Notes on the Nature of Disruptive Power
The Dynamics of Disruptive Protest and Egalitarian Reform
The Inversion of Logic: Analyzing the periods between episodes of major disruptive protest reveals that egalitarian reforms are rarely initiated once protest activities subside.
The Whittling Away of Reform: Reforms achieved during heightened periods of protest are often diminished or "whittled away" over time.
Rare Intervals of Crisis vs. Incremental Reform: Robert Dahl and Charles Lindblom identify "rare intervals of crisis" as the periods when "nonincremental" reforms are won. However, they prioritize the study of the "slow but steady workings" of incremental reform.
Normal Politics and Erosion: In contrast to the idea that incrementalism builds upon crisis reforms, normal political processes are more likely to erode those reforms than to expand them.
The Central Thesis: Egalitarian reform in the United States occurs as a response to the rise of disruptive protest movements and the unique power they wield, despite power inequalities and the twisting of electoral-representative arrangements.
Root of Success: Democratic successes originate not from the independent influence of voters or parties, but from the mobilization of power rooted in social interdependence and cooperation.
Traditional Conceptions of Power: Wealth and Force
Control of Resources: Power is conventionally viewed as rooted in the control of wealth and force, or institutional positions that grant control over these resources.
Theories of Resource-Based Power: * Randall Collins: Advises looking for "material things that affect interaction: the physical places, the modes of communication, the supply of weapons, devices for staging one's public impression, tools and goods." He describes the resources for conflict as complex. * C. Wright Mills: Focuses on the resources available to those occupying "top" institutional roles. * Charles Tilly: Identifies power resources as equivalent to the economist's factors of production: land, labor, capital, and technical expertise.
Explanatory Limitations: While wealth and force explain many hierarchical social dynamics (e.g., landowners over peasants), they fail to explain historical instances where individuals without wealth or coercive resources exercised significant power.
Interdependence as the Foundation of Disruptive Power
Complexity and Networks: More complex societies organize life through elaborate networks of specialized and interdependent activities.
Mutual Dependence: These networks generate mutual power capacities. For example: * Landowners depend on agricultural workers. * Industrial capitalists depend on workers. * Princes depend on the urban crowd. * Merchants depend on customers. * Husbands depend on wives. * Masters depend on slaves. * Governing elites depend on the acquiescence or approval of enfranchised publics.
Widespread Leverage: Unlike wealth and force, which are concentrated at the top, the leverage of interdependence is widely distributed. This leverage can be activated from below through the withdrawal of contributions to social cooperation.
Defining Disruption: Disruption is the activation of this interdependent power.
Manifestations of Disruption in Social and Economic Networks
Theoretical Definitions of Movements: * Alberto Melucci: A movement pushes conflict "beyond the limits of compatibility with the system in question," breaks the rules, puts forward non-negotiable objectives, and questions the legitimacy of power. * Ron Aminzade: Movements utilize unconventional, illegal, or revolutionary collective action, preferring disruptive actions over existing institutional frameworks.
Specific Examples of Disruption: * Workplace Strikes: Workers withdraw labor to shut down production or services. * Student Strikes: Students withdraw from classrooms to close universities. * Boycotts: Consumers refuse to purchase goods; farmers refuse to bring milk to market. * Refusal of Social Roles: The women "hysterics" of the late nineteenth century who refused roles as sexual partners and service providers. * Riots: Crowds break the compact governing civic life. * Mass Demands for Relief: People break patterns of cooperation based on norms of self-reliance.
Historical Impact: Major equalizing reforms—such as political representation, the end of chattel slavery, the right to unionize, and social welfare—were won through the mobilization of disruptive power.
The Intersection of Economic and Political Interdependencies
Relative Importance of Relations: While many interdependencies exist (doctor-patient, student-teacher), the most significant are rooted in economic relationships and the political relationships that anchor state elites.
Class Power: Economic interdependencies between large aggregates divided by typically exploitative relations of production and exchange.
The State and the Market: Markets depend on political authority; state elites usually support economic domination but may intervene to modify it due to their own interdependence with society.
Theoretical Alignments: * Norbert Elias: Central state development was propelled by interdependencies in warrior societies. * Marxism: Proletariat power is created by the system of industrial capitalist relations. * Joseph Schumpeter: The "tax state" is tied to private property owners because it depends on resources it does not control. * Democratic Model: State authorities are bound to voters on whom they depend for office.
Strategy and Symbolism: Voice, Noise, and Non-cooperation
Communication vs. Leverage: Protest movements use "voice" (slogans, banners, rallies) to build morale and appeal for allies. However, voice alone provides little power compared to the actual withdrawal of cooperation.
Michael Lipsky's "Showmanship": His study of the New York rent strike argued noise was a main political resource to activate third-party reformers. The text argues this is often ineffective if not backed by actual disruption.
The Picket Line Case: Originally a strategy to physically obstruct scabs, courts transformed it into an informational (communicative) activity to weaken its disruptive potential.
Absence of Noise: Disruption can be silent. John Adams noted that on the night of the Boston Tea Party, "Boston was never more still and calm." Capitalists also exercise quiet disruptive power through disinvestment.
Strategic Dimensions of Violence and Nonviolence in Movements
Strategic Choice: Both violence and nonviolence are strategic tools used to defend or escalate disruptive power.
Institutional Violence: Critics of protester violence often ignore the violence inherent in institutional routines (e.g., starvation wages).
Case Study: Big Bill Haywood: Organizer of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). During the Lawrence, Massachusetts textile strike and the Akron rubber strike, he mandated discipline and nonviolence to avoid moral censure that would justify owner violence.
Defensive Violence: Protesters may use violence to protect their ability to withdraw cooperation, such as civil rights activists arming themselves to defend nonviolent disruptions or striking workers intimidating scabs.
Offensive/Insurrectionary Violence: * Gay Seidman's work on the anti-apartheid movement shows the interplay between armed struggle and mobilization. * Violent insurgency in Iraq forced the abandonment of economic privatization plans. * Riots and street crime in Harlem in the unintentionally delayed gentrification by making the real estate appear unsafe.
Barriers and Conditions to the Actualization of Disruptive Power
Condition : Recognition of Interdependence: Participants must recognize their own contribution to the relationship. Dominant groups often culturally construct reality to emphasize their own contributions while erasing those of lower-status groups (e.g., valuing a husband's income over a wife's labor).
Condition : Breaking Rules: Social life is rule-governed and institutionalized. Rules are not neutral; they are fashioned by those with wealth and force to prohibit others from using leverage. For example, laws have historically restricted workers' rights to strike or form combinations.
Condition : Coordination and Solidarity: Multiple individuals must act in concert to have a disruptive effect. * Barrington Moore highlighted village social organization as a source of solidarity. * E.P. Thompson noted English village organization protected Luddite insurgents.
Condition : The Social Matrix: Mobilization can be hindered or helped by external relationships. * Constraints: Family ties or religious threats (e.g., Methodist preachers threatening Luddites with hell). * Facilitators: The Catholic Church supporting Poland's Solidarity movement; the lieutenant governor and governor of Pennsylvania supporting steelworkers in .
Condition : Endurance: Participants must be able to survive the suspension of the relationship (e.g., workers needing to pay rent during a strike).
Condition : Withstanding the Threat of Exit: Disruptors must face the possibility that the dominant partner will leave the relationship entirely (e.g., husbands walking out, employers relocating plants to Mexico or Bangladesh).
The Concept of the Repertoire in Collective Action
Definition: A repertoire is a historically specific constellation of strategies used to actualize interdependent power.
Charles Tilly's Repertoire: The inventory of available means of collective action, reflecting the "logic of the situation" shaped by big structures like capitalism and the nation-state.
Elite Advantage: Ruling groups typically invent new repertoires faster because they have better information, experts, and less fear of rules.
Dialogic Interaction: Repertoires are forged in a "dance" of action and reaction between contenders.
Case Study: Pullman Strike of : * Workers walked out after wage cuts. * Eugene Debs and the American Railway Union (ARU) initiated a nationwide boycott of Pullman cars. * Railroad owners responded with a multilateral strategy, claiming interference with U.S. mail. * The U.S. Attorney General issued an injunction, and federal troops were sent to smash the strike and the ARU.
Contemporary Shifts in Economic Structure and Repertoires of Resistance
Erosion of Old Repertoires: The transition to a postindustrial, globalized economy has depleted traditional occupational categories (miners, steelworkers, dockers) and their associated cultures/unions.
Employer Counter-Strategies: Modern employers use "exit threats" effectively by hiring contingent workers, restructuring production, or moving plants globally.
The "Drag of the Past": Strategies tend to persist in cultural memory long after they have lost effectiveness. People cling to accustomed modes of action, which can lead to a gap between institutional possibilities and actual strategies.
Fragility in Modern Systems: While old industries have declined, new systems (outsourcing, just-in-time inventories) have made modern production more fragile. Internet and service workers have yet to fully explore the disruptive potential within this densely interwoven economy.**