Collective Action, Social Movements, and Social Change

Eighth Edition: Introduction to Sociology

Chapter 18: Collective Action, Social Movements, and Social Change

Author: Dalton Conley
Copyright © 2024 W. W. Norton & Company

Paradox of Individuality

  • Individual identity is constructed through affiliations with multiple group identities.

  • This highlights the paradox of individuality in sociology.

What Is Social Change?

  • Definition: A process that alters behaviors, relationships, institutions, and systems of stratification over time.

  • Variability: Rates, intentionality, controversy, and significance vary; society is in a constant state of change.

    • Macro-change: Refers to large-scale, gradual modernization leading from simple to complex institutions.

    • Micro-change: Changes in individual interactions that can potentially reshape social institutions and entire societies.

Sources of Social Change

  1. Physical Environment: Catastrophic events can instigate societal changes.

  2. Technology: Advances can enhance lives while simultaneously serving as instruments of social control.

  3. Demography: Changes in population size and composition, including migration patterns, can influence social structures.

  4. Cultural Innovation: Includes discovery, invention, and cultural diffusion or borrowing.

Theory in Everyday Life

Perspective

Approach to Social Change

Structural Functionalism

Sometimes social change is necessary for maintaining equilibrium and order in society.

Conflict Theory

Social change is a result of inevitable conflict and inequality between groups regarding power and resources.

Symbolic Interactionism

Social change involves redefining meanings alongside changes in laws, culture, and social behavior.

Case Study: The Environmental Movement

  • Natural resources' importance for society's survival drives the need for sustainability movements.

  • Environmental Injustice: Environmental privileges are inequitably distributed; the movement aims to secure rights for all to a clean environment.

  • Protection of Species: Redefining certain animals as endangered helps safeguard them through legislation against hunting and habitat loss.

Chapter 18 Outline:

  1. Collective Action: What Is It Good For? (18.1)

  2. Social Movements: We Shall Overcome (18.2)

  3. Social Movements: Evolve or Die (18.3)

  4. Social Change in the (Really) Long Run (18.4)

  5. The Causes of Social Change (18.5)

Sociological Approaches to Social Change

Functionalist Theories

  • Classical Evolutionary Models: Propose societies evolve from simple to complex structures.

  • Neoevolutionary Perspectives: Societies progress towards greater social differentiation.

Conflict Approaches

  • Change is instigated through conflict

    • Class Warfare: Marx posits that alienation and class consciousness incite economic crises.

    • Revolutionary Change: Skocpol (1979) states elite resistance to change leads to conflicts.

    • Broadened Conflict Theory: Social issues related to race, ethnicity, gender, age, and religion are now included in disparities resulting in conflict.

Cyclical Approaches

  • Human lives are historically attuned to nature's cycles until industrialization.

    • Classical Perspective: Societies follow a lifecycle of birth, maturity, and death.

    • Contemporary Perspective: Cultures oscillate between rises and declines in social values.

Interactionist, Feminist, and Other Contemporary Perspectives on Change

  • Interactionists: View change as resulting from the redefinition of social meanings through interaction.

  • Feminists: Investigate the persistence of patriarchy amid social advances.

18.1 Collective Action: What Is It Good For?

Theories Explaining Collective Action

  1. Collective Action: Group actions that deviate from social norms.

    • Crowd Collective Action: Face-to-face group interactions.

    • Mass Collective Action: Collective behavior without physical co-location (e.g., letter-writing campaigns).

  2. Collective Behavior: Spontaneous non-institutionalized responses to problems by large groups.

    • Often described as a knee-jerk reaction.

  3. Social Movements: Organized, sustained collective efforts aimed at promoting or resisting social change beyond established institutions.

Theories of Collective Action

Convergence Theory

  • Collective action occurs when individuals with similar ideas gather in a single location.

  • Planning isn't necessary; the essential factor is attracting like-minded individuals.

Contagion Theory

  • Claims that collective action emerges from people's conformity to each other's behaviors, often influenced by charismatic leaders.

Emergent Norm Theory

  • Highlights the role of keynoters in establishing new norms and behaviors within groups, often without holding formal leadership roles.

Interpreting Collective Behavior

  • Contagion Theory: Individuals can lose reasoning skills amid crowd emotions.

  • Convergence Theory: Mobs gather based on shared interests and pre-existing attitudes.

    • Descriptive phrase: "Birds of a feather flock together."

  • Emergent Norm Theory: Individuals collaborate in crowds to look for behavioral cues, with group acceptance shaping new norms.

Identity and Collective Action

  • Individual identity is explained through group affiliations.

    • This mutual influence dictates both personal identity and group identity dynamic.

  • Static vs. Dynamic Identities: Individuals belong to multiple groups, which may cause conflicts in identity.

    • Collective Associations: Forming emotional bonds with various groups informs one's identity.

    • Example: Identity as a fast-food worker based on job and night-shift assignment or having opposing beliefs (e.g., being Catholic while also advocating for pro-choice).

18.2 Social Movements: We Shall Overcome

Development of Social Movements

  • Social Movements: Institutional and extra-institutional collective behavior aiming for purposeful societal change.

    • Defined by organized, sustained efforts to challenge laws, policies, and authority.

    • Goals can be concrete (e.g., repealing laws) or abstract (e.g., acceptance of diverse identities).

  • Movements are intentional, organized, extend over time, and often evolve from informal beginnings to formal organizations.

Types of Social Movements

  1. Alternative Social Movements: Limited change targeting narrow groups.

    • Example: #NeverAgain movement for gun control.

  2. Redemptive Social Movements: Aim for radical behavioral changes within specific groups.

    • Example: Covenant House aiding at-risk youth.

  3. Reformative Social Movements: Advocate for societal change on a broad level.

    • Example: Critical Mass promoting biking safety.

  4. Revolutionary Social Movements: Seek radical societal reorganization.

    • Example: Weather Underground's campaign against the U.S. government during Vietnam.

Detailed Examples of Social Movements

Alternative Social Movements

  • Focus on singular, individual behavioral changes.

  • The #NeverAgain movement was initiated after the Parkland shooting in 2018.

Redemptive Social Movements

  • Covenant House offers more than behavior correction; it aims for full life reorganization for those in need.

Reformative Social Movements

  • The Critical Mass movement raised awareness for cycling safety since 1992, leading to the establishment of safe bike lanes.

Revolutionary Social Movements

  • The Weather Underground aimed to overthrow the U.S. government; contrasted by the United Democratic Front's success in dismantling apartheid in South Africa.

18.3 Social Movements: Evolve or Die

Neil Smelser’s Value-Added Theory

  • Value-added theory posits that successful social movements require certain conditions:

    1. Presence of a social strain

    2. Central agreement on the problem definition

    3. Ability to act on grievances

    4. A spark igniting the issue

    5. Mobilization for action

    6. Failure of control by established powers

Framing Social Problems

  • Successful social movements achieve frame alignment: they shape perceptions of issues as per their organizational lens.

    • Examples:

      • Pro-choice activists frame the issue as women’s health rights.

      • Mask-wearing framed through public health or personal freedom narratives.

Frame Strategies

  1. Frame Extension: Adapting existing civil rights frames (e.g., extending rights to transgender individuals).

  2. Amplification: Elevating an existing frame to dominate discourse (e.g., using health narratives to galvanize climate action).

  3. Bridging: Connecting a new frame to familiar issues (e.g., framing immigration as a public safety crisis).

Frame Transformation

  • Social movements may engage in frame transformation to radically redefine issues.

    • After George Floyd's death, movements shaped narratives around policing as part of institutional racism and white supremacy.

The Models of Social Movements

The Classical Model

  • Based on the idea that societal structural weaknesses lead to psychological strain and active movement.

    • Strain arising from social isolation or contradictory status can trigger action.

    • Critique: Unclear which strains cause action; basic psychological tensions may be overemphasized.

Resource-Mobilization Theory

  • Emphasizes political context and necessary resources for movement emergence.

    • Well-resourced individuals often lead movements.

    • Critique: Successful movements often arise from low-resourced groups and involvement of elites can undermine movements.

Political Process Model

  • Focuses on political opportunities: favorable conditions enhance movement chances.

    • Criteria affecting movements include expanded political opportunities, strong indigenous organizations, and shared beliefs.

    • Critique: Oversight of cultural or emotional components can be limiting.

Stages of Social Movements

  1. Emergence: Initial identification of the social issue by a small group.

  2. Coalescence: Mobilization of resources and awareness-building occurs.

  3. Routinization (Institutionalization): Formal structures establish to support the movement's cause; staff may be hired, and organizations formalize.

Social Movement Organizations (SMOs)

  • Groups that recruit members and coordinate participation aimed at social change.

    • Professional Movement Organizations: Full-time leadership with a large, passive membership.

    • Participatory Movement Organizations: Actively involve members in decisions and activities.

Types of Participatory Movement Organizations

  1. Mass Protest Organizations: Advocate for change through demonstrations.

  2. Grassroots Organizations: Function through community membership participation and lack hierarchical structures.

Social Movements and Social Change

  • All movements aim to alter society; however, change is also influenced by economic and political factors.

  • Perception of social change varies among individuals; not all changes affect society uniformly.

Interviews

Andy Bichlbaum Interview

  • Provided consulting to Black civil rights activists about activism strategies.

Doug McAdam Interview

  • Discussed how social media facilitates movements in framing social issues.

18.4 Social Change in the (Really) Long Run

Historical Perspectives

Premodern Societies

  • Characteristics: Concentric circles of social affiliation with low labor division, underdeveloped technology, and traditional norms according to Georg Simmel.

Modernity

  • Characteristics: Rationality, bureaucratization, overlapping identities, and objectivity; emergence of scientific thought replaced traditional views.

Postmodernism

  • Characteristics: Questioning of progress, narrative replaced by pastiche, and emergence of conflicting identities based on context and affiliations.

18.5 The Causes of Social Change

Motivators of Social Change

Technology and Innovation

  • Technological advances lead to significant societal changes; e.g., computer innovations change company operations and labor locations.

New Ideas and Identities

  • Novel ideas influence behavior.

    • Knowledge about health and environment shapes consumer demands (e.g., hybrid vehicles).

Social Change and Conflict

  • Conflicts sometimes catalyze profound social changes (e.g., division of Germany post-WWII).

    • Hegel's Theory: Conflict acts as history's engine through synthesis resulting from thesis-antithesis confrontations.

The Tyler Theory

  • The subsequent flow of social dynamics can be summarized as:

    • SI (Symbolic Interaction) > SF (Structural Functionalism) > Conflict > Social Movement > Social Change > new SF.

    • The outcomes depend on whether the movement's power surpasses the societal structure’s control.

Credits

  • This concludes the Lecture PowerPoint for Chapter 18 of You May Ask Yourself, 8th Edition.

  • For additional resources, visit https://digital.wwnorton.com/youmayask8.

  • Copyright © 2024 W. W. Norton & Company.