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Culture, Power, and Institutions:
A Multi-Institutional Politics Approach to Social Movements
Elizabeth A. Armstrong
Mary Bernstein
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Paper Submitted to the 2004 Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association
January 15, 2004
ABSTRACT:
This paper argues that because of their reliance on a state-centered structuralism, political
process and contentious politics models cannot account for sexuality and gender
movements that are often not oriented toward the state and are concerned with
challenging existing systems of cultural classification. We draw on institutional and
feminist theories to develop a multi-institutional politics (MP) approach to social
movements based on an alternative theory of institutionalized power. The MP approach
also re-conceptualizes the relationship between the material and symbolic realms. We
draw on examples from the LGBT movement and illustrate the generalizability of the MP
approach.
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Authors are listed in alphabetical order. Authors contributed equally to this article.
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We would like to thank Nancy Naples and Francesca Polletta for extraordinarily helpful
comments on this paper.