Another “Turning Point Myth” in the Political Battle over Gun Control?

Parkland is increasingly portrayed as the mass shooting that will finally change things, but are pro-gun supporters right to claim that it is but another headline that gun control advocates are allegedly peddling will bring stricter gun control laws?

Comparing Immigrant Political Participation

This year saw numerous episodes of mobilization by immigrants and non-immigrants alike. In Sweden, protesters mobilized against police in a predominantly immigrant neighborhood of Stockholm. Protesters in Cologne, Germany organized against the anti-immigration party, the AfD. London protesters held an event at the U.S. embassy in London against Donald Trump’s “Muslim ban.” And, protesters in the U.S. mobilized against Trump and his administration’s views and positions on immigration with “A Day Without Immigrants.”

Mobilization in the Trump Era

Over the course of this last year, I worked on a paper titled “Elites, Policy and Social Movements” now published in Research in Political Sociology. In short, the paper is about how challengers, over the long run, develop ties to political elites and political entrepreneurs and how the networks they create shape policy change. Like some of my other work, I focus on the insider-outsider relationship among actors working on similar social change projects.

I started writing this paper during the heated Democratic primaries when Hillary Clinton was fighting to secure her place with Democratic voters and seeking to appeal to Bernie Sanders supporters. A particular exchange between Clinton and a BlackLivesMatter activist left a lasting impression.

“Hillary Clinton sees me:” The primaries, “identity politics,” and disability

At the Democratic National Convention, disability activist Anastasia Somoza told enthusiastic audience members that “in a country where 56 million people so often feel invisible, Hillary Clinton sees me. She sees me as a strong woman, a young professional, a hard worker, and the proud daughter of immigrants.”

Media personalities, political insiders, and the candidates themselves have talked about the 2016 presidential primaries as a departure from what we normally expect from presidential primaries. The difference is often attributed to how Donald Trump “doesn’t play by the rules” – something we are frequently reminded of by pundits on both the left and right.

“Activists are on this. Let’s all be on this:” Is Gun Control on the “Gay Agenda?”

“Dear NRA, we made it through Stonewall, AIDS, DADT, and through Marriage Equality. You’re next.” This was among the many comments Jennifer Carlson and I received following the online publication of our recent op-ed in the Washington Post.

For many gun control advocates and activists, when meaningful policy change did not occur after Sandy Hook where a dozen elementary school children were murdered, it signaled their impotence in going up against the powerful gun lobby. To many, the failure of Congress to enact any of the four “gun control” bills this week is a replay of past efforts following those mass shootings.

In our op-ed, we argued that the Orlando massacre might represent new political opportunities for policy reform.

Legal Mobilization and Policy Enforcement: A Tale of Two Policies and Two Movements?

Scholars have long debated the role of social movements in changing policy outcomes – whether and how do they matter. Policies can also create political opportunities for social movements. Policies empower historically disadvantaged groups and provide them with the tools and resources to mobilize their rights. Indeed, as David Meyer put it, scholars often grapple with the “chicken-and-egg” problem of policy and mobilization; that is, which comes first? Thinking about this alleged paradox raises questions about the role of social movements following legislative “victories.”

The ADA at 25: Why Movements Matter Following Legislative “Victories”

The Disability Pride Parade in New York City, July 2015

Movement scholars have become increasingly interested in the ways in which social movements directly shape the policy agenda; that is, what role they play in how issues gain prominence in the government and how these issues get framed. Much of the focus has been on the relationship between increasing movement activity, such as organizational expansion, protest and lobbying, and increasing resources government allocates to an issue.

However, less is known about the link between movement mobilization and actual legislative promises once policies are enacted, especially in light of subsequent demobilization and issue decline. It’s important to draw attention to this less developed area of study given the renewed interest in defining successful social change and whether movements are themselves successful in influencing these (policy) outcomes.

Take for instance, the case of disability employment anti-discrimination legislation. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was proclaimed the “emancipation proclamation” for people with disabilities and the most significant civil rights law since the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Not surprisingly, it was seen as an important victory for disability advocates in the government and for the disability rights movement. But, in a recent op-ed for USA Today, I argued that when it comes to employment and earnings outcomes, the ADA has failed to deliver.

Protesting Inequality

In a recent (March 23, 2015) article in The Nation, Robert L. Borosage proclaimed that “the populist movement has finally arrived” and that “we live in an Occupy movement.” Borosage alludes to several key issues about the recent mobilization around inequality. First, new political opportunities have emerged where political elites in both parties have discussed inequality as one of the most significant problems facing the country today. Of course, their stance on inequality is in part a success of the Occupy movement which raised the salience of the issue, but also reflects potentially new opportunities for legislative change (although neither party has really proposed a systematic policy solution to the problem).

Second, despite the more recent focus on the Occupy movement, inequality has actually been on the rise for decades. This point reminds me of an activity developed by William Gamson for the participants of the 2011 Young Scholars in Social Movements Conference (I was one of those participants). He distributed a prompt that read something like: “Until recently, there has been no popular surge of moral indignation at the unfairness of it all, and no social movement to demand to stop and reverse the trend. People may be aware of this fact and angry about it, but their attention and anger doesn’t seem to get channeled into organized collective action.” Note that the conference was in May of 2011, months before the beginning of the Occupy movement.

Third, unlike the inequalities and disadvantages that are the product of so-called modern progress, globalization and other broad social forces, the “new inequality isn’t an act of nature,” Borosage writes. This suggests that people have increasingly come to see inequality as a manmade injustice. Fourth, social movements matter! They matter precisely because neither party has provided the public with choice when it comes to solving the problem of inequality. Borosage argues that like the civil rights movement, women’s movement and gay liberation movement, the Occupy movement is a “civilizing movement” that fights against these injustices.

Finally, it is not enough for movements to increase awareness about unjust inequality. They must also persuade activists and the public that they – their participants – have the ability to affect change. As Borosage writes, “As awareness grows, movements must offer a real hope that things can change. Joining a movement often entails facing mockery, scorn and ostracism as well as taking great risks. Few people are ready to make pointless sacrifices, to beat their heads against unmoving walls. Movements must offer more than solidarity; they must offer the hope that the time for change has come.”

My colleagues, Katie Corcoran, Jacob Young, and I, sought to investigate some of these issues (especially the last two points) in a recently (March 2015) published paper in Sociological Inquiry. Using cross-national, individual-level data from 29 countries, we investigate whether and how feelings of efficacy, perceptions of injustice, and the interaction between the two, shape the likelihood of individuals to participate in low, medium and high-cost forms of political action. We treat signing a petition or joining a boycott as low cost action, participating in a lawful demonstration as medium cost, and unofficial strikes or occupying buildings/factories as high-cost forms of collective action. We used the classical definition of efficacy which refers to how much freedom of choice and control individuals have in their lives. Respondents were also asked why people in their country live in need. Individuals were asked to select from four different reasons. We treated “modern progress” and “injustice in society” as measures of structural explanations of disadvantage (the former as legitimate disadvantage and the latter as unjust disadvantage) and “unlucky” and “laziness/lack of willpower” as individual-level explanations.

In sum, we found that individuals with perceptions of both legitimate structural disadvantage and perceptions of unjust structural disadvantage have higher chances of participating in all types of collective action. However, while we also found that efficacy is not associated with participating in high-cost forms of action, efficacy does explain participation in high-cost forms of action when individuals also perceive inequality as rooted in structural injustice. In other words, our key finding suggests that in order for individuals to turn to higher cost, more disruptive forms of action, such as unlawful demonstrations and occupying a building, they must both perceive structural disadvantage as being unjust and also believe that their participation can affect change.

Returning to Borosage’s point about the role of social movements in mobilizing individuals around unjust inequality, our findings suggest that social movements play an important role in helping individuals overcome the costs of political participation. Social movement organizations and leaders do so not only by raising awareness about inequality but also by changing perceptions among potential activists about the value of their participation in affecting change. Borosage’s article also alludes to the issue of timing – what is about inequality today that has mobilized the people? Our findings shed some light on this question. In addition to current events and new political opportunities, there is a growing view among the publics of many nations that inequality is unjust and that there is something they can do about it through disruptive action rather than more institutionalized means like voting.

 

 

Social Movements, Institutions and Policy Outcomes

In light of the recent proliferation of mass mobilization events like Occupy/99%, immigrant rights, the Arab Spring, and the Ukrainian protests, many interested in social movements have turned their attention to protest participation. No doubt, this new wave of protest research has provided important theoretical insights on mobilization as well as methodological advancements.

However, scholars have also recently pointed to important organizational and institutional aspects of social movements and social change that should not be overlooked. In fact, the two recent Charles Tilly Book Award winners, Drew Halfmann and Kathleen Blee, address these very aspects of mobilization.

When I began studying the disability rights movement, it became apparent that understanding mobilization, social change and policy outcomes required looking beyond grassroots protest and other forms of direct action to understand America’s disability rights revolution. Indeed, the disability rights movement shines light on several important themes in political sociology, which my work seeks to address, including a current book project I am developing.

What do the ALS ice bucket challenge, Alberta oil, and Leonardo DiCaprio have in common?

Hollywood star, Leonardo DiCaprio, was in Alberta for a new documentary about the environmental impacts of the oilsands (a.k.a. tar sands). He met with the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nations who have been protesting against developing the oilsands. DiCaprio is among a host of celebrities speaking out against the oilsands. Others include Desmond Tutu, Neil Young and James Cameron. They join other celebrities who have been vocal opponents of the Keystone pipeline including Mark Ruffalo, Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Kevin Bacon.

Proponents of the oilsands and the pipeline, including the Prime Minister’s office, have dismissed celebrity involvement in Alberta’s oil industry. According to Yahoo Canada News, the Prime Minister’s Office has commented in the past about “the energy-demanding lifestyle often afforded to such celebrities” and Tim Moen, leader of the Libertarian Party of Canada, referred to it as celebrity cheap talk demonizing Alberta’s oilsands. Moen told Yahoo Canada News that “The people I take seriously are people who actually create solutions. People that find ways to get cheap clean energy into the hands of people who want it.”