Author: Jason
In his lead precis, López Garcia highlights select ideas from the literature that are pertinent to the discussion about the role of social movements in public policymaking. Furthermore, he then uses these ideas to analyze and pose some questions about the “occupy movements” in New York City and Spain. Although López Garcia offers a nice synthesis of this week’s readings, I think that certain points that he raises in his piece warrant further investigation.
First, López Garcia claims that “to Olson, collective action in social movements is hampered by the ‘free rider’ problem.” He goes on to state that “more recent literature takes for granted the collective action conundrum…” However, I am unconvinced that Olson’s theory of collective action was meant to explain social movements and whether his theory is as applicable to social movements as one might assume.
Indeed, social movement scholar Sidney Tarrow (1994) argues that “Olson was not primarily concerned with social movements, but with interest groups. In fact, Olson had generalized from an even narrower category - economic associations.” Accordingly, while Olson’s rational actor version of the collective action problem does apply to interest groups and organizations (e.g. labor unions), Tarrow identifies several reasons why it doesn’t necessarily apply theoretically to social movements. In short, these reasons are: (1) individuals affiliate with movements for purposes other than marginal utility and separate and selective incentives/sanctions (e.g. group solidarity); (2) movements usually have no certain size or clear membership and “are really much more like an interlocking network of small groups, social networks and the connections between them”; and (3) unlike interest groups, most movements are not formally structured and are likely to “appear in the absence of well-defined organizations or leaders” (p. 16-22). Nevertheless, though Tarrow rejects the notion that social movements have a collective action problem that stems from the individual, he does argue that they have a collective action problem that is “social”: the coordination of “unorganized, autonomous and dispersed populations into common and sustained action.”
Second, López Garcia uses Occupy Wall Street (OWS) as one of his examples of a social movement. While the term social movement is defined in various ways in the literature, I would argue that OWS (as it occurred in the United States) is better categorized as a “protest moment” rather than a social movement because it was not a sustained, long-lasting campaign with specific demands and goals. OWS did start a national conversation about inequality – which played a role in the rise of both the nationwide campaign for the $15 minimum wage and Bernie Sanders as a legitimate presidential candidate, among other things – but it lacked and basically refused to develop the infrastructure necessary (e.g. implementing a leadership structure and building a resource base) to influence the political elite and have an impact on the policy process beyond the agenda-setting stage (Andrews, 2011). As one activist explained, “Occupy was never meant to be a social movement, if anything it was meant to be a rejection of the social movement form” (Carrefour, as cited in Lennard, 2016). Consequently, the near-movement that was never meant to be disappeared into the interwebs, falling short of its potential to achieve social change.
Lastly, the other example of a social movement that López Garcia uses is the 15-M movement in Spain. López Garcia asserts that 15-M, which started out as a one-day protest, “resembles the action-reaction model described by Andrews (2001), in which movements are dramatic, disruptive and threatening to political elites, having an impact on public opinion that will trigger a rapid response by the government.” However, since 15-M eventually grew into a mass movement throughout Spain (with an estimated 8.5 million participants) that ultimately inspired protests worldwide – including the OWS protests in the U.S. – as well as the formation of the anti-austerity political party Podemos several years later, it seems like it is more consistent with the movement infrastructure model, which postulates that movements with strong infrastructures that enable multiple mechanisms of influence (e.g. disruption, persuasion, and bargaining) will have the greatest long-term impact on the policy process (p. 76).
In conclusion, to answer López Garcia’s excellent final discussion question, I do think that both OWS and 15-M were (and continue to be) a part of a larger transnational advocacy network, which according to Keck and Sikkink (1999), “includes those actors working internationally on an issue, who are bound together by shared values, a common discourse, and dense exchanges of information and service.” Accordingly, OWS motivated and was motivated by various international movements and protests, such as 15-M, through technological means (e.g. social media) and other forms of indirect and direct connections, which is evident in their similar ideologies, strategies, tactics, and actors (McKane, 2014). Thus, a transnational advocacy network can help social movements overcome both Olson’s large n-group problem and Tarrow’s “social” collective action problem because the rapid and dense information exchanges within the network increase "the likelihood that one actor’s action will incite another" (Tarrow, p. 23). In other words, transnational advocacy networks can resolve large (or latent) group problems with small (or privileged) group solutions (Tarrow, 1994).
External Sources
Anti-Austerity Movement in Spain. Wikipedia.
Lennard, N. (2016, October 16). Five years after Brooklyn Bridge arrests, the occupy wall street worth remembering. The Intercept.
McKane, R. (2014). The Globalization of Social Movements: Exploring the transnational paradigm through collection action against neoliberalism from Latin America to the Occupy movement. Pursuit-The Journal of Undergraduate Research at the University of Tennessee, 5(1), 11.
Tarrow, S. (1994). Power in movement. Cambridge University Press.
In his lead precis, López Garcia highlights select ideas from the literature that are pertinent to the discussion about the role of social movements in public policymaking. Furthermore, he then uses these ideas to analyze and pose some questions about the “occupy movements” in New York City and Spain. Although López Garcia offers a nice synthesis of this week’s readings, I think that certain points that he raises in his piece warrant further investigation.
First, López Garcia claims that “to Olson, collective action in social movements is hampered by the ‘free rider’ problem.” He goes on to state that “more recent literature takes for granted the collective action conundrum…” However, I am unconvinced that Olson’s theory of collective action was meant to explain social movements and whether his theory is as applicable to social movements as one might assume.
Indeed, social movement scholar Sidney Tarrow (1994) argues that “Olson was not primarily concerned with social movements, but with interest groups. In fact, Olson had generalized from an even narrower category - economic associations.” Accordingly, while Olson’s rational actor version of the collective action problem does apply to interest groups and organizations (e.g. labor unions), Tarrow identifies several reasons why it doesn’t necessarily apply theoretically to social movements. In short, these reasons are: (1) individuals affiliate with movements for purposes other than marginal utility and separate and selective incentives/sanctions (e.g. group solidarity); (2) movements usually have no certain size or clear membership and “are really much more like an interlocking network of small groups, social networks and the connections between them”; and (3) unlike interest groups, most movements are not formally structured and are likely to “appear in the absence of well-defined organizations or leaders” (p. 16-22). Nevertheless, though Tarrow rejects the notion that social movements have a collective action problem that stems from the individual, he does argue that they have a collective action problem that is “social”: the coordination of “unorganized, autonomous and dispersed populations into common and sustained action.”
Second, López Garcia uses Occupy Wall Street (OWS) as one of his examples of a social movement. While the term social movement is defined in various ways in the literature, I would argue that OWS (as it occurred in the United States) is better categorized as a “protest moment” rather than a social movement because it was not a sustained, long-lasting campaign with specific demands and goals. OWS did start a national conversation about inequality – which played a role in the rise of both the nationwide campaign for the $15 minimum wage and Bernie Sanders as a legitimate presidential candidate, among other things – but it lacked and basically refused to develop the infrastructure necessary (e.g. implementing a leadership structure and building a resource base) to influence the political elite and have an impact on the policy process beyond the agenda-setting stage (Andrews, 2011). As one activist explained, “Occupy was never meant to be a social movement, if anything it was meant to be a rejection of the social movement form” (Carrefour, as cited in Lennard, 2016). Consequently, the near-movement that was never meant to be disappeared into the interwebs, falling short of its potential to achieve social change.
Lastly, the other example of a social movement that López Garcia uses is the 15-M movement in Spain. López Garcia asserts that 15-M, which started out as a one-day protest, “resembles the action-reaction model described by Andrews (2001), in which movements are dramatic, disruptive and threatening to political elites, having an impact on public opinion that will trigger a rapid response by the government.” However, since 15-M eventually grew into a mass movement throughout Spain (with an estimated 8.5 million participants) that ultimately inspired protests worldwide – including the OWS protests in the U.S. – as well as the formation of the anti-austerity political party Podemos several years later, it seems like it is more consistent with the movement infrastructure model, which postulates that movements with strong infrastructures that enable multiple mechanisms of influence (e.g. disruption, persuasion, and bargaining) will have the greatest long-term impact on the policy process (p. 76).
In conclusion, to answer López Garcia’s excellent final discussion question, I do think that both OWS and 15-M were (and continue to be) a part of a larger transnational advocacy network, which according to Keck and Sikkink (1999), “includes those actors working internationally on an issue, who are bound together by shared values, a common discourse, and dense exchanges of information and service.” Accordingly, OWS motivated and was motivated by various international movements and protests, such as 15-M, through technological means (e.g. social media) and other forms of indirect and direct connections, which is evident in their similar ideologies, strategies, tactics, and actors (McKane, 2014). Thus, a transnational advocacy network can help social movements overcome both Olson’s large n-group problem and Tarrow’s “social” collective action problem because the rapid and dense information exchanges within the network increase "the likelihood that one actor’s action will incite another" (Tarrow, p. 23). In other words, transnational advocacy networks can resolve large (or latent) group problems with small (or privileged) group solutions (Tarrow, 1994).
External Sources
Anti-Austerity Movement in Spain. Wikipedia.
Lennard, N. (2016, October 16). Five years after Brooklyn Bridge arrests, the occupy wall street worth remembering. The Intercept.
McKane, R. (2014). The Globalization of Social Movements: Exploring the transnational paradigm through collection action against neoliberalism from Latin America to the Occupy movement. Pursuit-The Journal of Undergraduate Research at the University of Tennessee, 5(1), 11.
Tarrow, S. (1994). Power in movement. Cambridge University Press.