Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Recent social movement research highlights the need for a stronger theory of agency in social movements. Drawing from Pierre Bourdieu�s work on fields and insights from Governmentality scholars, this paper offers an analysis of how protest strategy is interwoven in collective action repertories. Rather than reproduce cultural debates of structure versus agency, I will argue that insights found in field theory allows for an analysis of social movement strategy based on the relationship between repertoires (structure) and tactical decisions (agency). This analysis aims to understand the interrelationship of social movements and state actors in order to assess how social movements� are structured, in part, around possibilities tied to their social positioning in the field. I illustrate this with an analysis of how SCLC and local southern municipalities implemented and revised tactical decisions. I show that SCLC implemented tactical decisions based on which local municipalities would respond dramatically and violently in order to maximize the amount of symbolic meaning from their available forms of protest. Despite having the means of legitimate violence, local municipalities were split on whether to engage the protests violently or situate their tactics in discourses of non-violence, thus creating a political opportunity for social change via elite cleavages.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: This study is a historical analysis of reasons and dynamics behind the emergence of fundamentalist religious movements. Its purpose is to develop a new conceptual apparatus to the approach toward religious fundamentalist movements that would analyze both external and internal factors influencing their emergence. It is a case study of an Islamic fundamentalist religious movement called Maitatsine in Nigeria. The theoretical background is based upon the concepts of international division of labor, the role of the state and social institutions, and the national culture taken from the world system theory, which explain the external factors influencing the dynamics in West Africa, the region where the analyzed religious movement emerged. Analysis of the factors at the micro level is provided with the social movements theories� concepts of mobilization and framing, which explain the organization of religious movements. Historical context, with the history of Islam, colonialism, and post-independence period in Nigeria are presented in order to provide a background for the study of the Maitatsine movement. Findings indicate that the world dynamics significantly influence economic and political realities of peripheries with weak states and institutions. They provoke the increase of the �disinherited� social groups in the capitalist secular system, which include mainly immigrants, foreigners, and thus, members who were different than the dominant ethnic groups in big cities. Consequently, this inflames rising feelings of grievance toward the dominant western culture that is directed by charismatic religious leaders. Religious ideology becomes a strong mobilizing and framing factor.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: The conceptual wall between lifestyles and social movements has created a scholarly blind spot that conceals numerous theoretical insights that reside at the intersection of: private action and movement participation, personal change and social change, and personal identity and collective identity. Drawing upon our research on the Social Responsibility and Voluntary Simplicity Movements we outline a new conceptual category of collective action, lifestyle movements, and present four defining aspects of lifestyle movements: (1) lifestyle (especially consumption) as a tactic of political/social action, (2) the diffuse structure of lifestyle movements, (3) the central role of personal and collective identity, and (4) the links between lifestyle movements and social movements.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Labor movements, as class-based “old” movements, are often excluded from the core cases of social movements in the social movement literature. This paper argues that the labor movement should be treated as a social movement proper, distinguished by its legal constraints, organizing requirements, structural actors (labor unions) and participants (labor union members), and by its engagement in distinctive social movement campaigns (strikes). The particularities of the labor movement offer social movement scholars considerable leverage in understanding social movement learning, collective action repertoire transformation, leadership replacement, and response to campaign outcome. _x000d__x000d_Based on field research, interviews with union officials and field organizers, and archival materials, the paper analyzes strikes by the United Mine Workers of America from 1984 to 1993. Treating strikes as recurring social movement campaigns, the paper identifies the major collective actions and strategy of each strike, assesses the strike outcomes, and assesses the impact of winning or losing upon social movement learning, and collective action repertoire transformation.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: This work shares findings and implications from a dissertation exploring how multi-issue, transnational coalitions and structures, able to mobilize large swaths of civil society across the world, are created and sustained. It is based on over 100 semi-structured interview-conversations and participant observation at the World Social Forum in 2003 and the European Social Forums in 2002 and 2003. Processes and their constitutive mechanisms were culled from this evidence, in an inductive-deductive spiral operationalizing McAdam, Tarrow and Tilly�s most recent explanatory framework from the Dynamics of Contention. The episode of contention is identified to be that of �globalization�, which is then broken down into �global economic integration� and �internationalization�. It is within the latter that this study of the social forums and the �global movement of movements� is located, and I call this process �the internationalization of activism�. I argue that this process is made up of three smaller processes: mobilization, scale shift, and actor constitution. Reframing the research question around these three processes, I then explored: how and why activists are mobilizing in unprecedented numbers, locales, and complex networks; how and why they are broadening their focus to include the transnational level; to what extent they are forging a single collective actor or identity; and what is the role of the World Social Forum in these processes. This study corroborated McAdam, Tarrow and Tilly�s hypotheses of robust mechanisms that constitute each of these processes, identified additional mechanisms in each, and concluded that one global collective actor is emerging around the shared demand for �deep democracy�. Implications for scholars, activists and policymakers were then discussed.