Equality, Diversity, and Collective Action Exam

Sandwich Effect

where global institutions pressure from above and grassroots mobilization from below combine to increase the pressure on local and national governments, as well as transnational corporations and some intergovernmental organizations, to comply with and advance human rights norms

Cities for CEDAW Campaign

locally-based human rights initiative in the US that seeks to advance international protections for women that have been stalled by the US government's failure to ratify the Convention on the Elimination of All forms of Discrimination Against Women

The Boomerang Pattern

(Keck and Sikknik) symbolizes this dynamic: deprived of means to challenge authorities locally, actors appeal to international society to produce a boomerang effect of international authorities pressuring local power holders for desired changes

Socio-Technical Process

understood as the systemic interweaving of social and technical organizations and structuring services, the interplay of which varies from case to case

Social Movements

Collectivities acting with some degree of organization and continuity outside of institutional or organizational channels for the purpose of challenging or defending extant authority, whether it is institutionally or culturally based, in the group, organization, society, culture, or world order of which they are a part

E-Mobilization

which the web is used primarily as a tool to facilitate the coordination of offline protests (ex. street demonstrations)

E-Movements

where both the organization of the protest and the protest itself take place online (ex. distributed denial of service attacks)

E-Tactics

combines online and offline components (ex. petition)

Communities of Interest

refers to groups of people who are consciously and deliberately connected by shared views of reality or specific objectives rather than any geographical or friendship ties

Logic of Collective Action

emphasizes the constitutive role of incentive setting and coordination organizations for the formation of collective action

Logic of Connective Action

the traditional role of formal organizations can now occasionally be assumed by 'digital media as organizing agents'

Online Mass Collective Behavior

an aggregate of reciprocally anonymous individuals. Yet, as these do not consciously interact with one another, they do not give rise to concerted behavioral dispositions

Online Crowd Collective Behavior

does not have any pronounced coordination structures, however, differs from the mass as through elementary forms of collectively oriented behavior (likes on posts, etc.)

Online Public Collective Behavior

defined as a partial issue whose participants engage actively in discussions on a given topic and who exchange about their different ideas or suggest solutions

Collective Actors

social movements or communities who have deliberately shared objectives, rules, and identity, contributes as more or less informal patterns of organization

Non-organized Collective

main attribute is the aggregation of similar decisions and behaviors of individuals. No organized, action-guiding core, but has shared perceptions, approaches to consumption, or ways of perceiving of problems, which may consolidate into a mass behavior

Human Rights

equal and inalienable entitlements by all individuals that may be exercised against the state and society

Micro-Level Analysis

refers to the examination of social movements with the unit and focus of analysis on social movement organizations and groups

Meso-Level Analysis

places focus on larger collection of actors that make several social movements within the boundaries of a state or social issue

Macro-Level Analysis

looks at social movements from the perspective of large-scale changes that expand beyond states and cross-movement interactions

Alberto Melucci

believed modern, complex societies are based on the production of signs and the processing of information in accordance with the instrumental logic of administrative systems. Making the search for meaning and the decoding of information central to social life in general, but particularly to collective action

Jurgen Habermas

he proposed the most elaborate theory of modern social structure by distinguishing between a politico-economic system governed by generalized media of power and money, and a life world organized through normative consensus

Lifeworld

all the immediate experiences, activities, and contacts that make up the world of an individual or corporate life

Alain Touraine

he believed that postindustrial society provides knowledge and technology that enhances the conscious self-production of society

Manuel Castells

believed that capitalist development has transformed urban space into arena of conflicting interest and values.

Elites

pursue capitalist commodification and bureaucratic domination

Urban Social Movements

demand non-commodified forms of collective consumption, defend community identity and local culture, and seek political self-management and autonomy

Political NSMTs

draws upon Neo-Marxist scholarship to describe the social formation of advanced capitalism and to trace links between formation and the emergence of NSMs

Cultural NSMTs

post-Marxist in presuming the moral radical break between past and present societal types and movement forms. Emphasizes the decentralized power of both power and resistance

New Social Movement Theory

emerged in 1980's Europe to analyze new social movements (NSMs), from 1960 onward. It is a distinct approach to the study of social movements, with many variations on a general approach to each topic.

Institutionalization

when over time social movement organizations (SMO's) or groups within a particular social movement, build increasingly complex and hierarchal leadership structures

Coalescence

refers to the process by which separate or disconnected elements, groups, or movements come together to form a unified whole

Framing

a process which activists construct and decide upon messages that best represent their arguments to particular audiences in order to persuade aggrieved individuals into becoming recruits

Emergence

describes the time period in which there is widespread discontent, but there has been no organizing effort to channel this unhappiness into mobilization

Equality of opportunity

refers to the principle that every individual, regardless of race, gender, socioeconomic status, or other factors, should have an equal chance to succeed and thrive

Distributive justice

the justice that is concerned with the apportionment of privileges, duties, and goods in consonance with the merits of the individual and in the best interest of society

Social mobility

movement of individuals, families, or groups through a system of social hierarchy or stratification

Equality

the quality or state of being equal

Meritocracy

a system, organization, or society in which people are chosen and moved into positions of success, power, and influence on the basis of their demonstrated abilities and merit

Socialist Movements

associated mainly with international communism but also influencing labor movements in Europe, the US, and elsewhere

Conservative Movements

expressed most full in fascism and Nazism

Liberal Humanitarian Movements

associated most dramatically with the French and American revolutions

Chiliastic Movements

expressed in some religious movements and peasant revolts

Transformative Movements

akin to value-oriented and revolutionary movements

Reformative Movements

seek limited but focused changes in the social system,

Redemptive Movements

seek a more complete, or total rather than partial, change among individuals, which was the objective of various religious movements that flowered in the 70's

Alternative Movements

seek partial change in individuals, as in the case of the therapeutic and self-help movements that have proliferated the US since the 1970's

Value-oriented Movements

seek more fundamental changes in cultural values and institutional structure and practices, as with movements that seek to redefine the fundamental rights and privileges of personhood and citizenship (ie. the civil rights movement)

Norm-Oriented Movements

seek relatively limited but specific system changes, mainly with respect to rights and rules of access and participation in the various societal institutions

Collective action

consists of any goal oriented activity engaged in jointly by two or more individuals

Crowd behaviors

Anonymity, suggestibility and contagion, irrationality and emotional

What are the four primary types of collective behavior identified?

The crowd, the mass, the public, and social movements

The Casual Crowd

consists of people who are in the same place at the same time, but who are not really interacting, such as people standing in line at the post office

Conventional Crowds

those who come together for a scheduled event, like a religious service or a rock concert

Expressive crowd

people who join together to express emotion, often at funerals, weddings, or the like

Acting crowd

focus on a specific goal or action, such as a protest movement or a riot

A Mass

a relatively large and dispersed number of people with a common interest, whose members are largely unknown to one another and who are incapable of acting together in a concerted way to achieve objectives.

A Public

An unorganised diffused group of people who may share ideas on an issue
e.g. Members of the public with ideas about healthcare and education.

What is the difference between collective behavior and a social movement?

Unlike the crowd, the mass and the public, social movements are intentional
and organised. They emerge and develop specific goals to create (or resist) social
change. All social movements rely on collective action (which may start out as collective behavior). But all collective action is a social movement!

Revolutionary movements

radical social movements attempting to completely overthrow and existing power structure or social system to replace with one fundamentally different

What are the four stages of a social movement?

Preliminary, coalescence, institutionalized, decline

Preliminary stage

awareness of an issue develops and leaders emerge

Coalescence stage

beginnings of collective action. People work together and organize eg. collective action

Institutionalization stage

the movement has become an established organization, typically with a paid staff, and is no longer fully dependent on voluntarism (though this is likely to continue)

Decline stage

the decline of the movement can occur for a number of reasons including the issue no longer being taken seriously, the movement has successfully brought about change, a new movement has supplanted the existing movement or people ‘fall away’

Value-Added Theory

understanding the conditions in which social movements emerge and argues that several conditions must be in place for collective behavior to occur.

Resource Mobilisation Theory

how social movements mobilize individuals for collective action in order to challenge power structures and inequalities. A way to explain a movements success in terms of its ability to acquire resources and mobilize individuals to achieve goals and take advantage of political opportunities

Framing Theory

how social movements utilize collective action frames to legitimize and gain support for collective action. Argues that social movements don’t just express existing ideas, complaints and demands, but take an active role in shaping how we understand the world

New Social Movements Theory

assesses the new forms of social movements that have been developed in the past 50 years. Also drawn from conflict theory but focusing on new conflicts relating to identity and belonging.

Functionalist Perspective

looks at the big picture, focusing on the way that all aspects of society are integral to the continued health and viability of the whole

Critical Perspective

focuses on the creation and reproduction of inequality. Someone applying the conflict perspective would likely be interested in how social movements are generated through social movements are generated through systematic inequality, and perceive social change as constant, sometimes speedy, and unavoidable

Symbolic interactionism perspective

studies the day-to-day interaction of social movements, the meanings individuals attach to involvement in such movements, and the individual experience of social change, such as social movement norms, tactics, individual motivations

Universality

Are human rights really universal?

International legal universality

there is an internationally agreed set of universal standards. All UN human rights treaties were drafted on the basis on consensus.

Overlapping consensus universality

there is an overlapping consensus across dives that humans possess rights

Functional universality

universal consensus that human rights are an effective mechanism to mediate Government power over its citizens

Domestic mobilization theory

focuses on how a states international commitments can translate into improved human rights outcomes as a result of domestic mobilization

What are the limitations of human rights?

the extent to which rights are respected is government dependent as it is limited by state sovereignty, human rights can be vaguely defined or ambiguous, etc.

Ethnicity

refers to cultural practices and outlooks of a community, which identifies them as a distinctive social group

Trayvon Martin

17 year old African American boy living in Florida who was shot by George Zimmerman in 2012. He was unarmed and just walking home.

Michael Browne

18 year old black man fatally shot in Ferguson, Missouri by a police officer in 2014

George Floyd

a 47 year old African American man killed when a police officer applied pressure to his neck for over eight minutes in May 2020.

What is racial inequality perpetuated by?

Stereotypes and prejudices that exist in society, politics and the nation state, and structural and institutional racism

What is a stereotype?

thinking all people who belong to a certain group are the same

Structural and Institutional Racism

suggests that racism exists across all societies structures or across/within institutions, in a systematic manner

Emmet Till

a 14 year old black boy from Chicago who was murdered. His death was an important precipitating event in the mobilization of African Americans in the civil rights movement in the 1950’s.

The Civil Rights Movement

mobilized African Americans in opposition of Jim Crowe laws post slavery, fought against systematic racism and oppression

When was the American Civil Rights Act passed?

in 1964, which banned discrimination based off of race, color, religion, sex, and national origin

Criminal Justice System

Body of research highlighting that African Americans are more likely to be
arrested, more likely to be convicted and once convicted more likely to serve lengthy prison sentences. The reasons for these disparities are grounded in structural inequalities and systemic racism

Democratic voting system

Many states for example ban people from voting if they have a felony conviction. With Black people over represented in the criminal justice system this disqualifies significant number of Black people from voting

Healthcare System

Black Americans were 3.5 times more likely to die from Covid-19 than white
Americans. Some of this can be attributed to inequalities in access to healthcare

What started Black Lives Matter?

In response to the acquittal of the policeman who shot Trayvon, Alicia Garza a workers
rights activist, posted on Facebook “Black people, I love you. I love us. Our lives matter”. It was reposted with the hashtag #blacklivesmatter

When did the BLM movement gain further momentum?

After the killing of Michael Brown in 2014

When was the BLM movement reignited?

The death of George Floyd

Mobilization of BLM

The triggers to the mobilization and escalation of the movement were gun violence and police brutality against black Americans, but the movement also mobilized in response to inequalities in the criminal justice system, economic inequalities and voting rights and an emphasis more recently on inequalities in access to healthcare.

What was the Beijing platform for action in 1995?

When governments and non-government organizations from more than 180 countries outlined a series of measures to address violence against women in a wide variety of policy areas

What did the Eurobarometer find in 1999?

that as many as one in three Europeans thought that violence against women should NOT be a crime

What does the United Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) fail to do?

It does not mention violence against women, but does mention family law