American Sociological Review

American Sociological Review http://asr.sagepub.com/ Protest on the Fly: Toward a Theory of Spontaneity in the Dynamics of Protest and Social Movements David A. Snow and Dana M. Moss American Sociological Review published online 24 October 2014 DOI: 10.1177/0003122414554081 The online version of this article can be found at: http://asr.sagepub.com/content/early/2014/10/18/0003122414554081 Published by: http://www.sagepublications.com On behalf of: American Sociological Association Additional services and information for American Sociological Review can be found at: Email Alerts: http://asr.sagepub.com/cgi/alerts Subscriptions: http://asr.sagepub.com/subscriptions Reprints: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.nav Permissions: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav >> OnlineFirst Version of Record - Oct 24, 2014 What is This? Downloaded from asr.sagepub.com by guest on October 25, 2014 ASRXXX10.1177/0003122414554081American Sociological ReviewSnow and Moss 5540812014 American Sociological Review 1 –22 Protest on the Fly: Toward a © American Sociological Association 2014 DOI: 10.1177/0003122414554081 Theory of Spontaneity in http://asr.sagepub.com the Dynamics of Protest and Social Movements David A. Snowa and Dana M. Mossa Abstract This article reexamines spontaneity as an important, albeit neglected, mechanism in collective action dynamics, and elaborates on its operation and effects in protest events and social movements. We do not presume that spontaneity is routinely at play in all collective actions. Rather, based on our grounded analysis of historical and ethnographic data, we contend that spontaneity is triggered by certain conditions: nonhierarchical organization; uncertain/ ambiguous moments and events; behavioral/emotional priming; and certain ecological/ spatial factors. We conclude by elaborating why the activation of spontaneous actions matters in shaping the course and character of protest events and movements, and we suggest that spontaneity be resuscitated in the study of collective action and everyday life more generally. Keywords collective action/behavior, grounded theory, protest/protest events, social movements, spontaneity [W]hen I read the personal accounts which when we reach Tahrir, we’ll see. There was the student leaders [of the 1989 Beijing no plan. I mean, there was a plan . like, student movement] gave in my interviews you know, “we’re going to meet at some and in published memoirs, I found many of point . .” but [the notion that] we’ll be at them in the form “I walked down the road Tahrir, we’ll have a plan, there will be, you and saw X (or, I woke up in the morning and know, security committees . —it’s all thought of Y), and then I decided to do Z.” crap. I mean, this is all spontaneous and it In other words, many of their activities rep- evolved . [over] time. (Hossam El- resented spontaneous and individualistic Hamalawy, quoted in Al Jazeera English responses to events rather than conscious 2012) decisions arrived at collectively by their organizations. (Zhao 2001:147) aUniversity of California-Irvine In the meetings prior to January 25th [2011], Corresponding Author: some activists did pose the question . “So David A. Snow, 4295 Social Science Plaza, University of California-Irvine, Irvine, CA 92697- when we reach Tahrir, what are we going to 5100 do?” And I think everybody was like, well, E-mail: [email protected] Downloaded from asr.sagepub.com by guest on October 25, 2014 2 American Sociological Review These statements are observations of two SPONtaNEITY AND ITS of the most widely observed collective action MISCONCEPTUALIZatION events in the past 50 years. In the first state- AND MISTHEORIZatION ment, sociologist Dingxin Zhao refers to spontaneity as a dynamic element in the Bei- Various synonyms for spontaneity include jing Spring student protests of 1989; in the adlibbing, improvisation, winging it, extem- second, activist Hossam El-Hamalawy poraneous, impromptu, off the cuff, off the emphasizes the role of spontaneity in the top of one’s head, and unplanned. Although 2011 Egyptian revolution. But aside from a most of these terms are associated with few close-to-the ground observations of col- speaking, debating, lecturing, and perform- lective protest such as these, spontaneity is ing, they all reference unplanned actions or rarely mentioned in recent literature on social events, in the sense that these actions or movements and protest. In this article, we events are not thought through in a delibera- reexamine the dynamic of spontaneity, argu- tive fashion in advance of their occurrence. ing that it is often an important mechanism in This is not to say that spontaneous actions or the dynamics of collective action. Our objec- events are random and unpredictable, but tive is to bring spontaneity back into the rather that they are not premeditated or part of analysis of protest dynamics and social a formalized system of action.1 Nor is it to say movements by elaborating a set of conditions that spontaneous actions, whether verbal or that specify when spontaneity is most likely nonverbal, do not have calls for specific lines to be activated in the course of these phe- of action embedded within them. To yell out nomena and by showing why its activation “run!” on the scent of smoke is a call to action matters. and may thus be construed as strategic in the We begin with a conceptualization of means/end sense. But such sudden and star- spontaneity rooted in the intersection of sym- tling actions are spontaneous inasmuch as bolic interactionism and cognitive psychol- they were not planned in advance of the ogy; we then turn to a critical examination of stimulus event. Thus, spontaneity may be best the literature on social movements and pro- understood as a cover term for events, hap- test to discern how spontaneity has been penings, and lines of action, both verbal and treated. After demonstrating the neglect and nonverbal, which were not planned, intended, misconceptualization of spontaneity in rela- prearranged, or organized in advance of their tion to protest, we argue for its resurrection, occurrence. contending that its inclusion in the concep- Drawing on symbolic interactionism and tual and theoretical arsenal of scholars of cognitive psychology, we contend that con- social movements and protest will contribute ceptualizing spontaneous actions in this way to a more thorough understanding of the does not imply a lack of cognition or rational- dynamics of these collective phenomena. We ity. Rather, if action is understood in terms of do not presume that spontaneity is routinely Mead’s (1938) conception of an act, which at play in the course of such events; rather, consists of four elements—impulse, percep- we contend that spontaneity is triggered by tion, manipulation, and culmination—we certain conditions. Based on a grounded contend that spontaneous action can be char- analysis of ethnographic and historical obser- acterized accordingly. The difference between vations, we specify a set of conditions that prior deliberation and the cognitive process make the occurrence of spontaneous actions associated with spontaneous action is that the more likely, and we conclude by elaborating latter is compressed in time. However, this how spontaneity matters in shaping the does not imply a cognitive “short-circuiting” course and character of protest events and of the kind Smelser (1962:82) conjectured in movements. his theory of collective behavior. Rather, the Downloaded from asr.sagepub.com by guest on October 25, 2014 Snow and Moss 3 process is more akin to Simon’s (1957) notion in the late-nineteenth century. One side of the of “bounded rationality,” with its emphasis on debate, rooted in the revolutionary prognosti- “satisficing” rather than “optimizing” in the cations of the Manifesto of the Communist face of limited information and time, and Kah- Party (Marx and Engels 1948), emphasized neman’s (2011) distinction between fast and the spontaneous emergence of class con- slow thinking, with spontaneous decision- sciousness. The other side, anchored in Len- making being a case of fast thinking.2 Finally, in’s (1969) championing of the revolutionary we want to emphasize that spontaneous Social-Democratic party, emphasized the actions may occur individually or collectively, external organizational base for the develop- and sometimes they may be interconnected, as ment of revolutionary class consciousness. when a spontaneous individual action stimu- However, the less organizationally focused lates a spontaneous collective action. In either “collective behavior perspective,” ranging case, we are interested primarily in spontane- from LeBon (1897) through Blumer ([1939] ous actions that alter the course and character 1972), embraced the concept of spontaneity of the encompassing collectivity in ways that as a fundamental mechanism in collective were not previously planned. action dynamics. According to Blumer Our orienting contention is that some col- ([1939] 1972:68), collective behavior in gen- lective actions occurring within the context of eral, and its elementary forms more specifi- protests and movements are spontaneous and cally, constituted behavior that “arises consequential for the larger collective actions spontaneously and is not due to pre- in which they are embedded, and sometimes established understandings or traditions.” For also for subsequent collective actions. If so, Blumer, behavioral coordination occurred understanding the relationship between spon- through contagion

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