WEEK 07: Social Movements

How does David Aberle (1966) define a social movement?

An organized effort by a group of human beings to affect change in the face of resistance by other human beings, including passive resistance or apathy.

What does Aberle’s definition exclude from being social movements?

• Purely individual efforts

• Unorganized crowd action

• Technological change that only confronts material resistance (not human resistance)

Why does resistance not need to be organized for a social movement to exist?

Because apathy, inertia, or passive opposition can still constrain change and require collective action to overcome.

What are the two dimensions in Aberle’s 2×2 model?

1. Target of change: Individual vs. Social

2. Degree of change: Partial vs. Total

What is a redemptive movement?

A movement aiming at total change of individuals (e.g., religious conversion).

What is a transformative movement?

A movement aiming at total change of society (e.g., revolutions).

What is an alterative movement?

A movement seeking partial change in individuals (e.g., lifestyle reforms).

What is a reformative movement?

A movement seeking partial change in society (e.g., policy reforms).

What four “transformation tools” are applied to social movements in Week 7?

1. Transforming Means

2. Transforming Ends

3. Transforming Representation

4. Transforming Boundaries

What are “means” in social movements?

The strategies, tactics, and actions used to pursue goals.

How does the transforming-means tool help analyze movements?

It focuses on how strategies change when old methods stop working.

What shapes individual and group strategies?

• Conscious planning and rational decision-making

• Unconscious habits (habitus, per Bourdieu)

Why do individuals join groups from a transforming-means perspective?

Because collective action becomes a strategy for advancing individual and shared interests.

Why are strikes described as transformational strategies?

They represent a breakdown of existing modes of adaptation and an attempt to create new ones.

How are transformational strategies described as pragmatic rather than utopian?

They emerge because something has stopped working, not because of a fixed ideal vision of society.

Why is pragmatic adaptation not the same as accepting the status quo?

Because it involves actively transforming existing conditions to find workable solutions.

What happens after a transformation strategy succeeds or fails?

• Success → becomes a new normal

• Failure → abandoned and replaced by new strategies

Why did globalization force changes in labour movement strategies?

Because corporations became mobile, making national-level union strategies less effective.

What new strategy emerged to counter the “race to the bottom”?

Trying to “raise the bottom” through global labour standards and transnational solidarity.

How does feedback shape transforming means?

Outcomes like war, inequality, or environmental destruction signal that existing strategies are failing, prompting change.

What are “ends” in social movements?

The goals or purposes that strategies aim to achieve.

Can ends themselves be transformed?

Yes—ends can be constructed, revised, or abandoned through equilibration.

Why are ends not isolated goals?

They form a network of interdependent goals, some more central than others.

Why might established goals be abandoned?

Because they become too costly, interfere with other goals, or are no longer necessary.

How can common preservation shift from a means to an end?

After proving effective as a strategy, it may be valued as a goal in itself.

Why is transforming ends from self-preservation to common preservation necessary?

Because threats like war and ecological collapse put all human goals at risk.

What is a representation?

Something that stands for something else (e.g., ideas, frames, symbols).

What is “framing” in social movement studies?

How problems are perceived, interpreted, and morally evaluated, shaping action.

How can transforming representation support common preservation?

By shifting problems from individual interpretations to shared systemic understandings.

How does this relate to C. Wright Mills’ sociological imagination?

Both involve reframing personal troubles as collective or social problems, though systems theory emphasizes shared conditions.

Why don’t representations always use language?

Because many are tacit, expressed through practices, reactions, and embodied knowledge.

Why is feedback considered a form of representation?

Because it provides information about what has happened, guiding future action.

How do feedback loops and representations together increase complexity?

They allow actors to conduct virtual experiments, reflecting on outcomes without direct trial-and-error.

Why does social action often spread through observation and imitation?

Because people learn by watching others act and observing consequences.

What does “spreading by contagion” mean in social movements?

Ideas and actions diffuse rapidly across groups without centralized control (e.g., Occupy).

How does representation enable critical reflection in movements?

It allows actors to compare their own actions with others’, revealing contradictions.

What are boundaries in social systems?

Lines that define who belongs, who cooperates, and who is excluded.

Why must boundaries change in social movements?

Because movements operate in constant flux, requiring new collective entities to emerge.

How does transforming boundaries support collective action?

By enabling isolated individuals to act together across social divisions.

What kinds of boundaries often fade in movements?

Boundaries between craft, occupation, ethnicity, race, or gender.

What boundary transformations occurred among Italian garment workers?

• oung workers recognized themselves as a group

• Connections formed with outside organizers

• Gendered and occupational boundaries weakened
  → leading to union formation

What paradox must common preservation resolve?

That entities can be separate yet deeply interconnected.

How does Marxist dialectics address this paradox?

By showing how opposites transform into each other through contradiction and struggle.

Why are social movements considered open systems?

They rely on semi-permeable boundaries that allow coordination while filtering disruption.

What is “messy nesting” in open systems?

Overlapping memberships across nations, movements, identities, and institutions.

How does Michael Mann describe social power?

As multiple intersecting socio-spatial networks, not a single hierarchy.

How do social movements relate to common preservation?

They are mechanisms through which people re-organize strategies, goals, meanings, and boundaries to address shared threats.