Social Movements and Organizational Processes

Social movements, political parties, and interest groups are often compared with each other, on the assumption that they all embody different styles of political organization (for example, Wilson 1973). At times, they are identified with religious sects and cults (for example, Robbins 1988). Hoeever, the difference between social movements and these and other organizations does not consist primarily of differences in organizational characteristics, not even of a peculiar kind (Tilly 1988; Oliver 1898). Thyey are networks which may either include formal organizations or not, depending on shifting circumstances. As a consequence, a single organization, whatever its dominant traits, is not a social movement. Of course it may be involved in a social movement process, but the two are not identical, as they reflect different identical principles.

But social movement may be used to mean both networks of interaction and specific organizations, for example, citizens’ rights groups like Common Cause, environmental organizations like the Sierra Club, or even religious sects like Nichiren SSOSHU (McAdam et al. 1988:695; see also Lofland 1996). Yet we should not uncritically apply to social movement analysis concepts borrowed from organizational theory: “all too often we speak of movement strategy, tactics, leadership, membership, recruitment, division of labor, success and failure- terms which strictly apply only to coherent decision making entities (that is, organizations or groups), not to crowds, collectivities, or whole social movements” (Oliver 1989: 4). The instability of the relationship between organizational and movement identities implies that movements are by definition fluid phenomena. In the formation and consolidation phases, a sense of collective belonging prevails on links of solidarity and loyalty which can exist between individuals and specific groups or associations. A movement tends to burn out when organizational identities come to dominate once more, or when “feeling part of it” refers primarily to one’s organization and its components, rather than to a broader collective with blurred boundaries (Diani 2003a). Individual participation is important for social movement and also it involves participants and not members. The participation of individual is not necessarily limited to single protest events and develop in public meetings, groups and committees. Alternatively one may support a movement by promoting its ideas and its point of view among institutions, other political actors, or the media. However, the existence of a range of possible ways of becoming involved means that the membership of movements can never be reduced to a single act of adherence. It consist, rather, of a series of differentiated acts, which taken together reinforce the feeling of belonging and identity (Gusfield 1994:62). Social movements are analytically different from social movement organization; any organization which is involved in a social movement dynamic may be regarded as “social movement organization.”

Social Movements and Protest

Until the early1970s debates on social movements emphasized their noninstitutionalized nature (Alberoni 1984). Social movements may be distinguished from other political actors because of their adoption of “unusual” patterns of political behavior as political parties actually perform specific functions at level of interest representation. Now, there are some objections to considering protest a core feature of social movements. First, public protest plays only a marginal role in movements concerned with personal and cultural change, in religious movements, and the like. Cultural conflict and symbolic challenges often take forms, such as the practice of specific lifestyles, the adoption of certain clothes or hair cut, the adoption of rituals that can only be regarded as protest if we stretch the concept to a very considerable degree (Snow 2005). Moreover even in the political realm it is increasingly debatable whether protest can still be considered an “unconventional”, or even violent or “confrontational,” activity. Various forms of political protest have increasingly become part of the consolidated repertoire of collective action, at least in Western democracies. In general, protest seems no longer restricted to radical sectors, but rather an option, open to a much broader range of actors when they feel their relative position in the political process to come under threat (e.g., Dalton 1996).

Protest differentiates social movements from other types of networks, like those referred to as “epistemic communities” (Haas 1992; Keck and Sikkink 1998). These communities are organized around networks of individuals and groups with specific and/or managerial competences in distinct policy areas. Like social movements, their members share a common frame of reference and take sides on conflictual issues. The forms of structural ties and exchange of resources within that network are different from those that tend to characterize social movements. Epistemic communities involve actors usually endowed with decision making power whereas social movement actors usually occupy a peripheral position in decision making power and need to mobilize public opinion to maintain their pressure capacity. As the new wave of global justice collective mobilization at the turn of century has confirmed, social movement politics is still to a large extent “politics in the streets.” The use of protest as a major source of pressure has relevant effects on the structure and strategy of social movements.