Читать книгу How Social Movements (Sometimes) Matter - David S. Meyer - Страница 7

People protest in all kinds of ways and for all sorts of reasons: they protest because they’re disappointed or angry; they protest because they want to connect with others who share their views; they protest because someone invited them. Most importantly, they protest because they want to have an impact on the world around them. They want to make the world better – or at least stop it from getting worse. This book is about how and why protest sometimes works. These are questions of critical importance in modern life, and ones people who protest and those who watch them are asking more and more.

An example: On the January day that Donald Trump took the oath of office for the American presidency, thousands of frustrated protesters staged a wide variety of events. Gay and lesbian activists staged a Queer Dance party outside incoming Vice President Mike Pence’s residence featuring a variety of music, costumes, flags, and a lot of glitter. More aggressively, hundreds of DisruptJ20 protesters launched unpermitted marches through the streets of Washington, DC, protesting US foreign policy, inequality, and discrimination. The demonstrators certainly had grievances with the incoming Trump administration, but importantly, planning for the demonstration had begun in July 2016, when it appeared that Hillary Clinton was sure to win.

As announced on an organizing site: “DisruptJ20 rejects all forms of domination and oppression, particularly those based on racism, poverty, gender, and sexuality, organizes by consensus, and embraces a diversity of tactics.”¹ Organizers emphasized urgency and tactics rather than issues, proclaiming their ideological and tactical diversity, while promising not to help law enforcement maintain public order. A few worked hard to disrupt public order, using bricks to break the windows of a limousine and several storefronts, including the entrances to a Starbuck’s and a Bank of America. Police arrested more than 200 people for being in the streets amid the destruction, and the federal government lodged harsh felony charges for conspiracy to riot that could have resulted in decades in prison.²

The day after the inauguration and the DisruptJ20 events, much larger groups staged a Women’s March in Washington, with hundreds of thousands filling the national mall, and a much larger number animating sister marches across the country and around the world. Millions protested, and although they expressed many grievances, there was a unified focus on the unsuitability of Donald Trump as president of the United States.

Protesters could take some comfort in their commitment, their solidarity, their numbers, and their acumen in organizing such a large set of events so quickly. But Donald Trump didn’t resign, and immediately set about executing some of the policies that he campaigned on, policies that protesters found abhorrent. Does that mean that the various protests during the inaugural weekend were futile?

I start with an example from the United States because, as an American, I see them close up, sometimes in person, but more often in books and articles, and I hear stories told in classrooms. I see the impact of social movements in American history, and I understand the context in which they developed. As we work through this book, there will be more stories about social movements in the United States than in other settings, but I will show how the processes that we see in play can be translated to understand the politics of protest elsewhere, providing examples from social movements in very different contexts.

Protests against authority are hardly limited to the United States. In just the last few years, organized protests against authorities have erupted around the world. In Turkey, Iran, and Russia, recurrent campaigns for democratic reforms have dogged authoritarian leaders. Activists deployed umbrellas as a symbol of their commitment to democracy in Hong Kong. Citizens filled the streets in Tunisia, protesting against the cost of living and the government’s austerity policies – and this government had come to office in response to another set of protests in the Arab Spring movements just a few years earlier. Activists have lodged anti-austerity protests against left, right, and centrist governments in Greece since 2011, and Europe has been racked with disruptive protests targeting immigrants and immigration policy. Mass movements have surged in the capital cities of Thailand, Belarus, and Lebanon, in response to crises, political and otherwise. These protesters everywhere turn out because they see the failure or futility of more conventional political actions, and they think there’s at least a chance that protests might work.

But protests haven’t been limited to efforts to mount anti-systemic campaigns. Protesters routinely turn out to support or prevent changes in policy, sometimes in colorful and creative ways: Five scantily clad women representing People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), and costumed as animals, marched outside a fashion show in Sydney, Australia, calling for animal rights.³ Actress Lucy Lawless, best known inhabiting the title role in Xena: Warrior Princess, brought global attention to an international group of environmental activists determined to challenge Norway’s efforts to search for new oil reserves in the Barents Sea. The activists boarded small rubber boats to block the path of much larger ships heading off on their exploration.⁴ An estimated 50,000 people marched in London to protest the United Kingdom’s planned exit from the European Union, a decision taken by referendum a year earlier.⁵ All these protests are dramatic moments in larger sustained movements animated by people who want to change the world.

Social movements of all kinds and sizes campaign for an extremely diverse array of goals: against hikes in university tuition, austere budget policies, taxes, corruption, immigration, and carbon emissions – to name only a few recent issues. In much of the world, social movements have grown into a virtually permanent presence in mainstream politics, often supported by state subsidies or tax preferences. National and transnational groups concerned with the environment or human rights advocate for their visions of justice, sometimes engaging in mass politics.

These are only a sampling of relatively recent examples of mass movements attempting to step into the political fray, redress wrongs, and change the world. When you read this, you will be able to find stories of even more recent protests and campaigns that are just as odd, interesting, appalling, or inspiring. There’s an excitement and a romance associated with regular people trying to step into history and change the world, but do their efforts matter? Would people turn out to protest if they thought they couldn’t make a difference?

Sometimes, they do.

We tell stories about movements that seem to play a critical role in affecting change. Gandhi’s Salt March is part of the Indian Independence movement’s success story. Similarly, Lech Walesa’s leadership of the Solidarity movement in Poland during the Cold War is seen as a critical factor in the end of Communism, democratization of Poland, and the end of the Soviet Union. In the United States, schoolchildren learn to celebrate historic protest moments, including the Boston Tea Party and the 1963 March on Washington, and their impact on making the United States what it became. But those histories often pull the moments out of the context of the larger movements of which they were a part.

Politicians and political activists certainly act as if social movements might matter, and scholars have been trying, for the better part of at least four decades, to figure out why, when, and how. Although we know more than we did previously, discussions about the origins and influences of social movements frequently retreat into competitive assertions about what mattered and what was irrelevant. Obviously, people who talk about social movements in general, and even more so, about particular social movements, often have a strong stake in valorizing or vilifying them. People often react to movements by creating heroes or villains. And the question of potential effectiveness is generally the most important criterion in evaluating a movement. Courageous heroes broker sacrifices that could lead to political influence; misguided misanthropes act out when it doesn’t matter.

Our histories show that protests can matter a great deal, but not by themselves, and often not in ways activists intend. When King George III learned that colonists had dressed as Indians to throw discounted tea into the Boston Harbor, one of many acts of resistance, he saw his empire unraveling and responded harshly. Repression spurred further protests – and ultimately, America. It wasn’t the Tea Party by itself that made the American revolution successful; rather, the events one night at Boston Harbor were part of a much longer, larger, and more complicated process that included other protests, armed conflict, speeches and pamphlets, and more mainstream politics in the colonies and England. Although throwing crates of tea off a ship makes for a dramatic story, it is only by putting that protest in a larger context that we can understand how movements really matter.

In this book, we’ll see how protest movements sometimes work to influence politics, policy, and culture, and show how a protest in the streets can translate into something more than an afternoon’s entertainment. We will also see the numerous contingencies involved in movement politics, as well as the necessities of alliances within government and mainstream politics.

It’s crucial to understand that protests can best be understood as part of a larger social and political process, and that mainstream politics provides obstacles for organizers to navigate and tools that they can use to increase their influence in a variety of ways. Social protests change the world, but they can’t do it by themselves; they depend upon mobilizing others to act on their behalf, and activists have little control over the ultimate outcomes of their efforts.

Here’s the argument: When people protest, they tell authorities that they’re unhappy about something and, often implicitly, threaten to do more than protest: vote, contribute money, lobby, set up a picket, blockade a road, or try to blow up a building, in hopes of getting what they want. Opponents and allies in government make judgments about how strong and widely held demonstrators’ grievances are, and respond, sometimes with concessions and reforms, sometimes with harsh repression, and sometimes with a mix of both. Social movement activists react to those responses, often starting a chain of events that produces something far different than anyone initially imagines.

We make a mistake when we imagine the outcomes of a social movement to be determined solely by the battle between organized activists and their opponents, focusing exclusively on the moral passion, organization, or tactics of the movement. It’s critical to examine social movement activism in a larger context that includes more conventional political efforts that activists provoke or encourage.

Demonstrators can stiffen the spine of would-be allies in government, suggesting there might be advantages in pressing for new positions on climate change, abortion, or gay marriage. (Politicians and other leaders often use social movements to “force” them to do what they want anyway.) No savvy politician will admit to changing direction in response to demonstrations in the street, but of course, it happens all the time.

When activists make progress, it’s always less than what they want. The antiwar movement in the Vietnam era ultimately ended the draft, but the war dragged on. Immigrant rights and anti-immigration demonstrators stopped their opponents in 2005, battling to a stalemate that frustrated everyone. (Across Europe, advocates of immigration rights and opponents of immigration have mobilized, linking with allies in government to both welcome and to prohibit new immigrants.) People don’t generally take to the streets looking for smaller reforms, but often it’s only by asking for more that they get anything at all.

Social movements work through a variety of means, changing the lives and values of those who participate in them, establishing or altering organizations that coordinate them, effecting policy reforms, and influencing norms and culture. Demonstrators also signal to other citizens who might share their views that they are not alone, that things could be otherwise, and that they might be able to do something about it. The large national event that receives coverage in the national papers reflects hundreds of smaller, less-visible actions and meetings in church basements and living rooms around the country, as people develop the temerity to think they can change the world. Sometimes they can.

Here’s what’s coming:

In chapter 1, we’ll explore why movements emerge in the first place. Although saints and psychopaths may be so committed to a cause that they’re ready to protest all the time, most people are concerned with the day-to-day business of managing their lives, their work, family, and friendships. Although activists are always trying to promote mobilization on the issues they care about, they only succeed sometimes, by convincing others that protest is possible, necessary, and potentially effective. Because large and powerful movements aren’t a constant presence in most societies, we can’t understand what works unless we make sense of why those movements only appear sometimes. In fact, the factors that invite or provoke movements also promote social change. Unlike the foolproof recipes offered in a cookbook, the success of different strategic and tactical recipes for action depends upon the context in which they’re deployed.

Chapter 2 focuses on movements that attempt to launch revolutions, fighting not only particular policies, but the regime and rules that govern a state. There are far more revolutionary movements than revolutions that actually change a regime and try to overturn the basic rules and structures of power. But even when a movement succeeds in overthrowing and replacing a leader and imposing new structures of government, delivering on the promises of political change is extraordinarily difficult. Revolutionary movements, in which challengers seek to dislodge an oppressive regime through dramatic protest, create dramatic pictures and images that spur the imagination of other activists. Translating the often courageous and moralistic protests in the streets to democratization and ultimate governance, however, is no easy task.

In order to effect influence, activists must mobilize a community beyond themselves, often a community that extends beyond their borders. In this century, new communication technologies allow activists to spread news of their ideas and activities around the world without depending upon mainstream networks. Revolutionary movements depend upon the support – or at least the quiescence – of foreign powers. We’ll examine how movements communicate their efforts and their cause beyond their borders. We’ll also look at the difficult politics of establishing new regimes, and how the translation of democratic dreams into functioning regimes reflects the networks and efforts that preceded the drama emerging from revolutionary movements.

In chapter 3, we will focus on states with democratic processes in place and functioning political institutions; social movements in those settings generally make narrower claims, using mainstream tactics and allies as well as protest to get what they want. We’ll see how grievances create the opportunity for savvy organizers to build broad political coalitions and lodge effective claims. The challenge is that every reform can make it harder to maintain, much less build, a broad and concerned constituency for further change. More generally, government policies set the terms on which activists will challenge governments, and their success in lodging those challenges can undermine their basis for mobilization.

Activists protest when they think it might help them get what they want – and when they think they can’t get it any other way. Such decisions are sometimes strategic and well-considered, and sometimes just a matter of habit. Organizers successfully mobilize movements when they can convince people that the issue at hand is urgent, that positive outcomes are possible, and that their efforts could make a difference.

Democratic states are set up to channel discontent through the electoral process. Social movements face difficult choices in engaging in mainstream politics, because it always entails some degree of compromise. Depending upon the electoral structures in place, successful movements sometimes focus on particular candidates, while in other settings they can build protest parties. Social movements can use elections to influence policy by changing officials, that is, throwing the rascals out of office, and by changing minds, by threatening to throw the rascals out.

Social movements, by the popularity of their arguments, or more frequently, the strength of their support, can convince authorities to reexamine and possibly change their policy preferences. Movements can demand a litmus test for their support. Although movement activists promote specific policies – a nuclear freeze, an equal rights amendment, an end to legal abortion, or, more recently, a cap on malpractice awards – their demands are usually so absolute that they do not translate well into policy. (Placards and bumper stickers offer little space for nuanced debate.) Indeed, the clearest message that activists can generally send is NO. These absolutes rarely become policy, but by promoting their programs in stark moral terms, activists place the onus on others to offer alternative policies that are, depending on one’s perspective, more moderate or complex. Politicians often use such alternatives to capture or at least defuse social movements.

Chapter 4 provides a closer look at the organizations that promote change in democratic states. Although the stories that we remember about important movements of the past emphasize events, the movements of which they’re a part are the result of purposeful organizing. The size, structure, and number of groups vary over time and across different settings, but we need to look at those groups to understand how they launch challenges, and how those challenges affect the groups as well as the larger society. In democratic states, protest movements are coordinated by established organizations that must seek to support themselves as well as advance their claims. Sometimes support can come from the government or political parties; sometimes, it comes from interested parties with their own commitments and agendas. Formal organizations provide a foundation for continued protest and making claims, but they also produce drag on the peak moments of mobilization. The establishment and maintenance of such organizations are outcomes of social movements that define part of institutionalization. The other venue for institutionalization is government. Social movements can build inroads into both the bureaucracy and mainstream politics to continue advancing their interests, often less visibly and more incrementally. We will see how the organizations underpinning social movements reflect and create different institutional structures.

Social movements can alter not only the substance of policy, but also how policy is made. Governments often create new institutions such as departments and agencies in response to activists’ demands. Governments grow as they create bureaus for arms control, women, the environment, refugees, or civil rights. These offices become permanent institutional venues for responding to a set of issues and constituencies, even as those issues or constituencies first became visible through protest in the streets. Although these offices do not always support activist goals, their very existence represents a permanent institutional concern and a venue for making demands.

Social movements also spawn dedicated organizations that generally survive well after a movement’s moment has passed. The environmental movement, for example, firmly established a “big ten” group of national organizations, including the Sierra Club and the World Wildlife Fund, which survive primarily by raising money from self-defined environmentalists.⁶ They cultivate donors by monitoring and publicizing government action and environmental conditions, lobbying elected officials and administrators, and occasionally mobilizing their supporters to do something more than mail in their annual membership renewals. Here too, the seemingly permanent establishment of nongovernmental organizations around the world, even if these groups often lose, has fundamentally changed the process of making policy. Salaried officers of the organizations routinely screen high-level appointees to the judiciary and government bureaucracy and testify before legislatures. Mindful of this process, policymakers seek to preempt their arguments by modifying policy – or at least, rhetoric.

In chapter 5, we see how protest movements can change the trajectory of the lives of people who participate in them. Life in a movement can change the way individuals think about themselves, the friends they choose, the work they do, the food they eat, and certainly the way they think about politics. Activists in one movement go on to engage again and again in subsequent movements.

Broader movements also change culture by producing new symbols and values. In addition to changing policies, movements make new cultural productions that affect others who may never have been interest in politics. We can see art, music, and even food reflect particular social movements. Changes in language can become artifacts of a movement, like the honorific “Ms.,” created with the express intent of changing the way people think about women and work.

Social movements also change the people who participate in them, educating as well as mobilizing activists. They promote ongoing awareness and action that extends beyond the boundaries of one movement or campaign. Those who turn out at antiwar demonstrations today have often cut their activist teeth mobilizing against globalization, on behalf of labor, for animal rights or against welfare reform. By politicizing communities, connecting people, and promoting personal loyalties, social movements build the infrastructure not only of subsequent movements, but of a democratic civil society more generally.

In chapter 6, we’ll look at how we understand the impact and influence of movements. Popular histories tell stories about movements (or omitting movements) that don’t necessarily line up with broadly understood facts. We tend to tell event and leader-centered stories that abbreviate the historical process of social change. This is understandable: brave leaders and dramatic events make for a better story than the much more difficult and time-consuming processes of changing the world. Activists have to work to recognize their influence, and then claim credit for it. Because movements never get exactly what they seek, and depend upon a host of outside factors to be influential, it’s easy to miss the impact of protest; moreover, the accuracy of a story isn’t the only factor that affects the acceptance of a story. A compelling account matters, as does the position of the person telling it. We will look at how the accepted understandings of the movements of the past affect the movements and activist campaigns that emerge in the future.