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Negotiations in mobilization campaigns. How political psychology
can inform activists and social movement scholars
Marije Boekkooi, PhD student, Department of sociology, VU University, Amsterdam
ABSTRACT
This paper focuses on mobilization campaigns for demonstrations. Mobilization campaigns are often
initiated by alliances of organizers. This implies that these organizers -often representatives of
different social movement groups- need to negotiate about the campaign. The negotiation-process
itself has been subject to strong controversies within social movements and has even caused splits
within them. It is therefore imperative to understand negotiation-processes, both for scholars to
understand social movements, and for activists seeking to accomplish successful campaigns. But,
although social psychologists have studied negotiation processes extensively these theories are
hardly known or used by social movement scholars and activists alike. Furthermore, these studies
have often been conducted in experimental settings and focus on dyads and business-negotiations.
The applicability to social movement settings is therefore not yet clear. In this paper I will import the
theory on negotiations into the study of mobilization processes, focusing on real-life negotiations in
coalitions of social movement groups.
I will give a short overview of different negotiation-theories that could be helpful to the
understanding of social movements, such as; the impact of negotiation-styles of individuals as well
as the impact of group cultures, and the type of negotiation issue. I will also discuss some of the
impacts of affect, emotion, status and power. I will subsequently apply these theories to data on
several mobilization campaigns. I have conducted in-depth interviews with organizers of an anti-war
demonstration in the Netherlands, last summer’s anti-G8-protests in Germany, and a national day of
action against Climate change in the US.
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