Search

Social movements can continue in hostile political climates by adapting abeyance structures, that is, disengaging from active challenge to the state on policy matters to focus instead on preserving enduring values and identity. But doing so can be politically costly. In this article we provide a theoretical framework for understanding the political outcomes of movement abeyance, drawing from recent work on political opportunity structure and policy domains. We present a more developed model of social movement abeyance, which includes not only retreat from political engagement, but also the fragmentation of a broad movement coalition, and use this model to examine the women's movement in the 1980s. We then look at the costs of movement abeyance on two policy areas: family leave and fetal protection. Partly in response to a hostile national political climate in the 1980s, the women's movement adopted a less visible public profile. This may have allowed women's groups to maintain their identity and values, but choices activists made to survive in hostile times had longer term consequences in terms of lost policy influence. We conclude with a discussion of the interaction of political opportunities and movement abeyance.

Social movements are not distinct and self-contained; rather, they grow from and give birth to other movements, work in coalition with other movements, and influence each other indirectly through their effects on the larger cultural and political environment. Building on both political process and collective identity perspectives, this paper uses a case study of the women's movement's impact on U.S. peace movement activity in the 1980s to develop a theory of movement-movement influence. We argue that this influence is shown by: 1) the adoption of feminist ideological frames by the peace movement; 2) the spread of the women's movement's tactical innovations into peace protest; 3) increased presence of women in leadership positions in both the institutionally-oriented and direct action wings of the movement; and 4) the adoption of organizational structures that built on feminist processes designed to avoid hierarchy. Drawing data from both movements at local and national levels, we suggest four mechanisms of transmission between the movements: 1) organizational coalitions; 2) overlapping social movement communities; 3) shared personnel; and 4) broader changes in the external environment. Social movement spillover effects have implications for our understanding of both the continuity and impact of social protest movements.