GEOGRAPHY and SOCIAL MOVEMENTS Comparing
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GEOGRAPHY AND SOCIAL MOVEMENTS Social Movements, Protest, and Contention Series Editor: Bert Klandermans, Free University, Amsterdam Associate Editors: Sidney Tarrow, Cornell University Verta A. Taylor, The Ohio State University Ron R. Aminzade, University of Minnesota Volume 12 Byron A. Miller, Geography and Social Movements: Comparing Antinuclear Activism in the Boston Area Volume 11 Mona N. Younis, Liberation and Democratization: The South African and Palestinian National Movements Volume 10 Marco Giugni, Doug McAdam, and Charles Tilly, editors, How Social Movements Matter Volume 9 Cynthia Irvin, Militant Nationalism: Between Movement and Party in Ireland and the Basque Country Volume 8 Raka Ray, Fields of Protest: Women’s Movements in India Volume 7 Michael P. Hanagan, Leslie Page Moch, and Wayne te Brake, editors, Challenging Authority: The Historical Study of Contentious Politics Volume 6 Donatella della Porta and Herbert Reiter, editors, Policing Protest: The Control of Mass Demonstrations in Western Democracies Volume 5 Hanspeter Kriesi, Ruud Koopmans, Jan Willem Duyvendak, and Marco G. Giugni, New Social Movements in Western Europe: A Comparative Analysis Volume 4 Hank Johnston and Bert Klandermans, editors, Social Movements and Culture Volume 3 J. Craig Jenkins and Bert Klandermans, editors, The Politics of Social Protest: Comparative Perspectives on States and Social Movements Volume 2 John Foran, editor, A Century of Revolution: Social Movements in Iran Volume 1 Andrew Szasz, EcoPopulism: Toxic Waste and the Movement for Environmental Justice GEOGRAPHY AND SOCIAL MOVEMENTS Comparing Antinuclear Activism in the Boston Area Byron A. Miller Social Movements, Protest, and Contention Volume 12 University of Minnesota Press Minneapolis • London Portions of this book were previously published in “Collective Action and Rational Choice: Place, Community, and the Limits to Individual Self-Interest,” Economic Geography 68, no. 1 (1992): 22–42; in “Political Empowerment, Local- Central State Relations, and Geographically Shifting Political Opportunity Structures,” Political Geography 13, no. 5 (1994): 393–406; and in “Political Action and the Geography of Defense Investment: Geographical Scale and the Representation of the Massachusetts Miracle,” Political Geography 16, no. 2 (1997): 171–85 (Elsevier Science Ltd.). Reprinted with permission. Copyright 2000 by the Regents of the University of Minnesota All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Published by the University of Minnesota Press 111 Third Avenue South, Suite 290 Minneapolis, MN 55401-2520 http://www.upress.umn.edu Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Miller, Byron A., 1957– Geography and social movements : comparing antinuclear activism in the Boston area / Byron A. Miller. p. cm. — (Social movements, protest, and contention ; v. 12) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-8166-2950-1 (hc : acid-free) — ISBN 0-8166-2951-X (pb : acid-free) 1. Antinuclear movement—Massachusetts—Boston. 2. Social movements. 3. Social movements—Massachusetts—Boston. 4. Social change. I. Title. II. Series. HD9698.M43 M55 2000 303.48'4—dc21 00-008303 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper The University of Minnesota is an equal-opportunity educator and employer. 111009080706050403020100 10987654321 In memory of Mary Heath Miller (1930–95), who worked for peace and in hope for a more just and peaceful world for generations to come This page intentionally left blank Contents Acknowledgments ix Introduction xi 1. Missing Geography: Social Movements on the Head of a Pin? (with Deborah G. Martin) 1 2. A Geographic Model of Social Movement Mobilization 39 3. Place Matters: Interests, Resources, and Opportunities 67 4. Space, Place, and Mobilization 93 5. Geographic Scale, Mobilization, and the Representation of Defense Investment 124 6. Local and Central State Political Opportunity Structures: Material Interests and the Shifting Scale of Struggle 145 Conclusion: The Difference Geography Makes 165 Notes 173 References 177 Index 207 This page intentionally left blank Acknowledgments This book could not have come to fruition without the cooperation, help, patience, and support of a great many people. It began as my doctoral re- search and was originally conceived as a modestly modified version of my dissertation. But things rarely go as planned. In the course of writing this book, the intended ratio of three-quarters dissertation material to one- quarter new material ended up being roughly reversed and the project took on a life of its own (a warning to others pursuing similar projects!). It goes without saying that I have racked up numerous debts of gratitude to many people along the way. Short of naming several hundred people, it would be impossible to thank all those in the Boston-area peace movement who made the empirical portion of this research possible by granting interviews, filling out question- naires, and providing access to files and other sources of information. A spe- cial debt of gratitude is due key contacts in each of the four Boston-area peace organizations I studied: Olivia Abelson of Cambridge SANE/Freeze; Rachel Rosenblum of the Lexington Committee for a Nuclear Weapons Freeze; Dee Kricker of Waltham Concerned Citizens; and Tony Palomba of Boston Mobilization for Survival. Rob Leavitt of the Institute for Defense and Disarmament Studies also provided considerable assistance in the early stages of this project. Each of these people was more helpful than any re- searcher could dare hope. They, of course, bear no responsibility for any shortcomings of this project. Several people at the University of Minnesota provided support in a va- riety of ways. Eric Sheppard and Helga Leitner were the mentors every ix x acknowledgments young scholar hopes for but few are lucky enough to find. Ron Aminzade and Barbara Laslett provided helpful guidance in the design of this research, and John Adams inspired me to formulate my ideas in a manner that will, hopefully, be persuasive to a broad audience. Will Craig of the University of Minnesota’s Center for Urban and Regional Affairs provided helpful sugges- tions on survey design and the University of Minnesota Graduate School helped defray survey research expenses with a Doctoral Dissertation Special Grant. My good friends Bruce Baum and Jodi Burmeister-May have been good critical sounding boards and important sources of moral support. Deborah Martin, whose own research also deals with the geography of social movements, came to my rescue when I was running out of gas. She collabo- rated with me on the first chapter of this book and an article manuscript, reenergizing me for the final stretch of this project. Friends and colleagues at the University of Cincinnati, especially Howard Stafford and Michael Romanos, have been very supportive of my work and have helped me to develop it as a springboard for new research projects on state restructuring and sustainable development in Thailand and Greece. They have patiently waited to see the final version of this project. Your pa- tience has finally paid off: here it is. Thanks also go to the publishers of Economic Geography and Political Geography for granting me permission to incorporate reworked portions of three previously published articles into this book. My greatest debt of gratitude is to my family. My wife, Kristin Miller von Ranson, was the happiest surprise of this project. We met on the first day of my 1990 research trip to Boston and have been together ever since. She has helped me with everything from the mundane to the ethereal and has been a constant source of love and support. Finally, but by no means least, I owe a great deal to my parents, Gus and Mary Miller. My parents raised me to think about the moral and political dimensions of everyday life and my mother’s own work in the peace movement likely planted the seed for this research. Her arrest with Carl Sagan and other notable scientists at the Nevada nuclear testing site made clear to me that science and politics are rarely neatly separable and that we, as scientists, must always consider the in- terests that our work serves. It is to her memory that this book is dedicated. Introduction Perspective is at the source of all knowledge. What we see depends on where we stand.... From a car, the intimacy of each bend in the road is reassuring. You can stop and take the measure of the place, revel in its particulars. Each let- ter or syllable of the topography stands alone, its relation to others not very clear. From the air, the patterns of nature and works of man mingle to make sentences, phrases, pages.... To see from the air is to see philosophically because you see the pat- terns. But what is the correct height from which to see America? How high do you have to be to see the nation? What is the height of being able to see not just geographically but politically, socially, morally? (Codrescu 1996, 6–10) Andrei Codrescu, more lyrically than any other author I know, captures the essence of geography. How we see things, and how things fit together, is the essence of geography. One can never stand outside geography. On the con- trary, each and every actor, each and every institution, is constituted through it. This is not a trivial matter. Changing the location of things changes how they interact. Changing our own location changes what we see and how we understand. To view the world from a distance allows us to see broadscale interactions, but may also leave us too far removed to see small things that are no less important. To view the world from up close provides an intimacy and experiential richness that is crucial to understanding human actors, but may blind us to the powerful institutional and structural forces in which xi xii introduction they act.