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Social Movement Sectors and Systemic Constraint

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Social Movement Sectors and Systemic Constraint ...................................................... Social Movement Sectors and Systemic Constraint: Toward a Structural Analysis of Social Movements ~obertaGarner DePaul University and Mayer N. Zald University of Michigan April 1982 ....................................................... CRSO Working Paper /I259 Copies available through: Paper prepared for presentation at Center for Research on the University of Chicago Conference Social Organization . in Honor of Morris Janowitz, University of Michigan May 14-15, 1982 330 Packard Street Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109 CONTENTS I. Introduction 11. The Movement Sector Defined 111. Dimensions of Social Movement Sectors Social Movement Sectors and Systemic Constraint: IV. Systemic Constraints (1) The Economic and Class System Toward a Structural Analysis of Social Movements* A. Class Structure: Conflict, Stressed Positions, Changing Positions and Contradictory Positions 1. The social bases of movement sectors 2. Contradictory class positions B. The Structure of the Economy: The Dual Economy and the Social Movement Sector C. The Base as a System of Limits D. The Embedding of National Structure in the Global Political Economy E. The Economic Base and the Reproduction of the Relations of Production: The Articulation of Two Sub-systems 1. Life style choice 2. Social networks Roberta Garner 3. "Weak link" institutions DePaul university F. Summary: The Structure of the Economy and Chicago, Illinois Class Relations (2) ~conomicChange: Phases of Capitalism and the Business Cycle Mayer N. Zald University of Michigan Ann Arbor, Michigan (3) The Political and Ideological System A. Centralization and Decentralization 0. Legal Constraints on Social Movements: Civil Liberties and Social Control C. The Relation of the Private and Public Sectors 1. Politicization of institutions 2. Clientalism, co-optation, and manageable movements D. Party Structure 1. Ease of starting parties 2. Organization of parties +Prepared for a Conference and Festschrift in Honor of Morris Janowitz, V. Epilogue: The American and Italian Social Movement May 14 and 15, 1982, Chicago, 111. We are indebted to John McCarthy, Sectors Reappraised Aldon Morris, Gerald Suttles, Charles Tilly, and Bert Useem for comments on an earlier draft. formal organization, community, nation). It would also include movements I. Introduction. aimed at changing social relations through changing individuals, such as Cross national comparisons indicate that nations differ in the overall Alcoholics Anonymous or Proselytizing religious movements. It would treat as amount of social movement activity that is supported. For instance, it is marginally related or as pre-social movements, sentiments and activities that often suggested that the United States provides more fertile soil for the express discontent with the social order but not oriented towards relatively growth of social movements than do other nations. Moreover, over time spcific or articulated change. Phenomena such as the "beats," the "teddy societies differ in the amount of social movement activity that they support. boys," may express discontent with the social order and may be the ground out Cycles of mobilization for quite disparate causes seem to occur. This total of which social movements grow, but they are peripheral to our analysis. amount of social movement activity is the social movement sector. This definition is inclusive in another sense--it rests upon sentiments Our basic assumption is that to understand the course of social move- for change, rather than amount of mobilization. McCarthy and Zald (1977) ments we have to understand them as a configuration and within a determininq refer to the situation where there is a sentiment base, but little mobilized environment. Thus we have to look at the totality of movements in a society, activity as a latent social movement. rather than isolated movements, and try to identify the elements of social In this paper we are primarily interested in a sub-set of all social structure that shape this totality of movements (the movement sector). What movement activity. First, our focus is upon social movement activity 1arge.l~ we are proposing is, first, a set of terms 05 conceptual tools for extending oriented towards change that is achieved in the differentiated political arena-- the analysis of social movements to the SM sector and, second, a set of pro- changes in the system of political rule or in the specific policies,symbols, positions for explaining variations in the sector. and distributional allocations of territorially based authorities. Social We will define the social movement sector, identify its dimensions, and movements in groups or organizations that are not articulated with pressures discuss its determinants. Major determinants include the economic base, con- on formal authorities are outside of our ken. Similarly, social movements largely junctions of the business cycle and structural change, and the political and aimed at change through recruiting and changing individuals are also largely ideological system. Since the object of analysis is sectors within societies outside of our ken, unless they articulated with politically oriented activity. our method must be comparative and historical. Stated positively, we are largely concerned with political social movements. Some definitions of social movements assume that they operate outside of 11. Social Movements and The Movement Sector Defined institutionalized channels. For us, here, such an assumption would too limit A most inclusive definition of a social movement is any sentiment and the analysis. Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher are connected to Conservative activity involving two or more people oriented toward changes in social re- social movements. Some social movement sentiments and activities exist whenever lation or the social system. This most inclusive definition would encompass authorities and their policies are sources of contention. Only if a regime is for analysis social movements at any level of social organization (small group, very widely accepted (through either the elimination of dissent or through positive socialization, ideological hegemony, and widespread policy success), societies; once such contact takes place, rebellions, millenarian cults and would a society with a differentiated polity have little or no social move- so on, occur frequently. Traditional societies with distinct political systems ment activity. While we are concerned with social movement activity outside have sporadic movements - the rise of Islam is one such example. But often of well institutionalized channels and forms, how it articulates with more such movements remain unstable eruptions - a permanent sector does not institutionalized political action is part of our problem. emerge. Movements are especially weak in societies in which class relations Given these definitions of a social movement, and accompanying caveats, are highly personalized. A social movement sector is most likely to become a what is the social movement sector? The social movement sector is the 3- permanent feature of the social system in capitalist societies. Distinctively, figuration of social movements, the structure of antagonistic, competing they have a separation of the state from civil society, they have a rational- and/or cooperating movements which in turn is part of a larger structure of legal bureaucratic authority, and they maintain a large sphere of private vo- action (political action,,in a very broad sense) that may include parties, state luntary associations. The more societies are pervaded by rational legal forms, bureaucracies, the media, pressure groups, churches, and a variety of other or- the more life focuses on formal organizations; the more people think in terms ganizational actors in a society. Configuration refers both to the amount and of state and economy, and the more they believe that human action constructs the structural relations of social movement activity and the orientation, or goals, social system - the more a movement sector becomes a permanent subsystem of of action. the society. Another definition of the sector is provided by the resource mobili- 111. Dimensions of Social Movement Sectors zation perspective of McCarthy and Zald (1977). They define the sector as A brief comparison of the social movement sectors of Italy and the the sum of all social movement industries in the society. A social movement United States may provide some illustrations that we can use to identify key industry is the congery of movement organizations oriented toward a similar dimensions of social movement sectors, dimensions that describe the structure social change goal. Our definition of the sector is more inclusive and less of these sectors in most capitalist democracies.* Let us proceed with a "economistic" than McCarthy and Zald's, since it includes all action oriented thumbnail sketch of the SMS of these two societies. We begin with Italy to social movement goals, rather than the action generated by movement or- since it is more coherent and hence easier to describe. The entire sector ganizations. It is important to note that if there is only one social move- is highly politicized and tightly tied to the party system and the state. ment in a society, the sector would be coterminous with the movement and counter- By this term we mean a variety of characteristics: action takes place to movement. alter, influence, and/or react to the Italian state; the state is defined as In what societies
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