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This paper examines the contemporary anti-fascist movement against organized white supremacist movements in the United States. It describes differences between militant activists who typically respond to supremacists with direct, often violent action and non-militant activists whose responses take the form of peaceful, non-violent counter-rallies at times or locations wings in regard. The differences in tactical choices stem from differences among activists in political beliefs, membership and alliances with mainstream and/or conventional political and community structures, and the sense of threat from supremacists. In addition, the militancy of certain anti-fascist activist may be explained as part of new social movement adaptation of movement-countermovement dynamics where activists develop identity marked by specific cultural markers and engage in direct political action rather than relying on the state and existing political institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Beginning in 2003, a wave of new grassroots activists entered the organizational framework of the Democratic Party. Energized by the Howard Dean campaign, and responding to a perceived lack of ideological or organizational strength within traditional party leadership ranks, these activists claimed to be revitalizing the Democratic Party from below. While much of this new energy was harnessed by national organizations and mobilizations, many of the activists entered official local party organizations or started new ones, also at the local level. Touching on previous scholarship focused on social movements within institutions, this paper documents and examines one case of this upsurge in activism within the Democratic Party. It was found that activists faced considerable strategic and resource challenges in their efforts which stemmed from the legal, structural and political-cultural constraints placed on political party organizations in the American, and particularly the Californian context. It was found that activists' strategic responses to this framework could be categorized into two broad approaches. Some activists preferred to strengthen party organizations' capacity to operate independently, to serve as an ideological gatekeeper, and be accountable primarily to grassroots activists and constituency groups. Others emphasized the enlargement of the activist base over ideological rigor, arguing that a more active and dynamic grassroots sector of the Party would translate into more favorable ideological commitments at higher levels. The paper refers to this divide as empowerment versus enlargement. The research for this paper was conducted primarily through in-depth interviews and participant observation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines how members of egalitarian intentional communities define and engage in social and political activism. Specifically, their reactions to traditional activism are examined as well as how they have redefined activist behaviors in their own lives. Comparisons are made to communal groups of the 1960s and 70s and to how communal scholars have often labeled communitarians as being apolitical. Using in-depth interviews, member's actions and beliefs are examined through the lens of new social movement theories. This study provides needed data on empirically neglected egalitarian intentional communities within the United States. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the key features of social movements is that they are spaces in which ordinary people claim political and social authority, or the right to "make history." Movements and activists therefore have to construct themselves as legitimate actors with political, social or cultural rights to participation. Drawing on in-depth interviews and participant observation with teenage girl activists in five cities in the Americas, this paper explores the discursive resources that these young women call upon as they struggle to define themselves as valid and valuable contributors to social movements and social change in the context of significant exclusion and tokenization. The central discursive threads addressed include ideas of democracy, equality, difference and generational responsibility. Teenage girl activists, in emphasizing their roles as history-makers and agents of social change, are re-defining girlhood and youth. Focusing on how these girls infuse their identities with political authority, this paper sheds light on a significant part of the process of collective identity formation within social movements. It also suggests several important lessons for adult activists and the future of contemporary social movements, encouraging increased attention to the dynamics of age-based inclusion and exclusion. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most social movement scholars attribute activists' choices of strategies and tactics to rational decisions based on personal preferences, past experiences, or opponents' abilities to sanction. But these explanations cannot account for instances when activists knowingly choose strategies and tactics that do not seem to offer the likeliest chance of success. What can account for these seemingly irrational choicesâ?”why would activists purposefully avoid likely successful strategies and tactics? I address this question through a comparative study of the animal rights movements in France and the United States, based on interviews and participant observation with activists in both countries. Activists in the U.S. exhibit more tactical pragmatism than French activists, who engage in "tactical stubbornness"â?”sometimes refusing tactics and strategies that have proven successful for others. I argue that these choices are not irrational, and surprisingly are not based on cultural or structural constraints external to the movement. Instead, they are indicative of the constraints placed on activists by the cultural structures within the animal rights movement itself. This meso-level analysis adds a new level to studies of tactical choices, and also provides a comparative perspective to an empirical case of cultural structures and agency. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I challenge understandings of grassroots social movement politics as emerging from purely outsider constituencies, that is, groups of outsiders unaffiliated with institutional power. I argue against simplistic views of insider activists as "sell-outs," stressing that we need a holistic view of social movement politics as a hybrid realm of innovation, institutional access, and above all, contention with established power. My empirical research focuses chiefly on one social movement organization - ACT UP/LA (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power/Los Angeles), chiefly in the early 1990s. The ethnographic, archival, and interview-based data used is drawn from a larger, in-progress project about the genesis, history, and demise of ACT UP/LA. Following the consideration the blurring of insider/outsider boundaries in ACT UP/LA's emergence, agenda, tactics, and demise, I conclude that assessing the "grassroots" nature of a movement organization entails asking the following questions: who are the movement organizations key players and what networks do they come from; what kinds of targets do challengers choose, and whether/how cooperative action might occur with those in power in order to further goals; how new is the area of contention itself; and what kinds of grassroots politics can social movement activists carry into institutional settings. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A focus on moments of societal rupture rather than on social stability or reproduction allows a new approach to how social meanings and political-economic-legal institutions of any given era are inextricably interwoven in daily social life. Drawing on humanities'-inflected social theory and a mathematically-inflected notion of following rigorous theoretical logic to see where it takes you, I propose a theory of structural aporias that allows a close reading of the interimplicated sets of social meanings and institutional webs that comprise the social text. A close reading of the founding myths and institutions of American democracy demonstrates how the social meanings and institutional regulations of womanhood, contract, the economy, and the nation were not only foundationally intertwined but operate based on certain fundamental 'structured-in' gaps or impasses that are inherently unstable. Following this structural aporetic analysis of the relationships between womanhood, contract, property, the economy, and the nation in the antebellum United States with a close reading of the 1850s' woman's rights movement's speeches, petitions, and conference proceedings and contemporary legislative debates and reports provides a new understanding of the place of meaning in social life, along with its centrality to social movements and moments of societal rupture. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Women have been at the forefront of animal activism in the U.S. and Great Britain since the 1800s. Contemporary estimates suggest the same holds true today. Regardless of age, political views, and educational level, women are more likely than men to be animal advocates (Kruse 1999). This lasting legacy begs the question: Why are there so many women in the animal rights movement? Hypotheses in the current literature include gendered economic structures, recruitment networks, empathy based on shared inequities, social learning explanations, and biological theories. This qualitative study of women animal activists suggests that a combination of gendered social learning, societal expectations, and empathy based on common oppressions best explains the current make-up of the animal rights movement. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social movements worldwide evoked by globalization, though separated by time and place, often affect one another because of their common origin and related contexts. What effects do social movements targeting core countries and social movements targeting non-core countries (or non-core émigrés) have on each other? This study explored the effects of Al Qaeda as a social movement (originating in non-core countries which had its moment in the spotlight with the September 11, 2001 attacks), on the anti-immigrant movement in the United States (which peaked in 1994 with California Proposition 187, threatening to deny social services to immigrants and their children). The research design included two data sets: first, a control group of 18 ethnographic interviews with leading anti-immigrant activists conducted just before September 11, 2001 and, second, six follow-up interviews with anti-immigrant activists, along with participant observation at two post-9/11 anti-immigrant conferences. Results revealed: (1) a boost to anti-immigrant organizing at the national level focused on defending America that did not, however, elicit a surge in anti-immigrant activism as witnessed in 1994. (2) California's white-led activists maintained a mainly anti-Mexican focus, whereas, the national level anti-immigrant organizations more notably targeted Arabs and Muslims. (3) Interviews revealed a more evident connection than previously recognized between overt hate-groups (including published biological determinists, arguing for "the separation of the races") and anti-immigrant activists (often considered to be less overt hate-groups). (4) Finally, anti-immigrant sentiment perpetuated racial stereotypes, with regard to perceived 'race,' religion, or nation of origin, and according to gender. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social movements worldwide evoked by globalization, though separated by time and place, often affect one another because of their common origin and related contexts. What effects do social movements targeting core countries and social movements targeting non-core countries (or non-core émigrés) have on each other? This study explored the effects of Al Qaeda as a social movement (originating in non-core countries which had its moment in the spotlight with the September 11, 2001 attacks), on the anti-immigrant movement in the United States (which peaked in 1994 with California Proposition 187, threatening to deny social services to immigrants and their children). The research design included two data sets: first, a control group of 18 ethnographic interviews with leading anti-immigrant activists conducted just before September 11, 2001 and, second, six follow-up interviews with anti-immigrant activists, along with participant observation at two post-9/11 anti-immigrant conferences. Results revealed: (1) a boost to anti-immigrant organizing at the national level focused on defending America that did not, however, elicit a surge in anti-immigrant activism as witnessed in 1994. (2) California's white-led activists maintained a mainly anti-Mexican focus, whereas, the national level anti-immigrant organizations more notably targeted Arabs and Muslims. (3) Interviews revealed a more evident connection than previously recognized between overt hate-groups (including published biological determinists, arguing for "the separation of the races") and anti-immigrant activists (often considered to be less overt hate-groups). (4) Finally, anti-immigrant sentiment perpetuated racial stereotypes, with regard to perceived 'race,' religion, or nation of origin, and according to gender. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study attempts to uncover potential obstacles that prohibit a labor union from successfully changing their organizational structure from a model based primarily on servicing and representation -- known as business unionism -- to a more grassroots style, social justice framework of operation -- also called social movement unionism (SMU). Most labor movement theorists have used Michels' iron law thesis to explain the inability of unions to adopt and sustain an SMU framework, focusing on how a conservative, top-down structure prohibits organizational radicalization. Michels argued that centralization is a problem, as organizational elites will seek to push the organization in a conservative direction, thus prohibiting radicalization. Through fieldwork as a union organizer with the United Steelworkers of America (USWA), I argue that the opposite is happening: one of the reasons that the USWA has not been able to successfully change their structure to include an SMU framework is because of an inability to overcome a highly decentralized union structure that resulted from the legacy of a business unionism model. My findings indicate that, contrary to Michels' thesis, centralization of organizational power may be necessary to force change at the district and local levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Stonewall is not only commemorated but mythologized. Many gay men and lesbians routinely speak of it as if it was a sacred event that lies beyond the reach of objective discourse. They talk as if there was no gay rights activism at all before Stonewall, or else they mock pre-Stonewall activists as Uncle Toms. They recite the name "Stonewall" itself with the same reverence that American politicians reserve for the names of Washington and Lincoln. And indeed the word is perfectly suited to the myth, conjuring as it does an image of a huge, solid barrier separating the dark ages prior to the day that Judy Garland died from the out-loud-and-proud present. Every year, on what has long since become an all-purpose gay holiday—a combination of Independence Day, May Day, Mardi Gras and, since the advent of HIV, Memorial Day as well—millions ritualistically revisit the raucous, defiant marginality of Stonewall in marches around the world. This year in New York, on the twenty-fifth anniversary, the ritual will reach a climax. For many, Stonewall has already become a Platonic model of gay activism—and, indeed, a touchstone of gay identity (Bawer 1994). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To explain the continued presence of religion in American political life, we focus on the important but neglected role of emotions in inducing congregation-based protest activity. We draw on the literature on collective behavior and social movements to articulate a theory that explicates the connection between collective emotions practiced in congregations and congregations' protest mobilization. We also draw on the sociology of religion literature to highlight how the various major religious traditions in the United States differently structure the extent to which congregations engage in collective emotion rituals. Results from Structural Equation Models (SEMs) show that, net of other important demographic and contextual variables, collective emotion has a significant positive direct effect on congregation-based protest participation. Findings from these models also show that collective emotion is an important pathway through which evangelical Protestant congregations and especially black Protestant congregations mobilize protest. Our theoretical model and empirical results suggest that rituals of collective emotion provide an important answer to the question of why certain congregations engage in activism while others do not. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In an attempt to make sense of shifts in the social movement sector and its relationship to conventional politics over the past 40 years, some have proposed that Western nations are increasingly becoming "movement societies." Accordingly, there are four key characteristics of the movement society: (1) over time expansion of protest; (2) over time diffusion of protest; (3) over time institutionalization of protest; and (4) over time institutionalization of state responses to protest. Using newly available data on over 19,000 protest events occurring in the US between 1960 and 1986, we evaluate these four claims. Our findings suggest that movement society scholars are correct in some respects: the size of protest events has grown over time, the percentage of events at which at least one social movement organization is present has increased over time, the number of distinct protest claims has increased over time, and violent forms of protest policing have decreased over time. However, our findings call into question other movement society claims: the number of protests has declined over time, fewer organizations are present at each protest event over time, fewer new groups initiated events over time, fewer new claims emerged over time, and there was more significant activity by groups on the right in the 1960s and 1970s than expected. We suggest potential explanations for some of the negative findings in an attempt to refine the movement society arguments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]