Activist Ingredient

In an excellent book  entitled Protest and Opportunities: The Political Outcomes of Social Movements, Felix Kolb outlines 5 mechanisms social movements can use to affect political change.  In Part 1-5 of this group of posts, I will describe the theories behind each of these  mechanisms.  Later I will explore Kolb’s findings regarding the Civil Rights Movement in the US and the anti-nuclear movement in 18 countries.

According to Kolb, social movements can have an impact on political policy, implementation and outcome through disrupting the status quo, using public opinion to pressure political figures, gaining access to the formal political arena, using judicial bodies to serve the interests of the movement, and working transnationally to help pressure the state.  Each mechanism has its conditions and shortcomings both theoretically and empirically, but they needn’t be used in a mutually exclusive way.  However, depending on the movement and the context of that movement, some mechanisms are more likely to achieve results than others.

The Disruptive Mechanism (p. 73-6)

This mechanism is discussing the ways in which things like protests and riots can generate political change.  This is done by shaking the normal functioning of the state or insititutions important to the state.  For example, a strike is a form of protest in which production of a good or provision of a service ceases – affecting the normal functioning of that business, or – regarding a general strike – a large segment of the economy.

The level of impact made by such disruptive tactics are affected by the degree to which the disruption interveres with others, the degree to which those who are disrupted have resources to give up for a return to normalcy (or the extent they can pressure the state or other institutions to concede to the demands), and whether or not the disruptive group can overcome repressive forces.

For example, the Oscar Grant riots in Oakland were seen as disruptive both economically and reputationally for  the City of Oakland with plenty of potential for more.  Those who were physically disrupted, mostly business and residents of the city, looked to the city government to stop the riots from escalating and repeating.  Since business were attacked and further attacks my scare businesses from setting up shop in Oakland, a strong incentive was given to the city to end the riots.  Ending the riots could come from conceeding to some of movement demands or by repressing the rioters and/or the protesters from becoming rioters.  As the disruptive potential of the Oakland was quite high, the disruptive group was able to overcome the repressive forces – in this case not the police, but rather the city from taking on a policy severe repression.  In the case of the Oscar Grant riots, much of the conditions for success where looking quite good.  Though no thorough analysis has been made of this case, there’s a plausible reason to assume that the first Oscar Grant riot may have resulted in the arrest and indictment of Officer Mehserle (Ciccariello-Maher 2009)

Kolb goes on to say that concessions given to the disruptive group(s) are more likely during periods of ‘electoral instability’ – when elections are up ahead and the results are uncertain.  This is because the people/party in power has to appeal to the individuals and groups being affected by somehow stopping the disruption and they have to appeal to the supporters of the protest (as they also vote) by not repressing the disruptive group.  This of course only applies to disruptions that hold at least some popular support.

Arguably, the property-damaging disruption caused by a small percentage of activists during the WTO protests in Seattle in 1999 was met with repression specifically because they had no support.  Those who agreed with their cause were already supporting the disruptive elements of the protest that were not destroying property and those activists too did not support the property-damaging groups.  As the media was craving the blood of broken windows rather than the unity between environmentalists and unions, the public’s support for the protests waned and repression, rather than concessions, increased.

In his book, Kolb makes another important claim regarding the disruptive mechanism: forces of repression are quick to find ways of curbing the disruptive efforts of the group.  Therefore the innovation of disruptive tactics is very important in winning demands.  Basically, switch up the tactics so the police don’t know what to expect next – and aren’t prepared to handle the current disruption effectively.

If you have enough of a disruption, a crisis can ensue.  This crisis in itself can be a means for winning movement demands as the government’s ideas could be discredited by the crisis and a new government would have a mandate to ennact new laws, the crisis could cause the government to feel that without immediate action things would get worse and/or the fear that people/property could get hurt or a revolution could occur.  In many ways, a crisis situation not caused by the disruptive acts could also lead to social movement victories.  The social reforms of the New Deal may well have come about during such a crises where labor and the unemployed were quickly catching on to the concept of a communist revolution.  Roosevelt was forced to act fast to concede to some of their demands.