Social Movement Theory

• Social Movement Theory

• In social movements, large groups of people decide to promote or resist political and social change. They identify a problem, determine that responsible parties are failing to address it adequately, and therefore take action, themselves. To be more efficient, and participants structure their activities into social movement organizations (SMOs). SMOs share the goals of the social movement and work toward these goals. The Islamist movement has produced social movement organizations such as the Muslim Brethren and Hamas and the Gamaa-Islamiyya. SMOs may specialize in different areas of organization such as fundraising, lobbying, organizing or leading grassroots campaigns.  

• **It might be defined as a distinct social process that consists of certain mechanisms through which actors engaged in collective action: Are involved in conflictual relations with clearly identified opponents. -The conflict is identified by an oppositional relationship. -But certain social movements involve consensual collective action (like charities)

• (ii)Are linked by dense informal networks. -No one actor (no matter how powerful or organized can claim to represent a movement as a whole.Share a distinct collective identity. -A social movement is in place only when collective identities are in place.

• •Social Movement Theory has emerged as a middle ground approach in analyzing episodes of “contentious collective actions”; it falls between the structuralist school (focus is on the large units of analysis; eg. states, international system) and the rational choice school (unit of analysis is the individual).

• SMT focuses on groups as the unit of analysis in explaining collective action: **While recognizing that individuals make strategic choices, SMT believes that these choices are not made in a vacuum outside of the changing context in which people actually live. Thus, since individual decision-making cannot be understood outside of a group/social context, the group is the proper unit of analysis. **SMT also recognizes the importance of structural change in creating the conditions necessary for collective action. But also we must understand how people act within the parameters of structural change.

• SMT takes the middle road on the role of agency in analyzing “contentious collective action”: **Structuralists deny that purposeful human actions account in any meaningful way for large political outcomes. **Rational choice theorists understand history as the sum total of millions of strategic choices made by individuals. **SMT says agency is important, but constrained.

• •Conclusion: SMT claims a methodological middle ground between structural and rational choice models of “Contentious collective action” by: **Utilizing groups as the primary unit of analysis **Suggesting that agency/volunteerism is important but constrained.

Structural Strains as Proximate Causes?

• The First generation of social movement theory was rooted in functionalism and focused on the structural and psychological causes of mass mobilization. The classic models posited a linear causal relationship in which structural strains produce psychological discomfort, which, in turn, produces collective action. Various strains, such as industrialization, modernization, or an economic crisis, disrupt social life and accepted routines, thereby creating a degree of social and normative ambiguity about how to respond to changing conditions.

• A psychological sense of isolation and impotence in the face of broad societal changes was believed to prompt individuals to join social movements. Movements were thus seen as escapist coping mechanisms through which individuals regain a sense of belonging and empowerment. While there are different variants of the early social movement theories, they all shared a common understanding of social movements as mechanisms for alleviating psychological discomfort derived from structural strains.

• Rapid socioeconomic transformations tended to concentrate wealth among the Westernized elite, state bourgeoisie, and corrupt state officials, while concurrently generating negative side effects that impacted large segments of the population. Municipal infrastructure, for example, was insufficient to accommodate the influx of rural-urban migrants seeking employment, leading to housing shortages, the expansion of shantytowns, and the growth of unwieldy mega-cities such as Cairo, Tehran, and Algiers. At the same time, prices on basic commodities rose while real wages and employment declined. By the late 1960s and early 1970s, the standard of living for many in society had suffered under failed state-controlled economic policies.

• These failures and the growing impoverishment of larger portions of the population were magni¤ed by the devastating and bitter Arab defeat in the 1967 war with Israel, which served as a catalyst for societal introspection.

• Some argue that socioeconomic factors are the principal cause and tend to emphasize the common socioeconomic background of Islamic activists. The underlying assumption of such an approach is that socioeconomic background tells us something about grievances and therefore why individuals join an Islamic movement or group. Early research indicated that most militants had high levels of education and recently migrated to urban centers, often in search of employment opportunities. Scholars argued that because these recruits were cut off from their rural roots and family, lived in a new urban environment with different values, and faced blocked social mobility, they suffered a sense of social alienation and anomie that rendered them vulnerable to the Islamist message of tradition.

• Later studies showed that the base of support shifted toward the less educated strata of society, but recruits were still seen as motivated by psychosocial pressures created by socioeconomic crisis (Ibrahim 1996). Others view Islamic activism as a response to cultural imperialism. From this perspective, the most important societal strain is the growing influence of Western culture, as supported by an assortment of foreign and international political, economic, and military instruments.

• Still others favor political strain explanations for the rise of Islamic activism. Under authoritarian rule, the masses lack formal political access to mitigate the adverse effects of modernization projects and the deterioration of quality of life. With few open channels for political recourse, the result is societal frustration and a sense of alienation. The feeling of political impotence is exacerbated in the face of security service repression and administrative processes that attempt to depoliticize civil society and prevent oppositional activities. Since political movements are banned under most authoritarian regimes, Islamic activism becomes a natural vehicle for political discontent.

• The early sociopsychological approach to the study of social movements met with stark criticism for its overly simplistic formulation of an inexorable linkage between structural strain and movement contention, a criticism that is equally applicable to similar approaches in the study of Islamic activism. Systems are not inherently balanced or static, but rather consistently dynamic as they experience the pressures and strains of societal changes, events, and interactions.

• In reality, social movements do not correspond to the strain-movement paired logic. In fact, poor countries with limited resources or political freedom often produce few social movements, despite the ubiquity of strain and discontent. Western democracies, on the other hand, which enjoy much higher standards of living, political freedom, and stability, are ripe with robust movements. (strain is not the only factor)

• Explanations for the emergence of Islamic activism no longer narrowly focus on a single category of strains or concomitant discontent (political, socioeconomic, or cultural), but rather combine these factors into single explanatory frameworks that include extensive lists of precipitating causes. The massive accumulation of different societal problems makes mobilization seem virtually inevitable.

Resources and Mobilizing Structures

• Resource mobilization theory (RMT) emerged in response to the shortcomings of the early sociopsychological approaches to social movements. Rather than viewing movements as constituted by irrational or psychologically deprived individuals who join in response to structural strains, RMT views movements as rational, organized manifestations of collective action. As an approach, its central contention is that while grievances are ubiquitous, movements are not. As a result, there must be intermediary variables that translate individualized discontent into organized contention.

• For RMT, resources and mobilizing structures, such as formal social movement organizations (SMOs), are needed to collectivize what would otherwise remain individual grievances. Movements are not seen as irrational outbursts intended to alleviate psychological distress, but rather as organized contention structured through mechanisms of mobilization that provide strategic resources for sustained collective action.RMT emphasizes the rational and strategic dimensions of social movements.

• Scholarship highlights the importance of organizational resources. The mosque, for example, is a central institution for religious practice in Muslim societies and is frequently utilized as a religiospatial mobilizing structure by various Islamist groups (e.g., see Parsa 1989). Within the physical structure of the mosque, Islamists offer sermons, lessons, and study groups to propagate the movement message, organize collective action, and recruit new joiners. Mosques also provide an organic, national network that connects communities of activists across space. In this manner, mobilization through the mosque is analogous to the use of churches by the civil rights movement in the United States.

• Islamic NGOs, such as medical clinics, hospitals, charity societies, cultural centers, and schools, provide basic goods and services to demonstrate that “ Islam is the solution” to everyday problems in Muslim societies. Within these organizational contexts, Islamic activists not only provide needed social services (often in areas where state programs are absent or ineffective), but use social interactions with local communities to propagate and recruit followers as well.

• Rooted in socioeconomic development activities, these organizations represent a friendly public face that promotes the Islamic message without directly confronting the regime, even though the activities themselves may highlight the inability of the state to effectively address socioeconomic problems. They also offer concrete, visible examples of what Islam can provide, in contradistinction to the state’s secular modernization failures.

• Islamic NGOs are commonly used by peaceful, reform minded movements, but they also constitute organizational resources for radical groups such as Hizbullah and Hamas

• Within civil society, Islamic activists also mobilize through the structure of professional and student associations. Frequently in Muslim countries, these associations function as surrogate political arenas where various social tendencies compete for control of institutional positions and resources.

• While RMT has tended to emphasize these types of formal organizations, it also accommodates the role of informal institutions and social networks. A multitude of studies, for example, highlight the importance of social networks for movement recruitment, particularly in high-risk activism where social ties provide bonds of trust and solidarity and encourage activism.

• Given the decentralized nature of Islamic authority, the importance of social connections and personalism, and political repression in Muslim societies, scholarship on Islamic activism has much to offer the study of informality in social movement theory. In Jordan, for example, a number of Islamic activists have utilized informal social networks as viable mobilization structures and resources for contention

• Radical activists have, in turn, responded to these limitations by mobilizing through informal social networks and institutions. Through a loose web of personal relationships, study circles, and informal meetings, these activists mobilize outside the boundaries of formal institutions. While personalism and informality may ultimately limit the reach of a social movement, social networks provide viable resources for movement survival and activism, especially in contexts where authoritarianism limits formal resource availability

Opportunity and constrains

• Social movements do not operate in a vacuum; they belong to a broader social milieu and context characterized by shifting and fluid configurations of enablement and constraints that structure movement dynamics. Such understandings contextualize collective action by incorporating the influence of external factors and concomitant structures of opportunity and constraint.

• Social movement theorists do not necessarily share a common delineation of the most important exogenous factors, but most scholarship in this area focuses on “the opening and closing of political space and its institutional and substantive location”

• Some of the most cited variables in determining access to political space include the level of formal and informal access to political institutions and decision-making, the degree of political system receptivity to challenger groups, the prevalence of allies and opponents, the stability of the ruling elite coalition, the nature of state repression, and state institutional capacity.

• While these dimensions may impact social movements by either opening or closing possibilities for activism, movement responses are contingent upon recognition and interpretation of opportunities and threats.

• Since the late 1990s, a number of scholars have shifted to reconceptualize Islamic activists as strategic thinkers embedded in a political context which influences choices and decisions. Recent research, for example, has demonstrated that despite widely accepted understandings of Hamas as an uncompromising movement trapped by rigid adherence to doctrine, the movement has strategically responded to changes in the surrounding political context. Prior to the Palestinian intifada (uprising) that began in 2000, there was growing popular support for the peace process, which posed a dilemma for the movement. Hamas tactically adjusted its doctrine to accommodate the possibility of peace with Israel by framing peace as a temporary pause in the jihad that would strengthen Muslim forces before a final assault.

Culture and Framing Process

• Since the 1980s, social movement theorists have been interested in the role of ideational factors, including social interaction, meaning, and culture.

• In addition to the strategic and structuralist dimensions of mobilization outlined in RMT and the political process model, social movement theory has increasingly addressed how individual participants conceptualize themselves as a collectivity; how potential participants are actually convinced to participate; and the ways in which meaning is produced, articulated, and disseminated by movement actors through interactive processes. In the development of a theoretical approach to social movements, this interest has predominantly manifested itself through the study of framing.

• Frames represent interpretive schemata that offer a language and cognitive tools for making sense of experiences and events in the “world out there.” For social movements, these schemata are important in the production and dissemination of movement interpretations and are designed to mobilize participants and support.

• The term “framing” is used to describe this process of meaning construction. David Snow and Robert Benford (1988) identify three core framing tasks for social movements.

• First, movements construct frames that diagnose a condition as a problem in need of redress. This includes attributions of responsibility and targets of blame. Second, movements offer solutions to the problem, including specific tactics and strategies intended to serve as remedies to ameliorate injustice. And third, movements provide a rationale to motivate support and collective action. While potential participants may share common understandings about causation and solutions to a particular problem, motivational frames are needed to convince potential participants to actually engage in activism, thereby transforming bystander publics into movement participants.

• One of the most critical dimensions of the framing process for movement mobilization is frame resonance. The ability of a movement to transform a mobilization potential into actual mobilization is contingent upon the capacity of a frame to resonate with potential participants. Where a movement frame draws upon indigenous cultural symbols, language, and identities,

• Islamic movements are heavily involved in the production of meaning and concomitant framing processes. Like many “new social movements” driven by issues of identity, culture, and post-materialism (as opposed to class, economic, or narrow political interests) , Islamic movements are embroiled in struggles over meaning and values. While a great deal of research has focused upon politicized movements that seek to create an Islamic state, the core imperative of Islamic movements is a desire to create a society governed and guided by the shari"a (Islamic law).

• An important component of most Islamic movement diagnostic frames is to blame the spread of Western values and practices for a wide variety of social ills, including rising unemployment, stagnant economic development, soaring debt, housing shortages, dwindling public social and welfare expenditures, and so forth. The argument is that the true path to development and success is outlined in the sources of Islam. So long as Muslims follow this straight path, they will be rewarded for their faithfulness.

• Most frames go a step further and argue that this process of cultural imperialism is a conscious Western strategy to weaken Muslim societies for economic, political, and military purposes.

• For some Islamic activists, the ultimate manifestation of this imperialist design is Western support for pliant “non-Islamic” regimes, which are framed as Western puppets controlled through International
• Monetary Fund structural adjustment programs, Western foreign aid, and U.S. military forces. From this perspective, regimes are merely extensions of Western interests determined to weaken and control Muslim societies

• Social movements, however, are embedded in a field of multiple actors that often vie for framing hegemony. These prognostic framing differences are common among Islamic activists. Many concur that some break with the West is necessary and that “Islam is the solution,” but there are important divergences over specific tactics and strategies.

• Some groups, for example, believe that the transformation of individual beliefs will eventually affect broader circles over time. Thus missionary movements, such as Jama"at Tabligh, focus on da"wa (propagation) to affect shifts in individual attitudes toward the role of religion in regulating society and personal behavior. The hope is that these individuals will then promote proper Islamic practices among friends, families, neighbors, communities, and other collectivities. Eventually, this process expands to incorporate the entire society, after which point state institutions naturally evolve to accommodate shari"a principles.

• Other groups advocate formal political participation to restructure state policy and institutions. Advocates of this approach typically have formed political parties and successfully contested elections (where possible). Many such groups also rely upon grassroots activities as tangible manifestations of Islam in action and frame participation in terms of a “new ethic of civic obligation”

• Still others advance violent prognostic frames that support the use of military coups or revolutions. Particular Islamic groups may support multiple tactics or shift prognostications, but the existence of multiple prognostic frames is the cause of a great deal of internal conflict and competition.
• In addition to intramovement framing contests, social movement groups often compete with “official frames” as well.

• State control of mosques, sermons, and other public religious institutions and practices is designed to amplify regime frames while muting other perspectives. As with other social movements, the success of Islamic groups vis-à-vis the state to a large extent derives from the reputation of frame articulators and the use of publicly recognized symbols and language that tap into cultural experiences and collective memories.

• To maximize access to these discontented populations, Islamists have in many cases melded religious themes with nonreligious elements to garner broad support among those who are merely seeking a change from the status quo rather than an Islamic transformation. Meriem Vergès (1997), for example, shows how the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) in Algeria strategically framed itself as the heir to the revolutionary mantle of the war of independence. Using the language and symbols of the revolution, the FIS attempted to portray itself as a natural extension of the struggle while denouncing the regime as a usurper of Algeria historic memory

Violence and Contention

• In contradistinction to popular perceptions of radical Islamic groups as irrational, “crazy,” or deviant, these groups frequently follow a particular dynamic that mirrors the rational calculus of other non-Islamic social movement actors who have used violence as part of their repertoire of contention.

• The strategic and tactical dimensions to the use of violence by groups as varied as the Armed Islamic Group (GIA) in Algeria, the Gama"a Islamiyya (Islamic Group) in Egypt, Hamas, and Shi"ites who revolted during the 1990s in Bahrain. In each of these different country settings, the use of violence was, to a large extent, a tactical response to shifting opportunity structures and emerged under particular conditions and circumstances.

• Mohammed Hafez’s opening chapter on the GIA in Algeria effectively represents this argument with an extreme case (chapter 1). During the 1990s, the GIA was responsible for an outbreak of civilian massacres that were notorious for their brutality. Members of the GIA descended on villages in the dead of night and massacred women, children, the elderly, and others, using machetes and burning many of the victims alive. The sheer viciousness was reminiscent of ethnic genocide and raises important questions about the use of violence in contention, especially the indiscriminate killing of noncombatants.

• Hafez argues that such massacres are most likely to occur where the political opportunity structure is characterized by repression and three related conditions converge: (1) state repression creates a political environment of bifurcation and brutality; (2) insurgents create exclusive organizations to shield themselves from repression; and (3) rebels promote anti-system frames to motivate collective action to overthrow agents of repression. Repression creates a sense of injustice, legitimates a call to arms, and forces insurgents into clandestine organizations that become increasingly isolated from the rest of society and countervailing pressures. Where the regime is framed as fundamentally corrupt through anti-system frames, these radical, encapsulated organizations become further radicalized through a growing belief in total war.

Networks and Alliances

• Islamic activists are embedded in complex network-oriented societies that tend to favor informality over formalized institutionalization. Whereas Western social movements typically mobilize through SMOs, movements in Muslim societies are more likely to utilize the dense associational networks of personal relationships that characterize much of politics, economic activity, and culture. Even formal Islamic organizations, such as the Muslim Brotherhood, are constituted by dynamic networks that extend beyond the parameters of formal organizational space to connect activists to other Islamists, friends, families, and associates.

• Press reports, organizational charts, and secondary material are often insufficient for delineating and studying these networks and their relationship to contention since networks are by their nature embedded in personal interactions and social relationships.

• Much of the work of Islamic activism is devoted to creating frames that motivate, inspire, and demand loyalty. In particular, while individual (or rational) interests often attracted graduates to the movement initially, it was the ability of the movement to frame activism as a “moral obligation” that led to its success, especially with respect to recruitment into high-risk activism. “Moral obligation” frames encouraged graduates to embrace an ideology that mandates participation as a moral duty, demands self-sacrifice, and encourages unflinching commitment.