Chapter 4 - Civil Society & Social Movements

agency

the capacity to act

collective identity

a shared sense of group belonging

frame resonance

collective action frames that resonate, or appeal, to a target audienceF

framing

the process by which social movements construct social meanings

majority group

groups who have significant power, regardless of and sometimes irrelevant to their numerical size

master frame

a generic frame that connects big, widely shared ideas to specific pol- icy prescriptions

new social movements

the supposition that contemporary social movements prioritize identities, values, and expressive goals » concrete material needs

political opportunity structure

events or broad socioeconomic processes that impact the organization of major power structures

positionality

• the way in which racial, class, gender, and other salient identities interact to situate actors in the world;

• informed by both the actor’s internal sense of identity as well as by identification – the way in which the actor is identified by others

power asymmetry

an imbalance in power between two sides

privilege

unearned and often unrecognized rights or advantages

public goods

a public benefit or product provided or accessible to all members of a community without exception

repertoires of contention

the array of protest tools readily available to a group at specific points in time

social movements

organized, collective, non-institutionalized challenges to specific targets seeking to achieve a common goal

strategy

the specific path or methods movements adopt to reach their goal(s)

tactics

the specific actions actors take to affect their strategies and reach their goals