Politics & Social Movements

What are the 3 Theories of Crowd Behavior?

( *1}. Convergence Theory.* -"Converge/come together." Collective action happens when people with similar ideas and tendencies gather in the same place. It is the 'strength in numbers' principle. People who want to act in a certain way intentionally come together to form crowds. Ex. Protesting. *2}. Contagion Theory.* -"Contagious." Collective action arises because of peoples tendency to conform to the behaviour of others with whom they are in close contact. This theory assumes that individuals act irrationally as they come under the hypnotic influence of a crowd. Ex. Riot. *3}. Emergent Norm Theory.* -Emphasizes the influence of keynoters in promoting new behavioural norms; they establish a behavioural pattern that emerges as the norm for the group. This theory combines the previous 2 theories, and assumes that although the members of the crowd upheld basic social norms when initially assembling, new and more drastic norms emerge and are widely accepted throughout the course of the crowd's action. Ex. Starting off with a peaceful crowd, and when a few people start shouting profanities, they rest of the crowd begins to do the same- now creating a new norm. All 3 of these theories arise from UNPLANNED collective action.)

In the video, "118th Ave in Edmonton" watched in class, what are some of the issues that sparked a Social Movement to take place?

( 118th Ave in Edmonton suffers from high amounts of prostitution, drug deals, violence, and homicide. The community decided to engage in the Value Added Theory {where they took planned, collective actions against these issues}. They are not just working to deconstruct negative notions, they are trying to construct positive ones by using Counter-Ideology {where they are trying to re-create a new identity out of an old, negative one.)

What is Power?

( Max Webber famously defined power as the ability to realize one's will despite the resistance of others. The ability to pursue your dreams and ambitions is, however, highly affected by the amount of power you hold in society. Material wealth, cultural, and social recognition and access to institutions are power resources and greatly influence people's capacities to pursue and achieve their goals. Power is not fixed, rather, it is relational and undergoing constant change. Power is a phenomenon that only manifests in human relationships- rather than intrinsic to its various representation. For example, money, which is just paper and metal but humans gave it value and thereby, it holds power. Power is a series of social or political processes. This means that power can and does change hands. Despite ongoing disadvantages today, women have been successful in challenging existing power relations.)

How does 2}. Cultural & Social Processes yield power in Politics?

( One of the most notable sociologists to ponder how culture affects politics is Antonio Gramsci. He wondered why the working class did not respond to Marxist calls for a revolution against the elites. Antonio Gramsci reasoned that this is because the elites had manufactured consent of the masses by communicating ideals supportive of their status quo which he called *{hegemony}*. He believed this was accomplished through political and cultural mechanisms like the state, schools, religious organizations, and media that helped generate hegemonic ideals. Pierre Bourdieu coined the terms Cultural Capital and Social Capital and realized that they acted as sources of power and the bases of politics. *Cultural capital*: is anything that reflects and facilitates cultural exchange between people. It included how people see and understand the social world and the interactions that occur within it, as well as cultural symbols that help them to do so, such as language, clothing, customs, and so worth. -cultural and linguistic competence e.g., prestigious knowledge, preferences, educational credentials. -increases the likelihood of a person's success. If you have "acquired taste", you have cultural capital. *Social capital*: -Is power that is derived from ties to social networks, from membership of a group. -increases likelihood of a person's success.)

What do Social Movements comprise of? What is the Aim of Social Movements? How is it accomplished?

( Social Movements.: -Are comprised of non-elite members of society. -Members tend to have little or no control over major economic, symbolic, political, or military resources. -People form social movements when they voluntarily work together to influence the distribution of social goods. -People may participate in strikes, boycotts, demonstrations. Social Movements aim is to. -Spread a counter-ideology in an attempt to change attitudes, everyday practices, public opinions, policies/procedures of governments and businesses. and. Challenge the system and power of society in both a material and ideological sense. This is accomplished through. -Deconstruction/construction. )

What is the "Rise of the State"? Or, in other words, how have States been able to gain hold of so much power over the year?

( States emerged as one outcome of the many transitions related to the Industrial Revolution and the advance of modernity. Urbanization. Rise of middle class. Decline of aristocracy, church and hereditary rights. Money and capital more important than land ownership. Enabled by establishment of bureaucracies. )

In order to mobilize support, Framing Theorists maintain that social movements must be successful at 3 Core Framing tasks which include?

( There are 3 Core Tasks Framing Theorists say are important to gain support of others and those include.: *1}. Diagnostic Frames.* Define social problems, injustices. *2}. Prognostic Frames.* Articulate solutions and strategies for positive social change. *3}. Motivational Frames.* Compel people to join the social movement. The process by which individuals come to embrace the goals and methods of the social movement is referred to as Frame Alignment. -Collective identity is the central task.)

What is the Value Added Theory? What are its SIX stages?

( Unlike the previous 3 theories, the Value Added Theory refers to PLANNED collective action. The Value Added Theory is based on the assumption that certain conditions are needed for the development of a social movement. SIX stages are necessary for collective behavior to emerge, and that social movement evolves through these relevant SIX stages. 1}. A persistent social strain. 2}. Agreement on definition of problem. 3}. Individuals must be able to act on their grievance. 4}. Must be a 'spark' which ignites the controversy. 5}. People gather in an organized way. 6}. Failure of social control by established power holders. )

What are Bureaucracies?

(A key development that accompanied the emergence of the modern state was Bureaucracy. It is an organizational form that is ordered by criteria that is independent of the personal qualities of people holding positions of power. Whereas the authority of organizations of the old order flowed from the personal power of the people who occupied positions in them, Bureaucracy enabled power to be exercised through staff abiding by impersonal practices and procedures less susceptible to individual whims and preferences. Bureaucracies are formal organizations that are meant to be orderly, fair and highly efficient. Bureaucracies.: -are a deliberately planned social group. -it coordinates people, capital and tools. -coordination is done through formalized roles, statuses and relationships. -aims to achieve a specific set of goals. The most successful form of organization over the last century: relatively efficient and effective. )

What is a Social Movement?

(A movement that represents the demands of a large segment of the public for political, economic, or social change. A Social Movement is a type of group action. Social Movements can be defined as "organizational structures and strategies that may empower oppressed populations to mount effective challenges and resist the more powerful and advantaged elites". They are large, sometimes informal, groupings of individuals or organizations which focus on specific political or social issues. In other words, they carry out, resist, or undo a social change. They provide a way of social change from the bottom within nations. )

What is a Counter-Ideology?

(Dominant Ideology.: tends to represent the elites of society. Counter Ideology, however.: counters/challenges the dominant ideology. )

What is Framing Theory?

(Framing Theory examines how collective understandings are created and communicated in order to realize objectives. Social movement Framing Theory attempts to understand the way in which social movements and social movement actors create and use meaning, and how events and ideas are framed. The Frame Theory comes from the work of Erving Goffman who believed that people frame experiences in order to organize and understand the world around them. Much like a picture frame excludes things while focusing attention on others, so does Framing. In the study of social movements, Collective Action Frames are used to bring people together and incite them to action. Benford and Snow explain, "collective action Frames are action-oriented sets of beliefs and meanings that inspire and legitimate the activities and campaigns of a social movement organization." )

What are "New Social Movements {NSMs}"?

(In the 1970s and 1980s, scholars increasingly examined the effectiveness of the new social movements {NSM}. New Social Movements were interested in politics of cultural recognition not redistribution of wealth {e.g., LGBT activists, environmentalists.} Recognition of their lives and identities as pervaded by government, corporate and dominant culture activities. Use cultural and social resources to challenge the norms and institutions that sustain the status-quo. NSM concentrate on bringing about social mobilization through cultural innovations, development of new life-styles and transformation of identities. New social movements are the 'new politics' which is about quality of life, individual self-realisation and human rights whereas the 'old politics' focus on economic, political, and military security.)

How does 3}. Institutional Processes yield power in Politics?

(Institutions configure the circumstances in which people operate. Institutions set the bounds of social interactions and the "rules" and guidelines around how social relations unfold, and they delimit the choices and actions that are available to people to employ under difference conditions. Institutions shape social interactions because they exhibit inertia and path dependence. The first one means that they are relatively stable and require concerted effort to modify. Institutions "push back" at attempts to change them by discouraging people from acting, or event thinking of acting, in other ways. The second means that once Institutions are established, they affect decision-making down the road, encouraging people to proceed down certain "paths" or action instead of others. Institutions help by providing a stable and predictable means through which people can exercise power. Theda Skocpol is perhaps the best-known Institutionalist in sociology. She studied revolutions in China, France and Russia and concluded that the outcomes could only be understood in the reference to the {in}capacity of existing state structures to meet or resolve crises.)

How does having 1}. Material yield Power in Politics?

(Material resources include money/financial resources, property, technology, natural resources, and different means of communication, transportation, organization, and networking. Certainly, the most famous scholar to have made the argument that power is determined by possession of material resources is Karl Marx. He said that those who owned and controlled the means of production have exercised the most power in human societies. Those who possessed land to cultivate food controlled the peasants' ability to provide for themselves. Those who owned machinery and factories, wielded much power over masses of workers. For Karl Marx, other institutions that comprise a society such as the state, religion, the family, and the education and legal system- which he called, "superstructure"- also reflected and sustained the power of the dominant/capitalist class. Power of capitalist class also maintained through 'false consciousness' where majority of the lower class comes to believe that societal inequalities are natural, commonsensical, unchangeable. )

What is the Resource Mobilization Approach?

(Resource Mobilization Theory argues that the success of social movements depends on resources {time, money, skill POWERS} and the ability to use them. Resource mobilization sees collective behavior as rational social institutions, created and populated by social actors with a goal of taking political action. According to Resource Mobilization Approach, a successful social movement must have the following resources {powers}: MORAL.: sympathy, just, right. CULTURAL.: knowledge of how to protest. MATERIAL.: office/supplies and money. HUMAN.: labour, skills. SOCIAL-ORGANIZATIONAL.: communication means. )

What is Institutions & Transnationalism?

(So far, we have seen how political sociologists depict politics as encompassing contests around material resources, cultural and social factors, and institutions within states or as an attempt to create states. However, with the spread of global capitalism, many have anticipated that we are entering a new era in which old notions of time and social space are collapsing and states are losing their status as the dominant institutions in the world. Globalization is a social process in which traditional constraints posed by geography, economic activity, culture, and social configurations have diminished and been replaced by international processes {Waters}. Politics reshaped by global economic, political and social integration {foreign direct investment, trade across states}. Others have opted to use "transnational" over "globalization" regarding the recent changes in states and political processes. They key difference between globalization and transnationalism is the scale of the processes. Globalization claims that the entire world is involved, whereas the transnationalism makes a lesser claim, suggesting only that more than one state in involved in an interaction with at least one other state. )

What is a Political Movement?

(Sociologists believe that we ignore politics to our disadvantage. This is because politics is really about power and contestation. Sociologists understand politics as endemic to our social existence because politics is about how people negotiate their lives with family, friends, social groups, and institutions of all sorts. Sociologists see politics playing out in realms of society that we normally consider outside of or unaffected by politics. But, the reality is that power is exercised and contested in all these areas and their outcomes interrelate. For these reasons, the sociological conception of politics is complex and multi-faceted. Political movements are attempts to modify/overthrow existing power relations.)

What were Max Weber's views on Bureaucracy?

(Some commentators have noted the necessity of Bureaucracies in modern society. The German sociologist Max Weber argued that Bureaucracy constitutes the most efficient and rational way in which one can organize the human activity and that systematic processes and organized hierarchies are necessary to maintain order, maximize efficiency, and eliminate favoritism. On the other hand, Weber also saw bureaucracy as a threat to individual freedoms, and believed that the ongoing rationalization of human life traps individuals in a soulless "iron cage" of bureaucratic, rule-based, rational control. The "iron cage of rationality" is where means become ends in and of themselves. Max Weber also argued that formal rationalization led to the "irrationality of rationality". -This is where workers are viewed merely as 'cogs in the wheel'; and this leads to employees feeling disenchanted. -This, therefore, leads to McDonaldization {George Ritzer}. Ritzer makes the point that when our lives become McDonaldized, the resulting effect is often one of irrationality. In other words, as we try to become efficient, calculable, predictable, and controlling, we often end up with illogical, counterintuitive, and problematic results.)

What is the State?

(The State- also referred to as the Government- is of central importance to political sociologists. This is because the greatest concentration of power in contemporary Western societies lies in the domain of the state. It is the only legal institution with the right to tax people, assault them through police/military, detain/imprison, kill them, set laws that govern personal behavior, impede on personal/love relationships, and so on. You might ask, why do States hold so much power? The answer in quite simple and it is because majority of people governed by a given state accept that it should. In exchange for citizenship that grants rights/privileges, people acquiesce to following and supporting the institution of a state, and therefore, legitimatize its power. The State sets rules upon which other social processes are ordered. e.g. tax, conscription, imprisonment, give or withhold citizenship and establish laws concerning marriage, etc.)

What were Max Weber's 7 characteristics of an effective Bureaucracy?

(Weber's {7} essential features of Bureaucracies were.: 1}. Division of labour. 2}. Hierarchy of positions. 3}. Formal system of rules. 4}. Reliance upon written documentation. 5}. Separation of the person from the office. 6}. Hiring and promotion based upon technical merit. 7}. Protection of careers. )

What are the 3 Broad Processes/Resources of Gaining Power within Politics?

1}. Material Processes. 2}. Cultural & Social Processes. 3}. Institutional Processes.