Florida Atlantic University Communications Paper

From Professor:

This reflection paper requires all students to participate in researching and analyzing their chosen social movement.  Each group member will write their own research paper analyzing the social movement they signed up for at the beginning of the semester.  Research information must come from legitimate sources, primarily academic ones, and can be from a variety of resources, such as books, web sites, journal articles, interviews, etc.

The purpose of the reflection paper is to provide a socio-historical perspective on that particular movement. The bulk of the paper will be to provide a discussion of the social and cultural issues surrounding the movement, a discussion of the importance and effectiveness of the tactics used in the movements, and address the success or failure of the movement with regards to tactics and change.

As a reference point, you can refer to chapters 7, 8 and 9 in your textbook. These chapters not only provide some historical knowledge of a number of movements but also individual, micro and macrostructural explanations of these movements. You will also be expected to do your own research in finding articles, websites, educational readings that provide content regarding your social movement to answer the questions in the assignment.

The following are questions you should highlight/focus on as you set up your paper:

– What defines a social movement? (organizational form, goals, tactic and participants)

-Do social movements matter? Why does your social movement matter?

-What strategies and tactics does your social movement employ/use to fulfill its objectives?

-What accounts for the variation in tactics and strategies across your movement?

-Who participates in your social movement?

– How did our social movement decide who to recruit and why?

-How do differences (social, race, class, gender, sexuality, etc.) in the people that have chosen to participate in your social movement account for differences in tactics, narratives, successes, and failures in your movement?

Who or what did your movement target?

Was your movement successful in its objectives (mission)?

What are some of the failures your movement experience?

What does the future look like for your movement?

Instructions

Answer each question in the prompt with as much detail as possible (provide refences in ASA format- see link below for citation format instructions).

Provide citations and reference page.

American Sociological Association Citation Format

Links to an external site.

https://www.wpunj.edu/library/pdf/citationguides/asa-6_2020.pdfLinks to an external site.

https://www.asanet.org/sites/default/files/savvy/documents/teaching/pdfs/Quick_Tips_for_ASA_Style.pdf(Links to an external site.)

SOCIAL MOVEMENTS AND SOCIAL CHANGE
• How are social movements different than other structures and organizations?
• They develop segmental organizations that compete for
sympathizers
• Recruit sympathizers – online and face to face and large rallies
publicize the movement
• Activists motivated by strong personal commitments
• Create value beliefs that articulate goals and causes
• Need opposition in order to create solidarity within group
SOCIAL MOVEMENTS AND SOCIAL CHANGE
(2)
Types of Social Movements
• Revolutionary movements
• Reform movements
• Instrumental movements
• Expressive movements
• Progressive movements
• Conservative movements
SOCIAL MOVEMENTS AND SOCIAL CHANGE (3)
• Revolutionary Movements
• Goal is to set fundamental changes in the system
• most are political revolutionary movements but see some against racism, sexism
• Seldom succeed in total system change
• Intention does shape strategies
• Have broad and pervasive impact
• Israeli-Palestinian conflict
• The Israel-Palestine conflict: a brief, simple history
• Trump Says Time to Recognize Golan Heights as Part of Israel
• ISIS
SOCIAL MOVEMENTS AND SOCIAL CHANGE (4)
• Reform Movements
• Seek modest changes within existing system
• Aim at specific issues
• Politics, medicine, education
• More likely in democratic system
• More likely to succeed
• Ex. Bernie Sanders and Trump candidacies
SOCIAL MOVEMENTS AND SOCIAL CHANGE (5)
 Instrumental Movements
◦ Change structure of society
 Civil Rights Movement
 Contemporary Environmentalism
 Expressive Movements
◦ Address problems and needs/change character/behavior of people
 Christian Evangelical movement
 New Age Movement
 Psychological Self Improvement
◦ Some movements may include both movements
 Contemporary Feminism- NOW (National Organization of Women)- consciousness raising and
political action
SOCIAL MOVEMENTS AND SOCIAL CHANGE (6)
• Progressive Movements
• Left wing
• Future oriented or “utopian”
• Bring about historically unprecedented conditions and change
conditions of submerged groups
• Gay Liberation Movement
• Russian Revolution
• Conservative Movements
• Right wing
• Change or resurrect the past- “golden age”
• Islamic and Christian Fundamentalism
• Conservative political and intellectual movement
SOCIAL MOVEMENTS AND SOCIAL CHANGE
(7)
Explanations of Social Movements:
 Individual Explanations
◦ Irrationality and crowds
 Crowd psychology (irrational nature of social movement participation)
 Participants in social movements are making up for frustrated lives
 Riffraff theory
 Activists are misfits and losers and attach themselves to movements to
feel better about themselves
•
Rational choice

People will organize and participate in a social movement if there are enough
incentives for doing so
SOCIAL MOVEMENTS AND SOCIAL CHANGE
(8)
Microsocial Explanations:
• Relative Deprivation- subjective feelings of being
deprived relative to expectations
• Social movement participation is prevalent during periods of sustained
improvement
• Those involved in movements are often not the most deprived
• Protests among middle class African Americans in 1960’s
• Mixed support for argument
SOCIAL MOVEMENTS AND SOCIAL CHANGE (9)
 Microsocial Explanations:
 Status Strains
◦ When one’s status is threatening, more people are willing to
participate in social movements (immigration, political, occupational)
◦ Threats to power prestige and/or privilege
◦ Right-wing movements
SOCIAL MOVEMENTS AND SOCIAL CHANGE (10)
• Microsocial Explanations:
• Microstructural Mobilization Contexts
• Interpersonal connection between “recruits” and participants
better explains movement activism
• The more organizations one belongs to the more likely to
participate in social movements
• Organizations act as “breeding grounds” for movement participation
• personal circumstances can help or hinder one’s participation in
social movements (obligations)
• More likely to see the young, students, single and autonomous
professionals involved in these movements
SOCIAL MOVEMENTS AND SOCIAL CHANGE
(11)
Macrostructural Explanations of Social Movements:
 Collective Behavior
 Smelser’s Value-added Theory
 Conflict Perspectives: Resource Mobilization Theory, Political
Process Theory & New Movement Theory
SOCIAL MOVEMENTS AND SOCIAL CHANGE (12)
• Collective Behavior
• social processes and events which do not reflect existing social
structure, but which emerge in a “spontaneous” way.
• Elementary forms of this behavior
• As a result of breakdown of traditional order
• Rumor, mobs, panics, protests
• Social movements begin poorly organized characterized by collective behavior
• US labor movement- 1890’s mob protests
• As become more developed, saw a set of established structures
SOCIAL MOVEMENTS AND SOCIAL CHANGE (13)
• Smelser’s Value Added Theory
• Conditions necessary for development of a movement
• Structural conduciveness
• Structural Strains
• Growth of Generalized Belief System
• Precipitating Events
• Mobilization of Participants
• Operation of Social Control
SOCIAL MOVEMENTS AND SOCIAL CHANGE (14)
 Conflict Perspectives
 Social movements arise out of “changing availability of resources, organization and
opportunities for collective action”
◦ Resource Mobilization Theory
 Role of power and power struggles- 1960’s decade of movements- why????
 Growth of financial and moral support for many causes
 More mass media focus on social issues
 Government sponsorship of social movements (commissions on civil rights, women’s rights)
 Improvement in fundraising tech of mobilization (computerized mailing lists)

more professionals working in nontraditional jobs for social change
 Special body of social movement literature
 Development of professional social movement organizations
SOCIAL MOVEMENTS AND SOCIAL CHANGE (15)
• Political Process Theory
• political opportunities for change must first be present before a
movement can achieve its objectives
• make change through the existing political structure and processes
• growth of political pluralism-decline in effectiveness of repression
• elite disunity; the leading factions are internally fragmented
• a broadening of access to institutional participation in political
processes
• support of organized opposition by elites (support of Kennedy and
Johnson administrations for the Civil Right and Feminist Movements)
SOCIAL MOVEMENTS AND SOCIAL CHANGE (16)
 New Movement Theory
•
Movements in contemporary modern societies by European movement scholars
◦ Emerged in short time span in the West and around the same time span (Environmental, Peace,
Antinuclear, Gay Right, New Age Movements)
 These are reactions to modernizing process in advanced industrialized capitalist nations- erosion
of traditional ways of family and work
 How are these movements different than traditional ones?
 These movements focus on individual and cultural rights/personal satisfaction rather than
human/economic justice
 These movements distrustful of politics, favor small scale decentralized organizations and use
direct democracy
 Associated with rise of a new middle class/professionals rather than ministers, professors,
journalists and bureaucrats
SOCIAL MOVEMENTS AND SOCIAL CHANGE (17)
Social Movements – a collectivity acting with some
degree and continuity outside of institutional channels
for the purpose of promoting or resisting change in the
group, society, or world order of which it is a part.
•
Elements of social movements:
1. Collective or joint action
2. Change-oriented goals (ideology)
3. Some degree of organization
4. Some degree of temporal continuity
5. Extra-institutional collective action
SOCIAL MOVEMENTS AND SOCIAL CHANGE (18)
• Social Movement Organizations or SMOs (McCarthy and Zald 1973,
and 1977) – formal organizations that are central to the operation of social
movements (example, NAACP, CORE, SCLC, and SNCC were important to
the activity of the Civil Rights Movement)
• Temporal Continuity – movements have continuity in time, they differ
from other, short-lived forms of collective actions such as riots or crowd
gatherings (these may be included in the tactical repertoire of a movement).
• Movements as an extra-institutional challenge – movements are not
part of the established political system of interest intermediation (however,
over time some movements may engage in in institutional practices such as
lobbying, political campaigns, legal challenges)
SOCIAL MOVEMENTS AND SOCIAL CHANGE (19)
• Strategy represent a grand vision (a plan) that will lead to a successful
accomplishment of the movement’s goals. Strategy is built on the assumptions
about social, political, and economic realities at the time, as well as the perceived
strengths and weaknesses of the movement and its opponent. Strategies change as
those conditions and characteristics change.
•
Strategy involves three steps:
1. Setting goals
2. Determining the actions to achieve these goals
3. Mobilizing resources to execute these actions
SOCIAL MOVEMENTS AND SOCIAL CHANGE (20)
• Examples
• 1) Strategy of Nonviolence (India’s Independence Movement led by
Gandhi, social movements in the U.S.)
• 2) Legal Strategy (NAACP Legal Defense Fund)
• 3) Violent Uprising (various Independence Movements in Africa and Asia)
• 4) Intimidation through Violence (KKK)
• 5) Political strategy (using the characteristic of the electoral system to the
advantage of the movement)
SOCIAL MOVEMENTS AND SOCIAL CHANGE (21)
• Categories of Non-violent tactics (Sharp 1973)
• 1. Non-violent protest and persuasion (symbolic actions to express
disapproval and dissent such as marches, parades, vigils).
• 2. Non-cooperation (withdrawal or withholding of social, economic, or
political cooperation through actions such as strikes, economic boycotts, and
refusal to participate in elections).
• 3. Nonviolent intervention (sit-ins, non-violent obstruction, non-violent
invasion, and setting up a parallel government)
SOCIAL MOVEMENTS AND SOCIAL CHANGE (22)
Nashville sit-in protest in Feb.1960
(CC0)
Sit-in protestors Ronald Martin, Robert
Patterson and Mark Martin at the F.W.
Woolworth luncheon counter in Greensboro,
N.C., on Feb.1, 1960. (CC0)
SOCIAL MOVEMENTS AND SOCIAL CHANGE (23)
Anti-nuclear protesters block the main road to Germany’s interim
nuclear waste storage facility in the northern village of Gorleben
Monday. Riot police clashed with protesters all along the route of
a controversial shipment of Castor containers with spent nuclear fuel.
Photograph © Reuters.
SOCIAL MOVEMENTS AND SOCIAL CHANGE (24)
Students Occupy Florida Atlantic University President’s Office To Protest Naming Stadium After
Private Prison Company in February, 2013
SOCIAL MOVEMENTS AND SOCIAL CHANGE
American Reform Movements
(25)
• Agrarian Populism-rural protest (last decades of 1800’s) created People’s Party or Populists- movement
fizzled out but “plight of farmer was address by both parties and eventually populist ideals were realized –
elimination of gold standard, progressive taxation, government regulation of interest rates and rail
transportation and agricultural price subsidies
• Labor Movement- urban workers working under hazardous conditions, 60 hours a week less than $2 a day
(women and children working). US highest industrial accident rate in the world. Strikes (Knights of Labor700,000 members ) (AFL) organized skilled workers and IWW organized unskilled workers- not very large
numbers. Although there was anti-labor sentiment, and the defeat of politically oriented unions (up and down
during the 1900’s), the movement did result in small and slow gains to bargain with employers and New Deal
dealt with a lot of workers issues- right to organize and federal arbitration of labor disputes
• Progressive Movement- emerging at turn of century to deal with grievances of the new middle class. Small
business owners had issues with unregulated monopoly capitalism, political corruption, social issues. Good
society would be brought by human intervention and not passive evolution. Movement tied to
intellectuals,bureaucrats, professionals and journalists who were activists of the movement; rational public
policy- help poor, assimilate immigrants, safeguard health of workers, regulate commerce, protect consumers.
Established FDA.
SOCIAL MOVEMENTS AND SOCIAL CHANGE
(26)
Mid-Twentieth Century Movements
• Civil Rights Movement
• New Left and Student Movements
• The Feminist Movement
• The Conservative Movement
What kinds of changes come about through movements?
REVOLUTIONS
• What is a revolution?
• Broader transformation that changes many areas of
social life that must include a sudden collapse or
overthrow of the state.
• So, would the replacement of one political group for
another be a revolution?
• Which of the following would be considered revolutions:
French, Russian, Chinese or American revolutions?
• Have their been successful revolutions?
REVOLUTIONS (2)
• Theories of Revolution
• Ideas that shape understanding of revolutions
• Misery breeds revolt
• Incompetence of the state in managing a number of
difficulties
• The circulation of radical ideas/ideologies
• Result from difficulties of modernization
• However, do these ideas explain why revolutions occur in some
places and not in others? Not exactly.
REVOLUTIONS (3)
• Theories of Revolution:
• The study of Western Revolutions results in understanding the common elements in the
natural history or these revolutions:
• The desertion of intellectuals- critique regime and demand reforms (for some
time)
• Attempted reforms- by regime, “too little too late”
• A political crisis- state cannot manage crisis (war, economic issue- revolutionaries
have upper hand
• A period of Dual rule dominated by moderates- fall of old regime- rule with old
regime organization but with more radical factions
• The Triumph of the Radicals- take over power- dramatic changes in social
institutions
• A Reign of Terror – authoritarian power- suppression of competing political factions
• Moderation and Pragmatism- balancing act- radicals defeated and concerned with
economic progress and stable institutions
• Structural Theories of Revolution:
REVOLUTIONS (4)
• International Pressures- affected by how economic systems compete with other national economies –
influence of capitalism
• State-Elite Relations- conflict between government and elites could result in paralyzing the central
government
• Military Loyalty- in the stability of state regime
• Popular Uprisings- causes of revolutions (Marx) peasant revolts (Zapatistas)
• Urban Uprisings- potentially explosive, dense network of workers who often are long term residents, educated
and more affluent than peers (cost of food, unemployment)
• The Role of Marginal Elites- bureaucrats, lawyers, intellectuals, journalists, etc. more likely to organize
rebellions than traditional elites– help to unify opposition
• Regime Disunity and Revolution – conflicts within regime can cause state to collapse (state disunity neopatrimonial systems- top ruler maintains power through bribes and not through traditional legitimacy)
REVOLUTIONS (5)
• Sudanese Civil War (1956)
• Religious and ethnic divisions– Arab Muslims from the north who control the government against the black
Africans, mostly Non-Muslims (south), led by Sudanese People’s Liberation Army (SPLA)
• War fueled by oil interests (found in southern third of the country)
• African south wants independence from Arab central government and government has used violence,
intimidation, and economic blockade to make the southern part very poor. United Nations has to work with
government to send aid and aid is usually placed in strategic areas for the pro-government forces can attain it.
• Darfur is seeing the brunt of the government- massacres driving over 2 million Darfuris from their homes
• African Union peacekeeping force is trying to limit the violence put government and rebel forces make it an
impossible task.
• War will inevitably go on for some time due to the interests at stake.
• Sudan profile – Timeline
• South Sudan’s Civil War Sparks Africa’s Largest Refugee Crisis
REVOLUTIONS (6)
• Nicaraguan Revolution
• Example of two revolutionary changes
• The collapse of a neo-patrimonial state and its replacement by a revolutionary regime bent
on radical change, followed by a transition to multiparty democracy
• Somoza family (backed by the US) vs. Sandinista National Liberation Front (Daniel Ortega)
• 1977- President Jimmy Carter urged Congress to disinvest from Nicaragua due to human
rights violations.
• 1979 Sandinistas gained power and Sandinistas maintained power for about a decade
• Ronald Regan and US government began to provide support to ex-National Guardsmen
(who became known as the Contras)- $100 million in aid but it was discovered that Regan
administration were running an illegal operation selling weapons to Iran and profits given
to contras (Iran-Contra affair)
• 1990 peaceful transfer of power. Ortega has remained a political player in Nicaragua.
REVOLUTIONS (7)
•
Iranian Revolution of 1979
•
In 1953, the American CIA helped to overthrow a democratically elected prime minister in Iran and restore the Shah to his
throne.
•
The Shah was a modernizer- growth of a modern economy (mostly Western) and a middle class, and championing women’s rights.
•
However, the Shah also suppressed dissent, jailing and torturing his political opponents. (SAVAK secret police).
•
Shia had issues with Shah’s reforms, particularly those concerning the rights of women, angering Shia clerics (Ayatollah Khomeini),
•
The US was intent on keeping the Shah in place in Iran (to defend against communism– Russia) Throughout the 1970s, as Iran
reaped enormous profits from oil production, a gap widened between the wealthy (many of whom were relatives of the Shah) and
the poor.
•
A recession beginning in 1975 increased tensions between the classes in Iran. Secular protests (marches, etc. ). On December 11,
1978, more than a million peaceful protesters turned out in Tehran and other major cities to call for Khomeini to become Iran’s
new leader.
•
On January 16, 1979, Shah left on “vacation” to US and France (cancer treatment). As their plane took off, crowds began tearing
down statues and pictures of the Shah Ayatollah Khomeini returned to Iran and called for free elections.
•
Khomeini was welcomed on February 11, the pro-Shah forces collapsed, and the Islamic Revolution declared victory over the
Pahlavi dynasty
•
Iranian Revolution (Feb 1979)
LINKS ON SOCIAL MOVEMENTS
• REVOLUTION IN CAIRO
• Ahmed Maher, Jailed Egyptian Activist, Describes Prison In Smuggled Letters
• Egypt frees 2011 uprising activist Ahmed Maher
• Iran’s working class, facing dim prospects, fuels unrest
• Hopes Raised During the Arab Spring Are Being Revived Across North Africa
• Is boom, then slump, behind fiery Latin American protests?
• Black Twitter is a force for activism
• REPUBLICAN LAWMAKERS IN FIVE STATES PROPOSE BILLS TO CRIMINALIZE PEACEFUL
PROTEST
REFERENCES
Aljazeera, 2017. Daniel Ortega sworn in as president for third time. Retrieved from https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/01/11/daniel-ortega-swornin-as-president-for-third-time/
Ashtari, Shadee. (2014). Ahmed Maher, Jailed Egyptian Activist, Describes Prison in Smuggled Letters. Retrieved from
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/ahmed-maher-jail-egypt_n_4552539
BBC News, 2019. Sudan profile- Timeline. Retrieved from https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-14095300
Bloomberg, 2019. Trump Says Time to Recognize Golan Heights as Part of Israel. Retrieved from https://fortune.com/2019/03/21/trump-says-time-torecognize-golan-heights-as-part-of-israel/
CNN, 2015. What you need to know about the gay rights movement. Retrieved from

Frontline, (2011). Revolution in Cairo. Retrieved from https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/revolution-incairo/?utm_source=FBPAGE&utm_medium=social&utm_term=20170328&utm_content=845366395&linkId=35908947
Keath, Lee. (2018). Iran’s working class, facing dim prospects, fuels unrest. Retrieved from https://apnews.com/article/iran-business-middle-eastinternational-news-ap-top-news-feaf4d7a5ee945bfabaa181e161d1827
REFERENCES
Henao, Andres & Weissenstein, Michael. (2019). Is boom, then slump, behind fiery Latin American Protests? Retrieved from
https://apnews.com/article/bolivia-ecuador-prices-financial-markets-ap-top-news-957b27f2ca9441bda64e60a441517a5a
NPR, 2017. South Sudan’s Civil War Sparks Africa’s Largest Refugee Crisis. Retrieved from https://www.npr.org/2017/03/03/518292106/civiliansfleeing-south-sudan-s-civil-war-sparks-africa-s-largest-refugee-crisis
Simple History, 2017. The Russian Revolution (1917). Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=KOK1TMSyKcM
The New York Times. (2019). Hopes Raised During the Arab Spring are Being Revived Across North Africa. Retrieved from
https://www.facebook.com/5281959998/posts/10151869048994999?sfns=mo
Vox, Jan 20th 2016. The Israel- Palestine conflict: a brief, simple history. Retrieved from

Woodman, Spencer. (2017). Republican Lawmakers in Five States Propose Bills to Criminalize Peaceful Protest. Retrieved from

Republican Lawmakers in Five States Propose Bills to Criminalize Peaceful Protest

REFERENCES
1A, (2019). The Iranian Revolution, 40 years later. Retrieved from https://the1a.org/segments/2019-02-05-iran/
Goodfellow62, 2006. Iranian Revolution (Feb 1979). Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kY0ixG94cHE&t=4s