action frames: A theoretical consideration. Current Perspectives in Social Theory, 20, 127–151.
THE POSSIBILITY OF PERSONAL EMPOWERMENT IN DISPUTE RESOLUTION: HABERMAS, FOUCAULT AND COMMUNITY MEDIATION Jordi Agusti-Panareda ABSTRACT According to its advocates, community mediation empowers disputants in their dealing with conflict. However, critics of the community mediation movement have often contended that far from being empowering, community mediation programs constitute a means of social control and of informal state power enhancement. This paper undertakes a sociotheoretical examination of community mediation’s empowerment claims and of its criticisms. The paradigmatic and contrasting works of Habermas on communicative action and of Foucault on power, freedom and governmentality are applied to community mediation. The paper contends that although Habermas’ insights are supportive of the community mediation agenda, the criticisms they engender might provide a way to move beyond optimistically naive assumptions regarding empowering claims. Conversely, although Foucault’s work has often been used to dismiss
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community mediation’s empowerment promises, the paper argues that it is possible to re-examine the empowering potential of community mediation from a Foucauldian perspective. It concludes that community mediation can provide a space for personal empowerment, if understood in a nuanced way.
INTRODUCTION Community mediation, as a social movement that seeks to provide an alternative to state law and formal justice, has as one of its main aims the empowerment of people in their dealing with conflict. Its advocates argue that mediation programs emerge as a means to empower disputants and to free them from the state’s tutelage. However, against such visions, critics of community mediation have often contended that community mediation schemes, far from being empowering, constitute a means of social control and of informal state power enhancement. In this paper I take a sociotheoretical approach to the appropriateness and feasibility of community mediation’s empowerment claims. Based on the paradigmatic and contrasting works of Ju¨rgen Habermas and Michel Foucault, I develop an interpretation of community mediation from which to defend its potential as an empowering practice. In order to undertake such an enterprise I will follow four steps. I will first describe the claims to empowerment of community mediation and the criticisms that view it as a form of social control. Second, I will interpret community mediation and its empowerment/social control dilemma in the light of Habermas’ theory of communicative action. Although Habermas’ insights can be regarded as supportive of the community mediation agenda, their criticisms provide a way to move beyond optimistically naive assumptions regarding the empowering claim. Third, I will turn to the work of Michel Foucault on power, freedom and governmentality. Although Foucault has often been used to dismiss the empowerment claims of informal justice, I will re-examine the empowering potential of community mediation from a Foucauldian perspective. Fourth, I will contend that community mediation schemes can provide a space for personal empowerment in a nuanced and limited way. Overall, I argue for the need to acknowledge criticisms as insights from which to rethink existing practices.
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THE COMMUNITY MEDIATION DEBATE: EMPOWERMENT VS. SOCIAL CONTROL Community Mediation: The San Francisco Community Boards Attempts to develop ‘‘informal’’ and ‘‘popular’’ justice can be spotted in the widest range of cultural and historical settings (Palmer & Roberts, 1998, pp. 48–60). Hence the term community mediation refers to a large variety of experiences. However, I shall allude to community mediation in a narrower sense: as a movement that emerged in the United States during the 1970s and 1980s aspiring ‘‘to build a justice system under the authority and normative order of the community rather than that of the state,’’ in order to handle ‘‘local problems in community run forums independent of the legal system’’ and to avoid ‘‘the dominance of the legal profession and the courts in the lives of ordinary citizens’’ (Merry & Milner, 1995a, p. 10). Arising thus from a dissatisfaction with formal state justice (Shonholtz, 1995, pp. 202–203), the community mediation movement aspired to create a mechanism free from what it identified as the major flaws of the legal system (e.g. adversarialism, lack of participation, coercively imposed outcomes) by providing informal, participatory, consensual and conciliatory procedures of dispute resolution to deal with local conflicts, mainly regarding family and neighbourhood issues (Merry & Milner, 1995a, p. 10). A wide range of community mediation projects developed since the 1970s all over the Anglo-American world. For illustration purposes and in order to concentrate on a single manifestation, I will use one of its most paradigmatic exponents: the San Francisco Community Boards (SFCB). The reasons for this choice are twofold. First, being one of the first community mediation programs to appear, it has strongly influenced development of the Alternative Dispute Resolution movement and, unlike other mediation programs, throughout the whole of its history it has attempted to eschew any contact with the legal system (Merry & Milner, 1995a, pp. 11–12). Fitzpatrick (1995) refers to it as ‘‘the most rigorous commitment to popular justice in the U.S.’’ (p. 453). Second, although it has been mainly studied in relation to its community building component,1 it holds as its most fundamental aspiration the development of the capacity in people ‘‘to better manage individual and community issues and conflicts’’ (Shonholtz, 1995, p. 216). An examination of this aim is the object of this paper.2
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The Advocates’ Claims to Empowerment Community mediation in general and the SFCB in particular include several objectives in their agenda. Harrington and Merry refer to the existence of three distinguishable projects within community mediation: delivery of dispute resolution services, social transformation and personal growth (Harrington & Merry, 1988, pp. 714–715). More specifically, according to Shonholtz (1984), charismatic founder and main inspirer of the SFCB, neighborhood justice3 strives to reach conflict before it escalates into violence, to alleviate residents’ fear of crime, to lower intra-community tensions, to build community cohesion and understanding and to empower neighborhoods to resolve their day-to-day conflicts (pp. 16–17). In what follows I focus on the empowerment claim. In the view of its proponents, community mediation is designed to ‘‘reawaken citizens to their power as disputants and dispute resolvers’’ (Shonholtz, 1995, p. 205), i.e. to ‘‘empower both mediators and disputants by enhancing their capacity to manage their own conflictsyin a relaxed setting that allows them to tell their stories and to reach their own agreements without having a settlement imposed upon them’’ (Merry & Milner, 1995a, p. 16). As Schwerin (1995) points out, ‘‘the ideology of community mediation claims that mediation resolves conflicts in ways that are empowering for both the participants and the community’’ (p. 8). Hence, the interest in empowering community members has been an important stimulus to the mediation movement (McGillis, 1997). Sometimes referred to as one of the ‘‘foundational myths of the ADR movement’’, empowerment constitutes a core element in the agenda of community mediation (Adler, 1995, p. 75). Empowerment can encompass a wide variety of meanings. Bush and Folger (1994) have tried to further define the idea of empowering disputants through mediation. Mediation’s promised empowerment has been widely characterized as the ‘‘capacity to exercise autonomy, choice and selfdetermination’’ (Bush, 1989, p. 268). Mediation can empower the parties in different ways. First, to realize and assess more clearly their own goals and interests; second, to become aware of the existing options and of their control over them; third, to improve their dispute resolution skills and capacity to manage conflict; fourth, to gain consciousness of their own resources and, finally, to decide about the mediation process and outcome autonomously and in the light of their personal assessments (Bush & Folger, 1994, pp. 85–87). Moreover, this empowerment should ultimately result in the ‘‘personal growth of disputants,’’ helping them to have a ‘‘greater control over their
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lives’’ and endowing them ‘‘with techniques that they can apply to other situations’’ (Harrington & Merry, 1988, p. 715). Furthermore, the empowerment claim is also more widely applied to the community as a whole. At the core of the movement was the ‘‘hope that handling local problems in community-run forums independent of the legal system would strengthen local self-governance and rejuvenate the self-reliant communities of the past’’ (Merry & Milner, 1995a, p. 10).
Community Mediation as Social Control The promises and programs of the neighborhood justice movement were met in the early 1980s with a series of powerful critical responses that strongly questioned the feasibility of the community mediation agenda. In relation to the empowerment claim, critics argued that far from being liberating, popular justice programs such as the SFCB constituted ‘‘nothing more than a vehicle for widening the net of social control’’ (Matthews, 1988a, p. 10), understood in the sense of promoting ‘‘conformity to existing norms’’ (Harrington & Merry, 1988, p. 712).4 They typically saw community mediation experiments as an expansion of state power and social control under new guises (Abel, 1981, 1982a, b; Hofrichter, 1982; Matthews, 1988a; Santos, 1982). Some authors argued that by sponsoring neighborhood justice schemes, the state covertly expanded its power through a simple ‘‘change in the mode of state domination’’, as ‘‘the overtly coercive agency of the court’’, was ‘‘replaced by covert, ideological penetration through community mediation schemes’’ (Palmer & Roberts, 1998, p. 30). This pessimistic account of neighborhood justice and its empowering claim, which sometimes grew out of an interpretation of Foucault’s work on power relationships and social control,5 was elaborated in several ways by different critics (Harrington & Merry, 1988, p. 713). Abel, for instance, argued that ‘‘informal institutions claim to render parties more autonomous when they actually engage in more subtle manipulationywhen they simply create a new category of paraprofessionals, thereby increasing the dependence of lay persons’’ (Abel, 1982a, p. 9). He regarded informal justice programs as a scheme by which, bearing ‘‘a striking resemblance to the strategy of indirect rule employed by the imperialist state of the nineteenth and early twentieth century,’’ the state ‘‘actively seeks to undermine, displace, and coopt other forms of social control’’ (Abel, 1982b, p. 275). Furthermore, the critics judged this expansion of state power as ‘‘particularly insidious’’ since ‘‘under a rhetoric of voluntarism and individual
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empowerment’’ community mediation programs actually masked ‘‘an underlying process of greater and more invasive state control’’ (Pavlich, 1996b, p. 711). Santos (1982), for instance, argued that ‘‘through a process that, on the surface, appears to be a process of retraction’’ the state is expanding in the ‘‘form of civil society’’ so that social control can be ‘‘exercised in the form of social participation’’ (p. 262). Faced with these two contradictory accounts of the empowerment claim neighborhood justice programs, we must examine more closely the question of whether or not community mediation has the potential to be an empowering practice. I sketch such a query in the following paragraphs.
Framing the Question: Can Community Mediation be an Empowering Practice? We cannot ignore the different meanings of empowerment used across the community mediation literature and even within the SFCB agenda. Schwerin (1995) for instance, based on his empirical research on community mediation, argues that empowerment is a complex concept that is often used vaguely and lists eight empowerment components: self-esteem, selfefficacy, knowledge and skills, political awareness, social participation, political participation, political rights and responsibilities and access to essential resources (pp. 55–91). On the one hand, as we have seen above, empowerment is aimed both at the community and at the individual (Bush, 1996). In an attempt to go beyond this problematic dichotomy, I will talk about personal empowerment, to refer to the idea of the person not as a mere individual but as ‘‘a knot in a net of relationships’’ (Panikkar, 1999, p. xiii). This is an attempt to include and reconcile community and individual empowerment, supporting the idea that they cannot be understood independently. On the other hand, empowerment is often understood as alluding to building a capacity to deal autonomously with present disputes and future conflict and, more broadly, to furthering the general personal autonomy and self-reliance of its participants (Merry & Milner, 1995a, p. 16). I am primarily concerned with the former sense of dispute resolution empowerment in this essay’s analysis. Nevertheless, being interconnected with each other, I will also draw references to the latter and wider sense of overall personal autonomy enhancement. We are left then with this question: Can community mediation provide a suitable forum for personal empowerment in our dealing with disputes, conflict and everyday problems? In other words, to what extent and in what
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sense is community mediation able to help people gain control over the management of their disputes and more generally over their everyday life situations? I will not attempt to provide a complete and definite answer. But I will draw a tentative response from a socio-theoretical perspective, taking into account and critically assessing the insights provided by the works of Michel Foucault and Ju¨rgen Habermas.
HABERMAS’ COMMUNICATIVE ACTION, EMPOWERMENT AND COMMUNITY MEDIATION Habermas’ theory of communicative action and his distinction between system and lifeworld provide useful frameworks for interpreting and evaluating social phenomena (Dryzek, 1995, pp. 100–106), including community mediation. Communicative Action and Emancipation: Habermas’ Critical Project Trying to supersede the totalizing critique of enlightenment developed by Adorno and Horkheimer (1973), Habermas moves beyond his predecessors’ one-sided interpretation of the rationality of modernity as instrumental and rational-purposive. Habermas attempts to redeem the project of modernity and defends a broader conception of reason not reducible to instrumentaltechnical or strategic calculations (White, 1995, p. 6). Drawing from what he terms as an ‘‘unofficial version of Webber’s action theory’’ (Habermas, 1984, p. 284), he argues that alongside a ‘‘purposive-rational action’’ where ‘‘the actors are interested solely in success’’ and ‘‘treat each other strategically’’ (Habermas, 1990, p. 133), there is the possibility of ‘‘communicative action’’ aimed not at controlling and dominating but at ‘‘reaching understanding’’ (Habermas, 1984, p. 286). In this vein, Habermas attempts to retrieve the emancipatory project of modernity through language (Rasmussen, 1990, pp. 18–19). Communicative action relies on a process of intersubjectivity that implies both ‘‘asserting oneself and recognising the other’’, and aims at a situation free from domination and strategic motivations (Schlosberg, 1995, p. 295). Habermas spells out the preconditions of such a mode of rational communication. He refers to the paradigm of the ‘‘ideal speech situation’’ as a mode of communicative interaction where the participants share a goal of mutual understanding, have an equal and open chance of entering the discussion, with no external or internal constraints preventing participants
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from freely assessing evidence and argument; the ideal outcome is agreement, achieved through rational discussion (Moore, 1995, p. 14). It is in this realm of communicative action that we should understand, in Habermasian terms, the claim to and possibility of empowerment analyzed in this paper. Engaging in communicative action is a prerequisite to personal empowerment in Habermas’ framework. We should bear in mind that, according to Habermas, autonomy and the capacities of agency, which imply at least some degree of control over one’s life history, require participation in intersubjective processes of communication and are developed through language use (Warren, 1995, pp. 172–175). For Habermas, purposive-rational strategic action has come to dominate communication in modern society (Blyler, 1994, p. 134). In order to explain this, Habermas draws the distinction between system and lifeworld as two spheres, each ‘‘with its own immanent logic and means of communication: power and money on the one hand, communicative rationality on the other’’ (Murphy, 1990, p. 137). In the system, coordination is achieved through the steering media of money and power, aimed toward efficiency. The lifeworld, on the other hand, coordinates itself through communicative action oriented toward reaching self and mutual understanding and is directed at attaining agreement and consensus (Love, 1995, p. 50). Drawing on this distinction, Habermas argues that with the one-sided rationalization of modernity the lifeworld has become subject to the imperatives of the system. He terms this process the ‘‘colonisation of the lifeworld,’’ by which ‘‘areas of social life can be subject to new forms of domination and control under the rubrics of an instrumental rather than a communicative rationality’’ (Rasmussen, 1990, p. 81). The colonization of the lifeworld implies a series of pathological effects such as the ‘‘communicative deskilling’’ of subjects and more generally the ‘‘impoverishment of culture’’, where ‘‘expert cultures’’ gain a preeminent role in the contextual definition of everyday life (Owen, 1999, p. 27). This colonization should be viewed, from the perspective of this essay, as resulting in a loss of personal empowerment. Habermas calls for resistance against such a process, arguing for the retrieval of communicative activity (Ashenden, 1999, pp. 150–151). Here, juridification, i.e. ‘‘the tendency toward an increase in formal (or positive, written) law that can be observed in modern society’’ (Habermas, 1987, p. 357), is for Habermas the tool that enables the colonization process to go forward (Rasmussen, 1990, p. 81). Accordingly, wanting to stress the dangers and extent of colonization and to explore the possibilities for fighting back against this process, he ‘‘seizes upon calls for the dejuridification of certain aspects of life as indices of such resistance’’ (Murphy, 1990, pp. 143–144).
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Community Mediation as Empowering Communicative Action In his Theory of Communicative Action, Habermas (1987) explicitly refers to informal dispute resolution as an instance of the lifeworld fighting back, resisting colonization (Murphy, 1990, p. 144). He states that ‘‘the place of law as a medium is to be taken by procedures for settling conflicts that are appropriate to the structures of action oriented by mutual understanding – discursive processes of will-formation and consensus-oriented procedures of negotiation and decision making’’ (p. 371). Habermas, however, does not develop this any further.6 Nevertheless, we can spot important parallelisms between his defense of communicative action and the community mediation agenda. I will examine them here, focusing especially on the SFCB program. McGillis (1997) refers to the realization that court processes hinder the achievement of common understanding between the parties and are hence inappropriate for managing certain disputes as a central factor in the emergence of community mediation programs. More specifically, the development of the SFCB neighborhood justice scheme can be interpreted as arising from dissatisfaction with the application of instrumental rationality to the field of dispute resolution, which precludes the operation of communicative action. In this vein, Shonholtz (1995) critiques the formal justice system for its transformation of conflict into a legal process that relies on experts, ignores the parties’ real needs and strips them of their sense of responsibility and integrity. He also judges it inappropriate for achieving mutual recognition and criticizes its adversarial and confrontational structure (pp. 202–203). Formal justice is seen as incompatible with the communicative action aims of mutual understanding and joint agreement. In order to provide an alternative, the SFCB program developed a series of dispute resolution mechanisms whose programmatic aims bear important resemblances to the Habermasian ideal speech situation outlined above.7 Disputes submitted to the SFCB are dealt with through a consensual conciliation process in which a dispute-resolution panel helps the involved parties engage in an intersubjective communicative process. The panel is composed of three to five volunteer dispute resolvers, who represent the parties’ neighborhood or community but are chosen so they share as many traits as possible with the disputants.8 Parties retain all the decision-making power. In the SFCB, conflict ‘‘is seen as the responsibility of those disputants and is not to be given over to others or experts’’ (Schlosberg, 1995, p. 300). The panel facilitates and encourages the establishing of open communication between the parties but does not have any kind of contractual or legal power or authority over them. Thus, in the conciliation session the
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panel first helps each party to assert herself, i.e. to bring out her view of the conflict and to express its emotive content. Second, the panel tries to help disputants to understand and to recognize each other, through techniques such as ‘‘active listening’’.9 Finally, the panel seeks to help the parties acknowledge this new understanding in order to work on a possible mutually agreed upon outcome. Furthermore, throughout the session the panel assists disputants to move beyond strategic or instrumental interactions aimed at manipulation or domination (Schlosberg, 1995, p. 301). Hence, the practice of community mediation in the SFCB closely resembles the principles of communicative action and can be seen, in Habermasian terms, as a dispute resolution scheme based on personal empowerment. Moreover, such empowerment would resemble Bush and Folger’s (1994, pp. 85–87) formulation described above. This conclusion, however, should not be accepted without further qualification. On the one hand, we have the question of how such a Habermasian interpretation of community mediation would deal with the criticisms of informalism drawn above. Habermas himself might be accused by the critics of theoretically grounding the expansion of social control through informal processes that they denounce when he claims that ‘‘legislative regulationymust, first and foremost, do everything possible to de-judicialize the conflict’’ (Habermas, 1987, p. 370). However, his thesis on the colonization of the lifeworld would remain of use to interpret the differing and paradoxical accounts of community mediation outlined above.10 Thus, if we are to accept the arguments drawn by the critics of informalism, the colonization thesis could be applied to the process of social control and state expansion they describe. This would entail not seeing any move toward informalism as an instance of lifeworld resistance per se. Community justice programs should thus be viewed as affected by the threat of system colonization. Mediation schemes co-opted by state institutions might ultimately serve to enforce instrumental rationality and system imperatives in dispute resolution.11 The critics claim that community justice, informally expanding state control into new social spheres, would amount to ‘‘regulating the totality of social existence’’ and incorporating the ‘‘administrative-technocratic rationality’’ into the management of disputes (Hofrichter, 1982, pp. 235–243). Their warnings can be seen as paralleling the Habermasian concerns about the systemic colonization of the lifeworld. It is not only the specific formal guise – such as the judicial or non-judicial nature of dispute processing – that Habermas’ contentions should be thought as referring to. Rather they should be read as alluding mainly to the type of rationality – instrumental or communicative – through which conflict might be mediated. The critics’ arguments – which, as
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I will try to show, cannot deploy their full thrust when assessing the SFCB – should be interpreted as a reinforcement of the colonization thesis in dispute resolution, as a warning of its underlying dangers, which are not avoided through the mere adoption of an informalist rhetoric.12 These criticisms, interpreted in the light of the colonization thesis, should thus be acknowledged and used to guide community mediation programs in their resistance against the expansion of system imperatives. They would not amount to an overall dismissal of community mediation’s empowering potential. The critics of informalism mentioned above do not deny the possibility of creating spaces where dispute resolution can be channeled through empowerment and communicative action. They often conclude their critical appraisals by stating that community justice ‘‘should not simplistically be repudiated as merely an evil’’ since ‘‘it expresses values that deservedly elicit broad allegiance’’ (Abel, 1982b, p. 310). Moreover, they state that it ‘‘contains a potentially liberating element’’ which might entail a form of ‘‘resistance against manipulation’’ (Santos, 1982, pp. 264–265). On the other hand, several criticisms have been raised against Habermas’ interpretation of informal justice as the lifeworld fighting back. Murphy states that the move toward informalism, which Habermas treats as a form of resistance, can also be understood as a formulation of new expert roles and techniques designed to deal with disputes more effectively (Murphy, 1990, p. 145). Such a contention, however, could be integrated with the reinterpretation of the colonization thesis put forward in the previous paragraph. Criticisms should guide the design of community mediation programs; informal mechanisms cannot be regarded from a naı¨ ve stance. Thus, for example, if community mediation wants to retain its empowerment promise, moves toward expert dependency should be studiously avoided. Nevertheless, numerous criticisms have been formulated against Habermas’ theory of communicative action as an interpretative grid, some of which might question the empowering reading of community mediation reached above. For example, one might say that the distinction between system and lifeworld itself, and the view of this latter sphere as a privileged locus of resistance can lead to misleading conclusions about the effects of informal justice programs. Due to the limited scope of this paper, I will point out two particular criticisms related to the underlying assumptions of Habermas’ theoretical model, each of which can shed some light on community mediation’s empowerment claim.13 First, Habermas work has often been criticized for presupposing ‘‘the existence of power-free spheres of communication’’ and ‘‘the independence of the lifeworld from practices of domination’’ (Honneth, 1991, pp. 298–299).
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The theory of communicative action might be misleadingly eclipsing the possibility of recognizing power relations within the lifeworld (Ashenden, 1999, p. 157). It would also be highly misleading to see community mediation – in Habermas’ terms a resistance from the lifeworld – as an ideal realm free from power relations and from domination. Thus we cannot simply view mediation schemes as empowering practices because their processes highly resemble the precepts of Habermas’ ideal speech situation. Power dynamics always play a very important role that should not be overlooked. Second, from a hermeneutical standpoint, Habermas’ rigid dualism between lifeworld and system has been criticized for losing sight of ‘‘the hidden, implicit, and power-structured schemes of understanding and perception’’ that ‘‘dominate the lifeworld from within’’ and which ‘‘are neither attributable to individual intentions and plans nor reducible to systemic imperatives entering the lifeworld from the outside’’ (Ko¨gler, 1996, p. 21). These hermeneutical schemes, it is argued, orient both our understandings and actions. Therefore, to disregard their role in our processes of decision-making, as Habermas seems to do, would strongly impoverish the evaluation of community mediation programs which have personal empowerment as their aim. In short, these two criticisms point to the limits of a Habermasian reading of community mediation as a framework for empowering disputants. Both of them raise important questions about community mediation’s empowerment claim. In order to evaluate their impact, in the next section I analyze related interesting insights Foucault’s work provides.
POWER AND FREEDOM IN COMMUNITY MEDIATION: A FOUCAULDIAN INTERPRETATION One of Michel Foucault’s most important contributions to social theory is his analysis of power dynamics in modern society. I will sketch Foucault’s basic theses on this topic, focusing especially on what relates to the possibility of personal empowerment. I will thus outline an interpretation of the Foucauldian framework from which to subsequently read the community mediation empowerment debate. Power, Knowledge, Ethics and Freedom: Foucault’s Critical Project Foucault’s critical scheme is expressed as an investigation of the practices and events ‘‘that have lead us to constitute ourselves and to recognize
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ourselves as subjects of what we are doing, thinking, saying’’ and to ‘‘separate out from the contingency that has made us what we are, the possibility of no longer being doing, or thinking what we are, do or think’’ (Foucault, 1984, pp. 45–46). Hence, there is in this author’s work a great concern with the possibility of enhancing personal freedom through the practice of critical reflection.14 In order to articulate such a project, Foucault bases his analysis on three axes: ‘‘knowledge (reflection on oneself and others), power (action on the action of others) and ethics (action on the actions of oneself)’’ (Ashenden & Owen, 1999, p. 8). A central tenet of Foucault’s (1980) approach is that power cannot be equated with some of its specific manifestations as, for example, those stemming from the state apparatus (p. 60). Clarifying his use of the term power, Foucault states that ‘‘when one speaks of ‘‘power,’’ people think immediately of a political structure, a government, a dominant social class, the master facing the slave and so on. ythat is not at all what I think when I speak of ‘‘relationships of power’’ y I mean that in human relations, whatever they areypower is always present’’ (Foucault, 1988b, p. 11). According to Foucault (1977), power is ‘‘at once visible and invisible, present and hidden, ubiquitous’’ (p. 213); its relationships, therefore, develop throughout ‘‘every social field’’ (Foucault, 1988b, p. 12). Its exercise ‘‘consists in guiding the possibility of conduct and putting in order the possible outcome’’ so as to ‘‘structure the possible field of action of others’’ (Foucault, 1982, p. 221). In this vein, Foucault distinguishes between juridical or sovereign forms of power – i.e. power as right, law, repression – from disciplining or governmental forms of power – i.e. power as the capacity to organize, sustain and enhance life (Ashenden, 1999, p. 152). Power is thus seen not as a primarily repressive but also as a productive force (Foucault, 1980, p. 119). Foucault (1988c) concentrated on the study of what he termed the technologies of power and domination, and the technologies of the self. The former discipline the conduct of individuals and submit them to certain ends. Through the latter, individuals perform activities on their own bodies and souls, their thoughts, conduct and ways of being, so as to transform themselves (p. 18). He coined the term ‘‘governmentality’’ – to express the contact between the two of them (p. 19). The concept of governmentality can be understood as ‘‘all endeavours to shape, guide, direct the conduct of others, whether these be the crew of a ship, the members of a household, the employees of a boss, the children of a family or the inhabitants of a territory. And it also embraces the ways in which one might be urged and educated to bridle one’s own passions, to control one’s own instincts, to
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govern oneself’’ (Rose, 1999, p. 3). Foucault (1979) stressed the important relationship between power and knowledge, arguing that ‘‘there is no power relation without the correlative constitution of a field of knowledge, nor any knowledge that does not presuppose and constitute at the same time power relations’’ (p. 27). Thus, he was concerned about the limiting effects that expert and scientific knowledge and discourse might have on personal autonomy (Ashenden & Owen, 1999, pp. 10–11). On the other hand, Foucault (1982) moved his analysis beyond the powerfreedom dichotomy, claiming that ‘‘power is exercised only over free subjects, and only insofar as they are free,’’ so that ‘‘there is no face to face confrontation of power and freedom which is mutually exclusive’’ but ‘‘a much more complicated interplay,’’ where ‘‘freedom may well appear as the condition for the exercise of power’’ and ‘‘at the same time its precondition’’ (p. 221). Hence, he distinguished power from domination, i.e. a state where power relations are rendered impassive and invariable (Foucault, 1988b, p. 3). Moreover, he advocated for the development of ‘‘practices of freedom’’15 through the ethical activity of the ‘‘care for the self’’, which, in accordance with the aims of his critical project described above, aims at the conversion of power – in the sense of ‘‘controlling and limiting’’ – so as to reduce to a minimum the effects of domination (pp. 3–18). To sum up, in Foucauldian terms, critical analysis of the existing diffuse and unrecognized normalizing influences and power practices – that produce both discourses and subjective identities – is the key to personal empowerment, which is attained through the ethics of aesthetic self-fashioning (Ko¨gler, 1996, pp. 26–36).
Interpreting Community Mediation’s Empowerment Claim from a Foucauldian Perspective In contrast with Habermas, Focault’s work has been often used to interpret community mediation.16 Early in the informal justice debate, several authors referred to Foucault in order to build their critique of informalism as a form social control (e.g. Abel, 1982b; Hofrichter, 1982; Santos, 1982; Spitzer, 1982). However, they engaged only incidentally with Foucauldian insights and it has not been until more recently that scholars have attempted to develop a thorough interpretation of community mediation in the light of Foucault’s thesis (e.g. Matthews, 1988a; Pavlich, 1996a, b; Pinzo´n, 1996; Van Krieken, 2001). Thus, in order to develop here a Foucauldian reading of community mediation’s empowerment claim, I shall refer both to Foucault’s writings and to the works of these other commentators.
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Although some early critics tried to ground their critiques on Foucault’s work, his insights actually allow us to go beyond the first criticisms of informalism, which viewed community mediation schemes as informal mechanisms for the expansion of state power. In this vein, several contributors to Matthews (1988b) relied on Foucault to strongly question the approach taken by the early informalism critics. Power for Foucault is pervasive, including its exercise by government and its many functions beyond the state, its disciplining techniques and its technologies of the self. Using a Foucauldian perspective on power, these later writers challenged the central dilemma posed by the earlier critics as to whether informalist schemes like community mediation actually ‘‘expand or reduce state control’’ (Abel, 1982a, p. 6). This problematization, central to the Foucauldian framework, allows us in turn to move beyond a simplistic reading of the Habermasian distinction between ‘‘system’’ and ‘‘lifeworld’’ pointed out above when thinking about community mediation. The later informalism critics questioned both the worth and feasibility of examining informal justice through the lenses of enhancement or intensification of state power (Pavlich, 1996a, pp. 78–81). ‘‘Driven by the assumption of necessary state expansion’’ (Pavlich, 1996b, p. 713), the early critics’ standpoint was viewed by these ‘‘new informalists’’ (Fitzpatrick, 1988) as a ‘‘growing chorus of despair’’ and ‘‘pessimism’’ that only led to ‘‘political apathy’’ (Cain, 1988, p. 51; Matthews, 1988a).17 Thus, they claimed that in order ‘‘to develop a more adequate understanding of the various transformations which are encompassed by the term ‘informal justice’ we need a more elaborate analysis of power and social control’’ (Matthews, 1988a, p. 18). They saw community mediation as ‘‘neither an autonomous dispute resolution domain nor a mere residuum of state power’’ (Pavlich, 1996a, p. 83) and interpreted informalism as a new form of governmentality (Van Krieken, 2001, p. 11). Foucault’s work points, therefore, to the necessity of moving beyond the dichotomy of state power enhancement/reduction and adopting a more complex view of power dynamics in order to examine adequately community mediation’s empowering claim. Moreover, taking on board many of the arguments of the new informalists (Fitzpatrick, 1988, 1995; Matthews, 1988a; Pavlich, 1996a, b; Pinzo´n, 1996), it seems undeniable that there are important connections between formal and informal justice (e.g. Harrington, 1985), that it is often misleading to think about them in terms of total opposition, and that the legal system will always play a role in a mediation process, which often occurs in the ‘‘shadow of the law’’ (Mnookin & Kornhauser, 1979). Perhaps we should neither build clear-cut distinctions between the concepts of state and civil society, or system and lifeworld, nor
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focus entirely upon them when struggling to develop practices of freedom. Instead, in a Foucauldian fashion, our efforts should be directed against forms of domination at all levels. Moreover, we can use the Foucauldian framework in order to supersede some of the criticisms directed to Habermas’ vision of a power-free lifeworld. With his comprehensive understanding of power, Foucault allows us both to go beyond the social control criticisms and to deal with some of the weak points of the Habermasian interpretation developed above. This will become clearer as we now turn to the question of how we should interpret community mediation’s personal empowerment claim in light of Foucault’s work. Foucauldian commentators – ‘‘new informalists’’ – tend to be quite pessimistic about the potential of community mediation for personal empowerment. Although they claim that community mediation is ‘‘neither inherently dangerous nor liberating’’, they are inclined to view it as a form of ‘‘remote control’’ that casts serious doubts on its potential to empower disputants (Pavlich, 1996a, pp. 83, 140–145). Fitzpatrick (1988) sees this move toward informalism as a mode of ‘‘disciplinary power’’ aimed at constituting a ‘‘massive non rebellious normality’’ (pp. 190–191). Similarly, Pinzo´n (1996) views mediation as ‘‘a professional and rational mechanism, that contributes to the insertion of disciplined, orderly individuals into the machineries of production and the dominant economic, political, and legal relations of power’’ (p. 18). Pavlich (1996b), argues that mediation constitutes ‘‘a governmental power that deploys techniques of both discipline and self’’ in order to create ‘‘non disputing selves’’, producing ‘‘the very entities on which the modern, liberal y state has come to rely’’ and thus ‘‘perpetuating the liberal, governmental power formations that nurture particular conflicts in the first place’’ (pp. 708, 729). Pavlich (1996b) provides a good example of how some Foucauldian scholars, obsessed with identifying disciplining mechanisms, interpret any social practice as entailing some normalizing effect. Thus, for instance, when describing the work of the mediator, he interprets a simple attempt to favor empathy between the disputants as a restructuring of the vision of the self (pp. 726–727). Moreover, some of his general assumptions about the aims of community mediation, e.g. to avoid disputes in the future or to suppress conflict (p. 725), do not seem to fit with the agenda of community mediation associations such as the NAFCM (1998) or of mediation schemes such as the SFCB (Shonholtz, 1995). ‘‘New informalists’’ see community mediation as an instance of governmentality that constrains the exercise of freedom by the disputing parties. Thus, they still view mediation as a form of social control.
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Similarly, they warn against the ‘‘dangerous professionalism of community mediation’’ (Pavlich, 1996a, p. 150). For instance, Van Krieken (2001) states that ‘‘we should not approach informal justice in terms of the pursuit of community liberation or individual freedom’’ but ‘‘in terms of alliances between forms of legal and non legal expertise’’ (pp. 16–17). Contradicting the conclusions that emerge from the work of ‘‘new informalists,’’ I believe that Foucault’s theory of power and its application to informal justice should not lead to such a pessimistic and dismissive account of community mediation’s striving for personal empowerment. ‘‘New informalists’’ mistakenly tend to see the power dynamics in community mediation as inevitably leading to a loss of self-determination. But we should remember that Foucault (1988b) did not view the governmental exercise of power as a force that necessarily restricted personal autonomy. He argued that ‘‘the notion of governmentality allows oneyto set off the freedom of the subject and the relationship to others, i.e., that which constitutes the very matter of ethics’’ (p. 20). Foucault’s insights on the productive, multidirectional and ubiquitous character of power are not compatible with the criticisms of the ‘‘new informalists’’ described above.18 According to Foucault, power can be a positive force working precisely to limit domination and to enhance the freedom of the parties. The power relations, disciplines and subjectivation processes involved in community mediation do not necessarily undermine disputants’ empowerment. They can be geared to encourage the parties’ self-determination. As a result, personal empowerment can be defended as a realizable aim of community mediation. Power does not necessarily work in order to produce peaceful and non-disputing selves designed to fit in the logic of neo-liberal society. It is possible to spot, in the claims of ‘‘new informalists’’, a certain contradiction between the diffuse and microphysical approach to power they adopt and the clear unequivocal pattern and effects they attribute to its deployment. They forget that the power dynamics intervening in community mediation can also contribute to the constitution of disputing and empowered selves. Moreover, they ignore how its practices might actually support this contrary conclusion. For instance, the SFCB emphasis on fully disclosing and examining the conflict instead of avoiding or suppressing it and on party control instead of professional management, provides a good example of how community mediation might encourage power relations that lead to personal empowerment. Thus, we can question Van Krieken (2001, p. 17) when, from a Foucauldian approach, he dismisses any attempt to approach informal justice as the pursuit of individual freedom. Such a renunciation fails to take on board the whole point of Foucault’s (1988b)
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strivings, i.e. to enhance our freedom through critical reflection and to find and develop practices that avoid the effects of domination (p. 18). Conversely, from a Foucauldian standpoint we also cannot view the structure of community mediation, as its advocates do, as an institutional arrangement that grants per se the exercise of freedom. Foucault (1984) was clear on this when stating ‘‘I do not think that there is anything that is functionally – by its very nature – absolutely liberating. yliberty is a practiceythe liberty of men is never assured by the institutions and laws that are intended to guarantee themybecause ‘‘liberty’’ is what must be exercised’’ (p. 245). Community mediation entails a call for this exercise and it should be structured accordingly. Thus, it should be kept flexible and open to criticism and reformulation, taking the abundant number of criticisms as directions for how to get closer to its empowering promise.19 However, there is something in the structure of community mediation that might make it a better candidate for achieving empowerment than its formal adjudicatory counterpart, which was not regarded with much sympathy by Foucault.20 Both from a Foucaldian and a Habermasian perspective, community mediation’s institutional flexibility and its encouragement of personal and dialogical reflexivity by the disputants make it an especially suitable framework for developing intersubjective practices of freedom in the management of disputes (Schlosberg, 1995; Shonholtz, 1984; 1995).21 In consonance with Foucault’s ethics of aesthetic self-fashioning, community mediation provides a place for persons to act upon their own actions and perceptions. On the other hand, the community framework of informal justice might offer some clues in order to supersede particular criticisms that have been formulated to Foucault’s empowering project. According to Ko¨gler, Foucauldian insights do not free us from the hermeneutical critique that we directed above to Habermas’ theory of communicative action. In this vein, Ko¨gler (1996) sees Foucault’s aesthetical ideal as too individualistic and argues for the necessity of an ‘‘ethics of solidarity’’ in order to struggle against structural domination (p. 35). The community element of informal justice might provide here a wider social framework from which to realize this promised empowerment, which in order to be attainable must move beyond the individual’s sphere. Moreover, if not all the elements and practices in community mediation serve these empowering purposes, its openness to transformation could allow it to change in that direction. As Shonholtz (1995) says when describing some of the criticisms against informalism, ‘‘critiques further our understanding and appreciation of how to improve community-justice systems and amplify their central premise of citizen initiative’’ (p. 208). In fact, the
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criticisms of the new informalists should be taken on board not with the negative pathos that underlies their conclusions but as insights that can tell us how to rethink community mediation in order to realize its empowering claim. Community mediation should see the trends pointed out by the critics as potential dangers and domination threats in the practice of mediation that have to be made explicit in order to be superseded. Moreover, Foucault’s work can help us here to detect disempowering trends, such as the conversion of community mediation into a field of expert knowledge handled only by professional interveners (Van Krieken, 2001). Awareness of all these possible autonomy-restricting elements is the first step toward overcoming them. Hence, knowing how governmental power works becomes of crucial importance. As Foucault (1981) argued, ‘‘power is tolerable only on condition that it mask a substantial part of itself. Its success is proportional to its ability to hide its own mechanisms’’ (p. 86).
BY WAY OF CONCLUSION: THE POTENTIAL FOR EMPOWERMENT In the previous sections I have analyzed community mediation’s claims to empower disputants from a Habermasian and a Foucauldian perspective. We have seen how a Habermasian interpretation initially favors viewing community mediation as an empowering practice, and how the limitations of Habermas’ framework lead us to a cautious and nuanced reading of such a conclusion. On the other hand, using Foucault’s work as a complementary and divergent approach, I have argued that community mediation offers an interesting potential for personal empowerment, despite the claims of some Foucauldian commentators. Thus, we must answer this essay’s question in an affirmative sense. Community mediation does provide a dispute resolution arena that allows for the personal empowerment of the parties. While the advocates’ claims of general ‘‘success’’ (Shonholtz, 1995, p. 236) might be too optimistic, the pessimistic criticisms of empowerment as an ‘‘impossibility’’ (Fitzpatrick, 1995) are equally fallacious. We should instead view community mediation as a framework where the personal empowerment of disputants can take place in a limited fashion. As I have argued above, the structure and process of community mediation schemes favor the use of communicative rationality and encourage the parties to engage in practices of freedom. In this sense, community mediation can help disputants to deal more autonomously not only with their disputes but also, more generally, with their everyday life
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situations. However, this empowerment does not follow automatically and therefore has to be understood in a limited sense, as a possible result but not as a given. It is a practice whose exercise might find an especially suitable ground in community mediation programs. Nevertheless, community mediation is not exempt from Habermasian threats of instrumentalization and system co-option or from the domination tendencies Foucault warned about. As researchers in the field point out, community mediation is moving increasingly in the direction of greater institutionalization and professionalization (e.g. Hedeen, 2003; Schwerin, 1995, p. 148). These tendencies, as a Habermasian and Foucauldian interpretation indicates, pose important threats to the empowering potential of community mediation. The arguments of the early critics and of the ‘‘new informalists’’ should be thus understood as warnings about what might potentially intervene to limit the freedom of disputants, i.e. dangers that might negatively affect their empowerment. Awareness should help community mediation to circumvent these dangers by critically assessing existing practices and restructuring community mediation programs in new ways, so as to correct and avoid disempowering trends.22 In such an enterprise, the works of both Habermas (e.g. through his colonization thesis) and Foucault (e.g. through his analysis of power dynamics and his ethical project aesthetic self-fashioning), can be of great help. Often taken as epitomes of the modern and postmodern socio-theoretical frameworks, the interpretative grids provided by these two authors afford us with complementary readings of community mediation and its potential for empowerment. A Habermasian interpretation, pointing to the potential of communicative action, allows us to focus on the empowering promise of community mediation. A Foucauldian reading, addressing the complex interrelation between power and freedom, provides some clues on how to supersede the pessimistic analysis that derives from the arguments of informalism critics – and even from criticisms directed toward a Habermasian analysis. Together, these authors lead us to affirm the possibility of personal empowerment in community mediation, albeit in a nuanced sense, emerging from an ongoing inter- and intrasubjective process.
NOTES 1. This bias toward the community element can be spotted, for example, throughout the most detailed case study regarding the SFCB, The Possibility of Popular Justice, edited by Merry and Milner (1995b).
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2. Yet, in order to enrich this work’s account and arguments, I will also refer more broadly to approaches to community mediation endorsed by the National Association for Community Mediation (NAFCM). 3. Because any possible distinction between ‘‘neighborhood justice’’ and ‘‘community mediation’’ is irrelevant for the purposes of this paper I will use these terms interchangeably throughout the text. 4. Due to space limits, I will not deal here with other criticisms to popular justice that in one way or another might be related to the empowerment promise. For instance, I leave out the claim that informal mechanisms can operate ‘‘in the interest of stronger, institutional litigants rather than the disadvantaged’’ (Palmer & Roberts, 1998, p. 34). 5. The arguments of early informalism critics often referred to Foucault (e.g. Abel, 1982b, p. 309; Hofrichter, 1982, p. 230; Spitzer, 1982, p. 190), but did so in a rather incidental manner and usually referring only to his work Discipline and Punish. As I discuss below, it is not until later on in the informal justice debate that Foucault’s work is more thoroughly used to assess community mediation. 6. Thus, in his main work on law, Between Facts and Norms, Habermas (1996) deploys his theory of communicative action in the democratic process of lawmaking. However, he does not apply its rationality to the realm of civil dispute resolution. 7. An interesting detailed internal description of the SFCB dispute resolution process is provided by Shonholtz (1984, 1995). In order to avoid constant citation I will avoid any particular references to those texts in the following lines. 8. Similarly, in the NAFCM programs, ‘‘community mediation is characterized by, and/or committed to the use of trained community volunteers as the primary providers of mediation services’’ and the volunteer mediators, board members and staff are expected to be ‘‘representative of the diversity of the community served’’ providing ‘‘service to clients regardless of their ability to pay’’ (National Association for Community Mediation, 1998, p. 7). 9. Active listening often means simply repeating what disputants say in a way that lets them feel recognized. In the SFCB training manual this is part of their ‘‘AVECS’’ system, which includes acknowledgement, validation, empathy with, clarification and summarizing of disputants’ issues (Schlosberg, 1995, p. 300). 10. More generally, the colonization thesis might be used to interpret the cooption process of Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) by the legal system and its actors denounced by some scholars (e.g. Menkel-Meadow, 1991). 11. It comes as no surprise that Hedeen (2003), bearing in mind the NAFCM community mediation model, concludes a recent article by questioning whether, with existing institutionalization dynamics, community mediation can long endure as a dispute resolution mechanism ‘‘of, by and for the people.’’ 12. I am not claiming the possibility of a complete compatibility between the critics’ arguments and Habermas’ insights. An instance of fundamental disagreement, would be, ‘‘the idea of a lifeworldyas a realm outside of and standing in opposition to the state’’ often attributed to Habermas (Ashenden, 1999, p. 157). 13. I will not deal therefore with all the relevant criticisms. Moreover many of them have already been the subject of scholarly work. For instance, an anthropological critique of Habermas’ ideal speech situation and its application in the field of dispute resolution is provided by Moore (1995).
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14. Foucault (1988a) emphatically declared ‘‘my roleyis to show people that they are much freer than they feely All my analysesyshow the arbitrariness of institutions and show which space of freedom we can still enjoy and how many changes can still be madey I believe in the freedom of people’’ (pp. 10–15). 15. Foucault (1988b) used the expression practices of freedom instead of the term liberation, arguing that there is in the latter ‘‘the danger that it will refer back to the idea that there does exist a nature or a human foundation whichyfound itself concealed, alienated or imprisoned in and by some repressive mechanism’’ (p. 2). Here, questions could arise around the presupposition of a certain human ‘‘nature’’ that might underlie any claim to empowerment. Without being able to enter in such a discussion, suffice it to say that Foucault should be interpreted as being ‘‘committed to a minimal account of the human subject’’ (Ashenden & Owen, 1999, pp. 8–9). 16. The only published article to my knowledge that refers to community mediation from a Habermasian perspective is Schlosberg’s (1995) ‘‘Communicative Action in Practice: Intersubjectivity and New Social Movements.’’ 17. As Trubeck (1984) points out, the early critics ‘‘tell us not to believe in the chimera of justice without law. But they also tell us that they do not believe in justice through law so that we seem to be left with no way out’’ (p. 834). Moreover, conflict resolution scholars have often argued that in most societies we encounter a recurring oscillation between the promotion of adjudicatory and formal mechanisms, on the one hand, and the favoring of more flexible and less formal techniques of resolving disputes, on the other (e.g. Abel, 1982c; Auerbach, 1983). These scholars also illustrate how this dynamic is often more complex than what an ‘‘oscillating model’’ allows for, as the cycle comes always to rest at a place which is different from its starting point (e.g. Nader, 1984; Palmer & Roberts, 1998). 18. Moreover, informalism critics often convey implicitly overarching statements about popular justice that miss the complexity and different agendas or programs that are covered by this broad label. Here, for instance, it might be useful to use Schwerin’s (1995) distinction between transformational and more conservative approaches to community mediation, the former focusing on empowerment and social change and the latter on professionalism and standardization. 19. Here the National Association for Community Mediation (NAFCM), which plays a fundamental role in providing a voice for the community mediation movement across the USA (McGillis, 1997, pp. 35–36), can help to prevent the adoption of disempowering policies. For instance, in January 2000 the NAFCM chose to maintain its organizational autonomy because of its community building and empowerment vision (Bradley & Smith, 2000). Similarly, the NAFCM has recently developed an interest statement on the Uniform Mediation Act, where it declares ‘‘that the independence of community mediation be preserved and that adoption of any legislation not curtail, limit or negatively impact the valuable work of community mediation centers throughout the country’’ (http://www.nafcm.org/pg73.cfm). However the setting of common guidelines should not hinder the autonomy of individual community mediation centers, as an expression of the community empowerment they aim to attain. 20. Foucault’s (1980) words provide quite a clear example of this aversion when arguing that ‘‘the forms of this judicial system, and the ideology which is associated with them, must become the target of our present struggle’’ (pp. 35–36).
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21. From a hermeneutical perspective, mediation schemes should encourage the adoption by disputants of a ‘‘hermeneutic reflexivity’’ (Ko¨gler, 1996) in order to allow them to overcome the disempowering effects of power-laden interpretative schemes. 22. For instance, one aspect of the SFCB agenda to be criticized from an empowering perspective would be the conciliation panel’s embodiment of community norms and values (Fitzpatrick, 1995, p. 461). Rather than promoting its acceptance, the panel should encourage their critical and intersubjective assessment by the disputants. More broadly, different authors have pointed to the existence of possible contradictions between the SFCB agenda and its actual practices (e.g. Nader, 1995; Schwerin, 1995; Thompson & DuBow, 1995).
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank Patrick Coy and two anonymous referees for their kind help, reading and insightful comments on earlier drafts of the paper. I am also indebted to the Fundacio´ Caixa Catalunya, whose generous scholarship provided me with the financial means to undertake this work.
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ABOUT THE AUTHORS Jordi Agusti-Panareda is a qualified lawyer in Spain and a researcher in mediation and conflict management. Lately he has been studying and undertaking research on mediation and dispute resolution at the London School of Economics and Political Science and at Stanford University. He has recently been awarded a J.S.D. doctoral degree at Stanford Law School. Paul D. Almeida is assistant professor of Sociology at Texas A&M University. His research focuses on the dynamics of social movement mobilization in lesser-developed countries. His articles on social movements have appeared in the American Journal of Sociology, Latin American Perspectives, Mobilization, Realidad (El Salvador), and Social Problems. He is currently completing a book manuscript on waves of popular unrest in El Salvador during the 20th century. Jeffrey M. Ayres is an associate professor of Political Science at Saint Michael’s College in Colchester, Vermont, USA, and the Fulbright Research Chair in North American studies at Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada, spring 2004. He is the author of Defying Conventional Wisdom: Political Movements and Popular Contention Against North American Free Trade (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1998), and several articles and book chapters on Canadian political economy, social movements and transnational contention. Marie Cornwall is a professor of Sociology at Brigham Young University. In addition to her interest in social movements, her research focuses on gender, family, and social change. Patrick G. Coy is director of the Center for Applied Conflict Management and associate professor in the Department of Political Science at Kent State University. His most recent publications include ‘‘A Stage Model of Social Movement Cooptation: Community Mediation in the United States,’’ The 291
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Sociological Quarterly, 46(4), 2005, and ‘‘Harnessing and Challenging Hegemony: The U.S. Peace Movement after 9/11,’’ in Sociological Perspectives, 48(3), 2005. He is currently at work on a NSF-funded book project, coauthored with Gregory Maney and Lynne Woehrle, based on a comparative and longitudinal analysis of the discourse of 15 diverse U.S. peace movement organizations from 1990–2005. Jennifer Earl is an assistant professor of Sociology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Her research focuses on social movements and the sociology of law, with particular research emphases on social movement repression, Internet contention, social movement outcomes, and legal change. Her published work has appeared in The American Sociological Review, The Annual Review of Sociology, Sociological Theory, Mobilization, and Research in Social Movements, Conflicts and Change, among other journals and volumes. Neil Funk-Unrau is the Program Coordinator for Conflict Resolution Studies and an assistant professor of Conflict Resolution Studies at Menno Simons College, affiliated with the University of Winnipeg. He received a Ph.D. in Social Science from Syracuse University in 2001. His dissertation consisted of an examination of solidarity and advocacy networks attempting to work with the Lubicon Cree people of northern Alberta in the 1980s and 1990s. Current research interests include faith-based Aboriginal Rights movements, the role of apologies in conflict transformation processes and the development of community-based restorative justice processes. Brayden G. King is an assistant professor of Sociology at Brigham Young University. In addition to his work on social movements and legislation, his research focuses on corporate behavior, financial markets, and pricing inefficiencies. He recently completed a dissertation at the University of Arizona examining the inter-industry location of corporate acquisitions in the communications industries and their effects on firm market value. Andrew W. Martin is an assistant professor of Sociology at the Ohio State University. His research interests include the American labor movement, social movements, and organizational theory. His current research agenda involves the use of social movement theory to analyze union organizing efforts in the 1990s. In a separate project, he, along with collaborators John
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D. McCarthy and Clark McPhail, is collecting data on disturbances that have occurred on or near college and university campuses from 1985present. Belinda Robnett is an associate professor of Sociology and former Director of African–American Studies at the University of California, Irvine. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Michigan in 1991. Robnett is the author of How Long? How Long? African–American Women in the Struggle for Civil Rights, Oxford University Press, and the co-editor of a recent book, Social Movements: Identity, Culture, and the State, Oxford University Press. She is currently working on a new book project, Our Struggle for Unity: African–Americans in the Age of Identity Politics and has published numerous articles on race, gender, and social movements. Mark C. J. Stoddart is a Ph.D. student at the University of British Columbia. He completed his M.A. at the University of Victoria in 2004. His areas of interest include environmental sociology, social theory, and qualitative methodology. His current research focuses on the social construction of skiing as a form of recreational land use, as ‘‘sustainable development’’ and as an environmental/social problem. Recent publications include: ‘‘Generalizability and Qualitative Research in a Postmodern World,’’ which appeared in the Graduate Journal of Social Science; and ‘‘The Marijuana Economy, Public Safety and Power/Knowledge in the Vancouver Sun,’’ which appeared in the Brock Review.
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