Authority in Contention, Volume 25

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CONTENTS PREFACE TO VOLUME 25

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INTRODUCTION: AUTHORITY IN CONTENTION Daniel J. Myers and Daniel M. Cress

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PART I: AUTHORITY IN CONTENTION: BEYOND CHALLENGES TO THE STATE SOCIAL MOVEMENTS AS CHALLENGES TO AUTHORITY: RESISTANCE TO AN EMERGING CONCEPTUAL HEGEMONY David A. Snow THE TARGETS OF SOCIAL MOVEMENTS: BEYOND A FOCUS ON THE STATE Nella Van Dyke, Sarah A. Soule and Verta A. Taylor

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PART II: EXPANDING NOTIONS OF REPRESSION CONTROLLING PROTEST: NEW DIRECTIONS FOR RESEARCH ON THE SOCIAL CONTROL OF PROTEST Jennifer Earl

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SOFT REPRESSION: RIDICULE, STIGMA, AND SILENCING IN GENDER-BASED MOVEMENTS Myra Marx Ferree

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PART III: CULTURE AND MOVEMENT CHALLENGES PERFORMING PROTEST: DRAG SHOWS AS TACTICAL REPERTOIRE OF THE GAY AND LESBIAN MOVEMENT Verta Taylor, Leila J. Rupp and Joshua Gamson

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DISCIPLES AND DISSENTERS: TACTICAL CHOICE AND CONSEQUENCES IN THE PLOWSHARES MOVEMENT Sharon Erickson Nepstad

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CULTURE IN AND OUTSIDE INSTITUTIONS Francesca Polletta

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PART IV: CHALLENGES IN CORPORATE SYSTEMS WORKING IT OUT: THE EMERGENCE AND DIFFUSION OF THE WORKPLACE MOVEMENT FOR LESBIAN, GAY, AND BISEXUAL RIGHTS Nicole C. Raeburn

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THE AMERICAN LABOR MOVEMENT’S (SURPRISING) ECONOMIC IMPACT: HOW UNIONS CHALLENGE CONSUMERISM AND CORPORATE GOVERNANCE Teresa Ghilarducci

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EMBODIED HEALTH MOVEMENTS AND CHALLENGES TO THE DOMINANT EPIDEMIOLOGICAL PARADIGM Stephen Zavestoski, Rachel Morello-Frosch, Phil Brown, Brian Mayer, Sabrina McCormick and Rebecca Gasior Altman

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AUTHORITY IN CONTENTION Daniel M. Cress and Daniel J. Myers

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ABOUT THE AUTHORS

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SUBJECT INDEX

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PREFACE TO VOLUME 25 Research in Social Movements, Conflicts and Change is celebrating a significant anniversary, the publication of its 25th Volume. I can think of no better way to mark this occasion than with this collection of fine papers from the 2000 conference, “Authority in Contention: Interdisciplinary Approaches,” sponsored by the Collective Behavior and Social Movements section of the American Sociological Association. Daniel Myers and Daniel Cress, guest editors for this volume, have done an exemplary job of selecting and editing the papers. The RSMCC series and scholars writing in the field of social movements are each in their debt. Conference organizers wisely conceived of both contention and authority broadly, freeing researchers from a restrictive state-centric approach to authority that has enjoyed too much influence for too long in much social movement scholarship. The result is that these papers, individually and collectively, make important contributions to our understandings of the full range of sites of contention, of the multiple forms of repression faced by challengers, of the roles of culture in social movement theorizing, and of tactical repertoires and tactical choices, to name but a few. For over a quarter-century, Research in Social Movements, Conflicts and Change has published innovative research on social movements, social conflicts and political change. Previous volumes have not only contributed much to the empirical body of research available on the topics reflected in the series title but have made substantive contributions to theory-building as well. This volume certainly carries on that tradition in fine fashion. It will undoubtedly move the debate over conceptions of authority forward in ways that are likely to impact scholarship for quite some time. I warmly welcome its addition to the series. Patrick G. Coy Editor, Research in Social Movements, Conflicts and Change Kent State University

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INTRODUCTION: AUTHORITY IN CONTENTION In the summer of 2002, the Collective Behavior and Social Movements section of the American Sociological Association held one of its periodic workshops at the University of Notre Dame. The theme of the workshop and the title of this volume, Authority in Contention, was originally suggested by David Snow and later refined by the workshop committee. The conference theme was inspired in part by the ideas developed and published in Doug McAdam, Charles Tilly, and Sidney Tarrow’s Dynamics of Contention, and a good portion of the conference developed in reaction to the ideas presented in the book. But although the conference itself was reacting to the DOC agenda (along with just about everyone else in the social movements field at the time), the agenda was broader in scope. As important as the contentious politics agenda has become, the conference organizers wanted to take a step back and look more broadly at empirical terrain that might reflect what we collectively consider to be social movement research and theorizing. In part, this means moving beyond a state-centered view of contentious politics and toward a more open definition of what might be fruitfully examined by social movement theories – and in turn what might inform those theories even as we use them in more traditional social movement arenas. The danger of the contentious politics framework, as articulated by David Snow in his chapter on resisting the hegemony of the approach, is that much important social movement activity would be defined out or, or at least severely neglected, by contentious politics thinking and that a broader frame of mind is necessary to guide social movement scholarship. Approaching this agenda necessarily involves at least some consideration of what social movements are – that is, deciding what kinds of empirical events fit into a recognizable cluster (or clusters) that can be understood through similar theoretical mechanisms. Yet as can be seen in the chapter in this volume, those seeking to define social movements are trying less to draw boundaries that exclude, but instead are trying to include more kinds of collective social behavior and think about how ideas about social movements can be extended to environments which, although perhaps not excluded from the social movements literature, have been less central under state-dominated approaches to understanding collective contention with political content. This in fact, is the main aim of Snow’s xi

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chapter which describes a series of phenomena that are not tied to state political institutions, yet deserve attention under the social movements rubric. But do the kinds of protest neglected by the contentious politics approach figure heavily, or even significantly, into the body of events that we should consider protest? Or, do they represent a negligible minority of protest that can be parsed out of empirical work on social movements and treated as minor, special cases? Does, for example, state-focused social movement activity numerically dominate the empirical reality of protest in the same way that it dominates the academic literature and social movement theorizing? Nella Van Dyke, Sarah Soule, and Verta Taylor examine the targets of protest in a particularly volatile period of U.S. history, 1968–1975, and determine how often the state was the central target compared to non-state institutions and less discrete targets such as public opinion. Their results show that although some movements and issues did focus primarily on the state, many others chose non-state targets, and most had more than one kind of target at the center of their activities. A key role the state plays in challenges to its authority, of course, is repressing dissent and maintaining the orderly functioning of society. But just as Snow suggests less formal kinds of challenges and bodies of challengers, so too are there less formal mechanisms of suppressing dissent other than the violence and influence wielded by the state. Jennifer Earl takes up the broader issues of the social control of protest and develops a typology of protest control that points out the wide varieties of strategies that both state and non-state actors use to suppress and derail dissent and challenges to political and cultural authority. Given the extant focus on repression as a state-sponsored activity, Earl focuses on understanding the roles that private protest control plays and culls from the literature key examples that will forward our thinking and research on repressing protest activity. Myra Marx Ferree dives even further into non-state repression by carefully delineating three key kinds of “soft repression,” ridicule, stigma, and silencing. These three strategies carry out repressive functions by disarming cultural challengers and by thwarting attempts to build collective identities. A key non-state site of contention is culture and three chapters explore the dynamics of cultural challenges from three angles. First, Verta Taylor, Leila Rupp, and Joshua Gamson explore drag performances as an example of how politics and culture combine in key social movement processes of expressing identity, forging solidarity, and performing resistance. This particular piece of the tactical repertoire show how ideas about contesting authority reach across the boundaries that separate thinking about the political and the cultural. Second, Sharon Erickson Nepstad explores the religious sources and consequences of the tactical choices made by the Plowshares movements. Although much of the activity of Plowshares is oriented toward the state, the movement

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is also challenging the authority of the Catholic church and demanding changes in its public stance toward war. Furthermore, the choices made by these activists have roots beyond political instrumentality and have symbolic and cultural consequences beyond the manifest political purposes of the actions. Culture has broad impacts on social behavior and relations of all kinds, of course, and Francesca Polletta’s essay attempts to draw the importance of culture more into the center of theorizing about social movements and protest. Rather than treating culture as a residual category, Polletta argues that we should theorize it as the key foundational piece that underlies collective challenges to authority, whether targeted toward the state or elsewhere, because culture creates the political opportunities necessary for mobilization, defines and operationalizes rationality, and conditions tactical choices. Nicole Raeburn’s case study of workplace activism demonstrates that challenges to authority in the workplace mirror many processes of state focused social movements. She demonstrates how some arguments, for example about opportunity structures, can be effectively mapped to the inside of the corporate domain. A second case study, by Teresa Ghilarducci, examines the impact of unions and pension activism on the far-reaching authority of employers and the corporate/consumerism culture. The final case study, by Zavestoski, Morello-Frosch, Brown, Mayer, McCormick, and Altman, examines health social movements and the collective attempts by patients to change the delivery of health care including its distribution across the population, the mechanics and outcomes of diagnosis, its dependence on science, and even the patients ability to exit the traditional medical system. These health social movements provide a key exemplar of how movements attack multiple authorities beyond the state – ranging from the concrete practices of local health providers to the more abstract cultural reliance on technical science. In the final chapter, we discuss the key contributions of Authority in Contention effort and discuss where it points for future work in the study of social movements and related collective phenomena. In the course of conducting this conference and putting together the subsequent volume, the editors have incurred a long list of debts beginning with David Snow’s vision of the conference theme. Two members of the original conference committee, Jeff Goodwin and Ann Mische, put in many hours making arrangements for the conference, developing its theme, and reviewing the many papers submitted to the conference. Two graduate students at Notre Dame, David Ortiz and Eugene Walls, helped with all of the conference logistics from hotel reservations to web page support. The conference staff at Notre Dame, led by Harriet Baldwin, made the conference flow smoothly and produced an event pleasurable for all of the attendees. We also wish to thank all of the units at the University of Notre

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Dame who provided funding for the conference: The Department of Sociology, the Institute for Scholarship in the Liberal Arts, the Joan B. Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, the Helen Kellogg Institute for International Studies, the Department of Political Science, the Department of American Studies, the Higgins Labor Research Center, and the Office of Research. Since the conference ended, we have had the pleasure of working with our dedicated authors to produce a truly outstanding set of papers. We also thank the group of anonymous reviewers who helped the authors sharpen their arguments through their insightful and helpful critiques. We have also benefited from the guidance of the series editor, Patrick Coy, who prevented missteps along the way and kept the project moving toward completion. Daniel J. Myers and Daniel M. Cress Editors

SOCIAL MOVEMENTS AS CHALLENGES TO AUTHORITY: RESISTANCE TO AN EMERGING CONCEPTUAL HEGEMONY David A. Snow ABSTRACT This chapter argues against the recent crystallization of “contentions politics” as the anchoring concept for the study of collective action on the grounds that it is overly restrictive, foreclosing consideration and analysis of much social movement activity not tied directly to government or the state and which thus falls beyond the bailiwick of the political arena. The problematic character of the contentious politics frame is discussed and illustrated both empirically and conceptually, and a more inclusive and elastic conceptualization is proposed and elaborated, one that conceives of movements broadly as collective challenges to systems of authority. This alternative conceptualization includes collective challenges within and to institutional, organizational, and cultural domains other than just the state or the polity. Not only are direct challenges to authorities included, but also movements that challenge authorities indirectly either through covert means, as in the case of terrorist movements, or by exiting the system, as in the case of separatist and communal movements and other-worldly religious “cults.”

Authority in Contention Research in Social Movements, Conflicts and Change, Volume 25, 3–25 Copyright © 2004 by Elsevier Ltd. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 0163-786X/doi:10.1016/S0163-786X(04)25001-7

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In this chapter I articulate a troubling concern and elaborate a tenable resolution with respect to the conceptualization of social movements. I begin with the troubling concern, dissect it empirically and conceptually, provide a more inclusive and elastic conceptualization of movements, and conclude by considering some complexities and questions regarding this broadened conceptualization.

THE TROUBLING CONCERN My concern emanates from what I perceive as an increasingly constricted conceptualization of collective action and of social movements in particular. During the past 30 years social movement theorization and research has been dislodged – some would say liberated – from the clutches of the so-called collective behavior perspective and the substantive domain of social psychology, and reconfigured under the conceptual umbrella of contentious politics and the substantive domain of political sociology. Over the course of the 30 or so years traversed, not only have there been numerous conceptual and theoretical advances, but few, if any, serious scholars of social movements would discount those advances. Nor would I, but I do have a gnawing concern. It is not with any particular model or perspective – be it resource mobilization, political process, framing, or the rediscovery of culture and emotion and their integration into the study of social movements. Rather, it is with the current fashion of anchoring – both wittingly and unwittingly – all of these advances to contentious politics, and correspondingly the state, within the port of the political institution. Before detailing why I find this trend troubling, let me provide some markers of this current fashion. Although the term contentious politics has been bandied about for years now, it was until recently used interchangeably with such kindred terms as collective action, protest, and social movements. This unbounded and non-specific use of the term changed, however, with McAdam, Tarrow and Tilly’s (1996, 2001) project to reconceptualize and retheorize how we think about social movements, cycles of protest, and revolution. From their vantage point, these overlapping collective phenomena can be subsumed conceptually and analytically under the canopy of contentious politics. Noting a great deal of overlap and interaction among these phenomena, as well as corresponding disciplinary fragmentation in terms of their discussion, McAdam, Tarrow and Tilly proposed “contentious politics” as the overarching cover term for research on and theorization of these phenomena. Contentious politics was thus proffered as an anchoring concept. But what precisely is contentious politics? Here McAdam, Tarrow and Tilly are very clear. It is conceptualized as:

Social Movements as Challenges to Authority

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Collective interaction among makers of claims and their objects. That is “episodic” in the sense of not being regularly scheduled on the political docket. “Public” in the sense of excluding claim-making “that occurs entirely within well-bounded organizations, including churches and firms.” And “manifestly political” in the sense that a government is involved as a claimant, target, or mediator (McAdam, Tarrow & Tilly, 2001, p. 5). Inasmuch as contentious politics is linked to government in some fashion or another, and thus the state, then it follows that contentious politics, so defined, occurs predominantly within or in relation to the political institution or domain of social life. Contentious politics, then, is “collective political struggle” (2001, p. 5), but, I would add, with a capital “P” because of its ligature to the political arena and the state. Although McAdam, Tarrow and Tilly have gone the farthest in crystallizing the notion of contentious politics into an anchoring concept, and thus bounding and clarifying the range of collective phenomena it encompasses, there are numerous other scholars who appear to have joined the chorus, as evidenced by the number of recent books on social movements that have contentious politics, the state, or politics more generally referenced in their titles or subtitles. Consider, for example, the following titles: The Social Movement Society: Contentious Politics for a New Century (Meyer & Tarrow, 1998), Social Movements and American Political Institutions: People, Passions, and Power (Costain & McFarland, 1998), Challenging Authority: The Historical Study of Contentious Politics (Hanagan et al., 1998), and Silence and Voice in the Study of Contentious Politics (Aminzade et al., 2001) [Underline added for emphasis]. In addition to the fact that these works pay homage to the link between social moments and the political arena, including the state, it is interesting to note that the presumed link is not, upon closer inspection of some of the contents of these books, always self-evident and articulated. This suggests to me that the concept of contentious politics is coming to function not only as a synecdoche for the study of social movements but also as a kind of imprimatur, thus suggesting, perhaps, an emerging hegemonic conception of social movements in the sense of limiting or constraining how scholars think about such phenomena.

THE PROBLEM WITH THIS LIMITING CONCEPTUALIZATION What’s my beef with this current fashion? Why is the conceptualization and analysis of social movements as contentious politics a troubling concern? Because

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I think it is too restrictive, foreclosing consideration and analysis of much social movement activity that is not tied directly, in some fashion or another, to government, and thus falls beyond the bailiwick of the political arena.1 The problematic character of this restrictiveness can be illustrated both empirically and conceptually. Empirical Limitations Empirical instances of collective, movement-like phenomena that appear to be excluded from the contentious politics conceptualization are not hard to find. Consider several examples of such activity that I encountered during the course of various routine, everyday kinds of engagements. The first materialized in early July 2002 as I was driving south on the 405 Freeway in Los Angeles, shortly after dropping someone off at LAX. It wasn’t an instance of protest, such as a freeway sit-in or closure. Instead, it was a large, billboard advertisement, announcing a forthcoming two-day rally sponsored by Promise Keepers, the Christian men’s movement launched in 1990 to promote Christian integrity and family values among males. I wondered as I drove on just how Promise Keepers and its activities might be conceptualized in terms of contentious politics, especially since the state is not its proximate target or ally.2 This same curiosity resurfaced a few days later when working-out at the university exercise facility and the disk-jockey of the classical rock station I was listening to broke away from the music for an interview with Dr. Phil, Oprah’s self-help guru. I wasn’t so interested in situating Dr. Phil and Oprah in some confluence of social and temporal space, but in trying to figure out what to do conceptually with the self-help movement, for which Oprah and Dr. Phil are two of its more prominent inspirational, albeit commercial, leaders. And then, before I went to sleep one night during the same week, I encountered indirectly, through the medium of Time magazine, a story about a disgruntled group of Catholics who call themselves the “Voice of the Faithful.” The story begins with the following vignette: They used to meet Sunday nights at St. John the Evangelist Church in Wellesley, Mass., but the crowd got too big, so now they have broken into cells, gathering nightly by the dozen in parochial school cafeterias or places like this spare church cellar, plotting and testifying under flickering institutional lights. First up is a man in a gray suit. “If the church were an institutional business,” he says, “the hiring manager would be out of a job, and the CEO would be on the next boat out.” Next comes a psychiatrist, who calls the Roman Catholic Church a dysfunctional family. Then a theology student, then a young father, then the mother of an abused boy and, finally, Marie Darcy. Darcy has 10 children back home in Merrimack, NH, but left them tonight to conspire with the Catholic lay group Voice of


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the Faithful because, well, because it touches on her status as part of the body of Christ. “We are all heirs to Christ, but it doesn’t feel that way,” says Darcy. “The decisions come down from above, and that’s it. The people in the pews quake, wondering what’s going to happen.” Into the night the group discusses how to change that, imagining the radical reinvention of the relationship between the flock and leaders that the Voice claims is the American Catholic Church’s only road to salvation. Like many Catholics, they are suffering a crisis of confidence as a result of the sexual scandals of the past months, but unlike some others, they see in it opportunity. “If there was ever a time for reform,” argues Gisela Morales-Barreto, who attended her first meeting in April, “this is it.”

Titled “Rebels in the Pews” (Van Biema, 2002, pp. 54–58), the story goes on to note that this contentious lay activity is occurring in one parish after another throughout the U.S. So what is going on here? What kind of collective activity is this? Is it only the spasmodic behavior of a handful of parish malcontents? Is it reflective of what some students of collective behavior have called “crisis crowds?” Or is it the outcropping of an emerging social movement? While the initial impulse of some students of social movements would be to classify it as an instance of the latter, consideration of the foregoing conceptual crystallization of contentious politics should give us pause, in large part because this festering “rebellion in the pews” is not connected to the government and occurs within a well-bounded organization, which we are told is grounds for disqualification of collective claim-making as an instance of contentious politics and thus as a social movement (McAdam, Tarrow & Tilly, 2001, p. 5). Mine is hardly the first voice to express this concern about the narrowness of the contentious politics frame. In their more general critique of political process theory, Goodwin and Jasper (1999, p. 34) suggested that in focusing “attention on protestors interactions with the state, and those movements or activities that challenge existing laws, state policies, or states as such,” the perspective “ignored . . . movements populated by the middle class, especially those challenging extant ‘cultural codes,’ ” as well as “movements that do not target the state as their main opponent.” And many other scholars, through their empirical studies, indirectly question the analytic utility of nesting the conceptualization of social moments primarily within the political domain, as illustrated by Taylor’s (1996) examination of the movement to do something about postpartum depression within the contexts of feminism and self-help, Chaves’s (1997) research on the movement for the ordination of women within religious organizations, Katzenstein’s (1998) study of feminist protest inside the military and the church, and recent analyses of the role of narrative in various self-help (Rice, 2002) and new age (Brown, 2002) movements.

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Conceptual Limitations Another way to get a handle on the question of where to place, within conceptual space, movements like the Promise Keepers, self-helpers, new agers, and contentious parishioners, is to consider a number of the axes of debate implicated in the conceptualization of social movements. One such axis of debate concerns the focal unit or organizing concept for theorization and research. A second axis concerns the institutional locus of social movements. And a third axis of debate directs attention to the kind and level of change associated with social movements. Focal Organizing Concept Although one can find in the literature competing and overlapping answers with respect to the axial questions implied, the contentious politics conceptualization narrows stringently the range of debate about these conceptual axes. Consider, for example, the alternatives proffered over the years regarding the issue of the focal unit or organizing concept. Some 25 years ago McCarthy and Zald (1977) proposed “social movement organizations” (SMOs) as the orienting, focal unit of analysis, a proposal seconded more recently by Lofland’s book (1996) bearing that title, in large part because SMOs are the most visible accessible carriers and promulgators of the grievances and interests of a set of constituents. A contrary proposal, proffered by Della Porta and Diani (1999, p. 16), rejects the idea that social movements are organizations, even of a special kind, arguing, instead, that “they are networks of interaction between different actors which may either include formal organizations or not, depending on shifting circumstances.” And a third alternative is Zald’s proposal (2000) to reconceptualize social movements as “ideologically structured action.” I note these alternative conceptual proposals not with favor or prejudice in one direction or another, but merely to suggest that the emerging hegemony of the contentious politics conceptualization forecloses not only consideration of these and other prospective alternatives but empirical assessment of which ones work best across a range of social movements and forms of collective action. Institutional Locus Regarding the axis of debate concerning the institutional locus of social movements, we know that the contentious politics conceptualization points to political institutions, and principally “the state,” as the primary institutional loci and/or targets of social movements and related forms of collective action. And we know that there are numerous other works which suggest that it is the state, polity, or institutionalized political arena that is fundamental. But there are some scholars of social movements who would ask: Why is it only the state or polity that constitutes


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the significant reference point for the conceptualization of movements? What about extra-institutional challenges within the religious order, such as the rebellion in the pews captured in the previous vignette? Are not denominational challenges, for example, whether they are referred to as cults or sects, movements as well? If extra-institutional challenges have all the characteristics of a movement except that their antagonist lies within an institutional sphere other than the established polity, should they not be counted as social movements? If not, then apparently most challenges within the religious arena constitute something other than social movements. And the same conclusion would hold for organized, collective challenges within other institutional spheres as well, such as the corporate world, the medical and health domain, and educational institutions. So the question of the institutional basis for the conceptualization of movements continues to smolder. McAdam, Tarrow and Tilly, being the trenchant scholars of collective action that they are, are neither oblivious to nor skirt altogether this issue of the institutional locus of social movements. But they wait until the final pages of the final chapter of their programmatic statement on contentious politics to suggest that their initial conceptualization may be a bit too rigid and inelastic. Here they write: Contention is not something peculiar to the realm of politics. It is a generic phenomena inextricably linked to the establishment of institutionalized power relations . . . Accordingly, we see no reason ultimately to restrict the application of our approach to the political realm, narrowly defined (2001, p. 343).

Unless this apparent retreat from the ligature of contention to politics in their opening conceptualization of contentious politics is little more than the ritualistic embrace of alternative interests and points of view that comes almost routinely at the end of new theoretical syntheses, hard-fought elections, and sermons hailing the advance of religious initiatives, it would appear that McAdam, Tarrow and Tilly would endorse broadening the institutional locus of collective action and social movements beyond the political arena.3 To do so would appear to call for a conceptualization somewhat different from theirs, however. Level of Change The last conceptual axis for debate concerns the kind and level of change associated with social movements. There is generalized acknowledgment that social movements are in the business of seeking or halting change, but there is a lack of consensus as to the locus and level of changes sought. Again, however, the contentious politics conceptualization provides a clear answer: the change is primarily at the political institutional level. But here again it seems reasonable to ask whether the changes or objectives sought must be in terms of seeking

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concessions from or altering political institutions? What about changes at the individual or personal level? Do other kinds of changes count, such those associated with so-called self-help groups, or cultural representations and stereotypes, or animal rights, and so on? Although some hardliners would scoff that concern with change at the individual or personal level takes us back to a “hearts and minds” emphasis, such a view overlooks the extent to which affecting changes in hearts and minds, or what is more commonly called consciousness-raising, is not only sometimes a necessary condition for moving people from the balcony to the barricades, but also for implementing and sustaining the changes sought. Ralph Turner (1983) makes this point emphatically in a rarely cited but insightful assessment of figure and ground in the analysis of social movements. He writes that the study of social movements was once . . . strongly influenced by examples of religious movements and humanitarian movements that conveyed new ways of viewing and practicing human relations . . . Movements for the abolition of slavery, for women’s suffrage, for the termination of child labor, and even for the prevention of cruelty to animals all required that patterns and relationships heretofore accepted as natural and proper should be reconceived as abhorrent. Although some of these movements culminated in legislative encounters, even the legislative proposal was unthinkable until a tremendous task of altering people’s views of reality had been accomplished. For each of these movements, effectiveness did indeed depend upon reaching the hearts and minds of vast numbers of people (Turner, 1983, p. 177).

While theoretical elegance and conceptual tidiness may be gained by limiting the conceptualization of movements institutionally and in terms of the kinds of changes sought, it is important to ask about the costs of doing so? If movements are conceptualized under the rubric of contentious politics, not only are “collective efforts at escape or self-renewal” excluded (McAdam, Tarrow & Tilly, 1996, p. 21), but many other species of social movements – such as non-state related religious movements, various identity-based movements, and countercultural movements – are excluded from analysis as well.4

TOWARD A MORE INCLUSIVE AND ELASTIC CONCEPTUALIZATION Given the foregoing questions and the attendant observations on which they are based, I wonder whether we are best served conceptually and analytically by ignoring or redefining as something other than social movements collective phenomenon that do not fit neatly under the umbrella of contentious politics? Obviously I think not, as I believe the study of social movements would be better served, both empirically and theoretically, if our orienting conceptualization


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was more inclusive and elastic. Thus, my preference is for a conceptualization which: (a) includes not only contentious politics, that is movements that are “manifestly political,” but collective challenges within or to other institutional and cultural domains as well; (b) includes collective efforts to affect change at various levels of social life, from the individual level to the state to even international organizations consisting of a consortium of national states, such as the World Trade Organization; and (c) acknowledges that the organizational form of social movements is quite variable rather than limited to a particular kind of organization or network cluster. It is with these considerations in mind that I propose that we think of social movements broadly as collective challenges to systems or structures of authority or, more concretely, as collectivities acting with some degree of organization (could be formal, hierarchical, networked, etc.) and continuity (more continuous than crowd or protest events but not institutionalized or routinized in the sense of being institutionally or organizationally calendarized) primarily outside of institutional or organizational channels for the purpose of challenging extant systems of authority, or resisting change in such systems, in the organization, society, culture or world order of which they are a part. In order to clarify this conceptualization, it is necessary to elaborate what I mean by collective challenges and systems or structures of authority. I begin with the latter because it is the bedrock for this alternative conceptualization.

Structures/Systems of Authority In clarifying what I mean by “structures or systems of authority,” I begin denotatively by considering various concrete examples, of which there are many. Within the political domain or sector of society, the state or national government is the most obvious and visible example. But other governmental units – such as the “state houses” located in the capital cities of each of the 50 states comprising the U.S., county seats, and city hall or the mayor’s office – are all governmental and thus political structures of authority. Non-governmental, for-profit corporations, such as Ford Motors, Shell Oil, and Enron, also constitute systems of authority. So do non-governmental, not-for-profit organizations that range broadly from educational institutions, like Stanford University and Orange Coast Community College; to foundations, like the Ford Foundation and the Mellon Foundation;

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to professional associations, like the American Psychiatric Association and the American Sociological Association; to religious denominations, like the Methodist, Lutheran, and Southern Baptist denominations. And various congeries of beliefs and understandings can constitute systems of authority as well, albeit cultural or subcultural. This is no small point inasmuch as social movements often challenge and seek to change existing cultural understandings that function in an authoritative manner. So what do all of these disparate so-called systems of authority, be they structurally or culturally based, have in common that make them such? Two things. First, in accordance with a host of sociological commentators on structures of authority – from Weber (1947) through Dahrendorf (1959) and Sennett (1981) to Coleman (1990) – they are the recognized seat of decisions, regulations, procedures, and guidelines influencing some domain or aspect of the lives of some category of individuals, variously referred to as constituents, adherents, members, believers, practitioners, stockholders, stakeholders, and the like. To say that a particular system of authority is a recognized seat of decisions regarding some category of relevant interests is to note that adherents or members typically act in accordance with the rules and procedures associated with that system of authority, and in doing so they are, whether intended or not, granting it a veneer of legitimacy.5 This does not mean that members or adherents or stakeholders agree with the rules, procedures, or decisions. Nor does it mean that they may not complain and gripe about the procedures and rules, but “institutional bitching,” which is widespread in most institutional and organizational contexts, is not the same as contesting collectively and seeking to change the operating rules, procedures, and/or decisions, even though it may be the springboard for the evolution of such challenges. So one thing structures or systems of authority have in common is that they are the acknowledged seat of rules and decisions relevant to some set of interests or activities for some category of individuals. A second but less well articulated feature of systems of authority is that they typically are undergirded by, and thus carriers of, sets of interconnected values, beliefs, and conceptualizations. Variously referred to as informing points of view (Burke, 1965), universes of discourse (Mead, 1962), ideologies (Geertz, 1973), or primary frameworks (Goffman, 1974), these interpretive modalities typically rationalize the distribution and exercise of the domain-relevant authority. But they also provide vocabularies of motive that can be used not only to justify adherence to the regulations or procedures but to challenge their perceived violation or abuse as well. Both the behavioral and interpretive functions of systems of authority are highly interactive in that they reinforce and enhance the legitimacy of each other. They do so in large part because the behavioral and interpretive functions of systems


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of authority can typically be traced to an organizational or institutional entity that gives empirical or material substance to the associated claims and guidelines. Because of this anchoring function, these organizational or institutional entities constitute what Berger and Luckmann refer to as “plausibility structures” (1967, pp. 154–155) in that their very existence renders their claims and directives plausible, if not always compelling. Thus, the legitimacy and force of all institutional or organizational systems of authority flow not only from the actions and inactions of those to whom their regulations and directives apply, but also from the anchored plausibility of underlying beliefs, claims, and narratives. Although this second characteristic of structures of authority is shortchanged in much sociological work on the topic, it is especially relevant in relation to social movements because oftentimes it is the disjunction between what authorities command or do and the underlying principles or beliefs they presumably subscribe to and/or are entrusted to uphold that constitutes the grievance base for challenge, as in the case of the mentioned rebellion in the pews. A note of caution needs to be introduced here, lest we assume that all authoritative directives, behavioral codes, and modes of interpretation are nested in structures of plausibility, be they organizational or institutional. Some also flow from the articulations and ritual behaviors of individuals responded to as if they are “charismatic” and thus stand above or beyond some organizational or institutional structure; others may, for some people in some places, flow from writings that have been sanctified and fetishized, such as the Bible, the Koran, and Marx’s Das Capital; while still others can be traced to core values and beliefs, to founding myths and narratives about a people, or to a set of activities that come to be identified as a salient aspect of a collectivity’s culture. Each of these alternative sources of authority may be a target of challenge or the inspirational basis for challenge of another authority. And sometimes evidence is marshaled that suggests that aspects of a culture, albeit different ones, have functioned in both ways, as in the case of the “hippie” or countercultural communal movement (Berger, 1981; Zablocki, 1980). In sum, I have suggested that structures or systems of authority – be they institutionally, organizationally, or culturally based – function, in a kind of Foucauldian fashion, to coordinate patterns of behavior and orientation, typically among a fairly large number of people, such that the activities, orientations, identities and/or interpretations of one set of actors is subordinated to the directives, mandates, and perspectives and framings of another set of actors (superordinates) or privileged cultural texts, narratives, or codes. The relevance of systems of authority to social movements, as argued, is that they typically are the targets of, and sometimes the inspirational sources for, the challenges mounted by social movements.

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Complexities and Questions Having clarified what I mean by systems of authority, and having made a case for tying the conceptualization of social movements to authority systems more generally, let me briefly introduce a number of complexities regarding that relationship which are suggestive of various questions and lines of inquiry. The first such complexity relates to the observation that many, and perhaps most, movements challenge several systems of authority, rather than being nested in a single institutional or cultural domain, in terms of their goals and activities. Whether at a single point in time or at different points in a movement’s career, different systems of authority may be targeted in conjunction with different movement grievances and goals. The women’s movement amply demonstrates this point. As Ferree and Hess (1985, p. 141) tell us in their assessment of the aims and accomplishments of what they called the new feminist movement: Diversity is really the key, since feminists differ over both goals and methods of change. Career and radical feminists see the means of change in women realizing their own power and potential; socialist and liberal feminists stress transforming social institutions, such as law, the economy, and the schools, in ways that would liberate women.

In the case of the women’s movement, then, different segments or wings of the movement charted somewhat different courses with different objectives and targets. This clearly was the case for the civil rights movement as well. Movements constitutive of what Gusfield (1963) dubbed “symbolic crusades” also have multiple targets, seeking not only to change laws but also to change or reassert selected cultural standards and practices. Similarly, Turner (1983, p. 178) has argued that movements that seek to affect “transformations of social relationships between categories of people” and “changes in popular values and tastes” are unlikely to realize their objectives “without a strong admixture of personal transformation with societal manipulation,” which implies challenges to both cultural and structural authority. Such examples and observations indicate that the relationship between movements, their objectives, and targeted systems of authority may often be layered in ways that caution against premature categorization of any particular movement. A second complexity concerns the variation in the reach or pervasiveness of a system of authority. To how many domains of life is it relevant, and to how many activities does it extend or cover? Certainly in the modern world it is arguable that the reach of “the state” is far greater than most other authority structures, yet there is considerable variation across national or state governments in the scope of authority. In the U.S., as well as in most other western democracies, freedom of religious choice is not only regarded as a sacred cultural value, but it undergirds the constitutional separation of church and state. In such societies, it is relatively


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easy to follow the historical Christ’s alleged directive to “Render onto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” In countries in which Islam is the dominant religion, there is little to no constitutional separation of church and state, as the two domains are merged into a theocracy. But even in Muslim countries, there can be noteworthy variation in the reach of the theocratic state, as evidenced by the pervasive intrusiveness of the former Taliban government in Afghanistan in contrast to the less intrusive regime of Jordan. Under the Taliban regime, for example, there were few aspects of life not touched by its edicts (Rashid, 2000). Such observations suggest that it may be useful to consider carefully the relationship between movements and the relative reach or pervasiveness of the authority systems they challenge. For example, does the character and operation of movements that challenge domain specific authorities, such as the American Psychiatric Association and its Diagnostic Statistical Manual or the University of California’s admission criteria and procedures, differ from the character and operation of movements that challenge more global or pervasive systems of authority, such as non-democratic political regimes or cultures grounded in fundamentalist religious traditions? Along the same lines, would we expect the frequency and character of movement challenges to differ in societies in which authority is specialized and compartmentalized, such that there is a multitude of domain specific systems of authority, in contrast to those in which authority is more concentrated and pervasive and thus more hegemonic structurally and/or culturally? A third complexity concerns the basis of attachment or commitment to an authority of those under its sway. On what grounds do individuals adhere to the decisions, directives, rules, and guidelines of the systems of authority with which they are associated? What is the character of the relationship between authorities and adherents? Coleman (1990) suggests the answer is lodged in two types of authority relations: conjoint and disjoint authority relations. In the case of the former, the subordinate assumes that the decisions and actions of the authority will be beneficial – that is, in keeping with the subordinate’s interests. In the case of the latter, there is no such correspondence or mutuality of interest. Instead, the subordinate acts in accord with the directives of the authority in exchange for some form of compensation (Coleman, 1990, pp. 72–81). In both cases, subordinates are said to be acting rationally inasmuch as they are benefiting directly or indirectly (compensation) by transferring control to or acting in accord with the directives of authorities. Although the concepts of conjoint and disjoint authority relations cover a large number of extant authority relations, their coverage may not be exhaustive. As Parsons and Shils (1962) reminded us sometime ago, there are at least three forms

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of object orientation: instrumental, cathectic, and moral. Coleman’s two categories of authority relations clearly exhibit the instrumental orientation in that they are based on calculative, interest-maximizing considerations. But do not individuals sometimes act in accordance with the directives of an authority on the basis of intense cathectic attachment or moral considerations (see Goodwin et al., 2001, and Jasper, 1997)? If so, then our understanding of the bases of authority relations would have to be broadened beyond instrumental considerations. And even if a case were made that cathectic and moral attachments could be theorized as variants of the rational or instrumental, we would still be left with the observation that authority relations can be layered, such that they can be based on more than one of the three types of object orientation. Either way, questions arise about the character of the authority relations and social movement activity. For example, are some relations or modes of attachment more prone to social movement activity than others? And is the character of social movement activity likely to vary in terms of the orientation or attachment to the authority. If the basis for the challenge is an authority’s perceived violation of certain moral standards or principles, might the objectives sought be less negotiable than in the case of material, compensational matters? Or are the latter always layered with moral considerations in order to heighten the appeal or credibility of the claims? I raise these issues and questions, however undeveloped they are, only to underscore the complexity of the relationship between social movements and systems of authority, and to invite research and theorization on that connection.

Collective Challenges Having clarified what I mean by systems of authority, and having suggested that social movements entail collective challenges to an array of systems of authority beyond the polity, I now want to elaborate what I mean by collective challenges. To do so, it is useful heuristically to think about challenges to authorities in terms of at least two intersecting dimensions: (1) whether the actors and their actions are individuals or collectivities engaging in joint and coordinated action; and (2) whether the challenge is direct or indirect. Direct challenges include straightforward, undisguised, overt appeals and demands, such that the targeted authorities are aware of both the claims and their carriers; indirect challenges are those that are either covert and/or ambiguous – covert in terms of the action and its carrier, and ambiguous in terms of the action and the claims – or that seek to divest themselves of the authority by escaping it. The cross-classification of these two dimensions yields four types of challenge as displayed in Table 1. Type 1 includes direct, individual-level appeals and


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Table 1. Types of Challenge. Level of Action

Direct Challenge

Indirect Challenge

Individual action

(1) Appeals to authority for adjustments (e.g. raise) (3) Various forms of targeted protest

(2) Everyday forms of resistance and withdrawal (4) Exiting from or divesting of authority

Collective action

demands that seek to improve some aspect of the individual’s life-situation relevant to the authority context in question. Type 2 includes actions that are individualized in the sense of involving little if any coordination, as in the case of various indirect, seemingly disconnected forms of everyday resistance, such as bitching, pilfering, and foot-dragging (Hodson, 1991; Morrill et al., 2003; Prasad & Pushkala, 1998; Scott, 1985). Type 3 encompasses direct, collective challenges of the kind typically analyzed by social movement scholars, ranging from movement-organized marches and rallies to sit-ins and office or building takeovers to attempts to revoke extant authority, as in the case of the prototypical revolution.6 And Type 4 is exemplified by indirect collective challenges, in which the connection among the actions, actors, and their demands or interests is often ambiguous or covert, perhaps as in the case of terrorist movements,7 or in which the collectivity leaves, thereby divesting the authority of its right to control them. As students of social movements, we are most interested in the collective challenges encompassed by Types 3 and 4, although both Types 1 and 2 probably often contain the seeds for much movement activity. As suggested, the kinds of movements encompassed by Type 3 comprise most of what social movement scholars study. However, the cases exemplified by Type 4 are too rarely considered by students of social movements, with the exception of a few studies such as Mueller’s (1999) insightful analysis of exit episodes from the German Democratic Republic between 1961 and 1989. Why this is the case is, as Mueller has mused, somewhat puzzling. No doubt it is due in part to the exclusion of collective escape as a form of contentious politics (see McAdam et al., 1996, pp. 21–22). It may be due as well to a misunderstanding or misapplication of Hirschman’s (1970) analysis of the ways in which the members or constituents of a corporate actor (e.g. a firm, organization, community, or state) can respond to its unsatisfactory and/or unsteady performance in terms of three generic responses: exit, voice, and loyalty. In the exit option, the dissatisfied member picks-up and leaves the organization, community, or state. In the case of the voice option, the dissatisfied member actively expresses that dissatisfaction. And in the case of loyalty, the dissatisfied member swallows the dissatisfaction and stays put.

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It is my sense that this tripartite scheme generally has been applied to contentious politics and social movements as if these generic responses were mutually exclusive, such that “voice” was analogous to collective action, and “exit” was therefore irrelevant. In addition to reifying the three modes of response, this reading and application clearly fails to appreciate the connection between exit and voice. Exit, under some conditions, may not only constitute a form of voice, but sometimes it may even speak louder than the voices commonly associated with direct collective challenges. For members of a society, a community, a political group, or a religious order to sever their ties and exit is not only to challenge, albeit indirectly, the existing structure of authority or regime, but it may even threaten the exited order in numerous ways. As Hirschman notes: Exit is unsettling to those who stay behind as there can be no “talking back” to those who have exited. By exiting one renders his arguments unanswerable. The remarkable influence wielded by martyrs throughout history can be understood in those terms, for the martyr’s death is exit at its most irreversible and argument at its most irrefutable (1970, p. 126).

Hirschman is only partly right as the exited order often “talks back,” as repeatedly illustrated by various responses to the new religious movements of the 1970s (Beckford, 1985; Hall, 1987; Shupe & Bromley, 1980). But Hirschman deftly underscores the point that exit may sometimes not only be a form of voice, but a very strong one as well, a point he accented even more forcefully in the wake of the late-1980s mass exists from Eastern Europe (Hirschman, 1993). Caution needs to be exercised about presuming that mass exits in general are social movements, especially since parallel behavior, as in the case of much immigration, is not the same as joint or collective action. There are, however, abundant examples of collective escapes or exits in the social movement literature broadly construed, ranging from various communal movements (Berger, 1981; Kanter, 1972; Zablocki, 1980) to separatist and secessionist movements (Bonwick, 1991; Hall, 1977; Kapur, 1986) to so-called religious cultic and sectarian movements (Barker, 1983; Robbins, 1988; Wallis, 1984), with mass suicide being the ultimate form of escape or exit (Balch, 1995; Hall, 1987, 2000). Yet, social movement scholars today generally tend to gloss over or ignore altogether these forms of social movement activity because, I would contend, they typically are only indirectly and secondarily politically-oriented, and therefore do not fit neatly under the contentious politics umbrella. As Aminzade and Perry note in their recent effort to give voice to religion in the study of contentious politics, they focus only on “those groups that engage in contentious politics,” thus intentionally ignoring “other-worldly communal sects that seek sanctuary by establishing ‘heavenly kingdoms’ beyond the reaches of the secular world” (2001, p. 158). But I would argue that these neglected religious movements constitute forms


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of indirect, extra-institutional challenge that invite research and theorization as much as the more familiar specimens that cluster in Cell 3 of the typology.

CONCLUSIONS The crux of what I have suggested is that we need to broaden our conceptualization of social movements beyond contentious politics. I have not recommended that we throw aside the idea of contentious politics. Rather, I am suggesting that since not all social movements fall within the political domain of social life, we need to broaden our conceptualization of movements to include collective challenges to systems or structures of authority beyond the government and state. Additionally, I have argued that we focus not just on social movements that challenge authorities directly, but also on movements that challenge authorities indirectly either through covert means, as in the case of terrorist movements, or by exiting the system and thus the bailiwick of the authority, as in the case of communal movements and other-worldly religious “cults.” In arguing that we broaden our conceptualization of social movements in these two ways, I have not meant to suggest that there is little to no research that examines social movement activity beyond the political domain of social life. Clearly there is an abundance of such work (e.g. Chaves, 1967; Katzenstein, 1998; Smith, 1996; Taylor, 1996; Van Dyke, Taylor & Soule, 2002; Williams, 2001). The problem, from my vantage point, is that this work is rarely used as the basis for refining and sharpening how we conceptualize social movements. In other words, the relation between the specific phenomenon studied and the broader category or genera of phenomena of which it is presumably representative is too rarely elaborated. Doing so would, I believe, buttress further the argument I have propounded. What do we gain by broadening the conceptualization of collective action and social movements in this fashion – that is, beyond contentious politics, with its focus on government and the state? The most obvious analytic benefit is that it forces us to consider more carefully social movement activity in other institutional and cultural spheres of social life. I have wondered for years – at least since the mid-1970s when I was doing my dissertation research on the spread of a Japanese Buddhist movement in the U.S. (Snow, 1993) – why the literatures on religious movements and political movements typically glided by each other, much like two trawling vessels passing on a fog-ridden evening, with only the vaguest acknowledgment that both might be trawling in the same channel. More recently, some students of religion have drawn on social movement concepts and theories to inform their analyses of the religious phenomenon investigated, but students of social movements appear to have been less likely to turn the study of religion

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or religious movements for conceptual and theoretical edification. The mentioned Aminzade and Perry (2001) inquiry, which is part of the McAdam, Tarrow and Tilly contentious politics project, acknowledges this problem and takes a step forward in trying to mend it, but is constrained by the contentious politics conceptualization to which it is beholden. By thinking of movements as collective challenges to authority, we are less apt to continue to proceed in such a fashion, asking not only how movements in different institutional and cultural spheres may differ but also what they have in common and in what ways and how they influence each other.8 A second analytic benefit of broadening the scope of the conceptualization of movements along the lines suggested is that it forces us to examine even more carefully whether the conditions and mechanisms postulated to account for the emergence and operation of contentious politics apply more generally to movements challenging structures of authority in institutional domains outside the polity. McAdam, Tarrow and Tilly (2001, p. 342) bet that their “framework can be readily adapted to the analysis of contention within any system of formal institutionalized power.” But that clearly remains an empirical question that invites careful investigation. A third analytic benefit of the expanded conceptualization propounded above is that it enables us to think more broadly about repertoires of contention and the tangible markers of social movement activity. It may well be the case that collective challenge in different institutional domains is associated with different repertoires. That is an empirical question, of course, but not one we are likely to ask or investigate without moving beyond the political domain. A fourth analytic benefit of the proposed conceptualization is that it expands and concretizes conceptually what a number of scholars of collective action and social movements have hinted at but not developed: the anchoring of social movements to authority. Barrington Moore (1978), for one, features authority as a central element in his analysis of the social bases of obedience and revolt. And Gamson, Fireman and Rytina (1982) also make authority central to their experimental analysis of encounters with authorities defined as unjust. But in neither case is the connection between collective action and authority pushed beyond the boundaries of bureaucratic political contexts or the state. The conceptualization proposed herein can be construed as a call to do just that. A final benefit of conceptualizing social movements as collective challenges to authority systems, both institutional and cultural, is that it anchors what we do, as scholars of collective action and social movements, to one of sociology’s central coordinating concepts – authority. Not only do “human beings use authority to coordinate the activities of a large number of people,” but, as Barrington Moore (1978, p. 15), among others, has reminded us, “(i)t reaches into all spheres of social


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life and exists to some degree in all known societies . . .” By linking the study of collective action and social movements to one of the discipline’s core concepts, it makes our enterprise even more central to the broader sociological enterprise of understanding the dynamics of institutional and cultural challenge and change, and thus allows us to move beyond the cliché that what we study is merely just “politics by other means.”

NOTES 1. Since presenting an earlier but quite similar draft of this paper at the August 2002 conference on which this volume is based, there has been a good deal of discussion of and debate about the merits and demerits of McAdam, Tarrow and Tilly’s Dynamics of Contention (see for example, the critiques of Diani, Koopmans, Oliver, Rucht & Taylor, and the responses of McAdam & Tarrow, in the symposium in Mobilization, Vol. 8, 2003). I do not join or engage these other critiques herein, but focus instead on McAdam, Tarrow and Tilly’s concretization of “contentious politics” and its implications for conceptualizing and theorizing about collective action and social movements more generally. For a useful summary of the book and some of the debates and critiques, see Tindall’s review essay (2003). 2. For an elaborated examination and analysis of Promise Keepers, see Williams (2001). 3. And this would clearly appear to be the case for McAdam, who has worked with Gerald Davis on social movement activity in relation to formal organizations (cf. Davis & McAdam, 2000). Given this joint enterprise and the recent flowering of interest in the character and functions of social movements within organizations (see for example, Morrill, Zald & Rao, 2003; Rao, Morrill & Zald, 2000), it is somewhat of a puzzle as to the rationale for McAdam, Tarrow and Tilly’s restrictive, formal conceptualization of contentious politics as elaborated earlier. 4. It is interesting to note that a number of European scholars have recognized the need for more inclusive, typological conceptions of contemporary social movements because of their interest in the “new social movements” and their corresponding realization that not all social movements are focused on the political domain. See for example, Kriesi et al. (1995). 5. Following Weber (1947), it is this granting of legitimacy, however fragile, that distinguishes authority form sheer, coercive power. But authority is a form of power nonetheless, albeit a legitimated form. 6. Social movements are not the only set of collective actors engaged in the business of challenging authorities. Formally established organizations, both for-profit and non-profit, and interest groups do so as well. But they differ in a number of ways along a number of continua: salience of affecting change in relation to their overall purpose; formality of organization; official recognition; access to authorities; and use of institutional versus noninstitutional means of action. Affecting change is the raison d’être of social movements; they generally exhibit much greater variability in terms of organizational formality and official recognition; they typically have less regularized access to authorities; and their means of action generally are more skewed towards the non-institutional end of the continuum. For elaboration of these distinctions, see Snow, Soule and Kriesi (2004).

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7. See Morrill et al. (2003) for a discussion of the complexities of distinguishing between overt and covert political conflict in the context of formal organizations. 8. For a recent example of such an inquiry that is not anchored to the contentious politics frame, see Kniss and Burns’ (2004) examination of religious movements, and particularly their discussion of the relationship between religious movements and other social movements.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I want to acknowledge Rob Benford, Mark Chaves, Dan Cress, John McCarthy, Cal Morrill, Francesca Polletta, Sarah Soule and Mayer Zald, all of whom graciously took the time to read and comment on earlier drafts of this paper. Some but not all of their suggestions have been incorporated into this draft, although perhaps not necessarily to their satisfaction. I also want to thank members of the UCI Social Movement and Social Justice Seminar, including David Meyer and Su Yang, for reading and commenting on an earlier draft. Again, their views on matters discussed herein probably do not always accord with mine.

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Chaves, M. (1997). Ordaining women: Culture and conflict in religious organizations. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Coleman, J. S. (1990). Foundations of social theory. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Costain, A. N., & McFarland, A. S. (Eds) (1998). Social movements and American political institutions: People, passions, and power. Boulder, CO: Rowman & Littlefield. Dahrendorf, R. (1959). Class and class conflict in industrial society. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Davis, G. F., & McAdam, D. (2000). Corporations, classes, and social movements after managerialism. Research in Organizational Behavior, 22, 193–236. Della Porta, D., & Diani, M. (1999). Social movements: An introduction. Oxford: Blackwell. Ferree, M. M., & Hess, B. B. (1985). Controversy and coalition: The new feminist movements. Boston: Twayne Publishers. Gamson, W. A., Fireman, B., & Rytina, S. (1982). Encounters with unjust authority. Homewood, IL: Dorsey. Geertz, C. (1973). Ideology as a cultural system. In: The Interpretation of Cultures (pp. 193–233). New York: Basic Books. Goffman, E. (1974). Frame analysis. New York: Harper Colphon. Goodwin, J., & Jasper, J. M. (1999). Caught in a Winding, Snarling Vine: The Structural Bias of Political Process Theory. Sociological Forum, 14, 27–54. Goodwin, J., Jasper, J. M., & Polletta, F. (Eds) (2001). Passionate Politics: Emotions and Social Movements. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Gusfield, J. R. (1963). Symbolic crusade: Status politics and the American temperance movement. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press. Hall, J. R. (1987). Gone from the promised land: Jonestown in American cultural history. Brunswick, NJ: Transaction. Hall, J. R. (2000). Apocalypse observed: Religious movements and violence in North America, Europe, and Japan. London: Routledge. Hall, R. (Ed.) (1977). Black separatism and social reality: Rhetoric and reason. New York: Pergamon Press. Hanagan, M. P., Moch, L. P., & Te Brake, W. (Eds) (1998). Challenging authority: The historical study of contentious politics. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Hirschman, A. O. (1970). Exit, voice, and loyalty: Responses to declines in firms, organizations, and states. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Hirschman, A. O. (1993). Exit, voice, and the fate of the German Democratic Republic – An essay in conceptual history. World Politics, 45, 173–202. Hodson, R. (1991). The active worker: Compliance and autonomy at the workplace. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 20, 47–48. Jasper, J. M. (1997). The art of moral protest: Culture, biography, and creativity in social movements. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Kanter, R. (1972). Commitment and community: Communes and utopias in sociological perspective. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Kapur, R. (1986). Sikh separatism: The politics of faith. London: Allen & Unwin. Katzenstein, M. F. (1998). Faithful and fearless: Moving feminist protest inside the church and the military. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Kniss, F., & Burns, G. (2004). Religious movements. In: D. A. Snow, S. A. Soule & H. Kriesi (Eds), The Blackwell Companion to Social Movements (pp. 694–715). Oxford, UK: Blackwell.

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Kriesi, H., Koopmans, R., Duyvendak, J. W., & Giugni, M. (1995). New social movements in Western Europe: A comparative analysis. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Lofland, J. (1996). Social movement organizations: Guide to research on insurgent realities. New York: Aldine De Gruyter. McAdam, D., Tarrow, S., & Tilly, C. (1996). To map contentious politics. Mobilization: An International Journal, 1, 17–34. McAdam, D., Tarrow, S., & Tilly, C. (2001). Dynamics of contention. New York: Cambridge University Press. McCarthy, J. D., & Zald, M. N. (1977). Resource mobilization and social movements: A partial theory. American Journal of Sociology, 82, 1212–1241. Mead, G. H. (1962). Mind, self, and society. C. Morris (Ed.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Meyer, D. S., & Tarrow, S. (Eds) (1998). The social movement society: Contentious politics for a new century. Boulder, CO: Roman & Littlefield Publishers. Moore, B., Jr. (1978). Injustice: The social bases of obedience and revolt. White Plains, NY: M. E. Sharpe. Morrill, C., Zald, M. N., & Rao, H. (2003). Covert political conflict in organizations: Challenges from below. Annual Review of Sociology, 29, 391–415. Mueller, C. (1999). Escape from the GDR, 1961–1989: Hybrid exit repertoires in a disintegrating leninist regime. American Journal of Sociology, 105, 697–735. Parsons, T., & Shils, E. A. (1962). Toward a general theory of action. New York: Harper & Row. Prasad, A., & Pushkala, P. (1998). Everyday struggles at the workplace: The nature and implications of routine resistance in contemporary organizations. Research in Sociology of Organizations, 15, 225–257. Rao, H., Morrill, C., & Zald, M. N. (2000). Power plays: How social movements and collective action create new organizational forms. Research in Organizational Behavior, 22, 237–281. Rashid, A. (2000). Taliban: Militant Islam, oil & fundamentalism in Central Asia. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Rice, J. S. (2002). Getting our histories straight: Culture, narrative, and identity in the self-help movement. In: J. E. Davis (Ed.), Stories of Change: Narrative and Social Movements (pp. 79–99). Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Robbins, T. (1988). Cults, converts & charisma: The sociology of new religious movements. Newbury Park, CA: Sage. Scott, J. C. (1985). Weapons of the weak: Everyday forms of peasant resistance. New Haven: Yale University Press. Sennett, R. (1981). Authority. New York: Vintage Books. Shupe, A., & Bromley, D. G. (1980). The new vigilantes: Deprogrammers, anti-cultists, and the new religion. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage. Smith, C., (Ed.) (1996). Disruptive religion: The force of faith in social movement activism. New York: Routledge. Snow, D. A. (1993). Shakubuku: A study of the Nichiren Shoshu Buddhist movement in America, 1960–1975. New York: NY: Garland. Snow, D. A., Soule, S. A., & Kriesi, H. (2004). Mapping the terrain. In: D. A. Snow, S. A. Soule & H. Kriesi (Eds), The Blackwell Companion to Social Movements (pp. 3–16). Oxford, UK: Blackwell. Taylor, V. (1996). Rock-a-bye baby: Feminism, self-help, and postpartum depression. New York: Routledge.


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Tindall, D. B. (2003). From structure to dynamics: A paradigm shift in social movements research? Canadian Review of Sociology & Anthropology, 40, 481–487. Turner, R. H. (1983). Figure and ground in the analysis of social movements. Symbolic Interaction, 6, 175–181. Van Biema, D. (2002, June 17). Rebels in the pews. Time, 54–58. Van Dyke, N., Taylor, V., & Soule, S. A. (2002). Cultural targets and confrontation: ‘New’ versus old social movements, 1968–1975. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association. Wallis, R. (1984). The elementary forms of new religious life. London: Routledge. Weber, M. (1947/1922). The theory of social and economic organization. Translated by A. M. Henderson & T. Parsons. New York: Oxford University Press. Williams, R. H. (Ed.) (2001). Promise keepers and the new masculinity: Private lives and public morality. Lanham, MD: Lexington. Zablocki, B. (1980). Alienation and charisma. New York: Free Press. Zald, M. N. (2000). Ideological structured action: An enlarged agenda for social movement research. Mobilization: An International Journal, 5, 1–16.

THE TARGETS OF SOCIAL MOVEMENTS: BEYOND A FOCUS ON THE STATE Nella Van Dyke, Sarah A. Soule and Verta A. Taylor ABSTRACT Among students of social movements, the prevailing view is that, in Western democracies, most social movements target the state and its institutions. Recently scholars have questioned this definition of social movements, associated with the political process and contentious politics approaches, arguing that public protest is also used to shape public opinion, identities, and cultural practices and to pressure authorities in institutional arenas not directly linked to the state. In this paper, we take up this debate by examining the targets of recent social movements. Our analysis draws from data on 4,654 protest events that occurred in the United States between 1968 and 1975. The protest events in our dataset encompass a variety of tactics used by social movements organized around a number of different issues. We find that, although virtually all movements in the United States direct some public protest at the state, there is considerable variation in the targets of modern movements. During this period, environmental, peace, international human rights, single-policy, and ethnic movements were more likely to direct their appeals to the government, while the civil rights, gay and lesbian, and the women’s movement were more likely to target public opinion and other, non-state institutions. Our analysis calls into question excessively


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NELLA VAN DYKE ET AL.

state-centered conceptions of social movements that view social movement activity as directed primarily at the formal political domain of social life.

INTRODUCTION According to advocates of resource mobilization, political process, and contentious politics approaches, the relationship between social movement actors and the state is crucial for understanding collective action. Tilly (1978, 1995) contends that the forms and targets of public protest associated with modern social movements are part of a larger repertoire of contention that emerged in the 19th century with the rise of the nation-state, centralized decision-making, and the development of capitalist markets. These macrohistorical changes were accompanied by a shift in the scale of claims-making from localized and parochial targets to the major concentrations of capital and political power, particularly the nation-state (Tilly, 1983). Prevailing definitions of social movements reflect this view and virtually all political process conceptions treat the state as the primary target of social movement action. For example, Tilly (1999, p. 257) argues that a social movement “consists of a sustained challenge to power holders in the name of a population living under the jurisdiction of those power holders by means of repeated public displays of that population’s worthiness, unity, numbers, and commitment.” In a recent elaboration of political process theory, McAdam, Tarrow and Tilly (2001, p. 5) analyze 20th century rebellions, revolutions, nationalism, and contentious democratization outside the Western world. In this work, the focus on politics in the narrow sense of the term is even more pronounced. Tilly and his collaborators argue that the field of social movements should reorient itself to the study of what they term “contentious politics,” by which they mean “episodic, public, collective interaction among makers of claims and their objects when: (a) at least one government is a claimant, an object of claims, or a party to the claims; and (b) the claims would, if realized affect the interests of at least one of the claimants” (McAdam, Tarrow & Tilly, 2001, p. 5). As important as the political process approach has been to advancing our understanding of collective protest, attention to the state as the primary target of movement activity recently has come under fire (Goodwin & Jasper, 1999, 2004; Taylor, 2003; Young, 2002; see also other chapters in this volume).1 While it is undeniably true that many social movements direct their grievances and concerns to the state or state institutions, it is also the case that modern movements target other entities, such as religious, medical, and educational organizations, professional associations, and private employers. A considerable body of research shows the extent to which protest in the United States is exercised in multiple

The Targets of Social Movements

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institutional arenas, such as women campaigning for the right to priesthood in the Catholic Church, equality in the military, and recognition of postpartum depression by the medical establishment (Katzenstein, 1998; Taylor, 1996), AIDS activists seeking acknowledgement as experts by the medical establishment (Epstein, 1996), and marginalized racial, ethnic, and sexual identity groups demanding inclusion in higher education (D’Emilio, 1998; Van Dyke, 2003) the professions (Taylor & Raeburn, 1995) and the workplace (Fonow, 2003; Kurtz, 2002; Raeburn, 2004). Research has also shown that movements within faithbased institutions target these institutions for changes in their cultural practices (e.g. adoption of Sunday schools, youth groups, and gospel choirs) (see review in Chaves, 2004). Scholars have also documented the way social movements use cultural forms of political expression not simply in pursuit of policy change but to influence public opinion, for example the use of street performances, cross-dressing, gender transgression, media appearances, and alternative underground magazines (“zines”) by the modern gay and lesbian movement (Gamson, 1995, 1998; Rupp & Taylor, 2003). According to Blee (2002), the cross-burnings and personalized political strategies of contemporary hate movements, such as the Ku Klux Klan, Neo-Nazis, and Skinheads, are geared primarily at promoting racist ideas among the general public. Faith-based movements also rely on public performances, such as parades, mass celebrations, public chanting, and prayer to both stake out moral positions and win converts (Heath, 2003; Pattillo-McCoy, 1998; Snow, 1979). As these studies demonstrate, collective efforts for social change by social movement actors are directed toward the realms of culture, identity, and everyday life, as well as in direct engagement with the state (Fraser, 1997; Melucci, 1989; Taylor & Whittier, 1995). Failure to recognize the multiple targets of collective claims-making paints a biased view of what modern social movements are and what they do. In this chapter, we examine the extent to which different social movements target the state. Despite the obvious importance of the topic, no one has previously examined the targets of different social movements. We begin by discussing the literature that argues that different social movements are based on different fundamental logics or goals, and that these differing orientations influence their actions and targets of change (Rucht, 1988, 1990). We then use a dataset of 4,654 protest events that occurred in the United States from January 1968 through December of 1975 to examine differences in the targets of these social movements. The protest event data used in this chapter involve a number of different issue areas associated with a variety of social movements including the environmental, peace, international human rights, women’s, gay and lesbian, civil rights, a variety of ethnic movements, and several single-policy movements. These data allow us to examine the more fine-grained differences in the targets of specific movements.

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While we find that all movements represented in the dataset target the state in some of their protest actions, there are significant differences between movements in the frequency with which they direct public protest at the political domain. Some movements target the state in nearly all of their actions, while other movements direct their appeals at individuals, other institutions, and the general public. We argue that these findings offer an important corrective to definitions of social movements that limit their focus to collective claims-making directed only at the state.

THE TARGETS OF SOCIAL MOVEMENTS The relationship between social movements and social change has been a central issue for scholars of social protest. To understand this relationship, most writers have tended to classify social movements on the basis of fundamental differences in their issues and goals (McAdam & Snow, 1997; Rucht, 1988). According to this line of analysis, variations in the targets of social movements stem from the fact that social movements have fundamentally different goals. Early formulations defined movements either as instrumental or expressive based on whether a group’s actions and strategies are oriented toward social change or personal change (Aberle, 1966; Breines, 1982; Gusfield, 1963; Jenkins, 1983). More recently, this dichotomy of movement types is reflected in the work of scholars who differentiate between “strategy-oriented” and “identity-oriented” movements (Cohen, 1985; Touraine, 1981) or between movements that use instrumental tactics oriented to external targets (e.g. the law and the state) and movements engaged in what Bernstein (1997, p. 531) terms “identity deployment,” or those oriented to cultural transformation and the recognition of new identities (Bernstein, 2002; Duyvendak & Giugni, 1995). This dichotomous model reveals fundamental differences in the way political process and contentious politics approaches (McAdam, Tarrow & Tilly, 2001; Tarrow, 1994; Tilly, 1978) and new social movement theorists (Melucci, 1989, 1996; Touraine, 1981) and recent critics of the state-centered approach (Goodwin & Jasper, 1999, 2004; Rupp & Taylor, 2003; Taylor, 2003; Young, 2002) view the targets of contemporary social movements. Reflecting this debate, Tilly (1995) excludes claims-making focused on cultural institutions and the affirmation of identity from his definition of modern repertoires of contention. Tilly and his collaborators argue that, with the increasing dominance of the nation-state in the affairs of citizens that accompanied the transition to advanced capitalism, it is the government that often plays the critical role in implementing the reforms advocated by social movement actors. The centrality of the government in implementing law


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and public policy advocated by social movements is confirmed in a burgeoning literature on the policy outcomes of social movements (Amenta, Carruthers & Zylan, 1992; Amenta, Dunleavy & Bernstein, 1994; Amenta & Halfmann, 2000; Andrews, 1997, 2001; Burstein & Linton, 2002; McCammon, Campbell, Granberg & Mowery, 2001; Soule et al., 1999; Soule & Olzak, 2004). On the other side of the debate, driven in part by the work of new social movement scholars (Buechler, 1995, 2000; Castells, 1997; Cohen, 1985; Eder, 1993; Giddens, 1984, 1991; Habermas, 1984, 1987; Melucci, 1988, 1989; Offe, 1985),2 is a body of research on contemporary social movements that do not direct their claims exclusively at the state (Gamson, 1989; Jasper, 1997; Katzenstein, 1998; Kurtz, 2002; Raeburn, 2004; Staggenborg, 2001; Taylor, 1996; Taylor & Rupp, 2003; Taylor & Whittier, 1992; Whittier, 2001). New social movement scholars argue that the expansion of the state has brought about the blurring of the boundaries between the public and private spheres, and that the targets of modern movements are, in part, the bureaucratization and the rationalization of social life and the misrecognition of identities (multiracial, sexual, racial, gender, etc.) and status subordination (of women, gays and lesbians, ethnic and racial minorities) expressed in cultural values and beliefs, social norms and practices, and administrative and professional codes in civil society (Fraser, 1997). Scholarship in the new social movements tradition advocates that we widen the lens to consider the variety of targets of public protest in postindustrial societies (Buechler, 2000; della Porta & Diani, 1999). For example, Taylor (1996) argues convincingly that postpartum depression self-help groups are part of a larger national and international social movement in which participants are struggling to overcome stigmatized identities and challenge dominant constructions of motherhood encoded in public opinion, medical practices, and the law. Rucht (1988, 1990) attempts to resolve the debate over movement targets by offering a model that recognizes that social movements have distinctive logics in terms of their orientations to social change. A “movement’s logic defines a general field of action, the substantive matter of conflict between the movement and its opponents, and the movement’s internal ‘rationale’ ” (1988, p. 319). Rucht (1988) hypothesizes that movements operating under different fundamental logics define their opponents, or the objects of their claims, differently. He categorizes two types of movements based on differences in their fundamental logics: expressive movements and instrumental movements. Expressive/identity movements, such as the women’s and the gay and lesbian movements, are oriented primarily to cultural transformation and identity recognition through expressive actions and alternative institution building. In pursuit of these goals they target cultural norms and institutions, institutional and professional authority, as well as public opinion and beliefs. Contrasted with this type of movement are instrumental or

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strategy-based movements, such as the environmental and peace movements, that attempt to influence state policy and the law through tactical repertoires directed at the government. Implicit in Rucht’s (1988) classification is attention to the relationship between the goals, the tactics, and the targets of social movements. Rucht (1988) provides a convincing theoretical description of these two different logics of collective action. We doubt that most movements fit neatly into one of the two categories, and numerous studies call into question the bifurcation of movement types by demonstrating that most social movements combine both expressive and instrumental action (Bernstein, 1997; Kriesi, Koopmans, Duyvendak & Giugni, 1995; Soule, 1997; Staggenborg, 2001; Whittier, 1995). Although we did not design our study as a test of Rucht’s dichotomous model, this typology provides a rationale for examining the diversity of modern social movements in terms of their targets. We turn now to a detailed description of our protest event data and methods followed by a discussion of the set of descriptive statistics we used to examine the targets of the different social movements in our sample. After presenting these descriptive statistics, we present logistic regression analyses designed to examine the probability that each of the social movements we examine will target the state at public protest events.

DESCRIPTION OF PROTEST EVENT DATASET We use a dataset of 4,654 protest events that occurred in the United States between January 1, 1968 and December 31, 1975 to examine the targets of different, leftoriented social movements.3 The dataset includes protests on the part of virtually every movement on the left that was active during this time period, and therefore includes actions on the part of the peace, civil rights, environmental, women’s, ethnic, gay and lesbian, and international human rights movements, as well as protests around tenants’ rights, freedom of speech, gun control, education, labor, and welfare benefits, as shown in Table 1.4 The protest event data come from The New York Times (NYT), one of the most commonly used data sources for collective action event data (Earl, Martin, McCarthy & Soule, 2004). Data collection and coding took place in two stages: first, assistants scanned the entire daily editions of the newspaper and photocopied all articles that reported events. Then, assistants coded the content of these articles. At both stages, periodic inter-assistant reliability checks were performed to assure that consistency and reliability estimates were consistently at or above 90% agreement. To be included in the dataset, events had to meet three basic criteria. First, in order to be considered “collective” action events, they had to involve more


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Table 1. Representation of Different Movements in the Dataset.

Civil rights Environment Gay and Lesbian Human rights Other Ethnic civil rightsb Other single policy issuesc Peace Women’s Other movementsd

Events (%)

Na

17.3 3.7 1.0 3.2 4.6 20.6 19.8 4.0 33.4

803 171 46 149 215 960 923 184 1552

a Total number of events is 4,654. Events could have multiple issues, hence the N appears larger in this table. b Other Civil Rights category includes Asian American, Native American and Latino Civil Rights. c Other Single Policy Issues include single issue policies such as gun control, prison policy, welfare policy, drug control. d Other Movements includes labor, tenants rights, ideological stances such as imperialism, capitalism and socialism, anti-poverty, education issues, large scale public spectacles like the Olympics, and various ethical and religious claims articulated by movements.

than one person. While it is tempting to include individual acts of protest (e.g. self-immolation), we only include protest events in which two or more people participated. Second, the event had to express some sort of claim or grievance. Finally, the event must have occurred in the public domain.5 The events included in our dataset include conventional political activities such as petitions, letter-writing campaigns and lawsuits, along with more confrontational actions such as marches and civil disobedience. We did not include public, collective events such as block parties, concerts, and fund-raising campaigns unless they explicitly articulated a claim or grievance. There are many virtues of event data collected from national news sources such as the NYT (Earl et al., 2004). Most importantly, the NYT covers an extensive variety of event forms or tactics associated with an extensive list of different social movements, targeting a variety of different entities. In other words, not only does the NYT cover action on a wide variety of social movements, as described above, but it also includes coverage of a wide variety of social movement actions including non-confrontational and confrontational tactics. And, importantly for our purposes here, the events covered in the NYT target numerous different audiences and authorities. The use of newspapers as a source for data on protest is not without its critics, although the purpose of this paper is not to address all of the criticisms of newspaper data (but see Earl et al., 2004). We have, however, attempted to take these criticisms

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seriously and, as such, introduce three different means of reducing potential biases associated with newspapers as a data source. First, our data collection effort was designed to minimize sampling error. Rather than using the NYT Index to identify stories, we read the entire newspaper, scanning virtually every article in every section.6 Therefore, we do not experience the bias that may be introduced by using only the limited information available in the index to identify events, and we are able to locate events that may not have been indexed accurately (Earl et al., 2004). Second, scholars have shown that protest events are more likely to be reported on certain days of the week (Oliver & Maney, 2000). To minimize these effects, rather than sampling from the newspaper in a given period, such as using one day of the week, we have complete daily coverage of the entire time period. Finally, because research on selection bias finds that certain types of events, including those that are larger and more confrontational, are more likely to be reported in the newspaper (see review in Earl et al., 2004), we include several variables in our analysis to control for and minimize the effect of sampling bias. These are discussed below in the variable definition section of the paper. Our use of data on protest events from this particular period (1968–1975) offers both advantages and disadvantages. Research on movements of this era played an important role in the development of resource mobilization and political opportunity theories, which we have argued above have a bias toward the state as the target of social movement action (e.g. Curtis & Zurcher, 1973; Freeman, 1979; Jenkins, 1983; Jenkins & Perrow, 1977; McAdam, 1982; McAdam, Tarrow & Tilly, 2001; Tilly, 1978). Therefore, because this is arguably the most heavily studied period of American social movement mobilization, our results are relevant to the significant body of research and theory that has been developed using studies of this time period. This advantage notwithstanding, it is possible that the movements active during the 1968–1975 time period targeted the state and other social institutions, individuals or the public, to a greater or lesser degree than did movements active during other time periods. For example, it is possible that progressive social movements are more likely to engage in action that targets the state when a friendly and more receptive administration is installed in the White House, as suggested by political opportunity theory. The time period we examine is marked by the presence of Presidential administrations that were relatively hostile to movements of the left, and therefore it is possible that progressive movements are less likely to target the government during the time period under study than they might be in other circumstances. We have attempted to minimize the potential biases associated with this particular period by including a time period variable in our analyses, as we discuss later in the variable description section. However, American politics, including both the institutional arena as well as the social movements sector,


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are influenced by the historical context, thus caution should be exercised before generalizing the results of this study to other periods in U.S. history.

DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS ON PROTEST EVENTS AND THEIR TARGETS As noted above, one of the most important features of our protest event data is that the events are not limited to a single movement, or even a limited set of movements. As a result, these data allow us to examine virtually all movements that protested during this period and received New York Times coverage. Table 1 shows which movements were responsible for staging the 4,654 events described in our dataset. This table shows that in this period, not surprisingly, the peace movement and the civil rights movement staged the largest number of protest events. The civil rights movement staged 803 of the 4,654 events (17%) in the time period, while nearly 20% of the events reported (N = 923) were staged by the peace movement, primarily in opposition to the Vietnam War. The gay and lesbian movement, which was still in its formative stage, had the fewest reported events among the movements active during this time period, with only 46 events reported between 1968 and 1975. Since we are chiefly concerned with the targets of these protest events, it makes sense to next examine which entities were targeted by these 4,654 protest events. Using information on activist claims and on the location of the protest event, we have identified eight types of targets from the protest events in our dataset: the state or government (including all levels – local, state, and federal), educational institutions, business, the general public, individuals, cultural and religious organizations, labor unions or occupational groups, and medical institutions. Some examples of how we used these two pieces of information are illustrative. If protesters gathered outside of a federal office building and argued that the United States government should get out of Vietnam, we coded the state as the target of action. If protesters gathered outside of a location where a controversial figure (e.g. media personality) was speaking, we coded the target as an individual. If a protest occurred on a college campus but targeted the state as the agent responsible for taking action on the issue (e.g. campus anti-war protest in which there was no evidence that the protesters thought the university should do something about the war) then the state rather than the educational institution was coded as the target.7 We define an event as targeting the general public if it was staged in a public location and the protesters’ claims did not describe a specific institutional, state, or individual target (e.g. gay activists staging a kiss-in at a local mall). Table 2 shows that the most common target of protest events is the state, as we expected. Our coding of government targets includes all levels of the government

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Table 2. Representation of Different Targets in the Dataset.

State/Government Educational institutions Public Business Individuals Cultural and religious organizations Unions/Occupational groups Medical institutions a Percentages

Eventsa (%)

Nb

52.5 23.7 9.3 8.3 4.3 2.1 1.1 1.0

2443 1102 431 385 201 98 50 46

sum to greater than 100% because an event could have multiple targets.

b Total number of events is 4,654. Events could have multiple targets, hence the N appears larger in this

table.

(local, state, and federal) as well as components of these levels (e.g. local police forces). Just over half (52.5%) of the events that occurred from 1968 to 1975 targeted the government as the agent responsible for fulfilling movement demands. Educational institutions were the second most frequent target, with nearly 24% of the events focused on them. Only 1% of the events targeted medical institutions, making them the least likely target in this period. While it is interesting that so many of the events targeted the government, it is significant that almost 50% of events did not target the government. This means that if, when collecting these data, we focused only on events that target the state, we would have missed nearly 50% of the protest events that occurred and were reported during this period. This is a fairly important revelation given the tendency of newspapers to inconsistently report on protest using less publicly conspicuous tactics, such as those often used by identity-based struggles, which might also be less likely to target the state (Taylor & Van Dyke, 2004). Finally, Table 3 shows that when we cross-tabulate social movements with targets, there is interesting variation among social movements with respect to their targets. The most important thing to note in Table 3 is that some social movements were far more likely to target the state than others in the 1968–1975 period. For example, only 31.5% of protests around African American civil rights targeted the government, whereas 61.9% of civil rights actions by other ethnic groups were aimed at the government. And, importantly, the African American civil rights, women’s, and gay and lesbian movements in this period all targeted the government less than half of the time. The most frequent target of African American civil rights protest was educational institutions (33.8% of events). Of all of the social movements, the gay and lesbian movement was the most likely to target the


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Table 3. Social Movements and Targets. Government Public Education Business Other Non-Govt. Orgs.c Civil rights Environment Gay and Lesbian Human rights Other ethnic civil rightsa Other single policy issuesb Peace Women’s Other movementsd

31.5 55.6 45.7 72.5 61.9 78.8 73.9 41.3 37.4

17.7 12.3 28.3 7.4 7.0 6.7 8.6 15.8 5.3

33.8 1.8 2.2 7.4 14.4 9.3 13.8 13.6 41.2

6.9 27.5 4.4 10.7 10.7 4.2 3.3 15.8 9.5

8.0 5.9 10.9 5.4 11.2 2.7 2.8 14.1 8.4

a Other

Civil Rights category includes Asian American, Native American and Latino Civil Rights. Single Policy Issues include single issue policies such as gun control, prison policy, welfare policy, drug control. c Other non-governmental targets include religious and cultural organizations, medical institutions, unions and occupational groups, and individuals. See Table 2. d Other Movements include labor, tenants rights, ideological stances such as imperialism, capitalism and socialism, anti-poverty, education issues, large scale public spectacles like the Olympics, and various ethical and religious claims articulated by movements. b Other

public, with 28.3% of the gay and lesbian rights events aimed at influencing the general public. The women’s movement had the most even coverage of non-state targets, and was the most likely to target other non-governmental organizations or institutions, including religious and cultural institutions, unions and occupational groups, and medical institutions. In contrast, some social movements, including the environmental, peace, international human rights and other ethnic civil rights movements, targeted the state in the majority of their actions. Fifty five point six percent of the environmental actions were aimed at the state, while 78.8% of single-issue policy actions targeted the state. The environmental movement also put a substantial amount of pressure on private industry, with 27.5% of their events targeting businesses. Nearly three quarters of the peace and international human rights events targeted the government in their actions. These descriptive statistics illustrate that while the government is targeted in just over half of the 4,654 protest events reported, nearly half of the protest events were directed at some other entity, including other institutions, individuals, and public opinion. Also, these findings suggest that there is variation among social movements with respect to the extent to which they target the state. It seems reasonable to next investigate whether these intriguing descriptive findings hold up to multivariate statistical analysis.

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LOGISTIC REGRESSION ANALYSIS Dependent Variable Because we are especially interested in the extent to which different social movements target the state, we conduct a multivariate analysis using a dichotomous dependent variable which we construct by collapsing the eight target categories described above (see Table 1) into two categories. This variable is coded “1” when a protest event targeted the local, state, or national government and “0” when it targeted some other, non-governmental entity (e.g. business, cultural institutions, educational institutions, and so on). If an event targeted both the state and another institution, group or individual, we coded it as a government-targeted event.

Independent Variables Our multivariate analysis is designed to explore whether different left-leaning social movements are more or less likely to target the government than are other movements. Therefore, we created eight dummy variables for each of the social movements listed in Tables 1 and 3 (civil rights, women’s, gay and lesbian, peace, international human rights, environmental, other single policy, and other ethnic civil rights). We use the primary issues articulated at the event as our criterion for assigning events to a particular social movement, consistent with the practice typical of this literature. We analyze these variables in reference to an omitted category, which includes events staged around various other issues (see Table 1), including labor, tenants’ rights, ideological stances such as imperialism, capitalism and socialism, anti-poverty, education issues, large scale public spectacles like the Olympics, and various ethical and religious claims. In addition to these variables, which are designed to explore whether different social movements have a differential probability of targeting the state, we also include a number of control variables in our model. We include two variables measuring the involvement of organizations in protest. Research suggests that more institutionalized and formalized movements may be better able to target the state because they are more likely to possess the skill, finances, and know-how to do so (Andrews, 2002; Jenkins & Eckert, 1986; Koopmans, 1993; Kriesi et al., 1995; Piven & Cloward, 1977; Staggenborg, 1988; Zald & McCarthy, 1997). To get at the degree of institutionalization or formalization, we include two measures of organization at a protest event. The first is a dummy variable coded “1” when a local or state organization was listed as participating in the protest event. The second is a dummy variable that is coded “1” when a national organization participated at the event. The omitted category includes events that did not involve any organizational


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participation. We suspect that national organizations will be most likely to target the state, while events with no organizational presence will be least likely. We measure national scope by coding whether or not each organizations was present in the Encyclopedia of Associations (1968, 1970, 1972, 1975) a yearly volume that lists every organization of national scope in the country. Our model also includes two variables designed to control for the possible biases introduced by uncontrolled historical conditions as described earlier. One variable measures the effect of similar events in the previous month because we expect there to be continuity in protest activity and timing effects. This is a continuous variable measuring the proportion of events in the previous month that targeted the government. Second, we also include a dummy variable coded “1” if the event occurred during the years 1968–1970. We include this variable because, after running models with separate dummy variables for each year of the study, we determined that the years 1968–1970 had a similar relationship and degree of association with our dependent variable, while the years 1971–1975 were similar.8 Our model also includes several variables to control for potential newspaper reporting bias effects. Research on newspaper selection bias suggests that events near government centers are more likely to be reported and that there is a regional bias in newspaper event data (Oliver & Maney, 2000; Oliver & Myers, 1999). Because we are especially interested in comparing events targeting the government with other protest events, we include a variable coded “1” when the event took place in Washington DC. Our inclusion of this variable ensures that our results are not driven by characteristics of events that are unique to the Washington DC area.9 Research has also shown that the intensity of an event increases the probability that the event will be reported in the newspaper (Barranaco & Wisler, 1999; Hug & Wisler, 1998; McCarthy et al., 1996, 1999; Oliver & Maney, 2000; Oliver & Myers, 1999). To control for the possibility that larger events and/or those with police present were more likely to be covered by our data source (two indicators of event intensity), we include a dummy variable that is coded “1” when police were present at the event and a dummy variable coded “1” when more than one thousand protesters were present at an event.10 Finally, we also include a variable controlling for article length in every model because of the possibility that longer articles will include more complete information about the protest events, including information on the target of the protest events.11

Logistic Regression Findings Our regression analysis examines whether the eight different social movements described above (see Tables 1 and 3) are more or less likely to target the government.

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Table 4. Logistic Regression Analysis of the Government as the Target of Protest, 1968–1975.a ␤ (Standard Error)b African American civil rights Environmental movement Gay and Lesbian movement Human rights movement Other ethnic civil rights Other single policy issue movementsc Peace movement Women’s movement Control variables National organization State or local organization Proportion of previous events targeting government Washington DC area Year of event 1968−1970 Police present Over 1000 participants Length of article ␹2 df

−0.4638*** (0.0945) 0.3978* (0.1728) −0.2223 (0.3265) 0.9075*** (0.2019) 0.8550*** (0.1550) 1.6949*** (0.0944) 1.5093*** (0.0951) −0.4272* (0.1686) 0.4224*** 0.1879*** −0.7385* 1.2771*** −0.8872*** 0.2295** 0.2458* 0.0010

(0.0873) (0.0823) (0.2967) (0.1364) (0.0707) (0.0765) (0.0968) (0.0015)

1142.8817 16

= 4,654 events. Civil Rights category includes Asian American, Native American and Latino Civil Rights. c Other Single Policy Issues include single issue policies such as gun control, prison policy, welfare policy, drug control. ∗ p < 0.05, two-tailed test. ∗∗ p < 0.01, two-tailed test. ∗∗∗ p < 0.001, two-tailed test. aN

b Other

As suggested by the descriptive statistics presented in Table 3, the results of the regression analysis show significant variation in the likelihood of targeting the government among the eight different social movements (see Table 4). The civil rights movement, gay and lesbian movement, and the women’s movement were all less likely to target the government than our reference category, while all of the other individual movements were more likely to choose the government as the target of their actions. A protest held around a women’s movement issue has a 40% probability of targeting the government (see Fig. 1); while an African American civil rights protest has a 41% likelihood of targeting the government. The results also suggest that the gay and lesbian movement is less likely to target the government in this time period, however the coefficient is non-significant.


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Fig. 1. Predicted Probability of Targeting the Government.

Interestingly, other ethnic civil rights movements are more likely to target the government than are the miscellaneous reference movements, a finding that is also reflected in our descriptive statistics in Table 3. This category includes numerous protests on the part of the American Indian movement, Mexican Americans and other Latino groups, and Asian Americans. This finding makes clear intuitive sense with regard to Native Americans, since the government has been a major force dominating both the distribution of land to American Indians and recognition of tribes (Nagel, 1997). That the government would be the target for other ethnic

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groups may also be less than surprising, given the ability of the government to make policy and intervene in the relationships between other social institutions and their recognition and treatment of minorities. These findings do suggest that blanket statements made about “identity” movements may be misleading; social movements organized on behalf of minority group interests, according to our data, vary in terms of the targets they select to effect social change. The peace movement is one of the movements most likely to target the government, with a 78% probability of choosing the government as the target of its actions, as shown in Fig. 1. Stated differently, the peace movement is more than four times as likely to target the government than the other movements included in the reference category. This is not surprising, given that the federal government controls U.S. war-making policy. Protests around miscellaneous specific policy issues, including policing, gun control, and drug laws are even more likely to target the government (80% probability, as shown in Fig. 1). Again, these are issues under the regulation and control of the government, and therefore it is logical that protestors would direct their grievances at governmental entities. The environmental and international human rights movements are also significantly more likely to target the government, with predicted probabilities over 50%. Several of the control variables are also significantly associated with targeting the state. Not surprisingly, the involvement of any type of organization increases the likelihood that the government will be the target of action, and national organizations are more likely to target the government than are state or local organizations. This lends support to resource mobilization theory’s thesis (Zald & McCarthy, 1997) that organizations possess the tools, finances, and knowhow to target the government. Events occurring in the Washington DC area are significantly more likely to target the government than events that took place elsewhere. Contrary to our expectation that there would be continuity in the targets of action, the variable for the proportion of events in the previous month that target the government has a significant negative association with the subsequent targeting of the government. Perhaps this is driven by repression; that is, if the government is more likely to repress movements directed at the state, perhaps repression of previous events serves as a disincentive to target the government in future events. Two of the variables we include to control for potential newspaper reporting bias have a positive and significant association with targeting the government. Net of movement claims, more intense events (e.g. those with over 1,000 participants and those with police presence) were more likely to target the government. Thus, events targeting the state tended to draw more participants than those not targeting the state, and, events targeting the state were more likely to elicit policing. The final control for reporting bias, article length, was non-significant.


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DISCUSSION Perhaps the most significant contribution of nearly three decades of research in the political process and contentious politics traditions has been to paint a vivid portrait of the role that social movements play in the political process both through conventional means (e.g. lobbying, electoral politics, etc.) and through unconventional means, such as protest. The argument presented in this paper stresses the relationship between protest and social change, and we look at the protest actions of a variety of important social movements in recent U.S. history to question whether the most crucial element that defines social movements is overt challenge to state authorities. We are not surprised to find that all of the movements that we examined did, as predicted, direct some of their actions at the state and its institutions. That this was the case, even in a period in which government policies did not strongly favor either the social bases (e.g. racial and ethnic minorities, gays and lesbians, women’s rights advocates) or the grievances of protestors (e.g. peace, environmental protection, international human rights) provides strong evidence that modern social movements do not, as was once believed, avoid politics “through proper channels.” Rather, most modern social movements direct their campaigns to conventional political institutions and elites. The multiple venues in which power is exercised in complex societies requires, however, that we think about protest opportunities and targets in considerably broader terms. That we have found such variation among movements compels us to think in a more complicated way about the targets of modern social movements. Certainly it makes sense intuitively, as new social movement scholars and others have postulated, that the goals and collective identities of challengers would be critical for determining the nature and scope of a movement’s overt challenge to authorities (Melucci, 1996). Thus, it is the case that some of the movements in our sample, including the peace, environmental, and international human rights campaigns, single-policy, and racial and ethnic movements by American Indians, Latino groups, and Asian Americans overwhelmingly directed their campaigns to the state and conventional political authorities. There were, however, several movements for whom social and cultural change, more broadly speaking, were as significant as policy and political change. It is notable that three of the most influential movements over the past several decades of American history – the women’s, civil rights, and the gay and lesbian movements – were less likely to direct protest actions at the state. This finding is consistent with research that suggests that these movements have historically combined tactics such as consciousness raising, self-help, and discursive forms of resistance oriented to cultural and social change with mass demonstrations, direct action,

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and conventional political actions aimed at bringing about changes in government policy (Ferree & Hess, 1994; Rimmerman, 2002; Whittier, 1995). If our analysis is correct, our study provides additional and more rigorous empirical support based on a comparative analysis of a variety of different social movements for the critics of state-centered definitions of social movements. This brings us to the question of potential biases in the method we have used in this research, the coding of protest events from the The New York Times. Critics of this data source suggest that newspapers are more likely to cover issues that are of concern to lawmakers, and protests that occur outside of governmental offices (Oliver & Maney, 2000). If anything, then, our data are weighted toward public challenges to conventional political authorities and against less conspicuous and less public institutional venues. This suggests that our findings have yielded a fairly conservative estimate of the extent to which social movements target nonstate institutions, authorities, and locations. We think that these results have important implications for the field of social movements. How we define and conceptualize social movements influences the questions and the methods that drive our research. The practice of conceptualizing all social movements as focused on government policy (McAdam et al., 2001; Tilly, 1983, 1995, 1999) has led students of social movements to concentrate our attention on the political impact of social movements rather than the role social movements play in broader processes of cultural and social change (Earl, 2000). More importantly, our theoretical ideas about the origins and development of social movements are, to a certain degree, based in the study of particular types of movements to the exclusion of others. In response to their critics, proponents of the political process and contentious politics approaches recently have suggested that, although their framework may be readily applied to contention in any system of institutionalized power, they leave it to other scholars to propose theoretical frameworks for non-state oriented movements (McAdam, 2003; Tilly, 2002). Our research highlights the importance of doing so. If we examine only movements directed at the state, we risk overlooking some of the powerful ways that social movements help shape modern societies.

NOTES 1. See also the alternative definition of social movements offered by Snow, Soule and Kriesi (2004). 2. Increasingly scholars agree that the new social movements are not really new. Calhoun (1995), for example, demonstrates that many of the characteristics argued to be distinctive about new social movements, including a focus on identity, quality of life issues, and the


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use of disruptive tactics, were also common to social movements active in the 19th century. Others suggest that the NSMs are modern manifestations of movements that periodically reoccur and have historical continuity (Brand, 1990; Tarrow, 1991; Taylor, 1989). It is beyond the scope of this chapter to offer a full review of the NSM paradigm, but see Buechler (1995) and Pichardo (1997). 3. These data were collected as part of a larger, NSF-funded, project conducted by Sarah A. Soule, Susan Olzak, Doug McAdam, and John McCarthy. For other uses of these data, see Earl, Soule and McCarthy (2003) and McAdam and Su (2002). 4. Approximately 5% of the events in the dataset were initiated by right-wing social movements, such as the anti-abortion movement. Because we were interested in comparing different left-oriented social movements, we deleted the right-wing events from our analyses. Inclusion of the right-oriented events and a dummy variable to measure them does not significantly alter our results. 5. We did not code private events for two reasons. First, private meetings do not convey a group’s message to either the public or their target unless reported in the newspaper, and, second, we suspect that the newspaper inconsistently reports on private events. 6. We examined all sections of the NYT except the Letters to the Editor, Editorials, Movie Listings, Sunday Magazine, Book Reviews, and Wedding and Anniversary Announcements. Because short articles on protest events were sometimes included in the Classified section, we included this section in our search. Each page of the newspaper was searched systematically, starting from the upper left corner and moving to the bottom right corner. Following this initial screening for headlines, subtitles, photographs and captions, each article on the page was skimmed for events that were embedded in articles which were not obviously about protest events. 7. Because many educational institutions are public and under some degree of governmental control, we considered the possibility that educational institution targets should be included in the government target category. We ran models with the two institutions combined, and the results did not differ significantly from those presented here. We continue to keep educational institutions as a separate target category because of the fact that private schools are not under governmental control, and even public colleges and universities operate with a significant degree of autonomy from the state. 8. We use a dummy variable to represent year rather than a continuous variable for several methodological reasons. First, the effect of time was non-linear for the models predicting the target of action, and this non-linearity would not be captured with a single continuous variable. The fit of the models including the dummy variable rather than the continuous variable was better. Finally, there were significant multi-collinearity problems with the continuous time variable and the variable measuring the effect of previous actions with the same target. 9. We also ran models including a dummy variable coded “1” if the event occurred in New York or a surrounding area, including Connecticut or New Jersey. This variable was not significant, and therefore, we do not include it. For the 1968–1973 data, we also ran models including a dummy variable measuring whether the event occurred on a college campus, based on research which suggests that on-campus events may be less likely to be covered (Oliver & Myers, 1999). The inclusion of the variable did not significantly change our results. We were unable to include this variable in models examining the entire eight year time period because specific information on event location was not recorded for the 1974 and 1975 events.

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10. Information on the number of participants at an event was only available for approximately half of the events in the dataset. For the other events, coders did their best to approximate the number of participants using six categories: less than 10; 10–49; 50–99; hundreds; thousands; and tens of thousands. We initially ran models including a categorical variable for number of participants, as well as models including dummies for each event size. The categorical variable was non-significant, and the only dummy that was significant was thousands of protesters. Therefore, we include a dummy variable measuring whether over 1,000 protesters participated in the event. 11. We use logistic regression analysis to model the probability of an event targeting the state. In logistic regression, coefficients are estimated using maximum likelihood methods and are interpreted as the change in the log odds resulting from a one unit change in the independent variable. Results are interpreted as likelihoods and/or as predicted probabilities. In the text, percentage differences in likelihood are calculated using the formula: [exp (coefficient)−1] × 100. Predicted probabilities are calculated using the formula p = 1/(1 + e−␤x ), where the sum of coefficients (␤x) is transformed to a predicted probability (p).

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This research was supported by the National Science Foundation (SBR-9709337, SBR-9709356 and SES 9874000). Additional funding from the University of Arizona Vice-President for Research Small Grants Program was used to support data collection. We would also like to thank Doug McAdam, John McCarthy and Susan Olzak for their role in collecting the data used for this project.

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Rupp, L. J., & Taylor, V. (2003). Drag queens at the 801 Cabaret. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Snow, D. A. (1979). A dramaturgical analysis of movement accommodation: Building idiosyncrasy credit as a movement mobilization strategy. Symbolic Interaction, 2, 23–44. Snow, D. A., Soule, S. A., & Kriesi, H. (2004). Mapping the terrain. Introduction to The Blackwell Companion to Social Movements. Soule, S. A. (1997). The student divestment movement in the United States and tactical diffusion: The shantytown protest. Social Forces, 75, 855–883. Soule, S. A., McAdam, D., McCarthy, J. D., & Su, Y. (1999). Protest events: Cause or consequence of state action? Mobilization, 4, 239–256. Soule, S. A., & Olzak, S. (2004). When do movements matter? The politics of contingency and the Equal Rights Amendment. American Sociological Review, 69, 473–497. Staggenborg, S. (1988). Consequences of professionalization and formalization in the pro-choice movement. American Sociological Review, 53, 585–606. Staggenborg, S. (2001). Beyond culture versus politics: A case study of a local women’s movement. Gender & Society, 15(4), 505–528. Tarrow, S. (1991). Struggle, politics, reform: Collective actions, social movements and cycles of protest. Western Societies Program, Occasional paper No. 21, Center for International Studies. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Tarrow, S. (1994). Power in movement: Social movements, collective action, and mass politics in the modern state. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Taylor, V. (1989). Social movement continuity: The women’s movement in abeyance. American Sociological Review, 54, 761–775. Taylor, V. (1996). Rock-a-bye baby: Feminism, self-help, and postpartum depression. New York: Routledge. Taylor, V. (2003). Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose. Mobilization, 8, 122–126. Taylor, V., & Raeburn, N. C. (1995). Identity politics as high-risk activism: Career consequences for lesbian, gay, and bisexual sociologists. Social Problems, 42, 252–273. Taylor, V., & Van Dyke, N. (2004). Get up, stand up: Tactical repertoires of social movements. In: D. A. Snow, S. A. Soule & H. Kriesi (Eds), The Blackwell Companion to Social Movements (pp. 262–293). Oxford: Blackwell. Taylor, V., & Whittier, N. E. (1992). Collective identity in social movement communities: Lesbian feminist mobilization. In: A. D. Morris & C. M. Mueller (Eds), Frontiers in Social Movement Theory (pp. 104–129). New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Taylor, V., & Whittier, N. E. (1995). Analytical approaches to social movement culture: The culture of the women’s movement. In: H. Johnston & B. Klandermans (Eds), Social Movements and Culture (pp. 163–187). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Tilly, C. (1978). From mobilization to revolution. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley. Tilly, C. (1983). Speaking your mind without elections, surveys, or social movements. Public Opinion Quarterly, 47(4), 461–478. Tilly, C. (1995). Contentious repertoires in Great Britain, 1758–1834. In: M. Traugott (Ed.), Repertoires and Cycles of Collective Action (pp. 15–42). Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Tilly, C. (1999). From interaction to outcomes in social movements. In: M. Giugni, D. McAdam & C. Tilly (Eds), How Social Movements Matter (pp. 253–270). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Touraine, A. (1981). The voice and the eye: An analysis of social movements. New York: Cambridge University Press.


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Van Dyke, N. (2003). Crossing movement boundaries: Factors that facilitate coalition protest by American college students, 1930–1990. Social Problems, 50(2), 226–250. Whittier, N. E. (1995). Feminist generations: The persistence of the radical women’s movement. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press. Whittier, N. E. (2001). Emotional strategies: The collective reconstruction and display of oppositional emotions in the movement against child sexual abuse. In: J. Goodwin, J. M. Jasper & F. Polletta (Eds), Passionate Politics: Emotions and Social Movements (pp. 233–250). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Young, M. P. (2002). Confessional protest: The religious birth of U.S. national social movements. American Sociological Review, 67, 660–688. Zald, M. N., & McCarthy, J. D. (1997). Social movements in an organizational society. New Brunswick: Transaction Books.

CONTROLLING PROTEST: NEW DIRECTIONS FOR RESEARCH ON THE SOCIAL CONTROL OF PROTEST Jennifer Earl ABSTRACT Work on repression within the social movements literature has largely focused on state-based and coercive repression, despite both the empirical importance of private and non-coercive forms of protest control and the theoretical leverage studying other forms of protest control could offer. This paper argues that scholars should shift from studying repression, which as a terminology carries connotations about state-based and coercive action, and instead focus on the “social control of protest.” The paper then manufactures a literature on private forms of protest control, culling existing work from disparate fields and literatures. These works are organized using a previously published typology of repressive forms that covers such diverse actions as vigilantism and countermovement violence. This organization reveals that empirical research has been done on private protest control even if it has not been named as such or been connected to a coherent body of scholarship on the subject. The paper then examines possible directions for future research that could facilitate the growth of scholarship on private protest control.


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INTRODUCTION The history of social movements has been as much about state power as it has been about the persistence of insurgency. States have shown their capacity and willingness to repress dissent, discourage insurgency and muffle protest. An increasingly prolific and sophisticated set of scholars have focused on explaining state-based repression and this research has brought great rewards. Unlike prior research that attempted to explain the consequences of state-based repression, this strand of research focused primarily on state-based repression as the dependent variable and has worked to understand variations in the “allocation of repression” (Cunningham, 2003). However, largely left out of this renaissance in repression research has been the discussion of private actors, which is critical to full and rich understanding of repression and protest control.1 Civil society, private organizations, and other private actors have been ignored by all but a few students of repression. I argue that this is a costly and problematic omission. One of the costs of this omission is direct: we cannot fully understand the history of many movements or the repression that those movements faced without considering the role of private groups and actors. Consider two clear examples: one cannot make sense of the trials and tribulations of the American labor movement without considering the role of companies (Griffin et al., 1986), private security firms (e.g. Pinkertons; Kowalewski, 1996), and contemporary “union-busting” consulting firms. Similarly, our understanding of the civil rights movement would be quite perfunctory if research on the KKK (McVeigh, 2001), White Citizens Councils (McMillen, 1971), and lynchings (Soule, 1992) did not exist. In both examples, state actors certainly affected protest and were major repressive actors, but the totality of costs imposed on these movements and their participants is not reducible to that state action. More importantly, many of the scholastic costs of ignoring private repressors are “opportunity costs.” I argue that movement scholars generally, and repression researchers in particular, give up a great deal of theoretical leverage by failing to consider private repression. The central goal of this paper is to outline what could be gained if researchers were to more carefully consider and study private repression. In order to accomplish this, I will: (1) discuss why researchers may want to re-consider their collective use of the term repression, arguing that the more inclusive study of “protest control” (or the “social control of protest”) could help to recover neglected research questions; (2) review a previously published typology of protest control that situates private protest control within a larger matrix of control; (3) examine existing research on private protest control in an attempt to manufacture a literature on the topic; and (4) suggest directions for future research.

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CONCEPTS OR BLINDERS? REPRESSION AND THE SOCIAL CONTROL OF PROTEST States have figured centrally in the formal study of repression. In fact, much of the growing literature on repression within the study of social movements does not focus on private actors.2 In a recent review of repression research, Earl (2003) shows that the majority of scholarship has focused on state-based repression, leaving private repression seriously under-studied. Recent interest in protest policing (della Porta & Reiter, 1998), covert state-based, counterinsurgency programs such as COINTELPRO3 (Churchill & Vander Wall, 1988; Cunningham, 2003), and authoritarian regimes (Ball, 2001; Francisco, 2001) all demonstrate this trend, as does the dated nature of many pieces on private repression within the social movements literature. Further, the focus of leading scholars in repression research continues to be on states: at a recent conference on repression, only one of 16 papers addressed non-state repression (Ferree, 2001). There have been opportunities within social movement studies to examine nonstate repressors: Tilly (1978), for instance, invited this type of investigation by defining repression broadly as “any action by another group which raises the contender’s cost of collective action” (p. 100). However, these opportunities have not been seized by social movement scholars, allowing subsequent scholarship on repression to increasingly assume that repression is an almost exclusively statebased phenomenon. Over time, this assumption has ossified, firmly anchoring research on repression to states. While social movement scholars have not studied private repression often, a smattering of contributions across a number of fields demonstrates the promise of research on private repression. It is important to note, though, that even though this paper will manufacture a literature on private repression from existing works, these contributions are drawn from a wide array of fields ranging from labor history, political science, and political sociology to social movement studies. Further, these existing works have not, at least up to this point in time, composed an identifiable and coherent body of scholarship within the social movement repression literature. Instead, these works have been directed toward empirical and theoretical questions motivated by their “home” literatures, suggesting that researchers from other fields have much to offer the study of repression within social movements. It is not simply that research has focused on state-based action, research has also predominantly focused on coercion and violence.4 A recent dissertation summarizes a very common definition of repression: “any actions taken by [government] authorities to impede mobilization, harass and intimidate activists, divide organizations and physically assault, arrest, imprison and/or kill movement participants” (Stockdill, 1996, p. 146). Earl’s (2003) review of the repression

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literature also found that researchers had rarely focused on less coercive, non-violent, or more indirect means of repression (save notable examples such as McCarthy et al., 1991; Oberschall, 1973; and work attempting to explain co-optation). This is surprising considering that Oberschall (1973) introduced the distinction between channeling and coercion over 30 years ago and Tilly’s (1978) definition explicitly creates theoretical space for such a distinction. Similarly, researchers have not focused much attention on toleration or facilitation (Tilly, 1978). Tilly (1978) argued that movements could be facilitated, tolerated, or repressed and suggested hypotheses explaining each reaction. While it is beyond the scope of this paper to fully explore facilitation and toleration, it is important for researchers to realize that protest can be shaped by friendly, merely tolerant, and hostile actors and actions. That is, sometimes carrots shape the contours of protest as much as sticks. Even limited recognition of the possible role of facilitation could inform debates over the channeling. Taken together, these criticisms suggest that there is an ample frontier for researchers to explore in repression research. However, I argue that in order for social movement researchers to seriously undertake that exploration, the object of our study must be re-defined. That is, the terminology of repression now carries so many connotations – including being state-based, violent, and hostile – that it does not precisely define an area of interest and it obscures important theoretical and empirical questions. Instead, I suggest that scholars take a proverbial step back from the study of repression, considering that our collective pursuits might be more appropriately directed at the social control of protest more broadly, which I shorten here to protest control. At its intellectual core, repression research has not been motivated by an interest in violence, or even entirely by an interest in states, but by an overriding interest in understanding how non-movement actors can shape the level and form of protest. To the extent to which the connotations carried by repression have pushed scholars away from fully embracing this question, focusing instead on how state actors can coercively shape the level and form of protest, this has been a theoretically unfortunate narrowing. Just as ethnomethodologists have helped to reveal the assumptions and institutions that grease the wheels of everyday life, so too can a change in conceptual vocabulary reveal the slippage between the motivating interest behind work on repression and the study of repression itself. Indeed, thinking of the social control of protest instead of repression greatly expands the territory with which students of protest control are engaged. As I mentioned with brief examples from the American labor and civil rights movements, this is both an empirically and theoretically necessary move. Further,

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this widening of focus re-positions research on private actors, non-violent action, and toleration and facilitation so that such research can move from an interesting diversion from coercion to an important area of study in its own right. Most importantly, this broad view of protest control can help reveal the ways in which protest control is not a limited and debatably consequential area for movements research but instead a core area that speaks to fundamental movement processes and theories about those processes. Since these may seem to be quite general claims, the central focus of this paper is to outline the specific theoretical gains made possible by this expansion, paying particular attention to private actors who engage in protest control. Before moving on though, it is important to clarify one point. I am suggesting the use of social control as a sensitizing concept, one which I hope makes previously invisible research terrain vibrantly apparent. I recognize that major problems exist with the terminology of social control (Meier, 1982; Sutton, 1996) and I am not advocating its use because the term offers surgical theoretical precision. Instead, I am arguing that in the current research context the over-inclusive and broad meaning of social control is exactly the kind of less bridled guiding concept that students of protest control need in order to expand the set of empirical phenomena to which we attend. Without such a re-adjustment, we may collectively continue to ignore important and productive areas of study within protest control.

SITUATING PRIVATE PROTEST CONTROL If researchers are to more seriously consider private protest control, two questions immediately arise. First, how does private protest control relate to other forms of protest control? That is, if researchers are to allow for private forms of protest control, where do such forms fit within the larger field of protest control research? Second, are there different types of private protest control and how can researchers theoretically parse different examples of private protest control? I will address each of these questions in turn. I begin by reviewing a typology of repression introduced in a prior publication (Earl, 2003), which can be thought of more generally as a typology of protest control. This typology was initially developed to theoretically arrange disparate research findings from previous research on repression and protest control but has the added advantage of creating space for the theoretical consideration of private protest control. The typology of protest control introduced in that paper focuses on three key theoretical dimensions. The first dimension is the identity of the control agent: is the agent a federal political actor, local political actor, or private actor? The relevance of this dimension to the topic of private protest control is clear, but

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as noted above, this dimension has not been attended to in the literature on repression. The second dimension is the character of the action taken. Principally, the concern here is whether the action was a type of coercion or a type of channeling (Oberschall, 1973; Tilly, 1978): Coercion involves shows and/or uses of force and other forms of standard police and military action (e.g. intimidation, harassment and direct violence). Channeling involves more indirect repression, which is meant to affect the forms of protest available, the timing of protests, and/or flows of resources to movements (Earl, 2003, p. 48).5

The third dimension is the visibility of the control action. The typology attempted to simplify this empirically continuous dimension by employing “a stark contrast between observable and unobservable actions even though the level of visibility could actually be placed on a continuum from entirely invisible actors, actions, and intentions to entirely visible actors, actions, and intentions” (Earl, 2003, p. 48). Further, since channeling is frequently “overbroad” in its regulation – meaning that both protest and non-protest activities are constrained – the typology avoids the more familiar language of covert and overt which could be misleading when applied to channeling. For instance, while U.S. Internal Revenue Service regulations on non-profits apply to both non-profit social movement organizations and other nonprofits that are not associated with any social movement, these same regulations have been argued to strongly shape social movement organizing (McCarthy et al., 1991). This results in some level of invisibility for the protest control aspects of a policy because the general public does not readily connect the policy with protest control (but the regulations themselves are not secretly or “covertly” created and policed). The crossing of these three dimensions yields a 12-celled typology. Table 1 reproduces an abbreviated version of that typology. Even with this shortened examination of the entire typology, it clearly situates work on private protest control within a wider matrix of protest control forms. In addition to clarifying the location of private protest control vis-à-vis other forms of protest control, it is also worth briefly remarking on examples of the four forms of private protest control suggested by this typology. First, there is observable, coercion by private agents. As will be discussed in more detail below, countermovements can openly attempt to repress their opponents. Bromley and Shupe (1983), for instance, discuss anti-cult activists attempts to discredit cults and “de-program” cult members. Second, there is also unobserved, coercion by private agents. Anonymous death threats, threatening phone calls to activists and other forms of vigilantism would be categorized here. Less “ideal typical” examples of this type of protest control

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Table 1. A Typology of Protest Control.a Coercion

Channeling

Observable

Unobserved

Observable

Unobserved

State agents tightly connected with national political elites

Military control

Counterintelligence program

Obstruction of funds

U.S. tax law on non-profits

State agents loosely connected with national political elites

Local protest policing

State or local counterintelligence

Protest permitting requirements

Financial aid restrictions on students convicted of crimes

Private agents

Countermovements

Private threats

Preferences of elite patrons for specific protest goals or forms

Company towns

a This

is a condensed version of the typology introduced as Table 1 in Earl (2003). For citation to this typology, please consult and cite the original article in which it appeared.

also exist. For instance, some activists are attacked, and even killed in retribution for their activist efforts. Such instances are semi-covert in that the identity of the perpetrator is meant to remain unknown even while the act and its motivation are meant to serve as a public warning to activists. In addition to the two forms of coercive protest control, there are also two forms of private channeling.6 Discretionary elite patronage is a good example of observable channeling by private agents. While this will be discussed in more detail below, prior research on financial support suggests the possibility that elite patronage may shape the agenda and tactics of resource-dependent organizations (McAdam, 1982).7 Finally, unobserved, channeling by private agents has been observed frequently in labor-capital interactions. For example, “company towns” are built to make protest unthinkable, and if considered, impossible to actually undertake. A less totalizing approach by companies has included disciplinary policies that limit the kinds of activities in which employees can engage both inside and outside of work and the formalization of individualized grievance proceedings that prevent the collectivization and radicalization of employee troubles. Despite their less proximate or obvious relation to protest, these corporate tactics can nonetheless strongly shape the emergence, form, and frequency of protest. I will discuss research on each of these four types of protest control in more detail in the next section, but it is important to first remark on the totality of the

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typology. One of the key advantages of this typology is that it situates private protest control within a wider matrix of social control measures directed toward protest. In highlighting some of the distinctions between private protest control and different forms of state-based protest control, the typology suggests that we should treat the distinction between public and private as an interesting and important theoretical variable, instead of as a litmus test for whether an action could be properly described as repressive. For instance, researchers could expect that the processes that drive private protest control may be distinct from the processes that drive local and/or national state-based protest control. This is an important theoretical and empirical issue, but one which is being side-stepped presently. Second, the typology also suggests that some of the same dimensions that can help distinguish between different forms of state-based protest control can also be used to distinguish between different kinds of private protest control. In both instances, researchers should attend to: (a) whether private or public agents employ coercion or attempt to channel protest; and (b) whether those agents do so visibly or less perceptibly. Such distinctions suggest that even researchers who are exclusively interested in state-based protest control can gain from this typology. For instance, a strong test of the peculiar institutional power of states is to ask whether the processes behind state-based, observable coercion are more similar to the processes behind private, observable coercion or more similar to the processes behind state-based, unobserved channeling. If states are as theoretically dominant as researchers treat them, their institutional characteristics should decisively pattern the processes of protest control, overwhelming the causal effects of either perceptibility or coercion/channeling. However, if the processes underlying state-based, observable coercion were found to be more similar to the processes underlying private, observable coercion, then it would seem that the institutional fingerprints of states are less dominant than researchers now assume. In addition to suggesting how private protest control may relate to other forms of protest control, the typology also illustrates that even within private protest control, there are important distinctions. The next section of the paper elaborates on those distinctions and reviews existing research on private repression in more detail.

PRIOR RESEARCH ON PRIVATE PROTEST CONTROL Prior research on what could be characterized as private protest control has been spread out across a wide array of sub-literatures in political sociology, political science and the study of social movements. In this section of the paper, I attempt

Coercion

Vigilantes Unconnected to the state Semiconnected Regime supported

Observable

Unobserved

Stop or Contain Active Protest

Stop or Contain Active Protest

Channeling Observable Prevent Mobilization

Countermovements Grass-roots

Elite-driven

Shape Form of Insurgency

Law Enforcement Group (LEG) Guatemalan death squads

“Fight off” reactionsa Strike breaking; union-busting campaigns

Anti-cult movements; pro-life movement; pro-Scientology AF of California

Black-listing; intelligence gathering

“Preventative strategy”a “Open shops”

Funding trends and donation decisions “Buy off” reactionsa Workers councils and company unions

Group charity appeals; charity watchdogs

Company towns

Company mandated grievance proceedings

White supremacy movement with such groups as White Citizens Councils and the KKK Astroturf movements

These names are taken from Lammers (1977).

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a

Prevent Mobilization

Physical attacks on activists

Formal organizations Funders

Educational institutions Business enterprises

Shape Form of Insurgency

Unobserved

Controlling Protest

Table 2. Research on Private Protest Control.

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to bring some of these seemingly unrelated research projects together into a manufactured literature on private protest control. My synthesis of this work stresses three points: (1) although most of the research I will review does not label itself as research on private repression, there is in fact a surprisingly wide variety of research that students of private protest control could draw upon; (2) despite this variety, there are important silences that represent opportunities for further research; and (3) while there are many potential private protest control agents, only a few of these agents seem to use an assortment of protest control tactics. Table 2 organizes prior research to illustrate these three points.8 Along the columns are the types of private protest control suggested in Table 1, with one significant elaboration. I have further discriminated in this table between channeling that is aimed at limiting the capacity to mobilize and channeling that attempts to shape the form or goals of existing protest. Thus, this table actually outlines six types of private protest control: (1) observable coercion; (2) unobserved coercion; (3) observable channeling directed at preventing mobilization;9 (4) observable channeling directed at shaping existing protest; (5) unobserved channeling directed at preventing mobilization; and (6) unobserved channeling directed at shaping existing protest. Arrayed along the rows of the table are various actors that have appeared in research on private protest control.

Vigilantes While the table may seem complicated at first, the results break down quite easily. For instance, beginning with the least corporately organized actors, vigilantes and vigilante groups have been widely acknowledged as private, coercive protest control agents (Kowalewski, 1996). As the blank cells for vigilantism and channeling show, research has not identified instances of vigilante channeling. Instead, vigilantes seem to exclusively use violence, harassment, and intimidation in their attempts to stop or contain existing protest. Despite this major similarity, vigilantes have been found to vary in the extent to which they can be thought of as fully private actors. For instance, just as hate crimes generally tend to be perpetrated by private, and often solitary, actors (Turpin-Petrosino, 2002), it is likely that many physical attacks against activists, are also committed by vigilantes that lack formal connections to the state. As well, while many suspect deeper linkages between the pro-life movement and those who attack pro-choice advocates and abortion providers, many of the formal functionaries of the prolife movement have tried to distance those attackers from the pro-life movement (Blanchard, 1993).10 Similarly, while I do not know of any systematic studies on the harassment of movement workers and participants through death threats, letters,

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and phone calls, there is a great deal of anecdotal support for both the rampant existence of such private protest control and also for its negative effects on unlucky recipients. In contrast, some vigilantes have a loose connection to state actors, even if state actors cannot control their actions. In the U.S., a prime example of this type of vigilante would be the Law Enforcement Group of New York (LEG), which was a right-wing spin-off of the NYPD’s Policeman’s Benevolent Association (PBA). When the already conservative PBA was seen by some white rank-and-file officers to be too lenient and liberal, a small group of officers formed LEG in the late 1960s. Among other LEG activities, members were purportedly responsible for attacks on members of the Black Panthers (Astor, 1971). None of LEG’s actions were state-sanctioned but I label this group semi-connected to the state because their dual membership as police officers and vigilantes afforded them more leeway in committing and getting away with illegal behavior and intimidation. Finally, some vigilantes essentially operate with the permission of local or national authorities. Thus, even though these vigilantes are technically private, state actors supply them with weapons and training as well as virtual immunity from prosecution for their acts. Guatemalan death squads are a classic example of this type of public/private repressive hybrid (Kowalewski, 1996).

Formal Organizations In contrast to vigilantes, formal organizations have been quite inventive private protest control agents, using a range of tactics to prevent, co-opt and oppose social movements. Indeed, as Table 2 reveals, different types of formal organizations have run the gamut of protest control measures, ranging from engineering work environments to create worker quiescence to the extremely violent suppression of protest. Further, many types of organizations have the potential to engage in protest control. In particular, research on private protest control has focused on three types of formal organizations: (1) funding-related agencies; (2) educational institutions; and (3) business enterprises.11 Funding-Related Agencies The protest control that funding-related agencies engage in is more well-known to students of social movements. Studies exist on two possible types of protest control. First, there are issues related to elite funding, which I have labeled observable channeling with the goal of shaping existing protest. Largely, this revolves around a familiar debate over funding, co-optation, and flank effects. McAdam argues that the “twin dangers of co-optation and the withdrawal of elite support” (1982,

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p. 29) threaten social movement organizations (SMOs). On the one hand, external funding can be used to channel dissent in more conventional and institutional directions. McAdam argues that such funding is offered in a implicit exchange relationship: “elite support is offered as an inducement to insurgents to pursue movement goals through normal political means” (1982, p. 28). On the other hand, organizations that come to depend on elite funding may refuse to moderate their goals or tactics, thereby risking de-funding. Once dependent on these elite funding sources, McAdam (1982) argues such organizations are likely to fold if elite patrons withdraw support. Further, recent research suggests that this is still a dilemma that SMOs and other non-profits face today (Silver, 1998). Research that has attempted to examine the seriousness of these charges has been inconclusive in its findings. Jenkins and Eckhert (1986), for instance, studied this phenomena only to argue that elites may prefer moderate groups because of a genuine belief in the likely success of more moderate groups compared to radical groups. Thus, instead of being motivated by a desire to channel protest, elite benefactors may believe that they are helping to build a stronger movement. In fact, their research shows that while elite patronage was reactive and favored moderate SMOs, radical groups were not punitively de-funded. Instead, potential benefactors never considered more radical groups. Other research has gone farther in contesting McAdam’s claims on funding by empirically demonstrating that some funding-related relationships can increase contentious action instead of moderating movements. Cress and Snow’s (1996) study of homeless-related SMOs suggested that benefactors could increase activism by providing resources connected to SMO viability on a dependable basis. Instead of distracting SMOs from activism, benefactor relationships seemed to allow homeless SMOs to focus on activism and organizing instead of on resource flows. Further, in contrast to findings of reactive funding or reactive de-funding, Cress and Snow suggest that funding tended to precede upswings in activism, implying that benefactors were attracted to certain styles of SMO activism and then funded those styles without seeking to control or limit activism. Finally, they did not find a relationship between benefactor support and the use of nonmilitant tactics. Haines’ (1984) findings further complicate the empirical debate over elitefunding and channeling. His study of “radical flank effects” argues that the existence of radical groups actually increases funding provided to more moderate groups, suggesting a “positive radical flank effect.” However, these results do not completely resolve the channeling debate. Funding to more moderate groups should have given more moderate groups a relative advantage over radical groups, ultimately propelling the movement in a more moderate direction. In this way, the channeling that occurred may have used selective facilitation instead of

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selective de-funding to nonetheless shape the form of the movement. If repression researchers narrowly construe the subject of their study and ignore the potential that selective facilitation holds for protest control, the literature will lose valuable leverage over understanding channeling. A second type of funding-related channeling is more obscured but nonetheless can shape the goals and tactics of SMOs. McCarthy et al. (1991) argue that both combined charity appeals and private monitors of charities exert conservative influences on SMOs seeking elite patronage. In the case of combined charity appeals, SMOs may try to become part of larger funding drives, such as the United Way’s drive, so as to raise more money. However, in order to participate in such a combined charity appeal, SMOs must comply with the operational and spending regulations set forth by the organizing agency. McCarthy et al. (1991) also argue that two charitable accreditation boards, the National Charities Information Bureau and the Philanthropic Advisory Service, create pressure for more moderate action by SMOs. Even though these boards cannot directly provide or withdraw funding, the ratings they create serve as important gatekeeping devices. For instance, SMOs that spend “unacceptable amounts” on grass roots fund-raising or other activities may find that their ratings suffer as a result. Educational Institutions Educational institutions, and universities in particular, have also had a long history of preventing, shaping, and confronting insurgency. I rely heavily here on Lammers (1977) excellent study of a wide range of university responses to protest and research on those responses. Lammers argued that universities have a variety of responses to protest from which they can choose. Perhaps the most obvious choice is to coercively control protest using what Lammers refers to as “fight-off” tactics. Fight-off tactics involve applying negative sanctions, including disciplinary and police action, to protesters as well as attempts to diminish the space open to protesters through restrictions on the use of university facilities. In this very adversarial view, “authorities try to subdue recalcitrant students and ‘roll back’ or at least ‘contain’ the opposition, which is considered to be non-legitimate” (Lammers, 1977, p. 176). Of course, sometimes universities use carrots instead of sticks and encourage protest so long as that protest follows certain guidelines. When universities use “buy-off” tactics (Lammers, 1977), universities provide rewards for actual and potential insurgents who seem willing to negotiate or limit protest in certain ways. In some uses, this tactic is most like channeling in that universities attempt to reward moderate behavior and goals. Taken to its fullest, it can be a more “concessive strategy” (Lammers, 1977) in which universities are no longer trying to channel protest but to end it through providing protesters with the outcomes they seek.

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Finally, some universities use a “preventive strategy” (Lammers, 1977). In such a circumstance, a university may alter its organization to make it less objectionable to students, hence avoiding future protest. Alternatively, universities might attempt to install grievance proceedings, such as ombudsman programs, that can funnel off potential protest supporters. Again, universities can vary in their use of this strategy. Some universities may use a preventive strategy out of a desire to better meet students’ needs. Others may use such a strategy merely to avoid potential protest. While Lammers clearly leans toward the former motivation, it is not clear that universities must have such a good-natured view in order to engage in a preventative approach to protest control. Business Enterprises Out of the pool of potential private protest control agents reviewed here, businesses have used the widest array of tactics in preventing and handling protest. The most notorious tactics have been coercive in nature. Labor history is replete with examples of private security, most infamously in the case of “Pinkertons,” being employed to physically control and suppress protest (Kowalewski, 1996). Whether attempting to break a strike or a unionizing campaign, these private police forces have historically armed businesses with often well-equipped and under-policed cadre of personnel willing to suppress protest at almost any cost. The willingness and ability of such private forces to violently quell protest has declined in recent years in the U.S., but the imprint of such forces on labor history is clear nonetheless. Businesses have not always been as openly coercive. Research suggests that U.S. corporations have made extensive use of covert coercion including the use of spies, intelligence gathering, black-listing, and intimidation (Griffin et al., 1986). In some labor disputes this intimidation and violence has reached deadly proportions; labor organizers and strikers have been killed, allegedly at the hands of business mercenaries (Gaventa, 1980). Businesses have also worked to alleviate the need for coercive protest control by attempting to channel dissent. As shown in Table 2, corporations have pursued four different types of channeling strategies. When more obvious attempts are concerned, labor history suggests that industry lobbied for and tried to maintain “open shops,” as a way of curtailing unionization (Griffin et al., 1986).12 Closed shops require that all workers financially support the union, whether or not they are members. This has proven to be a critical mobilizing tool for unions. Open shops, to the contrary, allow workers to participate or donate at their own discretion, which has historically diminished unionization. By striking at workers’ capacity to protest (represented by unions), businesses tried to ensure that workers were not provided an organizational setting in which individual problems could develop into

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collective grievances. Further, to the extent to which grievances were collectivized, businesses preferred that workers lack an organizational vehicle through which to press those claims. For some, this attack on the capacity to organize and protest may seem distant from the types of coercive protest control that industries also employed. However, as Cunningham’s (2003) work on state-based repression points out, attacks against the capacity of individuals to organize and movements to pursue their goals can have very serious results. When some form of collective organizing seemed impossible to avoid, corporations have sponsored workers councils or company unions (Griffin et al., 1986), seeking to divert workers energies away from independent, aggressive, and effective unions. This second form of observable channeling attempted to shape existing insurgency into a controllable, if not fully domesticated, form. I have labeled these councils as observable because the connections between workers councils and company unions were clear to industry leaders and workers alike. As Griffin et al. (1986) note: In exchange for loyalty and commitment to the firm, capital was willing to extend to labor a “voice” in plant operations and a concern for its material and psychological well-being. The “voice” was to be exercised through company unions, known initially as “works councils” or “employee representation” plans; the well-being of the worker was to be achieved through “welfare capitalism.” Company unions, which enrolled about a million and a half workers in 1928 . . . were essentially formal grievance committees formed and controlled by management and, after the wartime gains or organized labor, were increasingly established as a “safety valve” to counter labor’s self-organization, often during an organizing drive or strike (p. 158).

Industries have also pursued less obvious forms of channeling. For instance, internal, formal grievance proceedings are a less noticeable form of channeling that attempts to shape the form of grievance expression (Hebdon & Stern, 1998). In some ways these requirements mimic the workers unions just discussed. Like workers unions, these grievance proceedings attempt to channel the expression of grievances into comfortable formats (from a corporation’s perspective). However, unlike more collective formats, grievance proceedings often further limit protest by individualizing or particularizing grievances and their remedies. Put differently, since most grievance proceedings are based around individual complaints, workers have less of a capacity to realize their common concerns. Further, even if workers were to recognize their shared concerns, the format of most grievance procedures ensures that workers must pursue their grievances in isolation if they hope for a satisfactory resolution. I label these procedures unobserved channeling because the connection to protest control has been less public than it was for company unions. Finally, the company town has proven to be one of the most pernicious forms of unobserved channeling, attempting to entirely pre-empt protest. Gaventa’s (1980)

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path-breaking research on the manufacturing of quiescence in Appalachian coal mines provides an excellent window into the way in which company towns have served to incapacitate workers, turning miners in the region into “docile diggers.” Company towns are towns in which a dominant firm controls access to employment, housing, retail shops, political positions, and legal posts. Virtually every aspect of a worker’s day-to-day life depends on the company, creating multiplex relationships of dependency that render workers particularly vulnerable to company control. Gaventa’s (1980) research demonstrated the profound effects. Most frequently, workers came to construct their own interests as congruent with the company’s interest, making unionization or protest incomprehensible. This construction of interest, Gaventa (1980) argues, represents a third face of power where actors do not even realize that they are subject to another’s interest and will. In such a town, when individual workers did have a problem with or concern about the company, they were branded trouble-makers. These trouble-makers (and frequently their extended families as well) could then find that the entire town had turned against them. For example, if a worker complained about working conditions, that worker might be fired and find their family and their extended families evicted from their rental housing. Even where work conditions were not in question, companies still made clear that any non-conformity was to be avoided. Gaventa suggests that even refusing to purchase goods from a company store could result in dismissal, eviction, or black-listing. Whether as a result of perceived interests or fear of reprisals, company towns were able to affect private as well as public behavior. Gaventa (1980) demonstrates that even voting behavior, which is allegedly secret, depended on whether one lived in a company town or a town with less company control. In addition to preventing institutionalized action against company interests through affecting voting, company towns effectively limited unionization and protest as well. In the few historical moments in which the “docile diggers” he studied did attempt to unionize, the company controlling the town had begun to fail to paternalistically provide for its employees. Mass layoffs had the paradoxical effects of freeing workers from the company’s iron grip while also casting workers into further poverty. Gaventa suggests that at such moments the ideological beliefs that promoted worker quiescence were challenged, the costs of activism were temporarily diminished, and grievances spiked. The result was a switch from passivity to defiance. In total, this discussion suggests that businesses have utilized a wide and diversified arsenal of protest control tools. Indeed, this arsenal in many ways undergirds a primary claim of this paper: we cannot fully understand the social control of protest (or “repression”) without reference to a large variety of private protest control tactics.

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Countermovements Perhaps one of the most overlooked connections between repression research and other social movements research has been the role of countermovements in protest control. This is surprising since many well-known movements and countermovements have worked to limit the mobilization of their opponents. Put differently, some countermovements have moved beyond advocacy for their own goals by working to actively thwart the mobilization of their opponents, even resorting to clandestine activities and violence to do so. Yet, instead of conceptualizing such confrontations as protest control, they have been subsumed under a more general framework of movement-countermovement interaction. I maintain that we should not assume that protest control conducted by countermovements operates in a fundamentally different manner than other forms of private protest control. At the least, whether or not countermovements engage in protest control differently from other protest control agents is an open empirical and theoretical question that is presently entirely ignored in the literature. In reviewing prior research on countermovements, protest control has been featured in two different types of countermovements: (1) grass-roots countermovements; and (2) elite-driven countermovements. In both cases, countermovements make use of observable and unobserved forms of coercive protest control. Grassroots Countermovements Research suggests that coercive protest control has been the primary protest control tool of grassroots countermovements. In particular, if we think of coercion as actions aimed at immediately curtailing or stopping protest, including violence but also intimidation and spying, countermovements have certainly engaged in such activity. Bromley and Shupe (1983) studied a religious movement – the Moon Unification Movement – and the Anti-Cult Movement (ACM), which developed to oppose the Moons. Using formal organizations, a small network of “deprogrammers,” family networks, and more accepted churches, the ACM attempted to force the de-mobilization of the Moons and to prevent further participation in the Moons by their families and friends. Although many ACM actions would be best characterized as simple advocacy of an anti-cult position (and thus should not be thought of as related to protest control), the ACM also engaged in “de-programming,” in which family members who had joined the Moons were kidnapped in hopes of separating them from the Moons permanently. In typical de-programming attempts, kidnapped Moon family members would be held against their will in hotels while so-called de-programmers worked to psychologically coerce them into renouncing Moon membership and beliefs (Bromley & Shupe, 1983). Of course, family members believed that this temporarily negative state of affairs was legitimated by the overall best interest of

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the family member involved. Nonetheless, there can be no doubt that the ACM used tactics that could be considered coercive and were meant to directly impede the mobilization of the Moons (Bromley & Shupe, 1983). More recent work on the pro-life movement has shown that beyond the sorts of vigilante acts discussed above, the pro-life movement also uses direct intimidation to try to limit the pro-choice movement. This happens most clearly in protests that attempt to block reproductive health and abortion clinic entrances or by pro-life protesters who survey such clinics, hoping to gather information on the women who enter such clinics and their friends and families. Whether by directly intimidating women so that they choose not to enter clinics or by disclosing information about a possible abortion to the friends and family of women seeking care at a clinic, the clear objective is to prevent women from seeking and/or having abortions. The climate created around such clinics is also meant to intimidate staff and doctors in hopes that the pro-choice movement will wither under the stress of providing services to women. To the extent to which pro-life movement activists correctly understand that there is no meaningful right to an abortion if women cannot actually access abortion services – either because providers have been scared away from offering abortions or because visiting a clinic is too dangerous – it is clear that these actions are meant to challenge the pro-choice movement. Of course, research suggests that countermovements do not have a monopoly on coercive tactics. At times, movements react to countermovements in equally coercive ways. For example, in the new world of “e-contention” (Earl & Schussman, 2003), or computerized contention, Peckham (1998) examined the interactions between the Church of Scientology and its on-line opponents. He found that both opponents of Scientology and the Church tried to limit the resources available to the other and to harass and intimidate opponents. In the area of more conventionally understood countermovement tactics, opponents of Scientology threatened to publish copyrighted and sacred Church documents, spread the stories of ex-Scientologists who renounced the Church and viewed it as a cult, and otherwise discredit Scientology. In reaction, the Church threatened Internet providers who allowed anti-Scientology rhetoric on their servers, infiltrated and disrupted online forums for those opposed to Scientology, in addition to pursuing a range of civil and criminal actions against opponents. In addition to this fairly public coercion, some movements and countermovements have attempted to coerce their opponents less visibly. In many instances, this coercion is meant to be a warning to the movement and thus somewhat visible, although the identity of those committing acts of violence and intimidation are often hidden. As well, the violence and intimidation that is publicly acknowledged probably only scratches the surface. However, this violence differs from the

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vigilante violence discussed above in that it is more of a coordinated and collective effort. Examples of such actions include secretive harassment, intimidation and violence committed by white supremacist groups such as the KKK and White Citizens Councils. Stealthily committed night-time violence against blacks was a hallmark of the KKK. Histories of the civil rights movement leave no doubt as to the terror and intimidation that the KKK inspired. White Citizens Councils, on the other hand, were largely considered the “more respectable wing of the resistance movement” (McMillen, 1971, p. vii) because they claimed to use legal means to oppose desegregation and the civil rights movement. In fact, in some cases White Citizens Councils were quite distinguishable from the secretive but exceptionally violent KKK. Yet, in other cases White Citizens Councils more “nearly resembled the Klans than Councils” because they were “prone to violence and strident anti-Semitism, committed to secrecy and other behavioral patterns associated in the popular mind with hooded night-riders” (McMillen, 1971, p. vii). Indeed, some of violence associated with White Citizens Councils was even quite public. For instance, Nat King Cole was assaulted at a Birmingham auditorium by members of the North Alabama Citizens Council. Despite McMillen’s persuasive attempts to distinguish between more legally-minded White Citizens Councils and the more coercive KKK, even McMillen acknowledges that intimidation (whether economic, social or physical) was a cornerstone of White Citizens Council action: But in at least three states, whites answered with a vengeance. Spurred by local Citizen’s Councils, militants in Alabama, Mississippi and South Carolina met the black challenge with economic reprisal, social pressure and in some cases violence. Although repeatedly denying its role in white retaliation against Negroes, the Council, from its inception, advocated the use of intimidation as a means of quelling desegregation (McMillen, 1971, p. 209).

McMillen goes on to quote from Mississippi council leaders who suggested that lawful economic pressure could be placed upon blacks to dissuade them from desegregation attempts. In light of existing evidence, it would be difficult to assert that White Citizens Councils did not work behind the scenes to intimidate and harass “militant” blacks: housing rentals and mortgages, credit, employment, and sometimes one’s own physical safety came to depend on eschewing an interest in desegregation. Elite-Driven Countermovements In addition to grassroots countermovements, elite-driven countermovements have also resorted to coercive protest control tactics. According to Pichardo (1995), elitedriven movements are movements where “elites are responsible for the generation

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and leadership of the movement and its movement organizations, are highly involved in the process of mobilizing and recruiting participants, and determine the movement’s agenda” (p. 24). In short, such a movement is “activated, promulgated, and supported by elites” (Pichardo, 1995, p. 24). In his rich and innovative work on the topic, Pichardo argues that in many ways these elite-driven movements look and operate like grassroots countermovements. I argue that this similarity extends to the way in which elite-driven countermovements have used observable and unobserved coercion to immobilize their opponents. For instance, in his analysis of the Associated Farmers of California (AF), which opposed farm worker unionization in the 1930s, Pichardo argues: The AF was perhaps the most virulent and notorious right-wing American group, with the possible exception of the Ku Klux Klan. Borne out of the labor turbulence in the agricultural fields of California during the 1930s, the power elite created and mobilized vigilante groups, organized under the auspices of the AF, that engaged in a reign of terror and intimidation targeted against the efforts of the farmworkers to agitate and organize (1995, p. 25).

Organized and funded by leading growers and industrialists dependent on agriculture (such as canners), the AF mobilized local citizens into vigilante groups that attacked and sometimes killed farmworkers and organizers. Pichardo labels this action vigilantism, but I have chosen to discuss the AF under countermovements because, as was true with the KKK and White Citizens Councils, this vigilante violence was actually more organized and collective than other forms of vigilante behavior. As well, organized violence was only one tactic in a wider arsenal that included institutional lobbying and public relations campaigns. Nonetheless, I will discuss below the theoretical importance of possible empirical slippages between vigilantes and countermovements. In addition to quite overt violence by the AF, other elite-driven countermovements have relied on more covert forms of intelligence and action. For example, numerous corporations and industries have recently launched a variety of so-called “astroturf” movements. Stauber and Rampton (1995) explain: Unlike genuine grassroots movements . . . these industry-generated “astroturf” movements are controlled by the corporate interests that pay their bills. On behalf of the Philip Morris tobacco company, for example, . . . the world’s largest PR firm . . . created the “National Smokers Alliance” to mobilize smokers into a grassroots lobby for “smokers’ rights” (pp. 13–14).

Further, these astroturf movements have been able to fuse corporate PR with grassroots mobilization: the impossible sounding National Smokers Alliance had 3 million members in 1995 (Stauber & Rampton, 1995). Frequently orchestrated by major PR firms, these astroturf movements are constructed, organized, maintained,

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and funded through corporate initiatives out of a belief that “grassroots” (or, at least seemingly, grassroots) pressure is more effective in lobbying and more effectively counters social movements that threaten corporate interests. Akin to fighting fire with fire, astroturf movements have exploded even while going relatively unnoticed to outsiders. Of course, many of the actions of astroturf movements could be categorized as standard countermovement advocacy. However, there are aspects common to many astroturf movements that suggest a seamier underside to their activities. In particular, a number of PR firms orchestrating astroturf movements have employed spies and other covert intelligence gathering devices. For instance, Stauber and Rampton (1995) reported that one astroturf representative posed as a potential funder in order to request extensive financial and planning documentation from a local activist who was forming a SMO. The purpose of this data gathering was to get an insider’s view of the organizing potential of the group so that targeted tactics could be used to destroy the incipient challenge. Other SMOs have reported infiltration by astroturf representatives. Still other astroturf organizers have impersonated activists from opposing movements to cancel press conferences by the opposing movement and provide false information about the opposing movement. Even falsified documents, allegedly produced by the opposing movement and “recovered” by astroturf representatives, have been circulated in hopes of discrediting the opposing movement or its representatives. In surveying this range of tactics, it is as if many astroturf movements took their intelligence, disinformation, and harassment training straight from the pages of the FBI’s COINTELPRO programs (Churchill & Vander Wall, 1988). Like COINTELPRO, the secrecy of these anti-movement endeavors are critical to their success.

THE THEORETICAL VALUE OF STUDYING PRIVATE PROTEST CONTROL After reviewing a wide-range of scholarship in an attempt to manufacture a literature on private protest control, we can more productively return to questions over the importance of and implications of private protest control. As I argued in the introduction, the overly coercive and state-based focus of repression research has led researchers to concentrate on only a select few types of repression. In arguing for a broader conceptualization that focuses on the social control of protest instead of more narrowly on coercive, state-based repression, I have cataloged research on a wide variety of private protest control measures. This catalog suggests several advantages to the general study of private protest control and to the specific template offered here for interpreting that research.

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The Advantages of Studying Private Protest Control There are many advantages to studying private protest, but for brevity I will focus on three here. First, whether or not one agrees with the particular construction of a private protest control literature presented here, prior research demonstrates that private protest control has been too palpable and prevalent of a force to ignore. Researchers of any ilk would likely agree that theoretical distinctions and theories themselves are useful to the extent to which they address such important empirical phenomena. When theories must avoid important empirical occurrences to retain their validity or when theoretical distinctions obscure important theoretical phenomena, those theories and distinctions must be questioned. I have attempted to raise such questions by focusing on the importance of private protest control, and the conceptualization of repression more generally. Second, the study of private protest control will force even state-based repression researchers to re-consider existing theoretical paradigms. For instance, many repression researchers currently argue that repression is part and parcel of political opportunities (for instance, see della Porta, 1995). However, if future work on private protest control reveals that private protest control operates similarly to statebased protest control, that theoretical understanding could be called into question. Alternatively, political opportunities theorists may use such a finding to expand the terrain for which they argue political opportunities are relevant. Thus, the study of private protest control would substantially contribute to the theoretical debate over political opportunities by allowing for either an important correction or an important expansion. Similar arguments could be made for other major theoretical perspectives. Third, and most importantly from my perspective, a focus on private protest control helps to enliven a discussion over the importance of protest control to the overall study of social movements. Given the focus on coercive repression by states, most repression research has been regarded as important to understanding the dynamics of contention once at least some insurgency is underway. That is, a focus on states and violence inherently suggests that: (a) states must have a target since there must be something against which states take coercive action; and (b) these targets must be sufficiently active to have raised state concern in the first place (Boudreau, 2001). However, as the forms of channeling directed at preventing any protest showed, protest control may be occurring long before insurgency is evident. In fact, protest control may play an important role as a switchman, effectively preventing protest mobilization around some grievances and ineffectively allowing some troubles to boil into protest.

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Put more plainly, the forms of private protest control reviewed here have affected almost every part of movement emergence and mobilization. Specifically, in the examples reviewed above, protest control arguably affected: (1) the construction of grievances (e.g. Gaventa’s company towns); (2) capacities for handling grievances (e.g. open versus closed shops); (3) formats for handling grievances (e.g. internal, company-mandated grievance proceeding and company unions versus independent workers unions); (4) organizational formation and maintenance (e.g. elite patronage); (5) recruitment, micro-mobilization and retention by altering the costs of movement participation (e.g. coercion); (6) strategic and tactical decision-making (e.g. elite patronage and increases in the cost of certain types of activism); (7) movement survival through the creation of excessive costs for activism (e.g. coercion); and (8) movement outcomes (e.g. Bromley & Shupe’s ACM). In this way, we can see that protest control occurs at all points across a movement – it does not just affect in-progress protest; it affects whether movements form, how they mobilize, and then the extent to which they mobilize. Thus, protest control should be a much more central concern in the social movements literature.

How to Manufacture a Literature on Private Protest Control In addition to suggesting general advantages to the study of private protest control, I have outlined a specific way of arranging or manufacturing a literature on private protest control, represented in Table 2. This particular arrangement has several noteworthy advantages, but I will focus primarily on the advantages it offers in terms of raising new research questions. For instance, it is interesting to note that research has found that vigilantism and countermovements predominantly use coercive protest control measures. For vigilantes, this may be because they lack the kind of continued contact with their opponents that is required for channeling. For countermovements, this may result from competitive movement-countermovement interactions (Meyer & Staggenborg, 1996). This similar reliance on coercion suggests that scholars may want to consider more carefully the relationship between vigilantism and countermovements. Instead of creating a strict distinction between vigilantes and more collective and organized countermovements, researchers may more critically ask: “What are the meaningful similarities and differences between vigilantism and

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countermovements?” It is possible that the answer to this question could speak to on-going debates over the definition of countermovements. As well, an answer to this question could help address other problems in the literature, such as concerns over the proper relationship between vigilante violence, large-scale ethnic violence, and social movements. Finally, it is possible that some vigilante action eventually grows into a countermovement. Recognizing the relationship of vigilantism and countermovements to protest control may in turn raise other questions, such as: “Under what conditions will vigilantism become a countermovement?” The flip side to the common use of coercion by vigilantes and countermovements is also revealed by Table 2: why is it that formal organizations have been able to develop and deploy such a wide-range of protest control tactics? As well, why do counter-movement SMOs seem to lack this same diversification even though they can also be formal organizations? Attempts to answer these two questions suggest a major entrée for organizational researchers into the study of protest control. For example, it may be that formal organizations tend to have certain institutional capacities that allow for this diversification. Alternatively, formal organizations may simply play the role of repeat-players that are less encumbered in their interactions with movements than competitive countermovements. One may be able to gain further leverage over this issue by noticing that business enterprises, in particular, have had the most diversified repertoire. Does this extreme diversification result from the sheer length of capital-labor interactions or do businesses distinguish themselves even from other formal organizations with special institutional capacities for protest control? Alternatively, do business enterprises enjoy a mantle of legitimacy, shielding their actions from some scrutiny and allowing tactical diversification to occur with fewer challenges? This review of private protest control also suggests that while there were many examples of private protest control, there were far fewer pieces that were able to explain the occurrence or rate of private protest control. Future research on private protest control should attempt to develop on this typology by exploring the application of existing explanations of repression to private protest control (see Earl, 2003 and Earl, Soule & McCarthy, 2003 for reviews of current explanations of repression). This research should also include attention to whether or not there are relationships between public and private protest control. For instance, do certain state-based forms of protest control make selected types of private protest control more or less likely?

CONCLUSION I have argued that current research too exclusively focuses its attention on statebased and coercive repression. In order to offer a correction, I have suggested a

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change in focus from repression to the social control of protest more generally. As well, I have documented a wide array of research examining private protest control and sought to manufacture a literature based on that review. Finally, I have suggested what advantages researchers may reap if they were to consider private protest control more seriously. In closing, this paper was meant as an invitation for future work and an invitation to reconsider existing work. I have tried to show that the study of private protest control could provide significant rewards for both students of protest control and the study of social movements more generally. The accuracy of that claim, however, will ultimately be decided by the extent to which researchers accept this invitation and are able to make use of the insights and arguments provided here.

NOTES 1. I am not arguing that either private or state-based repression is more prevalent and/or important. These are empirical questions that cannot be addressed until private repression has been studied more fully. Rather, I am arguing that scholars cannot fully understand the range of externally imposed obstacles that social movements face without examining both private and state-based protest control. 2. This paper does not address: (1) why existing empirical examinations of private repression have not developed previously into an acknowledged body of scholarship; or (2) why social movement scholars have been so focused on state-based repression. Both of these questions are intriguing and undoubtedly have complex answers, but the answers are not integral to the major contributions of this paper and thus are not discussed here. 3. COINTELPRO was a covert operation carried about the FBI with the express intention of disrupting selected U.S. protest movements. 4. This is not to suggest that scholars outside of the social movement literature have not addressed such matters. Nonetheless, Jackman (2002) suggests that scholars from other subfields also focus on physical violence and thereby tend to discount other types of coercive and/or harmful actions. 5. As Earl (2003) notes: “Channeling may still be subjectively experienced as ‘coercive’ in that individuals and SMOs may feel pressured, constrained or forced into actions they would not otherwise take. However, this subjective feeling of ‘being coerced’ is different from Oberschall’s more technical use of coercion. His distinction between force or threats of force (i.e. coercion) or other negative sanctions (i.e. channeling) does not attend to the subjective interpretation of those sanctions (p. 48).” 6. As Earl (2003) notes, channeling can be harder to identify. In part, this added difficulty results from the bias toward research on coercive protest control discussed above; many researchers may consider channeling to be a sort of regulation instead of a type of repression. However, regulation must be considered a less virulent form, although not less effective form, of protest control (Oberschall, 1973; Tilly, 1978). After all, channeling can influence future activism just as police action can influence the range and frequency of future activism. 7. Another possible example of observable, private channeling involves Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPPs). Research by Pring and Canan (1996) suggests that individuals and companies may be suing protesters and protest organizations,

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among others, to order to limit future activism. When that is the case, SLAPPs would be a particularly malicious form of observable, private channeling since they would impose direct and observable costs on insurgents in order to shape future protest. However, others who have reviewed Pring and Canan’s research have argued that many SLAPP filers are individuals with no strategic or future-oriented motivation; they are simply individuals seeking retribution for what they saw as a public slight (Milner, 1997). Given these competing claims, I do not discuss SLAPPs in the main text and instead suggest that more research on SLAPPs and the motivations of various SLAPP filers needs to be done. 8. Table 2 is meant to serve as a foundation for a literature on private protest control. As with any foundation, it invites additions, elaborations, and further construction. 9. SLAPP lawsuits that are filed with the motivation of quelling future protest – for instance, lawsuits filed by repeat players such as real estate developers or builders who frequently clash over new developments with environmentalists – should be considered as observable channeling directed at preventing future mobilization. However, I do not discuss SLAPP suits more extensively in the main text for two reasons. First, as was raised in Note 5, it is not yet clear how strategic all SLAPP lawsuits are meant to be. Second, it is not clear which actors tend to systematically use SLAPPs in a strategic manner. While one could speculate on this topic, future research is needed before a more definitive classification of SLAPPs in this paper’s typology could be made. 10. Many abortion providers understand themselves to be activists and certainly many pro-life advocates also believe these providers are movement activists. 11. I limit my review to funding-related agencies, educational institutions and businesses because the bulk of research has focused on these formal organizations. However, it is important to acknowledge that limited work has been done on other formal organizations. For instance, Stalp and Winders (2000) examined the way in which the Catholic Church and its local dioceses exerted control over nuns and priests in the civil rights movement. Their study of civil rights activism in Cairo, Illinois finds that while the Catholic Church was tolerant of nuns participation and that more intolerant local dioceses lacked organizational control over nuns, activism by priests was not tolerated by the local Bishop, to whom the priests were organizationally beholden. In turn, this threatened to limit priests’, but not nuns’, activism and certainly increased the severity of consequences that priests faced for such activism when compared to nuns. 12. In contrast to research that attempts to explain how businesses seek to control unions and employees, some research has examined the ways in which unions seek to control their members. Given that union unity is central to collective success, unions should have a vested interested in member discipline. This is particularly true where participation in strikes and non-participation in wildcat strikes are concerned (Summers, 1950). While work that examines the mechanisms by which SMOs control their own members represents an interesting connection between the literatures on SMO decision-making, participation, and protest control, it is beyond the scope of this paper to more fully elaborate on that connection.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank Jenny Irons for her comments on previous drafts of this manuscript as well as the organizers and participants of the Authority

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in Contention Conference, the Editors of this volume, and the anonymous reviewers.

REFERENCES Astor, G. (1971). The New York cops: An informal history. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. Ball, P. (2001). On the quantification of horror: Notes from the field on statistical analyses of human rights violations. Paper presented at the Conference on Mobilization and Repression: What We Know and Where We Should Go From Here? University of Maryland at College Park. Blanchard, D. A. (1993). The anti-abortion movement and the rise of the religious right: From polite to fiery protest. New York: Twayne Publishers. Boudreau, V. (2001). Contentious interactions and state repression: Toward an interpretive framework. Paper presented at the Conference on Mobilization and Repression: What We Know and Where We Should Go From Here? University of Maryland at College Park. Bromley, D. G., & Shupe, A. D. Jr. (1983). Repression and the decline of social movements: The case of new religions. In: J. Freeman (Ed.), Social Movements of the Sixties and Seventies (pp. 335–347). New York: Longman. Churchill, W., & Vander Wall, J. (1988). Agents of repression: The FBI’s secret wars against the black panther party and the American Indian movement. Boston: South End Press. Cress, D., & Snow, D. A. (1996). Mobilization at the margins: Resources, benefactors, and the viability of homeless social movement organizations. American Sociological Review, 61(6), 1089–1109. Cunningham, D. (2003). State versus social movement: FBI counterintelligence against the new left. In: J. A. Goldstone (Ed.), States, Parties, and Social Movements (pp. 45–77). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. della Porta, D. (1995). Social movements, political violence, and the state: A comparative analysis of Italy and Germany. New York: University of Cambridge Press. della Porta, D., & Reiter, H. (Eds) (1998). Policing protest: The control of mass demonstrations in Western democracies. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Earl, J. (2003). Tanks, tear gas and taxes: Toward a theory of movement repression. Sociological Theory, 21, 44–68. Earl, J., & Schussman, A. (2003). The new site of activism: On-line organizations, movement entrepreneurs, and the changing location of social movement decision-making. Research in Social Movements, Conflict, and Change, 24, 155–187. Earl, J., Soule, S. A., & McCarthy, J. D. (2003). Protests under fire? Explaining protest policing. American Sociological Review, 69, 581–606. Ferree, M. M. (2001). Soft repression: Ridicule, stigma and silences in the gender wars. Paper presented at the Conference on Mobilization and Repression: What We Know and Where We Should Go From Here? University of Maryland at College Park. Francisco, R. A. (2001). The Dictator’s dilemma. Paper presented at the Conference on Mobilization and Repression: What We Know and Where We Should Go From Here? University of Maryland at College Park. Gaventa, J. (1980). Power and powerlessness: Quiescence and rebellion in an Appalachian valley. Chicago: University of Illinois Press.

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Griffin, L. J., Wallace, M. E., & Rubin, B. A. (1986). Capitalist resistance to the organization of labor before the new deal: Why? how? success? American Sociological Review, 51(2), 147–167. Haines, H. H. (1984). Black radicalization and the funding of civil rights: 1957–1970. Social Problems, 32(1), 31–43. Hebdon, R. P., & Stern, R. N. (1998). Trade offs among expressions of industrial conflict: Public sector strike bans and grievance arbitrations. Industrial and Labor Relations Review, 51(2), 204–221. Jackman, M. (2002). Violence in social life. Annual Review of Sociology, 28, 387–415. Jenkins, C. J., & Eckhert, C. M. (1986). Channeling black insurgency: Elite patronage and professional social movement organizations in the development of the black insurgency. American Sociological Review, 51, 812–829. Kowalewski, D. (1996). Countermovement vigilantism and human rights. Crime, Law, and Social Change, 25, 63–81. Lammers, C. J. (1977). Tactics and strategies adopted by university authorities to counter student opposition. In: D. Light, Jr. & J. Spiegel (Eds), The Dynamics of University Protest (pp. 171–198). Chicago: Nelson-Hall Publishers. McAdam, D. (1982). Political process and the development of black insurgency, 1930–1970. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. McCarthy, J. D., Britt, D. W., & Wolfson, M. (1991). The institutional channeling of social movements by the state in the United States. Research in Social Movements, Conflicts and Change, 13, 45–76. McMillen, N. R. (1971). The citizen’s council: Organized resistance to the second reconstruction, 1954–1964. Chicago: University of Illinois Press. McVeigh, R. (2001). Power devaluation, the Ku Klux Klan, and the democratic national convention of 1924. Sociological Forum, 16(1), 1–30. Meier, R. F. (1982). Perspectives on the concept of social control. Annual Review of Sociology, 8, 35–55. Meyer, D., & Staggenborg, S. (1996). Movements, countermovements, and the structure of political opportunity. American Journal of Sociology, 101(6), 1628–1660. Milner, N. (1997). Decentering the first amendment: Review essay. Law and Society Review, 31(4), 823–844. Oberschall, A. (1973). Social conflict and social movements. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Peckham, M. H. (1998). New dimensions of social movement/countermovement interaction: The case of Scientology and its internet critics. Canadian Journal of Sociology, 23(4), 317–347. Pichardo, N. A. (1995). The power elite and elite-driven countermovements: The associated farmers of California during the 1930s. Sociological Forum, 10(1), 21–49. Pring, G. W., & Canan, P. (1996). SLAPPs: Getting sued for speaking out. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Silver, I. (1998). Buying an activist identity: Reproducing class through social movement philanthropy. Sociological Perspectives, 41(2), 303–321. Soule, S. A. (1992). Populism and black lynching in Georgia, 1890–1900. Social Forces, 71, 431–449. Stalp, M. C., & Winders, B. (2000). Power in the margins: Gendered organizational effects on religious activism. Review of Religious Research, 42(1), 41–60. Stauber, J. C., & Rampton, S. (1995). Toxic sludge is good for you: Lies, damn lies, and the public relations industry. Monroe, ME: Common Courage Press.

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Stockdill, B. C. (1996). Multiple oppressions and their influence on collective action: The case of the AIDS movement. Unpublished Ph.D. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University. Summers, C. (1950). Disciplinary powers of unions. Industrial and Labor Relations Review, 3(4), 483–513. Sutton, J. R. (1996). Rethinking social control. Law and Social Inquiry, 21, 943–958. Tilly, C. (1978). From mobilization to revolution. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley. Turpin-Petrosino, C. (2002). Hateful sirens . . . who hears their song? Journal of Social Issues, 58(2), 281–301.

SOFT REPRESSION: RIDICULE, STIGMA, AND SILENCING IN GENDER-BASED MOVEMENTS Myra Marx Ferree ABSTRACT If the concept of repression is to be useful when the state is not the primary target of social movement action, it needs to conceptualize how changes in values, perspectives, culture, norms, expectations and behavior in the public at large are contested through political interaction in civil society. Although non-state actors can sometimes use violence, their typical forms of repression of social movements are non-violent or “soft.” I suggest three forms of action – ridicule, stigma and silencing – that are commonly employed by non-state actors to repress challengers. Because women’s movements include challenges to non-state authorities, they have long been targets of soft repression. Examples of the use of power against challengers to the gender status quo are used to illustrate all three forms of soft repression. Once upon a time, social movement scholars lived in a world in which the only form of social protest that they could recognize was directed against the state. In this state-centered world, political elites wielding formal authority over governments were the only real targets for movement concerns, and the troops protecting the castle of political power were the armies, police forces, and prisons that the authorities could, and did, send into battle against those who would challenge their authority in general, or their policies in specific. As protests in democratic states Authority in Contention Research in Social Movements, Conflicts and Change, Volume 25, 85–101 © 2004 Published by Elsevier Ltd. ISSN: 0163-786X/doi:10.1016/S0163-786X(04)25004-2

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became more legitimate, ritualized and non-violent, the scholarly focus remained on the interaction between states and challengers to their formal political authority. Whether the scholar thought the good guys were in the castle or on the offensive outside the walls made a difference in how the particular strategies of attack or defense were judged, but explaining the rules of engagement was the central task. The way that the castle was defended from attack, violent or not, generally fell under the rubric of repression, particularly if one’s sympathies were – often with good reason – on the side of those outside the walls.1 Like all fairy tales, there is a good bit of mythical exaggeration in this story. There is also a central and important truth, namely that the concept of repression is bound up with a state-centered view of social movements. Repression evokes an image of a central political authority using the formal apparatus of the state to put down rebellions, whether overtly or covertly holding the reins and directing the actions being taken in its defense. Repression is what states do, especially bad states that cannot manage dissent in more democratic and disarming ways. However, for at least the past two decades, social movement scholars have generally been widening their understanding of what protest is, and where, and how it occurs to encompass a broader and less centralized landscape than the image of the castle under siege would suggest. From so-called new social movement theories through the cultural turn in social movements to the current focus on discourses, the terrain of protest has been reconceptualized to include a variety of non-state institutional targets and change strategies that depend on cultural subversion as much or more than stone-throwing confrontation. Whether looking at ACT-UP die-ins aimed at directing public attention to the AIDS crisis, student protests against the corporations that produce their university’s athletic apparel aimed at changing their reliance on sweatshops, environmentalists relying on recycling, organic foods, and less energy dependent lifestyles – what Vice President Dick Cheney derided as the politics of personal virtue – or feminists going out and building alternative institutions such as shelters for battered women, rape-crisis centers, and women’s studies programs, scholars have recognized and studied a great variety of protest that has been decentralized and directed at institutions other than the state.2 My question is whether the concept of repression is useful at all in the wider and more varied landscape of social movement action that has been discovered and studied. Certainly, the state is not directly the target of any of these protest actions, and typically, if the state actively responds to them at all, it does so relatively late in the process, largely to co-opt rather than to quash them. Thus, once public concern has been mobilized by social movements about violence against women, AIDS, sweatshops, or the environment, states may get involved in providing subsidies, regulations, and services that help to institutionalize this new way of seeing the

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world. But it is the change in values, perspectives, culture, norms, expectations and behavior in the public at large that is the real goal of the movement, and state action, if any, is one of many means to its end, not an end itself (Johnston & Klandermans, 1995). The castle looks less like a fortress on a hill and more like a service station. In this view of contentious political action, where the castle of the state is not so much under siege as surrounded by competing demands for services and support, is the idea of repression obsolete or irrelevantly narrow? Might repression only be a useful concept for those truly state-centered conflicts in which protest movements are contending for control over the political system as such or where state dominance is being used to keep contenders off the map? Does a focus on repression necessarily return us to apparently old-fashioned definitions of social movements and their tactics that keep more cultural and de-centralized forms of protest out of sight and out of mind? Clearly, I think a return to the castle image would be a mistake. The fairytale version of social movements, for example, has no room for the princess who smashes the mirror, cuts off her hair, and makes a bolt for the drawbridge, deciding that happy-ever-after endings are not her style. Women’s movements in particular are scarcely to be found in the familiar catalogues of contention over state power. Even though feminist protest is as old as Lysistrata, confronting the state with the expectation of replacing the current elite is not how it is done. Instead, women’s movements are, and have been for generations, the very epitome of movements focused on making change in (and experiencing resistance from) civil society.3 Although the idea persists that class-based movements are “old” and genderbased social movements are “new,” both were actively engaged with each other and with state and social definitions of family, work and personal freedom in the nineteenth-century as well as today. Rather than a chronological difference, the distinction between them is one of focus and strategy – working-class movements were often contenders for state power, and women’s movements were not. Women’s movements addressed changes in values and norms directly in the institutions of religion, medicine, family and economy. Women’s movements worked in, on and through civil society as much as or more than on the state as such.4 In this sense, women’s movements provide a useful, long-term lens on the decentralized and cultural strategies of social protest that have since become more familiar among men. Ever more social movements direct themselves to civil society rather than the state.5 Especially in modern, industrial democracies with a wide range of formal social institutions outside the state that observe, direct and sanction behavior, issues of power and autonomy are not only to be found in direct interaction with the state and its minions. Understanding social movements in civil

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society as being just as important as social movements directed at the state, as most scholars now do, should mean that women’s movements take a central place as one of the oldest and most globally widespread forms of such protest. Alas, research on women’s movements has generally not been mainstreamed into the study of social protest. Thus, the question of when and how women’s movements have been repressed is not taken as a significant challenge to conventional state-centered models of repression, but has been of interest only to feminist scholars working on gender issues. But if women’s movements are indeed, as I have argued, forerunners and exemplars of how decentralized social movements in civil society operate, then social movement theorists are missing an important opportunity to use the history of feminist protest to expand their understanding of movement dynamics in this arena in general. Looking at repression in relation to feminism and women’s mobilizations certainly takes us away from the castle-like, state-centered model of responses to challenge. I offer the term soft repression as a consciously gendered image of the forms that repression frequently takes in civil society, in contrast to the more conventional, male-gendered imagery of hard repression in which states more typically engage, even though both soft and hard forms of repression can in principle, be used by any agent. Whereas hard repression involves the mobilization of force to control or crush oppositional action through the use or threat of violence, soft repression involves the mobilization of non-violent means to silence or eradicate oppositional ideas. Not all forms of non-violent resistance to challenging ideas merit the label soft repression, either. Normative theories of discursive democracy include the potential for much contentious speech that is not polite or respectful, but also establish criteria of fairness in debate that place sharp limits on any person’s or institution’s use of power to restrict others’ ideas.6 The distinguishing criterion of soft repression is the collective mobilization of power, albeit in non-violent forms and often highly informal ways, to limit and exclude ideas and identities from the public forum. Also, although there are continuities between the uses of power for social control over individuals and for silencing and excluding social movements, as pointed out below, I think the concept of soft repression is most usefully applied to the non-violent uses of power that are specifically directed against movement collective identities and movement ideas that support “cognitive liberation” or “oppositional consciousness” (McAdam, 1982; Morris, 1984, 1992). Although both states and institutions of civil society may engage in either soft or hard repression, it seems likely that some patterns of association between types of actors, opportunity structures, and types of repression may be found. After all, unlike states, the institutions of civil society do not have privileged control over the means of violence. Conflicts within civil society should thus be more

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likely to be expressed in conflicts over naming, speaking, labeling, defining and knowing, but they may spill over into overt violence if and when state power permits its use. For example, violence against women in the form of rape and spousal abuse has long been permitted by many states, and non-state paramilitaries from the Ku Klux Klan to Guatemalan landlords, Colombian drug barons and Hindu nationalists have been allowed to act violently against ethnic minorities and social critics. That states monopolize the means of violence to a greater or lesser degree does not prevent them from also using non-violent means of censorship and exclusion to repress disturbing ideas, and sometimes civil society endorses and facilitates state use of soft repressive measures (as the McCarthy period in the United States illustrates). However, because the notion of soft repression includes the presumption that there exist some autonomous public forums in which ideas and identities could be formed and articulated, the concept may be limited to situations in which the state does not completely dominate or destroy civil society’s institutions. In the rest of this paper, I offer a few selective examples from studies of genderbased mobilizations in democratic states to consider how soft repression can work in civil society to limit or eliminate collective challenges to dominant forces in a variety of decentralized social institutions. I place each type of example of soft repression directed at movements after discussion of similar, but not identical, processes of social control that are directed at non-organized members of disempowered groups, in order to draw out both the continuities of means and the differences in targets that distinguish soft repression from these more omnipresent uses of power as social control. The evidence here is eclectic and can only be suggestive. Whether the concept of soft repression is actually fruitful for understanding conflict in civil society awaits examination by studies directly designed to address this. I organize these examples into three rather loose and possibly overlapping categories – ridicule, stigma and silencing – roughly corresponding to the micro, meso and macro levels of analysis. All three of these levels must surely interact with each other in practice, a complexity that would require an extended single case study to explore. Contradictions and disjunctions between them are also certainly points at which we might expect social movements to find cracks in the system of social control where leverage can be exerted. In fact, social movement scholars may be better at recognizing the cultural and discursive strategies that movements adopt in response to soft repression than the operations of soft repression itself.7 Thus I do not wish to suggest that these processes are a monolithic whole nor to imply that they are unconnected or alternative strategies, but rather to argue that studying the relationships among them would be a way to begin to understand how soft repression operates and can be overcome.

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MICRO-LEVEL RIDICULE I begin at the micro-level of ridicule directed at individuals and groups by others in face-to-face interaction, and thus with the sort of use of social power that is rarely associated with social movements at all. The use of ridicule to mock “fags,” “queers” and “dykes” begins even in elementary school to police the boundaries of appropriate gender behavior. Stepping out of line brings interpersonal retaliation in the form of name-calling at any age. Such attacks, more or less vehement or subtle, can be emotionally painful, and learning to pay careful attention to respecting these boundaries and calculating when or how they could be crossed without bringing ridicule is an early form of self-defense. Boundary-policing at the interpersonal level can limit the ability of both men and women even to recognize similarities across gender and differences within gender categories.8 But ridicule is not only a widespread means of enforcing gender conformity in general and on a routine basis; it is also a tool explicitly put to use to diminish and disarm cultural challengers who are mobilizing or mobilized. Here is where soft repression enters in. Recall, for example, women’s early efforts to redirect the energy of the social movements of the 1960s in which they were participating to include their own claims for gender justice. National liberation movements were happening around the world, and the more radical elements of the civil rights movement in the U.S. spoke of black liberation as well. But when women mobilized and raised the parallel demand for women’s liberation, the immediate response was a mocking abbreviation to call this “women’s lib.” Similarly, the draft-card burners of the anti-war movement in the U.S. inspired feminist demonstrators to throw bras and girdles and high-heels into a “freedom trash can” in Atlantic City, earning them the collective media sobriquet of “bra-burners.” More recently, consider the term “feminazi” that Rush Limbaugh coined to ridicule feminists, and that my students report is widely used by on campus to attack any woman who stands up for her rights. Of course, ridicule as a form of soft repression from civil society is met with resistance on its own terms and on its own ground. Social movements take the language that is used to mock and attempt to intimidate them and turn its meaning around to be a positive self-description. Queer politics reclaims the word queer and inverts it to be a proud term, as feminists earlier attempted to do with terms ranging from blue-stocking to dyke and crone.9 So-called “tree-huggers” and “peaceniks” are no strangers to this strategy. The underlying reality here is that the ability to convey social values through labeling is a valuable political resource in civil society and thus a fiercely contested domain. Contests over meaning often take the form of struggles over the word to be used and the connotation to be attached to that word. The use of the term “politically correct” to ridicule social concerns

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of various sorts provides a familiar case in which ridicule is being deployed as a strategy of soft repression (Pollitt, 1994; Smith, 1999). It is, not surprisingly, being met with efforts to resist the labeling process and reclaim the label from the connotations of ridicule that are now attached to it. Although such civil-society-based struggles over labels and names are increasingly common today, feminists faced such attacks first and most frequently. Ridicule is a decentralized weapon that is, not coincidentally, rarely deployed by the state. It is used to secure power and privilege in and for a variety of nonstate institutions. Feminists confronting male domination within such institutions were historically at the forefront of facing repression from them, and thus, the characteristic targets of ridicule. They were mocked more than socialists or black liberation fighters, not because feminism is by nature funnier, but because the civil society terrain on which gender battles are characteristically fought made ridicule a preferred weapon.

MESO-LEVEL STIGMA Of course, one outcome of ridicule at the interpersonal level is stigma at the group level. But stigma is more than active acts of ridicule, no matter how frequently repeated and widespread they become. Stigma means an impaired collective identity, where connection with the group is a source of discredit and devaluation because that is how the group as a whole is viewed, whether or not anyone makes an issue of it through name calling or other forms of ridicule. A classic example of stigma attached to a collective identity is found in the sensitive exploration by Sennett and Cobb (1999) of what they call the “hidden injuries of class.” The implied lack of intelligence and initiative attributed to the white men who work with their hands that makes them ashamed to think of themselves as working class has parallels, of course, with more commonly recognized gender and race stigma that attach to groups such as “welfare moms.” Seccombe’s study (1999) of welfare ideology in the United States provides an example of how such soft repression works to demobilize recipients from asserting their rights. Many women on welfare at the end of AFDC, she found, accepted the culturally dominant image of “most women” on welfare as less intelligent and even as less moral, and struggled to differentiate themselves from this image and justify their own need to rely on state support. Not seeing any other way to take care of their children, they took aid, and then feared being seen as just like the other women who were in fact in similar positions of need. Back in the 1960s, Betty Friedan skewered the prevalence with which achieving women could accept the most derogatory stereotypes of women while exempting

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themselves from the implications of their disrespect for women as a group as being a “three-sex theory” namely, that “there’s men, there’s women, and there’s me.”10 Stigma as a form of soft repression is a cultural strategy to prevent collective action by actively discouraging identification with a group that could make claims against an institution. Negative stereotypes of groups that are socially subordinate are the classic means by which civil society represses the formation of a positive collective identity. The social movement literature has often acknowledged the way that mobilization efforts have attempted to defang some of these most pernicious forms of entrenched stigma through such appeals as “Black is beautiful,” “woman-power” and “gay pride.” It has not been so apt to acknowledge the strategic mobilization of stigma as a means of repressing and resisting social movements. While I do not want to minimize the repressive effect of racism and sexism nor downplay their general usefulness in constructing and feeding into other stereotypes, not all forms of stigma are as broad, longstanding and deeply institutionalized. Such existing stigma, however, is a generalized resource that can be used by counter-movements to advance their agenda. Narrow and specific uses of stigma can be brought to bear to limit and silence movements and discredit their members and policies, and it is in understanding these strategic uses of stigma where I think the concept of soft repression is most useful. For example, stigmatization of affirmative action as an unmerited benefit going to unqualified recipients, rather than a change of the preference structure of a particular institution to reduce the built-in preference for members of dominant groups, can be seen as a political tactic by non-state forces to defend an institutional status quo in civil society. By setting themselves up as ending the supposed stigma of association with being an unqualified recipient of preference, conservative opponents of affirmative action in fact defined the program in terms of stigma and group association, inviting individuals whose interest was served by the program to be reluctant to step forward and be identified with it.11 In such skirmishing over the stigma of affirmative action in recent years, I have frequently been reminded of an interview in the Harvard Crimson back in the early 1970s, when the first woman was appointed as a full professor at the medical school, and the reporter asked whether she thought her being a woman had something to do with receiving this appointment, implicitly suggesting that some illegitimate preference was being exercised. The professor nimbly responded, “I certainly think my being a woman had everything to do with my not having been appointed until now.” Soft repression in the form of stigma, I suggest, also can illuminate the declining proportions of individuals in national surveys who are willing to apply the term “feminist” to themselves, even as the proportion of respondents who say that the women’s movement in this country has made things better for most women and for them remains stable or even increases. At the high point of feminist self-identification in this country (in the late 1980s), approximately

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one in three American women described herself as feminist or said the term feminist fit her “very well.” However, the very newspapers and magazines that had commissioned these polls reported their results in stigmatizing terms: “only a third” of all women, they said, called themselves feminist, so where had the women’s movement gone wrong (Hall & Rodriguez, 2003)? By stressing that feminism was a “minority” point of view and claiming that “most women rejected feminism,” while acknowledging that strong majorities favored most of the changes that the movement had brought, the media constructed a division between feminism and its goals. This division then allowed conservative women in notably small groups such as the Independent Women’s Forum to create a specter of what they called “victim feminism” and load it with every stereotype available, while approving of the actual changes that the women’s movement had brought about.12 As a result, even though more adults identified themselves as supporters of the women’s movement in 1995 (42%) than in 1986 (30%), the percentage of women who call themselves ‘feminist’ declined (from 33% in 1989 to 26% in 1999) and the proportion of women who considered the term “feminist” to be an insult increased (from 16% in 1992 to 22% in 1997).13 Both of these examples involve the active and deliberate use of stigma by non-state groups to undercut group identity and to repress the mobilization potential of a social movement that had achieved some success. Unlike ridicule, using stigma as a means of soft repression does not imply that the movement is trivial or a laughing matter. Directed at a movement that has already achieved some credibility in civil society, stigma as a weapon seeks to limit further gains by making identification with the group more costly. Stigma deliberately used as weapon of resistance to social change in civil society makes use of, bleeds into and is reinforced by the more widespread and non-deliberate forms of stigma that are prevalent in relations of domination already; thus resistance to affirmative action and welfare rights makes use of stereotypes that already demean African Americans (Neubeck & Cazenave, 2001), and resistance to feminism evokes anti-sex, anti-male stereotypes that are culturally attached to older women and lesbians. But the impossibility of totally separating ordinary forms of stereotyping associated with ongoing relations of domination from the active use of stigma for strategic purposes by certain groups at certain times should not deter us from considering how this type of soft repression operates.

MACRO-LEVEL SILENCING Finally, at the macro-level, I want to consider silencing as a form of soft repression that can be imbedded in the ordinary institutional practices of a social system. Although both ridicule and stigma can accumulate to produce silence at the

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macro-level, I want to suggest that silence can also be achieved directly through processes that act at the level of the system as a whole. Understanding silence is the other side of the coin to understanding voice. Mobilization processes that are aimed at producing voice for groups in civil society can face soft repression in the form of system processes that specifically block such voices from being heard. In modern industrial democracies, the main vehicle for voice in the society at large is the mass media, and the proliferation of point-to-point media of communication such as email and the internet does not change the role of mass media in creating a shared reality that is simultaneously known to be shared. Pointto-point media allow for pluralistic ignorance: everyone may in fact know the same thing, but there is no common knowledge that everyone has this knowledge.14 The ability to have a voice in the mass media is still therefore a powerful influence on creating the collective reality within which civil society’s separate institutions function. Similarly, to be silenced or excluded from having a voice in the mass media is a powerful form of repression. States can exercise hard repression on the media in the form of censorship, of course, but my focus here is instead on the soft repression by which civil society, including institutionalized media practice, excludes voices and produces silence, even when there is no direct censorship.15 The issue is therefore not whether the media is free or not, but what a free media does. There has been no dearth of media criticism pointing out that making news is a social process and reflects the social interests that underlie the media: the financial concerns of advertisers for example, may make it seem less significant to cover stories that affect the poor or urban communities of color, if they do not seem to be a market where selling newspapers will also get advertisers the attention they want from the demographic groups they care about. What makes news is also generally understood as a process that reflects the values, expectations and perspectives of those who construct the stories (Cohen, Adoni & Bentz, 1990; Gans, 1979; Oliver & Maney, 2000). Whether from the vantage point of the media consumer, understood as a market, or from the perspective of the workers who produce the media reality that is consumed, it is hard to overlook the selectivity – some would say bias – built into the ordinary operation of mass media in modern society. At the institutional level, therefore, analysts have to assume that silences are what are being produced along with speech. Producing silences can range from a mere side effect of the ordinary relations of domination in civil society to a more deliberate strategy of exclusion that blocks social movements, and it is to this latter process particularly that I would apply the label of soft repression. Again, women’s movements provide examples of contesting the underlying institutional power structure of silencing directly. The strong growth of

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independent women’s media in the 1970s was one marker of the extent to which mainstream media had not included women’s voices; bringing women journalists, publishers and film-makers into positions where they could in turn create voice for other women was a major social movement strategy among feminists. It is almost hard to imagine today the climate in which women were seen as incapable of reading the news on television, relegated to writing for the women’s pages of the newspapers, and seen as an inherently apolitical group rather than a significant voting bloc. The 1968 so-called bra-burning incident, for example, was reconstructed as important only in retrospect from alternative media; at the time the mainstream newspapers and magazines did not waste space on this protest. Were one to rely only on the New York Times or Reader’s Guide, one would have to conclude it never took place at all.16 What concerned women politically was simply not news, and this has changed. These norms did not change all by themselves, of course, and if such struggle is recognized, it would seem important to acknowledge not only that the women’s movement engaged from one side, but also that there was another side engaged in struggle, resisting change.17 But recognizing such change also should be a warning sign that the ups and downs of media coverage of social movements are driven by factors other than what events are occurring. The choice of speakers to interpret and give meaning to events is even more at the mercy of media standards of importance, and these are themselves contested values within civil society. These factors also may vary significantly between countries. To draw just one example from the study of abortion discourse in Germany and the United States in which I and several colleagues have been engaged, we find dramatic differences in the extent to which speakers in civil society have voice at all in the newspapers of these two countries (Ferree, Gamson, Gerhards & Rucht, 2002).18 In Germany, statebased speakers make up 58% of all voices quoted or paraphrased as interpreting abortion, compared to 38% of U.S. speakers who are state-based actors. Moreover, the civil society voices heard from in Germany on this issue are overwhelmingly the institutionalized voices of the churches. Compared to the U.S., the silence of social movements in the German media is deafening: over the 25-year period from 1970 to 1994, speakers associated with social movements account for just about 2% of all voices and 6% of civil society voices in West Germany but 23% of all and 39% of civil society speakers in the United States.19 By comparison, the churches are 55% of German and 17% of U.S. civil society speakers. This is not because there are no feminist or right to life mobilizations in Germany, but because the media have a strong preference against giving voice to less institutionalized speakers like these, at least in relation to a gender-based conflict. Individuals not officially associated with any organization or group also form 18% of the U.S. discourse, but only 8% of the German speakers. While

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fully seven of eight of these German speakers are enlisted as experts into the debate, only half of the non-institutional speakers in American media are experts, rather than people directly affected by the conflict. Media norms about what deserves coverage and how stories should be told are part of what works to silence less institutional voices. For example, individual women and doctors who are prosecuted for illegal abortion are not sought out to tell their side of the story in Germany, nor are advocates on either side of the issue given space to reflect on why and how they came to have the positions that they do, both of which are relatively common ways of discussing the issue in the U.S. In fact, the structure of articles in the U.S. formally institutionalizes the idea that there are two sides to every story and gives non-state actors the opportunity to comment on and rebut assertions from state actors in a way that is rarely found in the German media. I would suggest that, for better or worse, the mobilization potential for social movement mobilization is enhanced in the United States and repressed, softly, in Germany by the institutional forms by which movements relate to civil society in media practices. But the ability of media to reduce movement mobilization potential by withdrawing attention from them is also available as a conscious and deliberate strategy of soft repression. Covering protest events is not equivalent to providing a voice in the media for those who are protesters, and soft repression may be particularly an issue of excluding the perspectives and frames that make sense of the actions of the movement (movement actors as speakers providing their point of view) rather than trying to ignore the existence of the movement at all (event-based coverage). I draw another example from feminist research in Germany to illustrate this process of soft repression and its potentially demobilizing effects on social movements. Ingrid Miethe followed women involved in dissident politics in the German Democratic Republic (GDR) through the process of unification and into their subsequent political careers or lack thereof in the unified, dominantly West German state (Miethe, 1999a, b). She found that quite a few of the women were disconcerted by the lack of response that their demonstrations and protests engendered in the new democratic Germany. In their old state-centered and directly repressive milieu, any protest activity was assessed for its effectiveness by how strongly the state acted against it, and although this yardstick may have been misleading, it provided a standard for evaluation that continued to feed their sense of efficacy and importance. However, they discovered that protest actions in unified Germany did not elicit state responses and typically did not even draw media attention. Their self-doubt as political actors grew, and a substantial proportion withdrew from political activity despite having just as profound disagreements with the new state as they ever had with the old.

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I draw my examples from Germany because it is familiar to me, not because I want to suggest that it has a particularly repressive form of civil society. But I do think that the variation between countries as well as over time in the exercise of soft repression against social movements in general or specific subtypes and categories of social movements in particular is an institutional aspect of civil society that deserves more investigation than it has received. Recognizing that states are democratic does not necessarily say much about the degree or focus of the soft repression that may characterize their civil societies. Women’s movements, in being particularly attuned to trying to make change in the institutional structure of civil society, may be especially aware of and responsive to such variation. But social movement theory in general might well consider the nature of the media structures and practices that create silences about specific issues or for particular constituencies when attempting to explain the resistance and opposition that movements in civil society confront.20

CONCLUSIONS This essay suggests that the conventional understanding of repression only in terms of violence and state action, or what I have called hard repression, takes us away from the wider and more complex views of social movements as contending in and against institutions of civil society and not just against states. The turn toward more cultural and decentralized views of social movement activity in recent years has brought gains, not least in allowing scholars to recognize the way that women’s movements have been ahead of their time in fighting their battles on this postmodern terrain. Studies of feminism thus offer clues to scholars of other movements about how civil society is a different sort of target than the state, and yet also remind us that resistance to change comes from a variety of sources and takes multiple forms. Soft repression, especially when it arises in and is expressed through the institutions of civil society, will be neither as centralized as state action nor as visible as hard repression, but it can still be powerful and effective in blocking or disarming social movements. Decentralized forms of soft repression can exist at the micro, meso or macro levels, and I have taken the examples of ridicule, stigma and silencing to suggest how such soft repression of social movements operates on all three of these levels. Studies of women’s movements may be particularly effective means of seeing how soft repression has operated in the past, but it seems likely that overall tendencies toward movements operating in and on civil society in the post-modern world will make the findings from such research ever more generally applicable. Research on feminism and the reception given to it can offer scholars of all social

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movements a wide variety of insights into soft repression that will be ever more useful as we move away from the castle model toward a more complex view of social conflict and protest.

NOTES 1. A classic example of the state-centeredness of even accounts sympathetic to the protestors agenda is Gamson (1990). The issue of cycles of protest related to repressive responses is raised by Tarrow (1989) and the specific focus on repression as a matter of state/police response to even “new” social movements is exemplified by the studies done by della Porta (1996). 2. Paul Lichterman’s study (1996) of the mix of personal and collective environmental action strategies and Verta Taylor’s study (1996) of women’s self-help groups confronting with the medical establishment provide excellent, explicit arguments for the widening of this lens as well as specific cases. 3. Verta Taylor (1996) explicitly addresses this civil society focus, but it is also evident in the catalogues of demands raised by feminists from the Seneca Falls declaration forward (Rossi, 1973) and in second-wave documents (Baxandall & Gordon, 2000). 4. The struggle for suffrage would seem to contradict this view, but although winning the right to vote was an important political milestone, whether, when and how a focus on gaining the suffrage – or formal equal rights – was a considered a primary goal, a means to an end, or a diversion from other organized efforts to change educational systems, family culture, sexual practices and other social relations has always been controversial in women’s movements (Black, 1989). A sense of how peripheral the state was to feminist activists in the early twentieth-century in the U.S. is conveyed by Cott (1987). 5. The discovery of such forms and tactics by relatively privileged men concerned about issues that did not fit a conventional left-right spectrum (e.g. environmentalism, anticolonialism) spawned their conceptualization as being “new” but it seems increasingly evident that such cultural tactics were integral to working class mobilization in the nineteenth-century (Calhoun, 1995). 6. Gutmann and Thompson (1996) offer an extremely extensive and inclusive set of rules that creates considerable space for contentious speech, but they still focus attention on the ways that powerholders can and do limit speech “unfairly.” It is the variety of forms that such unfair silencing can take that I consider under the rubric of soft repression, and also suggest that the power-holding that permits unfair strategies is at least as characteristic of civil society as of states. 7. There is often acknowledgement of the significance of movement strategies to rename themselves or their issues, to find alternative forums in which positive identities can be formed apart from the mainstream, and to produce new media through which to circulate alternative ideas but studies of these forms of resistance rarely name the repression against which the resistance is being mounted. It is important to recognize that such cultural conflicts involve two sides, both of which can be acting strategically. 8. Barrie Thorne (1993) offers a revealing look at the dynamic processes involved among children policing each other’s behavior for deviations, and West and Zimmerman (1987) offer a more general model of how all culturally competent persons are held accountable for gender conformity.

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9. Mary Daly is one of the most active feminist exponents of this linguistic strategy among the second-wave in the U.S. See for example her “dictionary” done “in cahoots with” Caputi (Daly & Caputi, 1987). 10. The idea of the “three-sex theory” first appears in Betty Friedan’s (1976) introduction to her account of feminist emergence. 11. See discussions of the language and politics of affirmative action by race in the U.S. in Skrentny (1996) and by gender in various national contexts in Bacchi (1996). 12. See discussions of the Independent Women’s Forum in Pollitt (1994) and their own web page at http://www.IWF.org. The membership of the IWF is small but elite, being largely dominated by hard-right politicians and columnists such as Lynn Cheney, Linda Chavez and Mona Charren, who have excellent access to conservative media such as the Wall Street Journal. 13. Because different questions were asked in different years, it is difficult to be certain about which way and when public opinion changed. For details on time trends see Hall and Rodriguez (2003) and Huddy, Neely and Lafay (2000). 14. Noelle-Neumann (1993) specifically analyzes polling data to show the way that pluralistic ignorance can be produced by the media’s failure to include certain frames or arguments that are then believed to be idiosyncratic concerns, and focuses on when and how surveys are distorted by this but also can reveal some of the process. 15. The “symbolic annihilation”of women by their utter invisibility in mass media of the 1950s and 1960s was critiqued in the classic introduction by Tuchman et al. (1978). 16. This omission from standard media references is something of which I became aware as I attempted to find the original wording used by reporters to cover this protest; for the most part, this event was not covered at all. 17. Some women reporters of the period provide first-person accounts of the editorial resistance they faced when trying to get coverage for women’s political action (see, for example, Robertson, 1992). 18. Actual access to abortion is similar in the United States and Germany, although Germany makes abortion in the first trimester “illegal but unpunished” if appropriate counseling is certified and the U.S. imposes parental consent and counseling rules that make some abortions extra-legal even though in principle women’s choice of abortion is supposed to be permitted. 19. The percentage of all voices applies to all non-journalists quoted or paraphrased whether or not their comments included substantive framing about abortion. Percent of civil society voices were calculated on a base of non-state, non-party speakers other than journalists who were quoted or paraphrased in saying something framing abortion. The former is the widest and the latter the narrowest relevant calculation of the base for comparison. 20. As Shaping Abortion Discourse points out, advocates of violence in the abortion debate get virtually no space in mainstream newspapers to make their case, even though some such anti-abortion activists, especially in the United States, actively justify bombings and murders of abortion providers within their own media (newsletters and webpages). There appears to be a deliberate strategy by the newspapers to deny such advocates voice, presumably in the interest of limiting their effectiveness, which would be a good example of soft repression at work. However, in this instance it may have had the opposite consequence, since such radical appeals could widely circulate in anti-abortion circles without becoming obvious or being taken seriously by those outside these circles. When they did surface,

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after several murders of doctors, they were perceived as very discrediting to the whole anti-abortion movement.

REFERENCES Bacchi, C. (1996). The politics of affirmative action: Women, equality and category politics. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Baxandall, R., & Gordon, L. (2000). Dear sisters: Dispatches from the women’s liberation movement. New York: Basic Books. Black, N. (1989). Social feminism. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Calhoun, C. (1995). New social movements of the early nineteenth century. In: M. Traugott (Ed.), Repertoires and Cycles of Collective Action (pp. 173–215). Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Cohen, A., Adoni, H., & Bentz, C. (1990). Social conflict and television news. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Cott, N. (1987). The grounding of modern feminism. New Haven: Yale. Daly, M., & Caputi, J. (1987). Webster’s first new intergalactic wickedary of the English language. Boston: Beacon. della Porta, D. (1996). Social movements and the state: Thoughts on the policing of protest. In: D. McAdam, J. McCarthy & M. Zald (Eds), Comparative Perspectives on Social Movements (pp. 62–92). New York: Cambridge University Press. Ferree, M. M., Gamson, W. A., Gerhards, J., & Rucht, D. (2002). Shaping abortion discourse: Democracy and the public sphere in Germany and the United States. New York: Cambridge University Press. Friedan, B. (1976). It changed my life: Writings on the women’s movement. New York: Random House. Gamson, W. A. (1990). The strategy of social protest (first edition, Dorsey Press 1975). New York: Wadsworth. Gans, H. (1979). Deciding what’s news. New York: Pantheon. Gutmann, A., & Thompson, D. (1996). Democracy and disagreement. New York: Cambridge University Press. Hall, E. J., & Rodriguez, M. S. (2003). The myth of post-feminism. Gender & Society, 17(6), 878–962. Huddy, L., Neely, F., & Lafay, M. (2000). The polls: Trends – support for the women’s movement. Public Opinion Quarterly, 64(3), 309–350. Johnston, H., & Klandermans, B. (1995). The cultural analysis of social movements. In: H. Johnston & B. Klandermans (Eds), Social Movements and Culture (pp. 3–24). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Lichterman, P. (1996). The search for political community: American activists reinventing commitment. New York: Cambridge University Press. McAdam, D. (1982). Political process and the development of black insurgency. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Miethe, I. (1999a). Frauen in der DDR-Opposition: Lebens- und kollektivgeschichtliche Verläufe in einer Frauenfriedensgruppe. Opladen: Leske & Budrich. Miethe, I. (1999b). From mother of the revolution to fathers of unification: Concepts of politics among women activists following German unification. Social Politics, 6(1), 1–22. Morris, A. (1984). The origins of the civil rights movement. New York: Free Press.

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Morris, A. (1992). Political consciousness and collective action. In: A. Morris & C. M. Mueller (Eds), Frontiers in Social Movement Theory (pp. 351–374). New Haven: Yale. Neubeck, K., & Cazenave, N. (2001). Welfare racism. New York: Routledge. Noelle-Neumann, E. (1993). The spiral of silence: Public opinion, our social skin. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Oliver, P., & Maney, G. (2000). Political processes and local newspaper coverage of protest events. American Journal of Sociology, 106(2), 463–505. Pollitt, K. (1994). Reasonable creatures: Essays on women and feminism. New York: Knopf. Robertson, N. (1992). The girls in the balcony: Women, men and the New York Times. New York: Random House. Rossi, A. (Ed.) (1973). The feminist papers. New York: Columbia University Press. Seccombe, K. (1999). So you think I drive a Cadillac? Welfare recipients’ perspectives on the system and its reform. Boston: Allyn & Bacon. Sennett, R., & Cobb, J. (1999). The hidden injuries of class. New York: Vintage. Skrentny, J. D. (1996). The ironies of affirmative action: Politics, culture and justice in America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Smith, D. (1999). Writing the social. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Tarrow, S. (1989). Democracy and disorder. New York: Oxford. Taylor, V. (1996). Rock-a-by baby: Feminism, self-help and post-partum depression. New York: Routledge. Thorne, B. (1993). Gender play. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press. Tuchman, G., Kaplan Daniels, A., & Benét, J. (Eds) (1978). Hearth and home: Images of women in the media. New York: Oxford University Press. West, C., & Zimmerman, D. H. (1987). Doing gender. Gender & Society, 1(2), 125–151.

PERFORMING PROTEST: DRAG SHOWS AS TACTICAL REPERTOIRE OF THE GAY AND LESBIAN MOVEMENT Verta Taylor, Leila J. Rupp and Joshua Gamson ABSTRACT This paper presents a theoretical definition of protest that overcomes the bifurcation of politics and culture in mainstream social movement research. The model is grounded in a study of drag performances, which have a long history in same-sex communities as vehicles for expressing gay identity, creating and maintaining solidarity, and staging political resistance. Extending Tilly’s concept of repertoires of contention, we propose the term “tactical repertoires” to refer to protest episodes, and we identify three elements of all tactical repertoires: contestation, intentionality, and collective identity. We combine social constructionist perspectives on gender and sexuality, the social movement literature, and writings in performance studies to understand how drag performances function as tactical repertoires of the gay and lesbian movement. We argue that because they are entertaining, drag shows illuminate gay life for mainstream audiences and provide a space for the construction of collective identities that confront and rework gender and sexual boundaries.


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PERFORMING PROTEST Drag Shows as Tactical Repertoire of the Gay and Lesbian Movement The study of protest events – the collective public displays used by challenging groups to make claims against opponents, authorities, and other groups – has been a defining feature of the resource mobilization and political process traditions in the study of social movements (Klandermans, 1997; McAdam, 1982; Tarrow, 1998; Tilly, 1978). Scholars such as Tilly (1995, 2001) and Tarrow (1998) have emphasized the dynamic nature of political contention by pointing to important historical variations in movement tactics. Nevertheless, in defining what counts as “protest,” it has been customary for students of social movements to concentrate on a set of standard and limited forms – marches, demonstrations, rallies, public meetings, boycotts, sit-ins, slogans, petitions, speak-outs, strikes, and attacks – that came into being in response to state-building and changes in capitalism (Kreisi et al., 1995; McAdam et al., 1997; McAdam et al., 2001; Tarrow, 1989; Tilly, 1978; Van Dyke, 1998). As a result of increasing attention to the role of culture in mobilizing protest, several studies have pointed to the wide range of cultural repertoires used by protesters to influence allies and opponents (Darnovsky et al., 1995; Goodwin et al., 2000; Jasper, 1997; Johnston & Klandermans, 1995; Morris, 1984; Patillo McCoy, 1998). Scholars have described the everyday expressive behaviors found in environmental activism and animal rights activism (Almanzar et al., 1998; Jasper, 1997; Lichterman, 1996); the embodied forms of resistance practiced by the women’s, African Liberation, East German democracy, gay and lesbian, and breast cancer movements (Gould, 2001; Klawiter, 1999; Kuumba & Ajanaku, 1998; Mueller, 1999; Taylor & Whittier, 1992; Whittier, 1995); the use of music for the articulation of grievances by the labor movement, the student and antiwar movements of the 1960s, African American social protest, and the feminist movement (Eder et al., 1995; Eyerman & Jamison, 1998; Flacks, 1999; Rhodes, 2001; Roscigno & Danaher, 2001; Rose, 1994; Staggenborg, 1998, 2001); the politics of ritual, carnival, transgression, and parody used by the feminist, AIDS, and gay and lesbian movements (Christiansen & Hansen, 1996; Epstein, 1996; Gamson, J, 1989, 1995; Sontag, 1964; Taylor & Whittier, 1995); and the rituals and mass celebrations of recent men’s movements (Heath, Unpublished). This research opens up novel ways of thinking about protest by bringing to light the cultural forms of political expression used by groups denied access to ordinary politics and by social movements seeking change primarily in cultural codes and institutions rather than in the institutionalized political arena (Katzenstein, 1998; Melucci, 1996a, b; Raeburn, 2004; Zald, 2000).

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These studies have also triggered a debate among scholars of social movements over whether cultural and emotional expression should be treated as a legitimate form of protest action (Ferree, 1992; Goodwin, Jasper & Polletta, 2001; Scott, 1990; Staggenborg, 2001; Tilly, 1991, 1999; Whittier, 1995). How do we know when cultural forms such as music, comedy, ritual, art, theater, and spectacles are rituals of affirmation, when apolitical entertainments, and when actions geared toward changing, or opposing change, in institutions of social life? When is cultural performance a form of protest? In this paper, we take the case of drag shows – in particular, shows staged by gay men in a predominantly gay commercial nightclub in Key West, Florida – to address this question (Rupp & Taylor, 2003). Drag shows are entertaining collective events in which cross-dressing is used to call attention to the role of cultural markers and practices such as dress, bodily style, gesture, and voice, in constructing gender and sexual difference. In the gay community context, they make an excellent site for identifying what makes certain types of cultural expression and not others politics, and for further demonstrating the varied and distinctive cultural repertoires used by social movements. Drag performances have a long history in same-sex communities as vehicles for the expression of gay identity and culture, the creation and maintenance of solidarity, and the staging of political resistance (Chauncey, 1994; D’Emilio, 1983; Rupp, 1999). Their political significance is hotly debated among gender scholars. Some see them as destabilizing institutionalized gender and sexological classifications by making visible the social basis of gender and sexuality and by presenting hybrid and minority genders and sexualities (Brubach & O’Brien, 1999; Butler, 1990; Fleisher, 1996; Garber, 1992; Halberstam, 1998; Kulick, 1998; Lorber, 1994, 1999; Muñoz, 1999; West & Zimmerman, 1987). Others maintain that they are more likely to reinforce dominant assumptions about the dichotomous nature of gender and sexuality by appropriating the gender displays and accoutrements of traditional femininity and institutionalized heterosexuality (Dolan, 1985; Frye, 1983; Gagné & Tewksbury, 1996; Schacht, 2000; Tewksbury, 1993). Drag shows have a history as entertainment forms for both gay and non-gay audiences (Boyd, 1997; Chauncey, 1994; Harris, 1997; Senelick, 2000). Indeed, drag shows combine politics with entertainment in a way that is typical of a wide range of other performance strategies that historically have been used both by dominant and subordinated groups sometimes to maintain and at other times to contest racial, cultural, environmental, and national communities and identities (Beeman, 1993; Berezin, 1997; Deloria, 1998; Himmelstein, 1963; Mason & Gainor, 1999; Rahier, 1999; Rose, 1994; Stourac & McCreery, 1986; Von Geldern, 1993). In this article, we use, extend, and bridge social constructionist approaches to gender and sexuality, social movement theory, and performance studies research

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to specify what makes cultural forms function as political strategies. After locating the study in the larger history of gay male drag and its relationship to the gay and lesbian movement, we describe the setting of the field research and the multimethod approach of the study. Our analysis of the drag shows at Key West’s 801 Cabaret is then organized around three factors that illuminate the way cultural performances can be used as political tactics: their role in contesting the dominant order, the degree of intentionality involved, and the kinds of collective identitywork they embody. This theoretical definition extends the ground-breaking work on protest event data developed by Tilly (1978), Tarrow (1989), Kriesi, Koopmans, Duyvendak and Giugni (1995), and McAdam, McCarthy, Olzak and Soule (1997) to encompass the role of culture in episodes of collective action. Our goal is to elaborate a model that is broad enough to encompass conventional forms of political contention as well as cultural protest and that will allow us to distinguish between events staged purely for entertainment and those staged for political ends. We argue that, in part precisely because they are entertaining, drag shows such as those at the 801 Cabaret function as important tactical repertoires of the gay and lesbian movement, illuminating challenging aspects of gay life for mainstream audiences and providing a space for the construction of collective identities that confront and rework gender and sexual boundaries. We conclude by discussing how the framework presented here allows for the systematic analysis of empirical evidence on localized cultural repertoires and their links to wider social movements.

THE TRADITION OF DRAG IN THE GAY AND LESBIAN MOVEMENT Crossdressing has taken place across time, around the world, and has served a wide variety of purposes – religious, theatrical, political, social, and sexual (Baker, 1994; Senelick, 2000). In the United States, men dressing and acting as women for the purpose of entertainment emerged in the mid-19th century, when glamorous female impersonators first appeared on stage (Senelick, 2000). However, drag first began to play an important role in gay male communities in the 1920s when, in large urban areas of the United States, gay men of different class and ethnic backgrounds organized public drag balls that brought together hundreds, sometimes thousands, of men who used the masquerade of dressing in women’s clothing to dance with other men (Beemyn, 1997a, b; Bullough & Bullough, 1993; Chauncey, 1994; Newton, 1979). Historians consider these first performances of drag by gay men to have been critical to the formation of a shared sexual and cultural identity (Chauncey, 1994; Rupp, 1999), and many scholars view early drag queens, because of their willingness to identify themselves as gay in public, as the forerunners of the

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public performative resistance deployed by the modern gay and lesbian movement (Beemyn, 1997a, b; Newton, 1972). While cross-dressing emerged among gay men principally as a means of signifying gay identity, drag performances soon found their way into venues not specifically coded as gay, drawing the attention of heterosexual audiences whose presence legitimized the performance. The early drag balls attracted gawking heterosexual onlookers, and by the 1940s, in cities such as San Francisco, New York, New Orleans, Seattle, and Los Angeles, gay men and lesbians mingled with heterosexual tourists at drag shows in well-known clubs (Boyd, 1997; Senelick, 2000). The repression of gay culture following the Second World War led some areas to ban female impersonation in cafes, restaurants, and other establishments, and female impersonators in some cities had to carry cabaret cards to prove they were performers (Drexel, 1997). Rather than stamping out female impersonation, the legal restrictions channeled drag performances into more exclusively gay commercial establishments. These gay clubs employed younger, more marginal and confrontational “street impersonators,” who would lip-synch to recorded music (Newton, 1979). Through the 1960s, both in gay clubs and in tourist-oriented nightclubs such as Finnochio’s in San Francisco or the Jewel Box Review in Miami, drag performers began to appropriate a fairly standard repertoire of mainstream popular music and show tunes, emphasizing the disjuncture between their biological sex and their performance of femininity. Many drag routines also began to take on a more political edge, creating and then breaking the illusion of femaleness as a drag queen stripped down to a G-string, removed her wig at the end of the show, gestured to her genitals at the mention of the word “love,” imitated gay male sexual intercourse on stage, or went out into the audience sexually to tease heterosexual men (Newton, 1972; Paulson with Simpson, 1996). If these early forms of resistance can be seen as pre-political, the role of drag in the modern gay and lesbian movement has been more explicitly political. For the assimilationist wings of gay and lesbian activism, from the homophile movement of the 1950s to the present (Adam, 1995; D’Emilio, 1983), gay drag queens have been an embarrassment. In the movement’s confrontational wings, though, drag has played a central role not just in the construction of a public gay identity but also in conjunction with other mass mobilization strategies such as public rallies, marches, and demonstrations. For instance, it was a chorus line of mocking drag queens that challenged police the night of the raid at Stonewall Inn in 1969, launching a riot that gave way to the mobilization of the contemporary gay and lesbian movement. As the gay and lesbian movement gained momentum through the 1970s, some gay men took cross-dressing practices out of gay clubs, using camp and drag to pursue the movement’s cultural goals of challenging dominant

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constructions of masculinity and femininity, homophobia, and the primacy of the gendered heterosexual family. In the 1980s, groups such as the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence in San Francisco and Church Ladies for Choice in New York City used drag as a weapon in the movement’s direct action “in your face” protests against the religious right (Cohen-Cruz, 1998; Senelick, 2000). The use of campy drag attire, ridicule, and exaggerated stereotypes to announce gay identity was also central to ACT-UPs headline-grabbing, militant, and irreverent performances staged to shock Americans out of AIDS denial (Gamson, J, 1989). Since the Stonewall rebellion, drag performances have evolved from a form of entertainment and personal rebellion into a routine and widely used strategy of the movement deployed in conjunction with other forms of protest. The nature of contemporary drag performances must be understood in the context of this mixed history. Drag has clear links to the movement’s political strategies and also partakes of less political entertainment traditions. It is a cultural form that has been, but is not always, deployed politically. Indeed, the few empirical studies of contemporary drag performances by sociologists find considerable variation in their political content (Brown, 2001; Gagné & Tewksbury, 1996, 1999; Schacht, 2000). Moreover, almost nothing is known about audiences – those who may be entertained, or politically transformed, or both – for drag. To understand whether and how contemporary drag shows function as vehicles for political expression therefore requires empirically grounded research on drag queens’ performances of gender and sexuality, the intentions behind their performances, the interactions between drag performers and their audiences, and drag-show audiences’ experiences and interpretations.

THEORETICAL LINKS: “PERFORMANCE” IN GENDER AND SEXUALITY THEORY, SOCIAL MOVEMENT THEORY, AND PERFORMANCE STUDIES Social constructionist theories of gender and sexuality, social movement theory, and performance studies all employ the metaphor of performance. An integration of these perspectives is necessary to understand whether and how drag performances serve as a tactical repertoire of the gay and lesbian movement. Social constructionist perspectives treat gender and sexuality as historically variable categories of difference overlaid onto external markers, behaviors, bodies, desires, and practices that typically function to reinforce major structures of inequality (Blumstein & Schwartz, 1976; Connell, 1987; Gersen & Peiss, 1985; Greenberg, 1988; Lorber, 1995; Maloney & Fenstermaker, 2002; Murray, 2000;

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Nardi & Schneider, 1998; Plummer, 1981; Risman, 1998; Rust, 1993; West & Zimmerman, 1976). Most research in gender and sexuality focuses on the processes that create and maintain a heteronormative sexual system consisting of two sexual identities, heterosexual and homosexual, and a binary gender system made up of two genders, male and female (Butler, 1990, 1993; Gagnon & Simon, 1973; Goffman, 1979; Howard, 1996; Kessler & McKenna, 1978; Plummer, 1982; Stein & Plummer, 1996; West & Fenstermaker, 1995; West & Zimmerman, 1987). However, recent writings by gender scholars in sociology (Foster, 1999; Gamson, J, 1997; Lorber, 1999; Taylor & Whittier, 1992), influenced by the thinking of queer theorists (Butler, 1990, 1993; Epstein & Straub, 1991; Halberstam, 1998; Seidman, 1996; Warner, 1993), have called attention to “performative” gender transgressions such as drag performances, cross-dressing, female masculinity, and other boundary-disruptive tactics used by feminist, queer, transgender, and other social movements. In these types of protest, the body of the performer is used to highlight the social basis of gender and sexuality and to contest dominant heterosexual gender codes. We apply this approach to transgressive gender performances – largely missing from existing social movements research – to examine the gender and sexual meanings deployed in drag shows. Social movement theory turns our attention to the strategic and intentional nature of social protest (McCarthy & Zald, 1977; Oliver, 1980; Tilly, 1978) and the culturally encoded ways people interact in episodes of political contention (Fantasia, 1988; Gamson, W, 1992a, b; Melucci, 1995; Morris, 1984; Taylor & Van Dyke, 2004). Here, again, the metaphor of performance appears. Social movement scholars, following Tilly (1978), use the concept of collective action repertoires to describe the distinctive and recurrent tactics and strategies used by protest groups to act collectively to make claims on individuals and groups (Tarrow, 1998; Tilly, 1995; Traugott, 1995). Like its theatrical counterpart, the term “repertoire” implies that the interactions between a movement and its antagonists can be understood as strategic performances or “established ways in which pairs of actors make and receive claims bearing on each other’s interests” (Tilly, 1995, p. 43). Although Tilly introduced the notion of repertoires to explain the rise of the social movement as a form of claims-making used by subordinate groups in modern capitalist democratic societies, social movement scholars use the concept of repertoires of contention more broadly to refer to the recurrent, predictable, and fairly narrow “toolkit” of specific protest tactics used by a set of collective actors in a particular campaign (Beckwith, 2000; della Porta & Diani, 1999; McAdam & Snow, 1997; Mueller, 1999; Taylor, 1996). The tactics or specific forms of collective claims-making used by social movements are increasingly examined in terms of their place in a larger repertoire of collective action (Meyer & Whittier, 1994; Mueller, 1999).

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To provide conceptual clarification, in this article, we propose the more delimited concept of tactical repertoires to describe and understand the features and implications of particular forms of collective protest (see Taylor & Van Dyke, 2004 for further elaboration of this distinction). We define tactical repertoires as interactive episodes that link social movement actors to each other as well as to opponents and authorities for the intended purpose of challenging or resisting change in groups, organizations, or societies. The tactical repertoires concept, when applied to the case at hand, allows us to assess whether and how drag shows in gay venues promote the collective expression of oppositional ideas, manifest solidarity and collective identity between performers and audience, and make strategic links to the larger gay and lesbian movement. It also allows us to consider the political intentions and choices of the performers, which provides further evidence of a repertoire’s status as a protest form. A growing body of research by social scientists and scholars of cultural studies on political performances (Barucha, 1993; Berezin, 1997; Cohen, 1993; Cohen-Cruz, 1998; Goodwin with deGay, 1998, 2000; Parkin, Caplan & Fisher, 1996; Phelan, 1993; Von Geldern, 1993) has raised questions about the artificial distinction between expressive and instrumental action that permeates the literature on social movements and contributes to the lack of attention to cultural repertoires (Tilly, 1991, 1995). Earlier attempts by cultural historians and scholars of performance studies to classify cultural practices and performances either as politics or rituals of affirmation have given way to a more complicated reading that reveals that performances almost always partake of both aspects, such that politics and entertainment are deliberately interwoven with the goal of winning acceptance of the message (Berezin, 1994; Cohen, 1993; Fuoss, 1999; Samuel, MacCove & Cosgrove, 1985; Schechner, 1998; Stourac & McCreery, 1986; Stowe, 1998). Further, cultural performances typically are staged to solicit strong emotion and are experienced by the audience as play rather than as serious, which allows them to attract participants who might not otherwise attend a political event (Bailey, 1996; Stowe, 1998). Research in performance studies also suggests that performances can be simultaneously divisive and communal (Fuoss, 1997; Schechner, 1998). In cases where performers draw audiences composed of groups with different and competing interests – such as drag, which attracts heterosexual as well as lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered participants – performances may promote the internal articulation of collective identity among the performers and segments of the audience who share the performers’ interests. At the same time, cultural performances can contribute to the external articulation of collective identity between members of the different groups who gather to participate in the event, on the one hand, and the larger community, on the other (Chaney, 1993).

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In this analysis, then, we link these theories and approaches in order to develop a means of identifying which performances achieve the status of protest, and how – something none of these literatures has thus far managed to clarify. Based on our examination of this case, we offer a general definition of tactical repertoires that identifies how cultural performances function as protest episodes: first, and most important, the degree to which a performance is demonstrably a site of contestation where symbols and identity are forged, negotiated, and debated by groups with different and competing interests; second, whether the performance is staged with intentionality, or deliberate, conscious, and strategic use of cultural entertainment as the medium of expression for political ideas; third, whether the performance is acted out by collective actors, however transitory, for whom culture serves as an arena for the enactment, reinforcement, or renegotiation of collective identity. Our analysis of drag shows will be organized around these three dimensions. We use this case in the Weberian tradition to propose the concept of tactical repertoires as a means of understanding the features of particular forms of collective protest.

Setting, Data and Analytic Strategy The data for this study come from field research conducted from 1998–2001 in a popular drag cabaret in Key West, Florida (Rupp & Taylor, 2003). Key West illustrates the significance of “place difference” and the operation of “safe spaces” in social protest (Molotch, Freudenburg & Paulsen, 2000; Polletta, 1999; Tilly, 2000). A tropical island about one-and-one-half miles wide and four-and-a-half miles long and closer to Cuba (90 miles) than Miami (154 miles), Key West is a flamboyant mixture of cultures, sheltering Cuban and Bahamian enclaves, but also artistic, hippie, and gay communities. The city of 26,000 inhabitants touts its tolerance, having recently adopted “One Human Family” as its slogan. Tourism is the mainstay of the island’s economy, along with fishing, the Navy, and, unofficially, drugs. The gay presence in Key West grew in the 1970s when gay-owned businesses such as guest houses, restaurants, bars, theaters, snorkeling boats, real estate agencies, art galleries, and bookstores flourished, as part of the gay and lesbian movement’s culture-building strategies. In the 1980s, Key West had one of the first gay mayors in the United States. By the 1990s, gay and lesbian residents were well ensconced in government, business, education, social services, and cultural institutions. Key West is not only a gay tourist destination, but also a drag queen mecca. There are about 100 drag queens in Key West, if only about 15 who perform professionally. Drag queens are so common that they do not attract a lot of attention.

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The 801 Cabaret sits on upper Duval Street, the center of Key West’s dynamic gay life, which after about 11 o’clock at night feels like gay public space. It is part of the Bourbon Street complex, which consists of a gay male bar, a guesthouse, a late night eatery, a backroom red-light bar, and the 801, with an upstairs cabaret and a downstairs gay male bar. The audiences of the drag show are drawn in by the street theater performed by the drag queens, who stand outside the bar on Duval Street an hour before the show begins passing out flyers, posing for photos with tourists and engaging in banter, theatrics, and serious discussions with people walking and driving by. The audience is mixed, consisting of men and women, gays and heterosexuals, tourists and locals. There is no cover for the show, which begins at 11 o’clock most nights and lasts about two hours. During the period of study, there were six or seven full-time drag queens known as the “801 Girls” who, joined by occasional guests, perform different lip-synched shows nightly in the cabaret to anywhere from 50 people on an off-night to several thousand people during festivals, holidays, and other celebrations. In addition to their roles as performers, the 801 Girls are celebrities whose notoriety is both engineered by the bar and a function of their role in the local community. It is important to emphasize that, despite Key West’s unique character, the drag shows at the 801 Cabaret are representative of a style of drag that has spread to most urban areas of the United States and even beyond. Our research follows the tripartite model of cultural investigation used by J. Gamson (1994, 1998) in which multiple sources of data pertaining to texts, production, and reception are collected and the intersections among them analyzed. This model is also consistent with new developments in the field of social movements (McAdam, Tarrow & Tilly, 2001) that break protest events into smaller interactive episodes in order to identify the general mechanisms and processes that take place when challenging groups engage in contentious conversations with dominant groups – what Mische (2004) terms the “cultural practices of talk.” First, to assess the way gender, sexuality, and politics are deployed in drag, we observed, tape-recorded, and transcribed 50 drag performances, including the dialogue, music, and audience interactions. We supplemented these with photographs of and field notes on the gender and sexual displays used by the performers and observations of and field notes on about a dozen special performances and amateur drag contests. To examine whether and how drag performances are intentional and strategic tools of the gay and lesbian movement, we collected data on the production of the performances by attending weekly drag queen meetings, observing the performers in their dressing room, and conducting semi-structured life histories of 12 performers. As background we interviewed the bar manager, the mothers of

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two performers, and the boyfriends of two others. All of the drag queens identified as gay men and full-time drag queens; none were post-operative transsexuals. Our sample includes one Asian American, one Puerto Rican American, one Swedish immigrant, and nine native born whites. They ranged in age from 18 to 60 years, although the majority were in their late 20s and early 30s. All of the interviewees were paid employees of the 801 Cabaret, although most of the drag queens engage in other occasional forms of paid work to supplement their wages (generally around $200 a week for four nights work) and tips, which vary seasonally from about $125–$400 a week. The drag queens asked that their names be used in reports of the research, and in this article we use mainly their drag names. We also use the pronouns that the performers are most likely to use to refer to themselves, because in everyday life the drag queens switch back and forth between masculine and feminine pronouns. This study is unique in the collection of a third source of data that allowed us to assess the construction of collective identity that took place during the performance and to observe the audience members’ interactive interpretions of the gender and sexuality displays used in the performances (Blee & Taylor, 2002). Over a period of five months during the height of the winter and spring tourist seasons, we conducted 12 focus groups, ranging in size from two to12 participants, with audience members who attended the performances. We obtained participants by distributing invitations at the evening shows and conducted the focus group sessions in the cabaret the following day. The focus groups consisted of 40 people, exactly half women and half men and more than two-thirds identifying as gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transsexual. Those willing to come to the focus groups were more likely to have liked and been affected in some way by the show, so we also made use of informal conversations and short interviews with an additional 55 audience members to get a broader sense of audience reactions. Finally, to assess the role of the 801 performers in the larger gay and lesbian community, we examined over a three year period all stories that contained references to the performers in the weekly gay newspaper, Celebrate! and in the mainstream Key West media. The data were coded by two of the authors and two research associates and analyzed qualitatively. All unreferenced quotations and data come from our interviews and observations.

Tactical Repertoires: Contestation, Intentionality, and Collective Identity We identify three features common to all tactical repertoires that distinguish oppositional performances from rituals of cultural affirmation. First, and most important, tactical repertoires are sites of contestation in which bodies, symbols,

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identities, practices, and discourses are used to pursue or prevent change in institutionalized power relations. Second, we share the view of resource mobilization and political process theorists that strategic decision-making is an essential aspect of the social psychology of claims-making and, therefore, view intentionality as an element of tactical repertoires. Third, we view protest actions not only as directed to external targets but also having internal movement-building dimensions. Through protest actions, challenging groups develop an oppositional consciousness or collective identity, “the shared definition of a group that derives from members’ common interests and solidarity” (Taylor, 1989; Taylor & Whittier, 1992). Our analysis of drag shows demonstrates that they partake of each of these dimensions. Contestation: Identification, Counteridentification, and Disidentification Contestation refers, theoretically, to the extent to which the symbols, identities, and discourse of a cultural performance subvert rather than maintain dominant relations of power. Drawing from performance studies scholar Muñoz’s (1999) theory of disidentification, which distinguishes three stances with respect to performers’ contesting of dominant heterosexual gender codes, we analyzed the musical routines performed by the drag queens to assess the degree to which they can be considered oppositional. In a typical show, the 801 Girls perform 15–20 lip-synched individual or group numbers. Our research reveals that the great majority of the 801 Cabaret drag queens’ numbers, in one way or another, expand and problematize identity and identification by taking bodies and practices that are culturally encoded as feminine or masculine, or as heterosexual or homosexual, and combining them to create new gender and sexual meanings. Table 1 classifies 73 songs performed in a typical week according to Muñoz’s categories of identification, counteridentification, and disidentification. First, and very rare (6%), are songs that allow the performers to adopt roles that embrace or signify identification with traditional images of femininity and heterosexuality without critiquing them. This is what we usually think of as female impersonation. When Sushi performs “All that Jazz,” showing off her shapely Table 1. Frequency Distribution of Identity Performance as Expressed in the Drag Queens’ Routines in a Typical Week.

Identification Counteridentification Disidentification

Percent of Routines

N

6 38 56

4 28 41

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figure, beautiful legs, and talented dancing or when Gugi or Inga impersonate Celine Dion in “My Heart Will Go On,” dressed in glamorous evening gowns and mouthing the words with a trembling vulnerable face, there is no visual reconfiguration of femininity. But even here, the words of the songs, mouthed by gay men, can be disruptive of traditional gender and sexuality. In “All that Jazz,” for example, Sushi lip-synchs, “Oh, her mother’s blood’d curdle/ if she’d hear/Her baby’s queer,” and “No, I’m no one’s wife/But, oh I love my life.” The second, more common performance type (38%) communicates counteridentification by adopting an oppositional tone, using humor to reject or mock gender and sexual codes. Scabola Feces performs the Fifth Dimension’s version of “The Wedding Bell Blues” in a ripped-up wedding dress, coke-bottle glasses, and a mouthful of fake rotten teeth. Gripping what looks like a silk dogwood tree in a cement flowerpot, Scabola laments her rotten treatment by Bill, and then ridicules the misogyny and romance entrenched in heterosexual marriage (Ingraham, 1999) by grabbing a handsome presumably heterosexual man from the audience, hugging and clutching him and begging him to marry her. Milla, an olive-skinned white man who specializes in what Robertson (1998) calls “crossethnicking” in her performances, frequently portrays an African American woman. Wearing outfits made from African-style cloth, sporting head cloths, and talking like a tough Black woman, she performs numbers by Erykah Badu that critique men’s sexual and physical abuse of women. The majority of the songs performed by the drag queens (56%) use disidentification, in which the performers appropriate dominant gender and sexual categories and practices, neither rejecting them nor embracing them but using the fact that femininity and heterosexuality are being performed by gay men to construct a hybrid and more fluid model of gender and sexuality. They do this in a variety of ways. Many of their routines are contrived to make visible and reclaim subordinated gender and sexual identities. For example, R. V. and Inga’s joint rendition of “I Think He’s Gay” portrays two women with suspicions about a man who “walks like Wilma Flintstone,” wears leather pants in the hottest weather, and whose “wrist seems unattached” when he throws a ball. The stereotypes and the chorus, “Why won’t he touch my snatch? I think he’s gay!”, draw their humor from the fact that it is gay men dressed as women who are mouthing them. Others explicitly aim to arouse erotic responses that do not fit into the categories of heterosexuality or homosexuality. Scabola’s humorous rendition of Jill Sobule’s “I Kissed a Girl” makes an important point about the fluidity of sexuality without generating homophobic reactions from the audience. The humor is derived from the fact that Scabola is a gay man dressed as a woman with garish make-up and false eyelashes, skipping around the bar kissing women and acting embarrassed, lip-synching a song about two presumably heterosexual women who are talking

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about their boyfriends and end up making love with each other: “I kissed a girl, her lips were sweet/ She was like kissing me/Kissed a girl, won’t change the world/ But I’m so glad, I kissed a girl.” In a number of songs, the performers seem to be doing simple female impersonation, except that they use the cultural equation of the penis with maleness to mix up gender categories (Bordo, 1999). One of Inga’s signature songs is “Barbie Girl,” performed in a hot-pink miniskirt and jacket with “Barbie” emblazoned on the back. I’m a Barbie Girl, in a Barbie world Life in plastic, it’s fantastic You can brush my hair, undress me everywhere Imagination Life is your creation.

The lyrics invite the audience to imagine undressing Inga/Barbie, knowing what they would find underneath the plastic. At the end of the Saturday night “Sex Show,” Kylie Jean Lucille strips during the last number, “Queen of the Night,” revealing a perfect, nude male body juxtaposed to a woman’s made-up face, a long blonde wig and red high-heeled shoes. Recognizing the hybrid identity constructed by this performance, Kylie admits that he feels like “Adam and Eve” doing this number. As if to underline further the performativity on which the gender order is based, at the end of his Sunday night show, R. V. stages his own rendition of “What Makes A Man,” a plaintive song performed at Wigstock, an annual drag queen festival in New York City, about the loneliness of life as a drag queen. Sitting at a make-up table removing his wig, make-up, falsies, and women’s clothes, sometimes singing in his own voice, R. V. comes fully out of drag on stage, imploring the audience to consider “what makes a man a man.” It is an emotional song about the ridicule encountered by a drag queen who fails to live up to masculine ideals, and the performance visually questions the meaning of gender, making explicit what is central to drag shows. The drag queens use disidentificatory performances to critique and educate not only heterosexual but also gay and lesbian members of the audience, as Scabola Feces’ performance of “I’m Not a Fucking Drag Queen,” illustrates well. Originally performed in a lesbian bar in the movie “Better than Chocolate,” the song tells the story of a male to female transsexual who is excluded from the lesbian community. In the film, “I’m not a fucking drag queen” conveys that, however much she may look like a man in drag, the performer’s gender and sexual identity put her “in another bracket. Nothing here is padded, I’ve paid a mighty fortune, a few things have been added, and one or two subtractions.” Scabola, however, reverses the

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message by beginning in an elegant gown and shoulder-length wig, then gradually stripping down to a bikini bottom to communicate that, when men perform in drag, their apparent transgenderism is a performance, not an essential identity. The 801 performances further represent the queer modality that emerged in the mid-1980s that has sought to build alliances with other groups disadvantaged by membership in subordinated social categories, such as feminists, people of color, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgendered people. Gugi Gomez, who is Puerto Rican, presents herself as Cuban, although she is sometimes introduced as a “wetback.” In her show, “A Night in Havana,” she puts on a thick and obviously fake accent, and her outfits include Carmen Miranda, complete with fruit hat, and a Cuban costume. Sushi, who regularly calls attention to her Japanese heritage, sometimes introduces Milla as a “soul sister” or “a Black woman trapped in a faggot’s body.” In fact, the range of personae adopted by Milla illustrates the way the 801 performances constitute a critique of social divisions. Dean describes his drag character, Milla, as “omnisexual” (and her performances are, in fact, experienced as sexually arousing by lesbians, heterosexual women, and heterosexual men, not to mention gay men): Milla is a black woman, she is a Puerto Rican woman, she is a lesbian, she is a heterosexual woman, she is a gay man. She’s all these things, and that’s why she can seduce in one way or the other, whether it’s friendship or sexually, everybody.

If such radical fluidity of sexual and gender categories is one of the transformative messages of these shows, there is considerable evidence that those in the audience pick up at least part of the challenge. The majority of the audience members initially stated that they tended to suspend reality during the show, thinking of the drag queens primarily as women. When we probed further, however, we found that most who watched the show picked up on the idea of gender fluidity – often expressed in the scholarly literature as category “confusion” or category breakdown (Garber, 1993; Lorber, 1999). For example, a young heterosexual woman who had never before attended a drag show explained that during the performance she thought of the performers as both men and women. “Back and forth, I think. Yeah, I was confused and went back about 12 times.” A heterosexual woman in another focus group described a similar response: “Your mind’s saying so many different things at once – is this a man, is this a woman? . . . trying to decide for yourself how you feel about it, and they’re doing a great show in front of you at the same time.” Another participant described the experience as “fascinating and shattering.” A local heterosexual woman who regularly attends put it this way: “You leave thinking male/female, gay/straight, what’s the difference?” The shows force you, said another, “to stop and think,” and “break those barriers for the audience and force them to kind of look at drag queens or look at gay people or look at these stereotypes and kind of break that down.”

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In our focus groups, the audience members also often described the way these routines stirred up more fluid desire zones that break away from social constraints. Even in the rare standard identification-style female impersonation numbers, many heterosexual men reported finding the drag queens’ beauty and sexiness appealing, although they knew the performers were men – certainly an experience that contests heterosexuality’s standing. “There’s a little bit of me saying, ‘This is sexually exciting,’ ” one man said, “and there’s another part of me saying, “Wait a minute, don’t do this, you’re not supposed to be sexually excited, this is a man.” His wife “loved it” when the drag queens fondled her husband: “It’s like here’s this man touching my husband, it’s like really cool. And he’s standing there letting him. He’s letting his feminine side come out which was really neat because we all have those sides to us.” Similarly, many heterosexual women responded that they were, as one woman put it, “sexually drawn to Milla. I felt like kissing her, and I’m not gay at all”; when asked if it was because Milla was a man or woman, she replied that it was because “she was a woman.” The core political communication of counteridentifying and disidentifying performances – that gender and sexuality are plural, shifting, problematic performances – takes the form, for many audience members, of disruption, shaking up, and confusion of sex and gender categories, meanings, and experiences. Intentionality The resource mobilization (McCarthy & Zald, 1977) and political process (McAdam, 1982; Tarrow, 1998) literatures suggest that a challenging groups’ selection of tactics from the available repertoires reflects both learned conventions and strategic choices made to achieve instrumental as well as cultural goals (Bernstein, 1997; McAdam, 1994; McAdam, McCarthy & Zald, 1988; Staggenborg, 2000). Drawing from this perspective, the second feature of protest repertoires is intentionality, in this case referring to the performers’ conscious and intentional action geared towards challenging dominant constructions of masculinity and femininity, sex and gender categories, homophobia, and the gendered heterosexual nuclear family. We present three types of evidence to address the question of intentionality: the drag queens’ strategic performance of identity; the performers’ use of the stage as a platform for political expression; and the role of the 801 drag queens in the local gay and lesbian movement and community. Although the drag queens’ message is embedded in comedy, music, and masquerade, our interviews reveal that the performers deliberately stage their performances to challenge gender and sexual categories and the relations of power reinforced by these binary systems. To be sure, the drag queens interviewed for this study take their theatrical work quite seriously. They practice frequently, develop

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new numbers, design their costumes, and put a great deal of creative energy into staging special group productions and individual performances at contests and community celebrations and festivals throughout the year. However, as Kylie explains, there is more to the show than entertainment: “Straight people don’t know how much gay people love to see us make fun of them.” The political elements of the performances at the 801 derive in large measure from the fact that the shows attracts the very audience – mostly out-of town heterosexual tourists – that the drag queens intend to ridicule, challenge, and critique. This allows the drag queens to deploy sexuality itself for strategic disruptions. When the drag queens roam out into the audience seeking tips, they attempt to arouse sexual desires that are outside the audience members’ gender and sexual categories, and as we have already seen, they are often successful. They will caress a heterosexual woman’s breasts, feel a heterosexual man’s genitals, or kiss a lesbian woman. Margo, for instance, likes to move past a heterosexual man accompanied by a woman, presumably his date or wife, and then reach over into his crotch from behind. Gugi sits down on women’s laps and bounces up and down, looking puzzled, as if not understanding why she is not finding a penis inside her. On and off stage, the drag queens see their role as explicitly political. Sushi, the “House Queen” who hires and supervises the 801 Girls, makes most of the costumes, and serves as director and stage manager, emphasized that her performances are intended to educate the audience about gay life. Anybody can just do a number . . . And my drag shows, I’m trying to make more of an experience, a learning thing. Try to preach love, not hate . . . And I have a platform now to teach the world. We have so many people from everywhere in the world. Even less than five minutes of talking to somebody, just that little moment I share with somebody from New Zealand or Africa or your college professor, they go back to their hometown. They remember that five-minute conversation, they realize, ‘I’m not gonna call this person a fag,’ you know what I mean? It’s just a little part that I am a real person.

As this comment suggests, the political message is anything but clandestine. In a feature article in the Key West Citizen (Schima, 2001) on the role of drag queens in community life, Sushi emphasized that “we’re not just lip-synching up here, we’re changing lives by showing people what we’re all about.” The performers make their political intentions known at the start of every show. At the Saturday night “Sex Show” that begins with En Vogue’s “Free Your Mind,” for example, Kylie announces “What we’re gonna do is try to open these people’s minds.” He asks a German tourist if he is straight, and the man replies that he’s normal. “Normal!” cries Kylie. “I’m normal. You’re weird.” In their monologues, the drag queens talk about the gay and lesbian movement, AIDS, gay marriage, hate crimes, transsexuality, and various everyday forms of discrimination against gays and lesbians. In June of 1999, around the 30th anniversary of the Stonewall

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riots, Sushi began her show like this: “You don’t know what Stonewall was? It was a bunch of drag queens back in 1969, a whole bunch of drag queens were at this club and they said, ‘Screw you. We’re gonna be drag queens,’ and they tried to arrest them. And the drag queens revolted . . . So it was my people who got the movement started.” R. V. Beaumont introduces “Saved,” a song from “Smokey Joe’s Café” about a reformed sinner who “used to smoke and drink,” which the queens perform in choir robes, introducing the number by saying, “Screw Jerry Falwell and the Teletubbies, we’re gonna bring some good ol’ gay religion to your lives.” Furthermore, R. V., like most of the girls, treats every interaction with heterosexuals who attend the show – in monologues, discussions with prospective audience members on the street outside the bar, or flirtations circling the bar with the tip bucket – as a chance to educate heterosexual members of the audience about gay life. “I love going up to the straight people when I find out who they are and going, ‘When did you come out to your parents that you were straight?’ I love doing that. It’s those little innuendos. I mean, it proves a point and lets them know, ‘Hey, we’re okay also.’ You know, especially after the Matthew Shepard thing and all that.” In both their dialogue with the audience and their routines, the 801 girls use an intersectional strategy that registers the existence of sexuality, race, ethnicity, gender, and other identity differentials that interact simultaneously to produce disadvantage. Sushi frequently uses her own ethnic, sexual, and transgender identities as a political instrument to encourage the audience to embrace their own and others’ marginalized identities, typically by calling attention to and embracing derogatory stereotypes. One evening she asked the audience to call her “gook,” “chink,” and “nip.” “And if someone calls you ‘faggot,’ just say [and she gives a little shimmy, and has the audience stand up and join her and they do], ‘I love it!’ ” Another night she calls attention to racism by telling the audience: “When I come out on stage, don’t say ‘I love you Sushi!’ say, ‘I love you, gook!’ Because I am Japanese and I’m proud of it!” Milla introduced her number one night by distinguishing the type of drag she performs from standard female impersonation, saying: “You know all these drag queens, they do Barbra, Liza, and Bette . . . I don’t do personalities, I do color. I’m a woman of color.” Milla often uses the language of feminism to explain the subordination of women and transgendered people. One night, in her Erykah Badu persona, Milla told the audience: “Gentlemen, you can close your ears because I really don’t give a shit about you anyways. We are powerful women. Are we not, women?” In addition to their performances at the cabaret, the 801 Girls are local celebrities, playing a wider role in the local gay and lesbian movement and in civic life in Key West. As do drag queens in other major cities (Schacht, 2000), they appear in drag at public and private gay and lesbian events, including AIDS and other charitable

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benefits, and they participate in community festivals, carnivals, parades, and other special events geared to the heterosexual as well as the gay community. In Key West, where a disproportionately large number of HIV-positive people migrate to live out their remaining years in a warm climate and gay inclusive community, the 801 Girls have been instrumental in raising funds for AIDS Help, the local AIDS organization. So central are the 801 Girls to fundraising for a variety of gay and community-wide causes that Margo describes benefits in Key West this way: “You stand in line, you get a plate of food, and then you sit down and watch a drag show.” The 801 Girls use their participation in numerous Key West festivals and special events to promote gay visibility, dispute heterosexual ownership of public space, and critique conventional notions of masculinity. During Bikers’ Week, for instance, the town is overrun with Harley Davidson owners. Rather than cede the streets to these most masculine of men, one year Sushi led the 801 Girls down Duval Street to the bars where the bikers were hanging out, and the drag queens engaged in “seat sniffing,” the campy, mock-erotic smelling of motorcycle seats, a bold ritual that has now become tradition. Our focus groups and interviews with audience members confirmed our suspicion that most people initially come to the 801 drag shows and other public events staged by the drag queens primarily to be entertained, and most described the drag shows as “just entertainment,” and as “very professional.” Yet 88%, including those who also saw entertainment as primary, recognized the political intent of the shows. Table 2 summarizes focus group participants’ characterizations of the drag shows as politics and/or entertainment. Typical of those who described the shows as political is the view of a gay man who explained why he attends the shows so frequently, saying that he finds it interesting to think of “how the drag queens break things open and think about how they started the Stonewall riot as well, the drag queens out there with their courage and their fire, breaking everything open!” In fact, several gay men in our focus groups emphasized that they know gay men who do not enjoy the shows at the 801 because the drag queens are “too sexually explicit and in your face.”

Table 2. Distribution of Focus Group Participants’ Characterizations of the Shows as Entertainment and/or Politics.

Described shows primarily as entertaining Described shows primarily as political Described shows as both entertaining and political

Percent of Focus Group Participants

N

8 15 73

3 6 29

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Other focus group members interpreted the political message as about “freedom from “the rigidities of society,” the mixing of “a male side and a female side,” “breaking down barriers,” and as an attempt to “take the blinders off the horse and get a wider field of vision.” As one man put it, summing up his understanding of the drag queens’ political message: They break the rules every night and they don’t care. They’re breaking the rules and they’re getting away with it . . . We all play so many different roles in our lives, and I think one of the most basic roles we sort of pick up at birth is our gender. And so that’s what I think the drag show really does, is it flip-flops . . . It’s a message about roles. We play them and we don’t even realize we play them.

Such responses indicate that audience members recognize the political intentions of the drag queens. This aspect of the drag performances suggest that cultural action can be as intended and strategic as conventional forms of political action. Collective Identity In all their variants, tactical repertoires allow one set of contenders to make claims bearing on another group’s interests. Acting collectively requires, however, the creation of identities whereby aggrieved groups come to define their interests collectively and in structural terms (Gamson, W, 1992a, b; Klandermans & de Weerd, 2000; Mansbridge & Morris, 2001; Melucci, 1989; Snow & McAdam, 2000; Stryker et al., 2000; Taylor & Whittier, 1992), or sometimes to deconstruct and destabilize the identity labels they have inherited historically (Gamson, J, 1995). Performance repertoires acquire their political edge, in part, through the boundaries they draw between contending sets of actors. To examine the relationship between performance repertoires and the expression and construction of these collective identities, we draw from Taylor and Whittier’s (1992) framework to describe the way drag performances forge collective identity by articulating, defining, and redefining group boundaries; supplying oppositional frameworks that critique binary and discrete gender and sexual identity classification systems; and providing space for the collective enactment of identity displays and sexual desires that expand the range of possible gender and sexual categories and meanings, shaking up, questioning, and reworking the lines between “us” and “them.” Our interviews with audience members suggest that the drag shows at the 801 simultaneously produce the construction of collective identity at two levels: internally through articulation of boundaries and community among those engaged in the performance, and externally through the formation of transcendent collective identities that go beyond gay and straight and male and female to redefine the meaning of community. To begin with, the performances represent and enact a gay collective identity. The emcee of each show begins by asserting the drag queens’ own identities.

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R. V. typically announces at the start of the show: “We may look like women, but we are all homosexual men.” The drag queens then request that audience members collectively or individually define and locate themselves in terms of separate sexual and gender identity categories. How many straight people in the house? Good, keep on breeding and making more homosexuals for us! How many lesbians? You know, the politically correct work for lesbian is ‘vagitarian,’ because you are what you eat. Do we have any bisexuals in the audience? Good, then, all the rest are beautiful homosexual men!

The physical spaces also mark clear boundaries between gays and lesbians and heterosexuals. To get to the cabaret, the audience members must walk through the downstairs gay bar, go up the stairs, and make their way through a throng of gay men who congregate to cruise at the entrance near the upstairs bar. A young heterosexual woman who had never been to a drag show described it as “scary going into a gay bar,” because “you walk into a gay bar, you’re gay.” “I’m a tad uncomfortable,” another heterosexual woman told us, “because I feel like I’m in someone else’s space.” The space inside the bar also sets up informal boundaries between heterosexuals and gays. The gay men, who typically make up more than half of the audience, congregate at the back of the bar, and the heterosexuals usually sit at the tables up front near the stage where they easily serve as props for the drag queens’ antics. These spatial arrangements both reinforce gender and sexual differences and subvert power, since members of the least marginalized group sitting in seemingly the best seats in the house often end up embarrassed or even ridiculed. In their monologues and dialogues with the audience, the drag queens use the rhetoric of the gay and lesbian movement to reinterpret identity and create solidarity among gays and lesbians. One of their backdrops depicts the New York City skyline and the Stonewall Inn, with “Queen Nation” scrawled on the side of the building. In her “Stonewall Tuesdays,” Margo – often introduced as the “oldest living drag queen in captivity” – opens with a brief historical lecture, as in this June 1999 show: Welcome to the Stonewall Show! As you know 30 years ago this past Sunday, there was a revolution in New York City at the Stonewall Bar. At that time, gays and lesbians were harassed by the police every night, taken up in paddy wagons and arrested. One night the patrons said, ‘We’ve had enough!’ And they rebelled. That rebellion led to the modern gay and lesbian revolution which continues to this day. Because of those brave men and women back in New York on June 27, 1969, we are able to sit here tonight, gay, lesbian, straight, bisexual, transsexual, transgenderal, whatever, and enjoy a show. Ladies and gentlemen, this show is dedicated to the people 30 years ago who said, ‘We’ve had enough!’

The performances, then, produce what one audience member described as “a confrontation with the audience” that draws a boundary between gays and straights

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and affirms a gay collective identity in opposition to mainstream heterosexuality. Fifty-five percent of focus group members noted this layer of identity. A gay man described Milla “attack[ing] the audience not necessarily in a mean way, but just kind of like forcing you to stop and think.” Expressing the view of the majority of the gays and lesbians in our focus groups, one gay man thought that the show “really pushes gender identity and gender role and homophobia issues with straight people.” Most gay men and lesbians, however, repeatedly evoked the metaphor of “home” to describe the cabaret – translated into movement scholars’ terminology, “safe space” – and reported that songs such as “I Am What I Am” helped to validate their struggles for self-acceptance. A lesbian woman “choked up” over R. V.’s performance of “What Makes a Man a Man?” because “there was a feeling of acceptance, and I was really struggling with acceptance and I just felt a connection and I think that’s what made me want to keep coming back, is feeling that connection.” One gay man elaborated, “You are gay and this is no shame to be gay. You have a home and it’s wonderful. You’re comfortable with yourself. That’s it.” Importantly, though, the very boundary-marking practices and processes of selfidentification that appear to reinforce social divisions and affirm separate collective identities end up providing an opportunity for the drag queens to undermine identity classifications, reach across differences, and expand gender and sexual categories. Through dialogue and in their routines, the drag queens work to break away from the constraints of the body. Sushi brings a lesbian on stage and asks her to “feel my clitoris. It’s big tonight. I was born with a big clitoris.” Other times she refers to her “man-pussy” or “mangina.” Sushi’s discussions with the audience about whether or not she should get breasts, and the drag queens’ fondness for getting women with breast implants to show them off, undercut the traditional notion of gendered bodies. “Titties and a dick, that’s fabulous, darling. It’s 1999. We have computers, we have guys that run around with tits and a dick.” The body, that is, does not determine to which gender collectivity one belongs. The segment of the show that best illustrates the way the 801 performances play with collective identities is what the drag queens refer to as “doing shots.” It is here that audience members, too, have an opportunity to alter their own performances of gender and sexuality by engaging in the collective enactment of displays and practices that fall outside their gender and sexual categories (Taylor & Raeburn, 1995). In the middle of the show, the drag queens call for a volunteer from what they call “each sexual category,” meaning a heterosexual man, gay man, heterosexual woman, lesbian, and sometimes a bisexual or transsexual to come up to the stage and get a free shot of liquor. On the surface, this practice might seem to distinguish and reify categories of gender and sexuality, but the drag queens encourage a great deal of latitude in who fits into what category. As a result, the audience’s response constitutes its own spontaneous critique of dichotomous

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gender and sexual categories. One night a burly gay man raised his hand and said, “My name is Lisa, I’m a policewoman.” Another night one of the drag queens called for straight women, and several gay men screamed in falsetto voices. And during one of the Saturday night “Sex Shows,” a gay man in lesbian drag came to the stage, and Kylie referred to him as “our gay man-woman.” Other times heterosexual women volunteer as lesbians. Once on stage, the drag queens position the “heterosexual” man and the “gay” man and the “heterosexual” woman and the “lesbian” in same-sex sexual positions: the heterosexual man on his back, the gay man sitting across his pelvis, the heterosexual woman and the lesbian lying on their backs facing each other with their legs intertwined. One night the heterosexual man looked nervous when Desiray told him to lie down. “’It doesn’t have anything to do with him, does it?’ he asked nervously, pointing to the gay man in jeans and a leather harness over his bare chest. Desiray warned, “Don’t be so homophobic, girl.” At the end of the routine, the straight man hugged the gay man and the other participants. The drag queens accentuate the fluidity of collective identity boundaries in other ways, as well. They will bring an attractive heterosexual man up on stage, dress him in drag and, while he resists and stumbles, try to teach him how to walk “like a woman” in high heels. Kylie will drag a heterosexual woman on stage and pretend to hump her, then ask after the song if she is a lesbian. “No, I’m straight,” the audience member answers. “Even after being with me?”, Kylie asks in mock astonishment. “Us” and “them,” these playful activities demonstrate, are neither stable, cohesive, nor singular categories, nor do they begin and end with the physical body. Audiences unquestionably pick up on this interplay of identities. Table 3 summarizes the focus group participants’ perceptions of the layers of collective identity created by the shows. Table 3. Distribution of Focus Group Participants’ Perceptions of the Two Layers of Collective Identity Created in the Shows.

Described 801 as a community or family (Discussed how the shows constructed a collective identity across gender and sexuality categories) Described the bar as a gay space (Discussed how the shows assert a straight versus gay identity) Described both types of identities within 801

Percent of Focus Group Participants

N

35

14

15

6

40

16

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Only 15% of focus group participants saw the shows as asserting only a gay collective identity, while 75% commented on a second layer of collective identity forged across genders and sexualities. Some audience members conclude that, at least for the time spent in the cabaret, the labels of gay and straight or male and female just don’t fit. As one gay man said, “You leave them at the door.” A straight male tourist put it this way: “I think that one of the beauties of attending a show like this is that you do realize that you shouldn’t walk out and say, ‘I only like men’ and you shouldn’t say ‘I only like women,’ and it all kind of blends together a lot more so than maybe what we want to live in our normal daily lives.” More commonly, audience members report an experience of equality and unity across identity categories – a universalizing collective identity process – rather than of categories that are altogether unstable. The show, especially the onstage shots performance, was to a woman in another group “about trying to bring everybody together and we are okay just who we are.” A young gay man explains that the show signifies for him that we have these differences but we are here all together within this small space, communing, interacting, being entertained, having a good time . . . And I think the idea of being able to make some sort of, like, utopia or this is the way it could be. Once we all leave this bar if we can all see four different people that are different and commune together, or at least respect each other, then when we leave this bar wouldn’t the world be a little bit better place?

Up at the 801, as another man put, “Everybody is equally fabulous.” The diverse individuals who flock to the 801 come away with an experience – often a visceral, unforgettable one, they say – that makes it a little less possible to ignore the experiences of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered people in American society, to ignore the similarities in favor of difference, or to think in conventional ways about gender and sexuality.

CONCLUSION: PERFORMING POLITICS Researchers generally have been interested in cross-dressing either as an individual-level activity or for what it tells us about the social construction of gender categories (Butler, 1990; Garber, 1993). In contrast, we have combined social constructionist perspectives on gender and sexuality, the social movement literature that accentuates the significance of recurrent tactics of protest, and writings in performance studies to arrive at the conclusion that drag shows can be collective, contentious, and subversive of the sex and gender systems. We have argued that gay male drag performances are a distinct form of protest, historically used by the gay and lesbian movement to articulate political ideas that challenge conventional understandings of male and female, straight and gay, to create new collective identities and to disrupt existing collective identity boundaries. Drag shows do not

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always serve as protest forms, of course; indeed, one of the advantages of this analysis is that it offers tools for distinguishing degrees of political expression, intent, and achievement. The drag shows at the 801 Cabaret, typical of a genre of drag, are undoubtedly more political than female impersonation performed in many other venues, but they allow us to analyze the ways in which drag can function as a tactical repertoire of the gay and lesbian movement. Our conclusions will be as controversial among scholars of gender who view the performance of femininity by gay men as mimicking and demeaning to women as they will be among students of social movements who have sought to limit the locus of social movements in contemporary U.S. society, where opportunities for political expression are relatively open, to the institutionalized political arena (McAdam, Tarrow & Tilly, 2001). However, linking as we have three previously separate bodies of scholarship suggests new strategies for understanding the political potential of drag and other cultural expressions by considering the politically challenging content of the performances, the performers’ political intentions, and the construction of collective identity between the performers and the audience and among audience members. Our study of drag also extends the three bodies of literatures in which it is embedded. First, our research corrects for the tendency of gender scholars to overemphasize the institutional and interactional processes that conserve dichotomous gender and sexual identity classifications by adding to the body of recent work that accentuates the innovative, sometimes hidden ways social movements subvert the gender and sexual systems (Blee, 1991; Gamson, J, 1997; Robnett, 1999; Taylor, 1999; Twine & Blee, 2001). A social movement perspective, moreover, provides conceptual tools for linking individual-level performances of identity and cultural transgressions of gender and sexuality to the collective political strategies of social movements. Second, scholars of performance studies, while they have long recognized the combination in cultural performances of aesthetics and politics and of emotion and rationality have typically concentrated on the content of cultural performances, ignoring the interactions between the performers and the audience that give performances their claim to politics. Social movement theory offers a set of empirically grounded concepts that illuminate how cultural forms serve as the context in which new oppositional stances and relationships can be generated. Finally, an analysis of drag as a tactical repertoire can point social movement theory in important new directions. Our aim is not only to call attention to the significance of this particular tactical repertoire for the gay and lesbian movement, but also to propose a conceptual definition of tactical repertoires – as engaged in contestation, intentionality, and collective identity work – that allows us to recognize the varied cultural strategies used by social movements and to assess

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the political significance of cultural performances in specific settings. By asking whether a particular expression exhibits the features of other protest repertoires, our conceptualization builds on existing definitions of protest events used in the research of social movement scholars such as Tilly (1978); McAdam, Tarrow, and Tilly (1996) and McAdam et al. (1997). Our model, however, extends the conceptualization of protest tactics in the direction of recent work that calls attention to the significance of cultural forms of political expression (Klandermans & Johnston, 1995) and work that aims to demonstrate the plural, intersecting, and unstable nature of collective identity (Gamson, J, 1995; Melucci, 1985, 1996a, b). This approach for identifying forms of political struggle allows us to get beyond the view that culture and politics are fundamentally different components of social reality, with political action intended, rational, and non-emotional, and cultural action unintended, non-rational, and emotional. Rather, cultural forms of expression and political issues are dynamically interrelated, with continual interplay between them. Indeed, in the case of the 801 Cabaret, we have a striking example of that interplay. Over and over, audience members described the shows as “just entertainment,” and then quickly moved into discussions of gender disturbance and the acceptance of sexual and gender diversity. Over and over, performers built their politics into the best show they could provide for the best tips they could garner. This is more than coexistence, we suggest. It is because of its status as entertainment that this tactical repertoire succeeds as intended. Entertainment may in fact make possible, obliquely, political expressions that might not otherwise find an audience, so serious political protest enters through the lightness of nightclub entertainment. It may also be the case, well worth further research, that entertainment settings provide particular kinds of political openings. The study of various forms of cultural expression, such as drag, as a protest tactic can lead to a fuller understanding of the pervasiveness and significance of contentious politics in society and to a sharper delineation of how and when cultural expression constitutes political challenge. Challenging groups are continuously evolving new and unique ways to engage dominant groups in contentious conversations, and the impact of these interactions provides a powerful lens on how social movements matter.

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DISCIPLES AND DISSENTERS: TACTICAL CHOICE AND CONSEQUENCES IN THE PLOWSHARES MOVEMENT Sharon Erickson Nepstad ABSTRACT State-oriented models of collective action are too narrow to encompass expressive movements that challenge religious authority structures. These limitations are evident as I explore the tactics of the Plowshares movement. Inspired by the Catholic Left, Plowshares activists have distinguished themselves from other peace groups by their controversial methods of nonviolent sabotage. I argue that the tactical choices of this movement defy state-centered theories that assume political instrumentality, tactical neutrality, and rational calculation of costs and benefits. The Plowshares case reveals that expressive groups and religious movements may not select their methods solely on the basis of efficacy. Rather, tactical choice and innovation are influenced by the opponent’s source of power as well as activists’ beliefs, values, and moral commitments. I also call for greater attention to the effects of tactics on the movement itself, moving beyond an exclusive focus on outcomes. Particularly when controversial methods of action are employed, tactical consequences may include ideological refinement and unanticipated cultural developments that can pose further challenges.


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During the Cold War, most peace activists used traditional tactics – such as petitions, rallies, and civil disobedience – to protest the nuclear arms race. The Plowshares movement, however, employed the controversial methods of nonviolent sabotage. Formed by members of the so-called Catholic Left, this movement employs biblical imagery by pouring blood and hammering on nuclear weapons, missile vehicles, and launching pads to enact the prophet Isaiah’s vision of a day when “nations shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks; one nation shall not raise the sword against another, nor shall they train for war again” (Isaiah 2: 4). Plowshares activists use religious symbolism because they are not only protesting the state’s production of nuclear weapons, they are also challenging the silence of religious authorities on military issues. The Catholic Left argues that nonviolence is central to Christ’s message and religious leaders have compromised the gospel by adhering to a Just War position. Hence movement actions are aimed at both government and church authorities. Plowshares activists call the state to dismantle its weapons of mass destruction and they call the Catholic hierarchy to denounce war, returning to the biblical mandate for peacemaking. The fact that the Plowshares movement has two different targets of contention is not unusual. Although a significant proportion of collective action research focuses on protest against the State, movements may simultaneously (or separately) challenge corporations (Jenkins & Perrow, 1977), medical practices (Schneirov & Geczik, 2003), religious teachings (Smith, 1991) and other authorities. What has not been sufficiently addressed, however, is how the type of opponent influences tactical choice. Since each target possesses a distinct base of power, activists are likely to select forms of protest that are best suited to engaging the opposing side and undermining its authority. Additionally, values and beliefs shape a group’s course of action. Plowshares tactics diverged from Nuclear Freeze, for instance, because of the distinctively religious character of this movement and one of its targets – church authorities. The first goal of this article, therefore, is to demonstrate how activists’ tactical decisions are shaped by culture and the type of adversary they face. I posit that the Plowshares movement’s provocative use of religious symbolism was developed in part to engage church leaders with the issue of war in a manner that traditional forms of protest would not accomplish. My second aim is to explore the religious consequences of Plowshares tactics. Social movement researchers have primarily examined how tactics affect outcomes; in other words, they assess the likelihood that a given course of action will increase or decrease the movement’s chance for success (Gamson, 1975). Yet by focusing exclusively on the question of whether activists achieve their stated goals, we may miss other significant developments. I maintain that we need to broaden our view to include other noteworthy results of collective action, even if they are unintended. A handful of studies have examined such effects including

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the biographical consequences of activism (McAdam, 1989; Sherkat & Blocker, 1997), and “spillover” influences on other movements (Meyer & Whittier, 1994). Unfortunately, little attention has been devoted to the effects of specific tactics on the movement itself and the cultural context in which activists operate. In the Plowshares case, activists aim to compel church leaders to denounce war and weapons of mass destruction. Although they have not accomplished this goal, the controversy over their destruction of property has fostered a new set of theological premises that dispute traditional interpretations of Christ’s life, the meaning of Christian symbols, and the character of the early church. This in turn has sparked a debate on methods of theological production. In short, the movement’s tactics have led to other developments that pose further challenges to religious authorities.

METHODS To explore these issues, I draw upon data that I collected through a triangulated or multi-method approach. I conducted in-depth interviews with Plowshares activists and engaged in participant observation in Catholic Left communities. Based on this qualitative data, I constructed a mail survey that asked respondents about their religious and political views, levels of participation in the movement, various influences on their faith, and demographic information. Using movement documents, I compiled a list of all individuals who have participated in a Plowshares action between 1980 and 2001. Out of 161 living activists, I was able to locate 112. I sent the surveys, along with follow-up reminders several weeks later. This resulted in 55 individuals participating in the study, reflecting a 49% response rate and roughly one-third of the movement. Although this rate is not strong, the unique circumstances of the project must be taken into consideration. Some activists were serving sentences at the time. Prison authorities examine incoming and outgoing mail and some facilities prohibit the sending of selfaddressed, stamped envelopes to inmates, which likely decreased the response rate. Additionally, the movement has experienced government infiltration. This might justifiably make Plowshares activists reluctant to share their experiences with an unknown researcher. Finally, I also draw from archival documents that include court transcripts, public statements, prison journals, activists’ letters and books.

INFLUENCES ON TACTICAL CHOICE Since sabotage departs from standard forms of protest in the peace movement, we need to examine why Plowshares activists chose this method. Why break into

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weapons production sites and military compounds to embark upon acts of symbolic disarmament when it is easier to collect signatures for a petition and less costly to rally outside Congress? What factors influence tactical decisions? Charles Tilly argues that groups select forms of protest from a limited “repertoire of collective action.” This repertoire is shaped by previous activist experience, the anticipated level of repression from the State, societal standards of behavior, and the group’s internal organization. Consequently, most movements within the U.S. have a repertoire that includes “demonstrating, striking, petitioning, or forming a pressure group” (Tilly, 1978, p. 152) since such actions meet the prevailing standard of acceptability, are historically familiar, and are unlikely to provoke harsh consequences. Acts that fall outside this repertoire – such as sabotage of machinery, taking hostages, or mutiny – are unlikely to be employed by movement groups and organizations. Yet a group’s tactical repertoire is neither static nor fixed. It can grow as individual activists shift from one cause to another, bringing with them strategic knowledge. Additionally, when movements spread cross-nationally, they may export their tactics across geographic and movement borders (McAdam & Rucht, 1993; Tarrow, 1993). A collective action repertoire can also expand when established tactics lose potency as movement opponents learn to effectively neutralize them. Thus, while activists rely upon an established repertoire, they must also engage in “tactical innovation,” experimenting with alternative forms of protest (McAdam, 1983). It is through this tactical interaction, chess-like moves between movement activists and their opponents, that new tactics emerge. Others propose that tactics vary according to the phase of movement institutionalization within a protest cycle. Tarrow (1989) notes that confrontational and novel tactics dominate in the initial phase of protest as activists seek media attention and disruption of their opponents’ activities. As a movement expands and authorities learn to handle such actions, mass rallies and other moderate forms of protest are commonly used, mainly to demonstrate the large numbers who support the cause. As a cycle declines, militant and violent tactics tend to increase. According to Koopmans (1993), this dynamic is explained by the fact that political leaders typically have two responses to protest – negotiation or repression. Radicals are more likely to be repressed; in response, they often become more militant. Moderates, on the other hand, may win concessions from the government, thereby encouraging action through the established political channels, minimizing the use of unruly tactics, and undercutting the movement’s momentum as it is negotiates with the State. In short, these scholars suggest that activists select and devise protest tactics on the basis of the following factors: the repertoire of actions available in a given context, the influence of other movements, the likelihood of


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repression, effectiveness, the countermoves of an opponent, and the movement’s developmental stage. While useful, these studies are based on a number of assumptions that are not applicable to all movements. First, since these authors are working from structural approaches such as Political Process and Resource Mobilization, they assume that the target of contention is the State and movements are instrumental in nature. Tactics are therefore chosen simply for their efficacy. Second, they portray participants as rational actors who select a course of action based upon a calculation of costs and benefits. If a given tactic enables them to win concessions from their adversary, they will continue to use it until they reach a point of diminishing returns. If certain tactics provoke repression, they will stop protesting or switch to less costly forms of action. Finally, they perceive tactics as neutral, assuming that any movement – regardless of its goals, opponent, or its members’ beliefs, moral commitments, and cultural attributes – will use similar methods of action as long as they are productive. Yet many activists do not view tactics as neutral. Some tactics are more compatible with a group’s cultural values, ideological views, and even personal taste (Jasper, 1997) and thus are more likely to be selected over other methods. This is evident in Dalton’s (1994) study of two Western European environmental organizations, Greenpeace and the Royal Society for Nature Conservation. He found that the groups shared similar goals but pursued their objectives through radically different means based on their contrasting ideologies of ecology and conservation. Ethical commitments also influence tactical choice. Some may feel that breaking the law is acceptable while others do not; violence may be justifiable to certain individuals but not others. Such decisions are not based exclusively on the likelihood of winning; they are also shaped by a group’s values and moral worldview (Pagnucco, 1996). Additionally, tactics are often selected based on the type of adversary a movement faces and, contrary to Political Process assumptions, not all movements challenge the State. There are various targets of contention and each may possess a distinct form of power – whether it is political, economic, moral, or social. Activists usually choose the tactic that is best suited to undermining their opponents’ particular source of authority. Thus, a political movement may lobby or occupy legislators’ offices. In contrast, a movement contesting corporate practices may launch a boycott since corporate power is often derived from the value of the company’s stock. The type of opponent further shapes tactical choices because organizers plan actions that resonate with their adversary’s cultural values. During the civil rights movement, for instance, many campaigns were designed to make government leaders enforce Supreme Court rulings that deemed segregation illegal. Referring to constitutional principles, activists called upon the government to live up to its own laws. However, since each opponent may have a different

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set of rules, values and beliefs, protest tactics will likely reflect that target’s particular culture. Finally, not all movements have an instrumental orientation; some are primarily expressive. Barbara Epstein found that faith-based peace groups tend to be more expressive and are thus more likely to engage in “politics of moral witness” in which “action is the expression of an individual’s responsibility to his or her own conscience” (1991, p. 196). Similarly, John Howard Yoder argued that in religiously inspired protest, “one rejects what the moral law rejects, without calculating one’s chances of getting away with it or of achieving a change in public policy . . . The rejection of the present evil is valid for its [own] sake” (1992, pp. 57, 59). This does not mean, however, that faith-based movements have no instrumental interests; they may have a real desire to achieve their goals but there is often a tension between winning and witnessing (Hertzke, 1988). Carlo Ruzza elaborates on the traits of expressive religious movements, noting that faith-based protesters can be more radical than secular activists. Such militancy may be due to the belief that goals are not negotiable since they are considered part of a divine plan or a reflection of moral law (also see Jurgensmeyer, 2001). Ruzza further states that religious activists typically do not act based on a calculation of potential costs and gains. In fact, the ideological and moral beliefs of many religions mean that personal costs are intrinsically valued. He states: To understand this type of action it is useful to consider the Catholic category of martyrdom. Martyrdom is a Catholic ideal. It is grounded in admiration for a martyr’s traits, such as firmness. The martyr’s sacrifice is often not efficacious in furthering the religious institution yet calculations are not made. Martyrs do what they do, they withstand torture and death because they ‘have to,’ regardless of effectiveness . . . The eschatological character of goals promotes an expectation of total dedication to the cause, regardless of personal costs . . . This sets religious commitment apart from other action (Ruzza, 1990, pp. 131–132).

As a religious group, the Plowshares movement reflects many of these traits. Plowshares participants view their actions as part of a prophetic tradition, denouncing the injustices and evils of militarism. Like prophets, they believe they must proclaim God’s word even if the population ignores their message (Nepstad, 2004). While they do hold some instrumental interests – hoping to damage a weapon sufficiently to render it useless, even if momentarily – their tactics are primarily expressive. Moreover, Catholic Left activists consciously refrain from calculating the costs and benefits of nonviolent sabotage, arguing that it is the morally correct course of action regardless of the risks that are involved. I turn now to a more specific account of how they developed this unique form of protest, detailing the influences on their tactical decisions.


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TACTICAL DEVELOPMENT IN THE PLOWSHARES MOVEMENT The first Plowshares action took place in 1980, when several priests, lay people, and a nun illegally entered a General Electric plant outside of Philadelphia that was developing first strike nuclear weapons. Once inside the facility, the group located the re-entry vehicles for the Mark 12A warheads and hammered upon them, poured blood on security documents, and shredded blue prints. Afterwards, they prayed for peace until they were arrested. Although this type of action was novel, contemporary Catholic resistance to war is rooted in the Catholic Worker movement initiated by Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin in 1933. Before her conversion, Day was involved with women’s suffrage, anarchist and socialist groups, and labor unions. After joining the Catholic Church, she sought to integrate her progressive commitments with her faith. She produced a paper called The Catholic Worker that addressed various political concerns and Catholic social teachings. They also established “houses of hospitality” that provide food and shelter to the destitute (Klejment & Roberts, 1996; McNeal, 1992). Catholic Workers advocate more than works of mercy, however. They offer a radical interpretation of scripture that calls for pacifism, a life of voluntary poverty, and reconstruction of the social order. They seek to achieve a more just society by withdrawing from the capitalist system as much as possible, by dialoguing on a variety of issues – from labor practices to military policy – and by confronting those who perpetuate exploitative practices. They argue that it is not enough to feed the poor and shelter the homeless; Catholics must also address the cause of such social ills (Chatfield, 1996; Forest, 1997). Although Catholic Workers employ a variety of tactics, they often use civil disobedience to uproot these injustices. One of Day’s most renowned acts of civil disobedience occurred in 1955 when New York City held mandatory civil defense drills to prepare the population for nuclear attack. Anyone who did not participate risked a $500 fine and a one-year prison sentence. Day, however, refused to comply. When the drills began – with sirens signaling people to go to their designated fall-out shelter – she and a small group of Catholic Workers gathered in City Hall Park in protest. They were arrested and jailed but the scene was re-enacted each year; eventually the protests in the park became an urban ritual. Day received a great deal of criticism but she justified her actions by stating, “Since we believe that air raids are part of a calculated plan to inspire fear of the enemy, instead of the love which Jesus Christ told us we should feel, we must protest these drills. It is an opportunity to show we mean what we write when we repeat over and over that we are put on this earth to love God and our neighbor” (as quoted in Forest, 1997, p. 99). With each passing year, public sympathy expanded and by 1961, nearly 2,000 people joined the Catholic Worker

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crowd in the park and city officials eventually ended the practice. Day, therefore, helped legitimize civil disobedience as an appropriate Catholic response to unjust laws (Forest, 1997; Klejment & Roberts, 1996; McNeal, 1992). Dorothy Day’s influence on a younger generation of radical Catholics became evident during the Vietnam War. In fact, the first public protest against the Diem regime’s repression of Buddhist dissidents, as well as the first draft card burning, were instigated by Catholic Workers (Klejment & Roberts, 1996). Yet some felt that these tactics were not enough. The shift from traditional civil disobedience to sabotage began when some Catholic Left activists grew increasingly frustrated that these actions were not stopping the war. The U.S. government ignored their cries of dissent, continuing to send soldiers to Southeast Asia and expanding their arsenal of nuclear weapons. Thus, they felt a need for tactical innovation, moving from protest to resistance. The Catholic Left’s first act of nonviolent revolt occurred in the fall of 1967 when Phil Berrigan, a Josephite priest, and three others raided a selective service office in Baltimore and poured blood over draft files. The tactic was used again several months later, when Phil Berrigan was joined by his brother, Daniel Berrigan, and seven others at the Catonsville, Maryland draft board. They removed hundreds of draft files and burned them with napalm made from instructions found in a Special Forces handbook. These actions inspired dozens of other draft board raids, stirring considerable controversy within the broader faith-based pacifist movement. Many, including Day, did not agree with their tactics but supported the Berrigans’ willingness to pay the price of stopping the war. Others felt that destruction of property exceeds the limits of nonviolence. The draft board raiders, however, argued that they were acting in a nonviolent manner since they were not doing harm to human life and were, in fact, trying to prevent greater violence. The Berrigan brothers and their supporters came to see the destruction of deathproducing property as a key tactic in their repertoire of collective action.

DUAL TARGETS OF CONTENTION The draft board actions reflect tactical innovation resulting from instrumental concerns; these activists hoped to actually obstruct the government’s war plans. Yet as the Vietnam War continued for several more years, they recognized that they had not successfully altered State policies. However, strong public reaction to the raids – both positive and negative – convinced the Berrigans that these acts had expressive value and were useful in instigating dialogue within Catholic circles about the legitimacy of war. Consequently, they began contemplating ways to use similar tactics to resist the escalating arms race. They also decided to target the


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church hierarchy more directly since they were disappointed that religious leaders were not denouncing the expansion of American militarism. Their frustration with the church’s silence is evident in a letter that Philip Berrigan wrote to Bishop Baum (Berrigan, 1996, pp. 141–142): The church in America – in fact, in the West as a whole – has accepted as religion a kind of cultural syncretism, culminating in near-perfect allegiance to the State. Not a few of its more prominent Bishops have even waited upon the Presidency like court jesters . . . No bishop has challenged the illegality of the war [in Vietnam] in a serious fashion . . . No Bishop has questioned the marriage of Big Business and Big Military in Big Government, and how the marriage results in government by and for the wealthy and powerful. No bishop has condemned the American rape of the developing world, nor the arms race in horror weapons, nor American arms salesmanship, nor the division of the world by superpowers. On the contrary, the American episcopacy has docilely and silently stood by . . . as spectator, or advocate, while their country plunged into perpetual hot and cold warring . . . And yet the Church they lead, like the Savior, is “come to give life and to give it more abundantly.” What a gross irony!

To challenge religious leaders, Catholic Left activists planned an expressive campaign that would send a message to the church hierarchy as well as politicians. Those plans culminated in 1980 when the “Plowshares Eight” drew national attention to the weapons production program at General Electric, contesting the company motto, “We bring good things to life.” Challenging the State Since the GE action in 1980, roughly 70 campaigns of symbolic disarmament have occurred in the United States, Australia and Europe. Although the locations vary, the underlying strategy is the same. To challenge the State, Plowshares activists intentionally break laws so that they can contest the legality of nuclear weapons, which they posit are a violation of international treaties that forbid preparations for mass destruction (Wilcox, 2001). In court, Plowshares activists plead not guilty on the basis of the “necessity defense,” stating that their actions are legal because they aim to prevent greater harm from occurring, much as trespassing is allowed when an individual enters a burning home to save those trapped inside. Additionally, the defendants routinely argue that their actions are consistent with the Nuremberg principles, which mandate that citizens who know that their state is committing crimes against humanity have an obligation to intervene. Thus Plowshares activists use the government’s own principles to challenge state policies. While the courts punish them in the name of preserving law and order, these activists attempt to reveal that the government itself is in violation of the law. Plowshares participants also argue that weapons of mass destruction contradict the U.S. constitution. In the Griffiss Plowshares trial of 1984, the defendants

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stated that they committed these acts of sabotage because society’s reverence for nuclear weapons had become the basis of an American civil religion. In their view, this violates the First Amendment that prohibits the establishment of a national religion. By smashing at these “gods of metal,” they claimed to be protecting the right of religious freedom. In their closing trial statement, the Griffiss Plowshares defendants informed the judge: The religion of national sovereignty or nuclearism is alive and flourishing. Its existence, its pre-eminence, its rituals, gods, priests and high priestesses make serious encroachments on all of us, violating our freedom of religion . . . The state religion compels a quality of loyalty focused on our acceptance of the existence of nuclear weapons as a necessity. Weapons we are expected to pay for, adulate, thank God for, become sacred objects of worship. Such worship is prohibited by the laws of God . . . We were plainly and simply smashing at an idol of our national religion, a religion that is unconstitutional. The laws that exist to protect such weapons exist to protect our national religion. Ours was an act of religion, including a prayer that all weapons be disarmed.1

Challenging the Church If the Plowshares movement’s strategy is to break the law in order to have the opportunity in court to challenge State policies, how can we account for their decision to pour blood and hammer on weapons of mass destruction? Why not occupy congressional offices or trespass onto military bases as other peace organizations have done? The symbolism used in Plowshares campaigns reflects the fact that Catholic Left activists are also targeting the church. By enacting a familiar biblical prophesy and incorporating aspects of the Christian tradition, the movement seeks to capture the attention of church leaders by employing specific elements of their religious culture. Once the church hierarchy is engaged – even if it is to criticize or denounce the activists – it gives the Catholic Left a forum to discuss the scriptural basis for peacemaking, thereby challenging the legitimacy of the church’s Just War stance. The pouring of blood is part of this attempt to engage church leaders and people of faith. Although it is one of the most controversial aspects of Plowshares actions, it has important symbolic meaning. Blood is used to physically manifest the violence for which these weapons are designed. One Plowshares activist explains: It’s making visible what these weapons are about because so many people have a problem with killing but in the military now, you just push a button and the killing is distant, removed. That makes it much easier. We’ve found that the military people are offended when you pour blood on their weapons because they don’t like to think of it as a bloody machine . . . So it’s very necessary to try to break through that with a symbol that is shocking. It may not affect people in a positive way but there is the chance that later on, in another moment, people can be affected


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by it. I met a U.S. marshal who was a fundamentalist Christian and he was especially turned off by the blood. He said that we were wasting the blood and it was a sin. It could have been given to somebody to save a life. He was just stuck on it. He could not see that the military weapons are a sin and that nuclear weapons are a crime.

Blood also has biblical significance. Another activist said, “War is bloody but blood also signifies life, redemption and the conversion we seek as people of faith.” It is a reminder that Jesus offered his own life, setting an example of a suffering servant. Daniel Berrigan stated, “In whatever modest or clumsy way, we are called to honor the preference of Christ for suffering rather than inflicting suffering, for dying rather than killing. . . . There are two ways: the way of the cross, and the way of putting others on the cross” (Berrigan as quoted in Dear, 1996, pp. 13, 69). A Plowshares activist further underscores this point: From a faith perspective, we often try to explain [the use of blood] from the example of Jesus giving his blood. In the Eucharist, he gave his life. Symbolically, when we drink the cup, we are supposed to be giving our lives also. Se we believe Jesus was nonviolent and taught that you are to give your life rather than take life. When we pour blood, we are saying that we are giving our lives and we will not shed anyone’s blood.

The use of blood and nonviolent sabotage are not neutral tactics that Plowshares activists selected out of a general tactical toolkit. Rather, their enactment of Isaiah’s vision of beating swords into plowshares and the pouring of blood are designed specifically to call church leaders to reclaim the nonviolent example of Christ and become a prophetic voice for peacemaking.

RELIGIOUS CONSEQUENCES OF PLOWSHARES ACTIONS If we examine the stated goals of the Plowshares movement – abolishing weapons of mass destruction and persuading the church to denounce the Just War position – we would have to conclude that their tactics are not particularly effective. American Catholics have not called for the abolition of war or completely embraced the movement’s nonviolent view of the gospel yet there are indications that the movement may have influenced religious thinking to some degree. In 1983, the U.S. bishops released the pastoral document, “The Challenge of Peace,” proclaiming that Catholics should refuse to legitimate the idea of a nuclear war. Furthermore, as Father Edward Duff – editor of the Catholic periodical Social Order – wrote, “The Berrigans have achieved at least this: they have challenged in the public mind the automatic identification of American Catholicism with the status quo, its alliance with prevailing patriotic causes . . . and have strongly stimulated among young Jesuits the conviction that Christianity has a social message” (1970, pp. 27–28).

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In expressive movements that primarily engage in politics of moral witness, we ought to look beyond the parameters of a movement’s formal outcomes or stated goals. When we do, we may find that a group’s actions have other significant results, which I refer to as tactical consequences. In the Plowshares case, one consequence is a small amount of “social movement spillover” (Meyer & Whittier, 1994) and tactical diffusion, particularly in Europe where animal rights activists have adopted the tactic, hammering on cages used for laboratory animals. Similarly, British environmentalists have used pruning tools to destroy genetically modified crops, “beating swords into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks.” There are also biographical consequences for Plowshares activists. The vast majority end up with felony convictions, serve years in prison, and give up their careers. These experiences often make activists more committed since, as della Porta (1992) notes, individuals are reluctant to abandon a movement for which they sacrificed so much (Nepstad, 2004). Yet what about the tactical consequences for the movement itself and the Catholic culture in which it operates? When activists engage in controversial tactical innovation, one likely result is that they may be forced to develop a justification for their behavior, clarifying their guiding ideology or principles. In the Plowshares movement, the destruction of property stirred such debate that it ultimately led activists and their supporters to articulate the biblical basis for this type of action. The resulting theology further challenged religious leaders by offering alternative interpretations of Christ’s life, the meaning of Christian symbols, and the character of the early church. In the process, the Catholic Left also contested traditional methods of theological development and hierarchical control of church doctrine. To illustrate this tactical consequence, I elaborate several themes of Plowshares theology below.

PLOWSHARES THEOLOGY Nuclearism is Idolatrous After the United States dropped the atom bomb on Hiroshima, Dorothy Day noted that “the Lordship of Christ has been replaced by the Lordship of the bomb” (Berrigan & McAlister, 1989, p. 83). This sentiment was underscored by Oppenheimer’s decision to name the first nuclear test site “The Trinity.” Members of the Catholic Left feel that Americans have become thoroughly enamored with the power of these weapons, placing their complete trust in them. This has led to a state of “nuclearism” in which the U.S. population has become psychologically and politically dependent on its nuclear capacity and sees weapons of mass destruction


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as a viable solution to a wide range of social problems (Lifton & Falk, 1982). According to the Plowshares movement, this mentality has transformed nuclear weapons into gods of metal. People have placed their ultimate faith in the power of these missiles, which violates God’s commandment, “Thou shall have no other gods before me,” and “Do not bow down to any idol and worship it” (Deuteronomy 5: 7, 9). Consequently, activist Art Laffin notes, “To pledge our ultimate allegiance to the state and to place our security in idols of death betrays our faith in God and constitutes ultimate blasphemy” (Laffin & Montgomery, 1987, p. 12). Plowshares activists maintain that the Bible offers examples of how people of faith should respond to such idolatry. One man cites Moses’ reaction to a golden calf that the people of Israel created and worshipped during their journey to the Promised Land. He suggested that if Moses’ actions pleased God, so do Plowshares’ efforts to smash the contemporary gods of metal: Nuclear weapons are the idols of today. People put their faith in an inanimate object and that’s idolatry and it’s also blasphemy because you’re saying that this weapon takes the place of God. There are examples in the Bible of people turning over idols. In so doing, you are returning the objects to their proper use instead of being used for false worship. One example is when the Israelites made a golden calf and Moses came and destroyed it, turned it into fine flakes. Was that violent? We wouldn’t see that as violent and most Christians today don’t think that what Moses did was a terrible deed. It’s the same idea.

Just as Moses’ destruction of the golden calf called the Israelites to repentance, Plowshares activists hope their acts of sabotage will make others aware of how they have been lured into worshipping these nuclear idols. One participant in the first General Electric action described how hammering on a missile re-entry vehicle made her conscious of the psychological and spiritual hold these weapons had. She stated, We entered into the test area and there was this golden colored warhead on a table . . . For me, the breakthrough came when I hit that gold thing and a little chip of it came up and hit me under the chin. It was an incredible breakthrough. Up until that time, I realized that they were like gods of metal . . . but it was the physical piece that broke through to my own awareness. I understood that I was somehow captured by these things as much as anyone else. I thought they were invulnerable, beyond human action. I had bought into this idolatry, too, even though I was trying to do something against them. They seemed so out of human reach, beyond human comprehension or action. I was astounded that the weapons I imagined to be invulnerable to our little household hammers showed the marks from our blows.

Christ was Confrontational Although some Catholics sympathize with the Plowshares movement’s views on war and weapons of mass destruction, many criticize their tactics as too

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confrontational. Some agree that the church has a prophetic role but believe the message of peace can be offered without being disruptive. In response to this critique, Plowshares activists point to the story of Christ entering the temple in Jerusalem and overturning the tables of money collectors. He targeted the temple, they argue, because it was a place where the poor were exploited in the name of God. Worshippers were encouraged, virtually required, to purchase an expensive sacrificial dove so that one’s prayer would be pure and acceptable to God. This transformed the temple from a place of worship into a bank that offered loans, tracked debts, and collected temple tax payments. The interests of the ruling class had turned a “house of prayer into a den of thieves” (Mark 10). Outraged by this oppression, Jesus chased the moneychangers and their animals out and shut down the temple. Plowshares activists note that Christ did not simply advocate lower rates for the poor; he challenged the entire system and disrupted business as usual (Kellerman, 1987; Myers, 1988). However, he did so in a nonviolent manner that was confrontational but did not physically harm or mistreat anyone. They hope to dispel the belief that violence is sometimes biblically justified, as some religious authorities submit, based on the temple story. Father John Dear wrote, “Jesus is active and provocative but not harmful. Unfortunately, readers of the Gospel down through the centuries have interpreted this central story as an act of violence, and have justified every form of murder, including the mass murder of war, in the name of Jesus” (2001, p. 63). The Catholic Left maintains that their tactics of sabotage challenge the government and the military industrial complex in a manner that parallels Christ’s temple action. Plowshares leaders Elizabeth McAlister and Phil Berrigan wrote: “We are all called to create new events, open new possibilities, in the spirit of the traditional symbols. We are called to break into this world, as Christ broke into the temple, in nonviolent rampage against those who rattle the missile keys and level the megaton guns” (1989, p. 108). Replicating Christ’s disruptive confrontation, they call the church to work for justice in a provocative but nonviolent manner.

Jesus was a Criminal As they work for peace, Plowshares activists have no qualms about breaking the law in the process. This is because they believe that Jesus taught that life is more important than the law, and justice is more valuable than order. They state that Christ himself was a criminal, citing scripture that indicates he violated Sabbath laws. For instance, in the second chapter of Mark, Jesus and his disciples pick grain and heal the sick, causing the religious authorities of the day to question


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“Why do they do what is not lawful on the Sabbath?” Christ’s example diminishes activists’ apprehensions about committing civil disobedience. A Dominican nun and multiple felon reflected: I became aware of the Jesus who put life above law. I became aware of the Jesus who was willing to suffer to lessen the suffering of others. In essence, the Jesus who picked grain and cured the sick on the Sabbath gave me the permission I needed, after being taught in Catholic schools from first grade through college, to challenge rather than acquiesce to authority figures.

To those in the Plowshares movement, the crucifixion is the ultimate evidence of Christ’s criminality. Jesus was accused of “forbidding to give tribute to Caesar” (Luke 23: 1–2) and was charged with sedition since he had proclaimed himself king. He was considered a threat to the state’s authority, a subversive. Many Christians presume that he was innocent, the victim of a biased judicial system and the vindictiveness of his opponents. “Many of us have been taught – wrongly, if the New Testament is credible – to regard Jesus as an ingenuous and hapless victim of a gross miscarriage of justice. But the truth is: He was guilty” (Stringfellow & Towne, 1971, p. 61). In fact, the charge of refusing to “pay tribute to Caesar” reflected a fundamental tension of that era. Living under Roman rule, Jewish authorities had forged a deal that allowed Judaism to co-exist alongside the Roman civic religion as long as it remained politically innocuous. As part of the agreement, all practicing Jews were forced to pay a religious tax, which grew increasingly controversial as the tax came to symbolize Roman control of religious practices and freedoms. Therefore, when authorities questioned Jesus’ stance on this issue, his response – “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s” – was tantamount to questioning the legitimacy of the state and proclaiming ultimate allegiance to God. Thus, he was charged with sedition, found guilty, and sentenced to death. By portraying Christ as a criminal who defied the state’s authority and confronted the institutions responsible for oppressing the poor, Plowshares activists offer an image of Jesus that challenges traditional christological doctrines. To these activists, Jesus was not a sacrificial lamb who went quietly to his death. Rather, he was an active resister to the state and to religious authorities who were more concerned about the letter of the law than the spirit of the scriptures.

The Cross Symbolizes Resistance to the State Upon conviction, Christ was sentenced to crucifixion, the form of capital punishment practiced by the Roman Empire. To Plowshares activists, the cross symbolizes Christ’s unwillingness to compromise religious convictions to comply

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with the law. Consequently, to follow Jesus means picking up this cross of resistance because, in the words of Philip Berrigan, “A Christian life is much more than written or spoken words. It is bearing the cross, a metaphor for nonviolent confrontation with a criminal superstate.” Another activist stated: This is what it means to follow Jesus. Jesus said, “Take up your cross, deny yourself, follow me.” We interpret taking up the cross to mean risking punishment by the State because, at that time, the cross was the Roman means of execution. So following Jesus means risking our lives and being punished by the state, the empire – the Roman empire at that time and the U.S. empire today.

Plowshares activists are trying to change (or, in their view, reclaim) the symbolism of the cross. Rather than the traditional view that it reflects God’s sacrifice for the redemption of humanity’s sins, they maintain that the cross represents Christ’s willingness to challenge the government, defying its laws and practices. It symbolizes Christians’ obligation to confront unjust institutions but it also reminds the faithful that they must be willing to accept death rather than inflict it. The cross symbolizes Jesus’ third way; it signals that nonviolent resistance is a morally superior alternative to passive acceptance of oppression or violent rebellion. Ultimately, the cross functions as a reminder of the transformative power of suffering and sacrifice, as well as the state’s inability to silence the truth. Christ’s followers, therefore, should be messengers of the truth, even though it brings them in conflict with the state.

Apostles were Repeat Offenders Biblical accounts of the early Christian church further the belief that lawbreaking is acceptable when committed for gospel purposes. In fact, activists point out that many of the apostles were repeatedly incarcerated. Daniel Berrigan calls attention to passages in the book of Acts where an angel is sent to rescue the apostles from jail, only to free them to commit their crimes again. This, he says, is the “angel of recidivism.” One Plowshares activist describes the apostles’ unrepentant spirit: The stories about this angel [of recidivism] are found primarily in the Acts of the Apostles, Chapters 5 and 12. First, Peter meets with the believers in Jerusalem. People bring their sick there hoping that Peter’s shadow will fall on them. The High Priest and his supporters, the Sadducees, become jealous of the apostles and have them arrested and thrown in the public jail. But an angel of the Lord opened the door of the prison during the night, brought them out, and said to them, “Go stand in the Temple court and give the people the message of life.” Accordingly, they entered the Temple at dawn and resumed their teaching. This kind of behavior landed them in the clink in the first place. The court convenes and the prisoners are sent for. The soldiers return and report: “We found the prison securely locked and the prison guards at their post outside the gate, but when we opened the gate, we found no one inside.” Everyone is baffled.


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Word spread quickly, and the Sanhedrin is informed that “those folks you arrested are back at their preaching.” They are brought back by the guards . . . The charge is clear: “We gave you strict orders not to preach such a Savior, but you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and you intend charging us with the killing of this man.” The defense is crystal clear: “Better for us to obey God than men.” What ensues is bedlam. The authorities want to kill the prisoners, literally, but . . . the Council has the apostles whipped and orders them to speak again of Jesus Savior. Then, it says, “they set them free.” The result: “The apostles went out from the Council rejoicing that they were considered worthy to suffer disgrace for the sake of the Name. Day after day, both in the Temple and in the people’s homes, they continued to teach and to proclaim that Jesus is the Messiah. Not very repentant criminals. Recidivists, no doubt about it (McKenna, 1996, pp. 92–93).

Repeat criminal offenses, the Catholic Left argues, are simply part of church tradition.

Prison is Monastic, not Punitive In an idolatrous state of nuclearism, Plowshares activists believe that discipleship is embodied in resistance to the state’s ongoing preparation for genocide. Under these conditions, incarceration is not a disgrace but rather an appropriate expression of commitment to gospel teachings. This has led Catholic Left activists, such as Jim Douglass, to describe prison as the new monastery of the nuclear age. He argues: One way of seeing jail today is to regard it as the new monastery. In a society preparing for nuclear war and ignoring its poor, jail is an appropriate setting in which to give one’s life to prayer. In a nation which has legalized preparations for the destruction of all life on earth, going to jail for peace – through nonviolent civil disobedience – can be seen as a prayer. In reflecting today on the Lord’s Prayer, I think that going to jail as a way of saying “thy kingdom come, thy will be done” may be the most basic prayer we can offer in the nuclear security state. Because we have accepted the greatest evil conceivable as a substitute for divine security, we have become a nation of atheists and blasphemers . . . As members of such a nation, we need to pray for the freedom to do God’s will by non-cooperating with the ultimate evil it is preparing. Civil disobedience done in a loving spirit is itself that kind of prayer (Douglass, 1987, p. 93).

Many other Plowshares activists add that prison is a time for reflecting deeply on their lives, studying the Bible, purifying themselves of egotistical motives, and praying. Although they do not deny the degrading and difficult aspects of incarceration, they nevertheless contend that prison is more monastic than punitive.

Challenges to the Methods of Theological Development In addition to the movement’s challenge to the content of traditional Christian doctrine, the Catholic Left also contests the methods of theological development.

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Unlike the hierarchy of the Catholic Church, Plowshares activists do not adhere to the conventional deductive approach of taking established doctrines and applying them to a given context. Rather, much of their theology has emerged inductively from their activism. Liberation theologians refer to this as a hermeneutical circle (Segundo, 1976; Smith, 1991). This term reflects the idea that events and changes in contemporary society shape biblical interpretation. Theology develops as people contemplate the conditions surrounding them, such as the state of the nuclear arms race or poverty in the Third World, and then work to change the injustices that they observe. As they reflect on their action, theological premises emerge to explain the religious resonance of these practices (Berryman, 1987). These new theological views in turn strengthen commitment and foster further action. Theologians Leonardo and Clodovis Boff describe this process: In the theology of liberation, we have a bond . . . between theory and practice, between theology and the life of faith. The method practiced by the theology of liberation, we observe, is neither exclusively inductive nor deductive. It is both of these at once: it is dialectical (Boff & Boff, 1986, p. 15).

The theology of nonviolent resistance that developed as a tactical consequence of the Plowshares movement reflects this dialectical methodology. Catholic Left activists believe that the gospel teaches nonviolence, love for one’s enemies, and the willingness to sacrifice one’s life for others. Reflecting on the destructive capacity of nuclear weapons, they felt that their faith requires them to take a stand. As they planned their first Plowshares action, they drew from the Catholic Left’s repertoire of collective action but also shaped their tactics to resonate with the religious tradition of church leaders. In response to criticism of their tactics, Plowshares activists turned to the Bible to explain the theological basis for their acts of symbolic disarmament. Out of that reflection on praxis in light of scriptural teachings, they developed new theological views. As Phil Berrigan wrote, “In an oddly perverse fashion, the bomb has driven us back to the Bible and has retaught us the Sermon on the Mount” (1996, p. 180). The biblical perspectives of Plowshares leaders like the Berrigans and Elizabeth McAlister have furthered the movement by inspiring other Christians to live out the gospel’s message of nonviolent resistance to the state.

CONCLUSION State-oriented models are too narrow to encompass movements that challenge other types of authority structures such as religious institutions. By focusing on one aspect of movements – tactical choices – I have revealed the limits of statecentered theories of collective action. Their underlying assumptions of political instrumentality, tactical neutrality, and rational calculation of tactical costs and


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benefits do not hold true in the Plowshares case. This is partly due to the distinctive character of religious movements that typically value activism as a means of bearing witness, not simply as a method of obtaining one’s goals. The moral beliefs of religious activists may also encourage tactical persistence, even when tactics prove ineffective or provoke severe repression. In fact, high costs may be intrinsically valued rather than viewed as something to minimize through the adoption of less risky tactics. This is certainly true in the Plowshares movement where incarceration and suffering is seen as the consequence of following Christ. The Plowshares case, therefore, indicates that we must distinguish between instrumental and expressive movements and develop our theories according to each category’s unique traits. The character of the movement is not the only influence on tactical choice that deserves greater attention, however. The culture of the targeted authority structure also shapes the methods that challengers use. State-oriented theories imply that tactics are neutral and movements select or innovate tactics purely on the basis of efficacy. If that were true, then religious movements opposed to weapons of mass destruction would have more or less the same collective action repertoire as secular peace movements. While there is some tactical overlap, Plowshares activists’ distinctive use of blood and property destruction cannot be explained without acknowledging the fact that their actions are aimed at both the State and the hierarchy of the Catholic Church. The religious meaning of blood and the scriptural imagery of beating swords into plowshares were designed to resonate with religious leaders’ worldviews and moral commitments. Finally, with a heavily instrumental orientation, State-centered theories have a tendency to view tactics unidirectionally. They assess the influences on tactical choice and how, in turn, these forms of protest affect a movement’s success or failure. This is certainly an important research endeavor but I propose that we additionally explore the consequences of protest on the movement itself and the cultural context in which it operates. In other words, tactics may have effects that extend beyond formally stated goals and outcomes. Particularly with controversial methods of protest, ideologies are likely to be developed, refined or clarified to provide tactical justification. In the process, these newly articulated worldviews may shape the way activists frame issues or even result in new challenges. Tactics are more than simply a means to an end. As the Plowshares movement illustrates, they can also be an impetus to new cultural developments.

NOTE 1. This excerpt is taken from the court transcript of the Griffiss Airforce Base Plowshares action.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Completion of this article was made possible through grants from the Phillip H. and Betty L. Wimmer Family Foundation at Duquesne University and the National Endowment for the Humanities. The views expressed here are solely the author’s and do not necessarily reflect those of the granting agencies. I wish to thank Kelly Moore, Dan Cress, Dan Myers, Rhys Williams and members of the Religion and Culture Workshop at Princeton’s Center for the Study of Religion for comments on earlier versions of this article.

REFERENCES Berrigan, P. (1996). Fighting the lamb’s war: Skirmishes with the American empire. Monroe, ME: Common Courage Press. Berrigan, P., & McAlister, E. (1989). The times’ discipline: The beatitudes and nuclear resistance. Baltimore: Fortkamp Publishing Company. Berryman, P. (1987). Liberation theology: Essential facts about the revolutionary movement in Latin America and beyond. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Boff, L., & Boff, C. (1986). Liberation theology: From confrontation to dialogue. San Francisco: Harper & Row. Chatfield, C. (1996). The Catholic Worker in the United States peace tradition. In: A. Klejment & N. Roberts (Eds), American Catholic Pacifism (pp. 1–14). Westport, CT: Praeger. Dalton, R. J. (1994). The green rainbow: Environmental groups in Western Europe. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Dear, J. (2001). Living peace: A spirituality of contemplation and action. New York: Doubleday. della Porta, D. (1992). Social movements and violence: Participation in underground organizations. Greenwich, CT: JAI Press. Douglass, J. (1987). Civil disobedience as prayer. In: A. Laffin & A. Montgomery (Eds), Swords into Plowshares: Nonviolent Direct Action for Disarmament (pp. 93–97). San Francisco: Harper & Row. Duff, E. (1970). The burden of the Berrigans. In: W. V. Casey & P. Nobile (Eds), The Berrigans (pp. 13–30). New York: Avon. Epstein, B. (1991). Political protest and cultural revolution: Nonviolent direct action in the 1970s and 1980s. Berkeley: University of California Press. Forest, J. (1997). Love is the measure: A biography of Dorothy Day. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books. Gamson, W. (1975). The strategy of social protest. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth. Hertzke, A. (1988). Representing God in Washington: The role of religious lobbies in the American polity. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press. Jenkins, J. C., & Perrow, C. (1977). Insurgency of the powerless: Farm worker movements (1946–1972). American Sociological Review, 42, 249–268. Jurgensmeyer, M. (2001). Terror in the mind of God: The global rise of religious violence. Berkeley: University of California Press. Kellerman, B. (1987). The cleansing of the temple: Jesus and symbolic action. In: J. Wallis (Ed.), The Rise of Christian Conscience (pp. 245–261). San Francisco: Harper & Row.


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Klejment, A., & Roberts, N. (1996). American Catholic pacifism. Westport, CT: Praeger. Koopmans, R. (1993). The dynamics of protest waves: West Germany, 1965–1989. American Sociological Review, 58, 637–658. Laffin, A., & Montgomery, A. (1987). Swords into plowshares: Nonviolent direct action for disarmament. San Francisco: Harper & Row. Lifton, R., & Falk, R. (1982). Indefensible weapons: The political and psychological case against nuclear weapons. New York: Basic Books. McAdam, D. (1983). Tactical innovation and the pace of insurgency. American Sociological Review, 48, 735–754. McAdam, D. (1989). The biographical consequences of activism. American Sociological Review, 54, 744–760. McAdam, D., & Rucht, D. (1993). The cross-national diffusion of movement ideas. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 528, 56–74. McKenna, M. (1996). The angel of recidivism. In: J. Dear (Ed.), Apostle of Peace: Essays in Honor of Daniel Berrigan (pp. 92–96). Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books. McNeal, P. (1992). Harder than war: Catholic peacemaking in twentieth century America. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Myers, C. (1988). Binding the strong man: A political reading of Mark’s story of Jesus. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books. Meyer, D., & Whittier, N. (1994). Social movement spillover. Social Problems, 41(2), 277–298. Nepstad, S. E. (2004). Persistent resistance: Commitment and community in the Plowshares movement. Social Problems, 51(1), 43–60. Pagnucco, R. (1996). A comparison of the political behavior of faith-based and secular peace groups. In: C. Smith (Ed.), Disruptive Religion: The Force of Faith in Social Movement Activism (pp. 205–222). New York: Routledge. Ruzza, C. E. (1990). Strategies in the Italian peace movement. Research in Social Movements, Conflict and Change, 12, 111–138. Schneirov, M., & Geczik, J. D. (2003). A diagnosis for our times: Alternative health, from lifeworld to politics. Albany: SUNY Press. Segundo, J. L. (1976). The liberation of theology. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books. Sherkat, D., & Blocker, T. J. (1997). Explaining the political and personal consequences of protest. Social Forces, 75(3), 1049–1076. Smith, C. (1991). The emergence of liberation theology: Radical religion and social movement theory. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Stringfellow, W., & Towne, A. (1971). Suspect tenderness: The ethics of the Berrigan witness. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston. Tarrow, S. (1989). Democracy and disorder: Protest and politics in Italy, 1965–1975. Oxford, England: Clarendon Press. Tarrow, S. (1993). Cycles of collective action: Between moments of madness and the repertoire of contention. Social Science History, 17(2), 281–308. Tilly, C. (1978). From mobilization to revolution. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley. Wilcox, F. (2001). Disciples and dissidents: Prison writings of the Prince of Peace Plowshares. Athol, MA: Haley’s. Yoder, J. H. (1992). Nevertheless: Varieties of religious pacifism. Scottsdale, PA: Herald Press.

CULTURE IN AND OUTSIDE INSTITUTIONS Francesca Polletta ABSTRACT Even as theorists of social movements have paid increasing attention to culture in mobilization processes, they have conceptualized its role in curiously circumscribed fashion. Culture is often treated as a residual category; that is, invoked to explain what structure does not explain in accounting for movements’ emergence, what instrumental rationality does not explain in accounting for movement groups’ choice of strategies and tactics, and what policy change does not encompass in accounting for movements’ impacts. As a result, culture’s role in creating structural opportunities, in defining what counts as instrumentally rational, and in determining movement impacts within the policy arena as well as outside it has gone largely untheorized. An alternative view of culture focuses on the schemas that guide, and are reproduced in, institutions. Such a perspective makes it possible to identify the conditions in which culture has independent force in shaping identities, interests, and opportunities, and to grasp culture’s simultaneously enabling and constraining dimensions. Drawing on recent empirical studies, I show how this perspective can illuminate neglected dynamics of movement emergence, tactical choice, and movement impacts. Where once social movement theorists tended to treat grievances, identities, ideologies, and the cultural dimensions of social movements as just so much analytical noise, that is no longer the case. Movement theorists now agree that Authority in Contention Research in Social Movements, Conflicts and Change, Volume 25, 161–183 © 2004 Published by Elsevier Ltd. ISSN: 0163-786X/doi:10.1016/S0163-786X(04)25007-8

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culture matters in accounting for the emergence, trajectories, and impacts of movements. However, even as they have claimed to give culture its due, they have conceptualized its role in curiously circumscribed fashion. Culture is often treated as a residual category; that is, invoked to explain what structure does not explain in accounting for movements’ emergence, what instrumental rationality does not explain in accounting for movement groups’ choice of strategies and tactics, and what policy change does not encompass in accounting for movements’ impacts. As a result, culture’s role in creating structural opportunities, in defining what counts as instrumentally rational, and in determining movement impacts within the policy arena as well as outside it has gone largely untheorized. In this chapter, I show how a different approach to culture can do better. Such an approach is distinctive not so much in how it defines culture as in where it locates it. Rather than thinking about culture as residing in people’s heads or in society-wide symbolic frameworks, I propose that we think of culture as institutional schemas. Culture defines the institutional rules of the game – the models that we have for how the state works and science and gender work, or, better, the models that we have for doing politics and science and gender. Cultural schemas both shape how institutions operate and are reproduced through institutions’ normal operation. This is by no means the only way to think of culture. However, it does have several virtues. One is that it allows us to get at culture’s constitutive capacity, that is, its role in defining the interests on behalf of which people mobilize as well as the political shifts that create opportunities for alreadyexisting collective actors. But it does so without resorting to the kind of cultural fundamentalism that treats interests, resources, and structures as reflections of hegemonic ideas. A second virtue of this conception of culture is that it gives us better purchase on culture’s simultaneously enabling and constraining dimensions. Activists use culture strategically, transposing frames from one institutional setting to another. But, as I will show, institutionalized cultural frames also shape activists’ calculations of what counts as strategic. Finally, and most central to the concerns of this volume, by highlighting the institutional sources and effects of culture, this perspective can help to break the hold of state-targeted movements on our theoretical models. Recognizing that movements target institutions other than the state requires more than looking for analogues to features of the state that shape movements’ timing, forms, and impacts. Instead, by conceptualizing movements generally as challenges to institutional authority, we can begin to identify both continuities and differences across movements targeted to different institutions. In other words, paying more attention to non-state-oriented movements may lead us to neglected but important dynamics that operate also in state-oriented ones. For example, several scholars have recently highlighted the role of “insiders” in the emergence of a number of movements. Insiders are members

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both of the institutional elite that is being challenged and of the challenging group. They have included, variously, prominent scientists who helped open up American science to challenge (Moore, 1999); priests who did the same for the Catholic Church (Katzenstein, 1998); women nurses and physicians who pressured the medical establishment on behalf of women suffering from postpartum depression (Taylor, 1996); gay physicians who pressed for medical research on AIDS (Epstein, 1996); and educators who lobbied for Afrocentric curricula (Binder, 2002). In these cases, the lines between authorities and challengers were not so clear. Now, it is possible that insiders play a larger role in protest targeted to institutions outside the state because in such institutions the loci of power are more difficult to identify (Moore, 1999). In other words, without the help of insiders, one hardly has a shot. But it is also possible that mediators play a greater role in state-targeted protest than we have recognized. The role of federal officials in helping to form the National Organization for Women suggests as much (Costain, 1992; and see McAdam, Tarrow & Tilly’s (2001) recent discussion of “brokers”).1 Thinking about movements as challenges to institutional authority also alerts us to the fact that there are multiple institutions in any society. That has implications for key movement processes. Authorities in one institutional sphere may lose legitimacy as a result of their association with already-discredited authorities in another sphere. Activists may draw on one institutional idiom to challenge authorities within another institutional sphere. Movement groups may reproduce some institutions even as they challenge others. Grasping these processes requires a rethinking of culture as well as of movements. In the rest of this paper, I suggest how such a rethinking might proceed. In particular, I take issue with a set of conceptual oppositions that have limited theorizing about culture in movements. Culture has often been conceptualized in contrast to structure, as a realm of social life outside politics, and as an orientation to action that is the opposite of a strategic one. After tracing some of the analytical consequences of these oppositions, I propose an alternative approach to culture and then draw on a variety of recent empirical studies to show its yields. For the good news is that while movement theorizing about culture has not kept pace with developments in the study of culture generally, recent empirical work on movements has done so – and indeed, can offer insights into culture’s operation much more broadly.

CULTURE, STRUCTURE, POLITICS, AND STRATEGY For many movement scholars, taking culture seriously has meant paying more attention to the beliefs and values through which people experience and act on

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structures (Taylor & Whittier, 1992; Whittier, 2002). Culture enables groups to recognize the injustice of their situation, scholars have argued, to see political shifts as political opportunities, and to begin to envision alternatives. Absent those subjective perceptions, objective opportunities for political impact will come to naught (McAdam, 1994, 1996; McAdam, Tarrow & Tilly, 2001; Tarrow, 1998). Culture also provides persuasive resources for activists in their efforts to promote their cause to potential participants and supporters (Gamson, 1988; McAdam, McCarthy & Zald, 1996; Snow & Cress, 2000; Snow et al., 1986; Tarrow, 1998; Zald, 1996). And it shapes their choices among the strategies, tactics, and organizational forms that are available to them. Activists are principled actors as well as instrumental ones, scholars remind us, and their instrumental calculations are always tempered by their cultural commitments – to nonviolence, say, or to radical democracy (Downey, 1986; Meyer, 2002; Oliver & Johnston, 2000; Snow & Benford, 1992). Finally, paying attention to culture has meant recognizing that people may seek to change cultural practices as well as institutional policies and that, whatever activists’ actual purposes, the outcomes of movements are often most visible in the arenas of culture and everyday life rather than only in institutional politics (McAdam, 1994; Whittier, 2002). So, paying attention to culture can contribute to understanding why and how movements emerge, why they unfold in the way they do, and what kinds of impacts they have. These are significant advances. But several things are missing from this picture. One is culture’s role not only in helping groups to further their political interests but also in defining the identities and interests on behalf of which they take action. When and why do certain areas of social life – race relations, say, or nuclear policy, or university curricula – suddenly become the grounds for mobilization and conflict? Why do diverse and dispersed individuals suddenly come to see themselves as an aggrieved “group”? Conceptualizing culture as the subjective perceptions that people bring to objective structures makes it difficult to answer those questions since it gives culture no place in constituting interests and identities. Recently, some scholars have drawn attention to the state’s capacity to create new social categories that then become the basis for collective action (McAdam, Tarrow & Tilly, 2001; Meyer, 2002). For example, the identity of “Hispanic” did not exist in the United States before President Richard Nixon proclaimed a National Hispanic Heritage Week in 1969 and a variety of government agencies began to use the term for classification purposes. Since then, people of Latin American descent living in the United States have mobilized around that identity (Oboler, 1995). In his study of 19th century British contention, Charles Tilly (1998) attributes the eclipse of local identities like spinner, neighbor, or tenant of a particular landlord by broader ones such as “citizen” and “worker” to the increasing salience of the national


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state in people’s lives. Rather than appeal to a powerful patron or unleash their rage directly on the object of their dissatisfaction, claimsmakers increasingly made public demonstrations of their numbers and commitment to bid for participation in a national polity. Accounts like these are valuable in recognizing that the creation of collective actors needs to be explained rather than assumed. However, statecreated social categories are only one source of the identities on behalf of which people mobilize. A tendency to counterpoise culture to specifically political structures is responsible for another gap in movement theorizing: a failure to recognize the cultural dimensions of what count as political opportunities. So, for example, in making the case for the importance of culture, Doug McAdam argues against simply identifying the political opportunities that precede mobilization: It is extremely hard to separate these objective shifts in political opportunities from the subjective processes of social construction and collective attribution that render them meaningful . . . Given this linkage, the movement analyst has two tasks: accounting for the structural factors that have objectively strengthened the challenger’s hand, and analyzing the processes by which the meaning and attributed significance of shifting political conditions is assessed (1994, p. 39).

McAdam distinguishes “objective” “structural” opportunities from the “subjective, cultural” framing of those opportunities. Culture mediates between objective political opportunities and objective mobilization, on this view; it does not create those opportunities. Elsewhere, McAdam elaborates: “the kinds of structural changes and power shifts that are most defensibly conceived as political opportunities should not be confused with the collective processes by which these changes are interpreted and framed” (1996, p. 26; emphasis in the original; see also McAdam, McCarthy & Zald, 1996, p. 8). In these formulations, “cultural factors or processes” are contrasted with political structures, which are given, not interpreted. The same opposition persists in more recent formulations of culture’s role in mobilization. For example, Nancy Whittier is careful to point out that dominant meanings are “embedded in the state and public policy” (2002, p. 292) rather than just existing outside them. But she then goes on to distinguish “P[olitical opportunity structures], state, institutions” – which she calls “structures” – from “hegemonic culture” – which she calls “meaning” (p. 293). David Meyer calls for avoiding “false dichotomies of culture and structure” and then assimilates structure to “factors exogenous to a social movement” and culture as the “choices made within it” (2002, p. 12). McAdam himself has shelved the notion of political opportunity structures in favor of “political opportunity spirals” (McAdam, Tarrow & Tilly, 2001). The latter is intended to get at the interactive character of political opportunities, with authorities responding to insurgents’ construction of their political circumstances. But the assumption remains that

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culture comes into the picture solely in the social constructionist processes through which people take advantage of opportunities for action. These formulations miss the fact that objective, external political opportunities are cultural. Political structures differ across time and place not only in their formal provisions (for example, limits on the executive branch and a system of checks and balances) but also in their conceptions of the proper scope and role of government. Such conceptions are held by state-makers as much as by the public (Goodwin, 1994). Something as ostensibly non-cultural as a state’s level of repression reflects not only numbers of soldiers and guns but the strength of constitutional provisions for their use and traditions of military allegiance (Brockett, 1995; della Porta, 1996). The changing legitimacy rules for world leadership provide activists with differential opportunities to embarrass national governments into a more receptive or proactive stance (Skrentny, 1998). All of these represent political structures that insurgents confront; all are cultural; none exist just in insurgents’ heads. Together, they suggest that defining opportunities as open political systems, unstable elite alignments, elite allies, and the state’s capacity and propensity for repression (McAdam, 1996; see Tarrow’s somewhat different formulation [1998]) by no means captures the range of political structures and processes that facilitate insurgency. Or, better, such a conceptualization fails to capture just how such features of a political system facilitate insurgency. To ascertain the comparative role of elections in facilitating insurgency, on an alternative view, we should establish whether a well-known history of election-centered protest exists, memorialized in popular narratives, holidays, and other political rituals (Tambiah, 1996). In comparing levels of repressive capacity, we should pay attention not only to the number of guns and soldiers available to the government, but also to constitutional provisions and precedents (and prevailing interpretations of those provisions and precedents) for its use of force (Brockett, 1995; della Porta, 1996). In assessing the effects of splits among governmental elites in spurring mobilization, we should investigate how those divisions map on to other divisions – ethnicity, say, religion, or region – currently perceived as important (McAdam, Tarrow & Tilly, 2001). The standard picture of culture in mobilization that I sketched above suffers also from a tendency to treat culture as a realm of social life outside of politics. This tendency is especially evident in accounts of movement impacts. Movement theorists rightly point out that movements are responsible for more than changes in laws, policies, and levels of formal political representation. Movements also change personal relationships, cultural norms, and collective identities (Johnston & Klandermans, 1995; McAdam, 1994; Whittier, 2002). But calling the former “political” and the latter “cultural” discourages attention to cultural changes effected within the political sphere. Movements influence the kinds of claims that


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mainstream political actors can make in their own interactions as well as in their interactions with the public (Amenta & Young, 1999; Mueller, 1987). It is easy to miss these kinds of effects when culture is viewed as operating outside politics. Finally, treating culture as an orientation to action that competes with a strategic one – the third conceptual opposition I mentioned – underestimates culture’s role in shaping the very terms of strategic calculation. As I noted earlier, many sociologists have rejected purely instrumentalist conceptions of strategic and tactical choice, in which activists assess options based on an instrumental reading of environmental opportunities and constraints. Instead, they have represented activists striving to reconcile their normative commitments with their practical ones. Activists try to choose strategies, tactics, organizational forms, and persuasive appeals that are ideologically consistent as well as instrumentally efficacious (Breines, 1989; Oliver & Johnston, 2000; Snow & Benford, 1992; Staggenborg, 1989). As Gary Downey (1986) put it in his study of the antinuclear Clamshell Alliance, activists often style themselves not only opponents of authority but its opposites, refusing to enact within their own relations the values that they repudiate. They prefigure within their own operation the kind of society they want to bring about (Breines, 1989). So they may aim for consensus in decisionmaking, avoid tactics that can be construed as violent in any way, reject differentials in status and authority, and so on. Those choices come with instrumental costs as well as benefits, and we can predict some of the consequences for movement organizations’ careers of juggling different kinds of instrumental and ideological commitments. We can also trace the historical roots of activists’ ideological commitments in other movements and identify continuities of framing across movements with very different agendas. The problem is that in most formulations, culture – or master frames or ideologies – are treated as “principles”: coherent, deliberately chosen, and articulated political values and theories about how the world works (Oliver & Johnston, 2000; Snow & Benford, 1992). But culture also operates behind activists’ backs, as it were, defining what counts as a principle rather than a matter of practical commonsense, as well as defining what is considered conceivable, feasible, and appropriate. Such beliefs are often taken for granted rather than explicit, internally contradictory rather than coherent, and conventional rather than “deeply held” (Oliver & Johnston, 2000), but they are crucial in setting the very terms of strategic calculation. The concept of collective action repertoires, introduced by Charles Tilly, begins to get at culture in this sense. Tilly writes, “existing repertoires incorporate collectively-learned shared understandings concerning what forms of claimmaking are possible, desirable, risky, expensive, or probable, as well as what consequences different possible forms of claim-making are likely to produce. They greatly constrain the contentious claims political actors make on each other and

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on agents of the state” (1999; see also Clemens, 1996, 1997; and Steinberg, 1999 for extensions of the repertoire concept). Wary of treating repertoires as fixed, however, most scholars have concentrated either on the macropolitical processes by which repertoires change dramatically (Tarrow, 1998; Tilly, 1995) or on the dynamics by which activists are able to innovate within a particular repertoire (Armstrong, 2002; Clemens, 1997). They have devoted much less attention to theorizing the dynamics by which repertoires constrain activists’ ability to use organizational forms effectively. Activists are viewed as strategic choice-makers rather than as exercising choice within cultural constraints (but see Steinberg, 1999, for an exception).

AN ALTERNATIVE: CULTURE AS INSTITUTIONAL SCHEMAS The problem is that none of these gaps is easily filled. The risk in treating culture as constitutive of people’s interests is that it gives culture too much autonomy. We could end up treating culture as independent of the resources and structures through which it actually has force. The risk in treating culture as constraining strategic action is that we begin to think of people as cultural dopes (or dupes). We could end up in the epistemologically murky position of claiming “false consciousness,” arguing that those we study are somehow unable to see the truth of the situation we observers can see. The risk in erasing the line between culture and politics is that it becomes that much more difficult to identify movements’ causes and consequences. Can anything be dubbed a “cultural opportunity?” We need a conception of culture that allows us to identify the conditions in which it has independent force in creating interests, identities, and opportunities for political impact. Such a conception should also allow us to discern the mechanisms by which culture makes some identities salient and some tactics appropriate, rather than simply locating those mechanisms in people’s heads. Consider, then, this alternative. We can define culture as people’s shared meanings and the vehicles through which those meanings are expressed. This is not an uncommon definition (see e.g. Swidler, 2001; Tilly, 1999). But where we typically think of culture in terms of beliefs and ideals – as the ends of action – I propose that we focus on culture as rules or schemas for doing things, whether for giving gifts, declaring war, disagreeing with one’s colleagues, interpreting scientific discoveries, or expressing one’s feelings (Clemens & Cook, 1999; Sewell, 1992). Cultural schemas operate in numerous social sites: in cognitive categories, conversational dynamics, and national narratives, to name a few. But I propose that we think of them as located in, and guiding, institutions. Institutions are


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routinized sets of practices around a defined purpose and accompanied by rewards for conformity and penalties for deviation (Jepperson, 1991; Swidler, 2001). (Structures, by contrast, are patterns of durable relations. The concept of structure tells us nothing more than that: where a capitalist market structure refers only to the system by which goods are exchanged; the market as a capitalist institution comprises also the justifications that are attached to the form and the normative codes that operate within it).2 Why some schemas or rules rather than others come to dominate an institution has to do with resources and power. However, once fully institutionalized, schemas become the stuff of common sense (DiMaggio & Powell, 1991; Zucker, 1977). One can certainly imagine other ways of doing things, and other ways of assessing things, and some people surely do. And multiple schemas may operate within the same institution, and only become perceived as inconsistent – or their inconsistency only perceived a problem – under certain circumstances (Swidler, 2001). Still, alternatives are always vulnerable to being penalized as “not the way we do things” and as inappropriate. This is as true within social movements as it is outside them. Familiar ways of doing things and seeing things shape activists’ strategic possibilities. This is not because alternatives are unthinkable but because the risks of nonconformity are substantial, whether in a small group of like-minded activists or in an appearance before Congress, and the rewards are uncertain. Yet, if institutional schemas are self-reproducing, and thus sustaining of institutions, they may also be the impetus to contention and change. Here, I want to draw attention to the simultaneously durable and mutable character of institutions (Clemens & Cook, 1999). Institutions are vulnerable to challenge from predictable locations and at predictable moments. The discrediting of old institutional schemas or the ascendance of new ones; conflicts among institutional schemas previously seen as congruent; people’s ability to use schemas from one institution as standards for measuring the performance of another institution; the discrediting of one institution by its association with another – each of these developments may generate new lines of contention. In turn, contention may have its primary impact by altering institutional schemas, that is, by altering the rules of the institutional game. Overall, then, this perspective on culture puts us in a better position to grasp the sources of the interests and identities on behalf of which people mobilize, to understand the strategic and tactical decisions that movement groups make, and to assess movements’ diverse impacts. I will talk briefly about the first and the third – interests and impacts – and then about the second: strategies. In discussing each one, I will draw on empirical analyses that have produced provocative arguments with respect to both paradigmatic state-targeted movements and non-state targeted ones.

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MOVEMENT EMERGENCE Why do movements emerge when they do? Rather than starting with challengers and their interests already in existence, we can begin our analysis earlier, asking why certain collective identities come to exist, certain grievances become widespread, and certain issues become contentious. I mentioned a number of institutional dynamics that may operate to create new stakes in mobilization, none of them reducible to political opportunities as they are usually defined. Let me flesh out several of them as they have operated in actual instances of mobilization. New stakes in contention may be created when existing institutional schemas are discredited or when co-existing institutional schemas that were previously viewed as consistent come to be seen as contradictory. In this respect, consider the early history of the abortion reform movement in this country. As Kristin Luker (1984) shows, institutionalized practices of legal abortion in the early 1960s were governed by two very different but rarely discussed schemas: a “strict constructionist” one, in which the fetus was a full person, albeit unborn (whose abortion was justified only when its survival jeopardized the life of the mother), and a “broad constructionist” schema, in which the fetus was a potential person (and appropriately aborted if indications were strong that it would be abnormal). As medical advances made abortions to save the life of the mother an increasing rarity, the potential for conflict between the two perspectives increased. That conflict broke out into the open in 1962 when the story was publicized of a woman who planned to terminate her pregnancy after discovering that her fetus was likely to be deformed. Doctors adhering to a broad constructionist model worried about not having legal protection for the therapeutic abortions they were performing routinely. They suddenly found themselves with stakes in a movement for abortion reform and they played a key role in forming one. In another scenario, a new schema gains institutional purchase, creating stakes in its interpretation, enforcement, and, for some, in its challenge. This scenario helps to account for the 1950s homophile movement. As John D’Emilio (1983) shows in his history of the movement, same-sex sex has always existed and, indeed, has often been severely punished. But it was only in the mid-20th century that it became not just a deviant, immoral, illegal act but a deviant identity. A homosexual was a person whose nature – acts, feelings, personal traits, even body type – was sharply distinguishable from “normal” heterosexuals. That shift was propelled in part by a psychiatric model of homosexuality that gained currency during and after World War II. It made possible both heightened repression (one could now be fired or prosecuted as a homosexual whether or not one had engaged in sex), and the creation of a homosexual collective actor.


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Both Luker and D’Emilio seek to explain not why the state became vulnerable to challenge by already-constituted groups but why certain issues, practices, and identities came to be contested in the first place. Note, too, that each of these studies explores the interaction of structural trends and cultural schemas without reducing any one to any other. Doctors’ stake in abortion reform makes sense only in the context of broad changes in the organization and practice of medicine and in the context of competing understandings of the ontological status of the fetus. Psychiatrists’ promotion of a view of homosexuality as a deviant identity would not have led to the development of a homosexual collective actor had not it intersected with long-term processes of urbanization and industrialization that made newly possible the development of an autonomous personal life. Even if we begin with challengers, or at least a constituency for change, already in existence, paying attention to cultural processes, and specifically, to the creation, competition, destabilization, and diffusion of institutional schemas can better account for the conditions in which full-scale mobilization is likely. Institutional schemas may specify appropriate occasions for opposition, such as elections or holidays, occasions which not uncommonly escalate into more serious or widespread opposition. This is closest to what goes under the heading of political opportunity. However, what counts as an opportunity within one institution, say, elections within institutional politics, may not count as an opportunity in another institution, say, religion. Rather than simply looking for analogues to the political structures that supposedly create opportunities for state-targeted protest – again, open political systems, unstable elite alignments, elite allies, and the state’s capacity and propensity for repression – we might look more generally for structures and practices that are “infuse[d] with value beyond the technical requirements of the task at hand,” as Philip Selznick (1957, pp. 6–7) defines institutionalization. The reasoning here is that such structures and practices at once make the institution what it is and make it vulnerable to challenge. So, for example, organized medicine’s dependence both on the cutting edge of scientific advance and on a system of care that is organized around the institutionalized (and less than cutting edge) state of scientific knowledge might well suggest that contention would emerge around that tension. There is yet another possibility. As I noted earlier, institutions operate within a field of institutions. Institutions are related to each other structurally in the sense that there are regularized exchanges of money, people, and trust among them. But institutions are also related to each other symbolically in the sense that the authority of one comes from the status of its objects, methods, and members relative to those of others. This means that particular institutions may become vulnerable to challenge when institutions with which they are symbolically associated are already under attack. In her study of radical challenges to science, Kelly Moore

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(1999) shows that organized American science at the beginning of the 1960s was flush with money, power, and prestige. However, some of those very facts rendered it vulnerable to challenge. The rapid growth of organized science gave newcomers a stake in change and the fact that there was little centralized control made it difficult to exercise control over dissidents within the ranks. Just as important, however, the fact that science’s status after World War II was so harnessed to its mutually supportive relationship with the federal government meant that when the government came under challenge in the 1960s, science was implicated too. This case suggests that organizations or institutions may lose credibility by something like a symbolic contagion. This is different from movement spillover: it is not that challengers beget challengers but that stigmatized institutions contaminate those around them. In the same vein, Steven Epstein (1996) attributes the rise of an AIDS movement challenging medical researchers in part to more general public skepticism about the authority of experts. Again, institutions intersect culturally, that is, draw their legitimacy from, and suffer disrepute as a result of, the relations they are seen as having with other institutions. Those relations can also be seen as ones of opposition rather than alliance. In other words, people may justify challenging practices within one institutional sphere by invoking standards and values from another. So, for example, Poles drew on a moral idiom from Catholicism to challenge the communist regime. The striking hospital workers whom Karen Brodkin Sacks (1988) studied invoked notions of family, and specifically, the relations between parents and grown children, to describe the acknowledgment and care they expected from hospital management. A familiar associational form derived from another institutional sphere provided an idiom for formulating opposition. In still another dynamic, people may be able to capitalize on the relative autonomy that some institutions are granted in repressive regimes, developing within them insurgent ideas and networks. These are the “free spaces” that scholars have seen as seedbeds for dissent, institutions like the black church for the civil rights movement and literary circles for opposition to the Soviet regime. What is important about such institutions, though often missed in discussions of free spaces, is not that they are somehow empty of ideas but that they enjoy relative freedom from the scrutiny and control of authorities (Polletta, 1999).

MOVEMENT IMPACTS How should we assess movement impacts in the perspective I am describing? Not only by looking for changes in laws, policies, and political representation, that is, “political” changes as distinct from the “cultural” changes that take place only


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outside politics. Nor should we stop at identifying formal policy changes in nonstate institutions and cultural changes outside them. In reconceptualizing what and who count as authorities, movements sometimes transform the rules of the institutional game in a way that goes beyond specific policy changes. For instance, activists in the Catholic Church who mobilized to gain the ordination of women lacked the framework of legal rights that was available to women fighting sexual harassment and restricted career opportunities in the military (Katzenstein, 1998). As a result, feminists in the military were able to invoke rights to equal opportunity to open up more military occupations to women while Catholic activists never won women ordination. But Catholic women’s discursive politics did transform the terms of debate within the Catholic Church. Women’s issues – reproductive rights, for example, and women’s roles in church doctrine as well the church hierarchy – could no longer be kept off the agenda. Cultural changes thus reshape institutional practices; as Katzenstein puts it, “conceptual changes bear directly on material ones” (1998, p. 17). Mobilization gained AIDS activists a formal seat at the table of AIDS research – in Gamson’s (1990) sense, “acceptance” – but it also redefined what counted as scientific expertise in far-reaching ways (Epstein, 1996). Under what conditions, then, are movements likely to effect these kinds of changes? What makes movements more or less likely to reorient the rules of the game, that is, transform the ways in which science is practiced, expertise is attributed, motherhood is defined, and so on? We simply do not know whether, in assessing changes in non-state institutions, we should expect to see the same kinds of factors that account for movements’ impacts on state policies and practices. Nonstate institutions usually lack the repressive means to put down dissent that the state possesses. That may mean that protest aimed at disrupting business-as-usual in non-state institutions is likely to have more of an effect. Another possibility is that it is easier to transform institutional practices around cultural objects with lower prestige. In her comparison of challenges to American public school education in the 1980s mounted by Afrocentrists and creationists, Amy Binder (2002) shows that Afrocentrists were more successful in winning curricular changes. This was in part because they were challenging history curricula rather than higher-prestige science curricula. Again, in accounting for movement impacts as well as causes we should pay attention to the symbolic relations and hierarchies in which institutions are embedded.

STRATEGY Why do movement groups adopt the strategies, tactics, targets, organizational forms, and ideological frames they do? And what consequences do those choices

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have for movements’ trajectories and impacts? The theoretical challenge, I noted earlier, is to capture the ways in which culture effectively operates behind activists’ backs, shaping their conceptions of what is feasible, appropriate, moral, and rational – but without representing activists as blind to their own interests. The solution is to probe the discursive and organizational mechanisms by which strategic and tactical options are ruled in and out of activists’ calculations. Consider, in this regard, activists’ choice of organizational form. Numerous scholars have drawn attention to the ideological commitments that lead activists to adopt non-hierarchical, consensus-oriented organizational forms, prefiguring within their own operation the radically egalitarian society they hope to bring about (Breines, 1989, Downey, 1986; Polletta, 2002; Staggenborg, 1989). To call such commitments “expressive,” Wini Breines reminds us, is to mistakenly treat them as nonpolitical. To the contrary, in experimenting with alternative forms of sociability, activists are seeking to remake politics – or to remake religion, science, education, and so on. Still, Breines and others argue, activists’ prefigurative commitments are always in tension with their strategic ones (Downey, 1986; Epstein, 1991, Starr, 1979). Making change outside the boundaries of the group usually requires quick decisionmaking, highly coordinated action on the part of large numbers of people, specialized expertise in complex policymaking processes, and the legitimacy with funders and authorities that comes from adopting standard organizational forms. All of these exert pressures to adopt more formalized, centralized, and hierarchical structures. Some of the most interesting work on how activists wrestle with these tensions has been done on feminist organizations (see among others, the essays in Ferree & Martin, 1995). Pace Michels, scholars have argued persuasively that organization does not necessarily lead to oligarchy. To the contrary, feminist activists have variously turned their relations with funders and authorities into a site of movement challenge (Matthews, 1994) or have incorporated elements of bureaucracy into their organizational structures without abandoning their commitments to equality, nurturance, and mutual learning (Bordt, 1997a; Disney & Gelb, 2000; Iannello, 1992). Even in these works, however, there is an assumption that activists choose collectivist organizational forms for ideological reasons, specifically, to symbolize their commitments to equality and care, and that they abandon or modify those forms when they come up against the demands of effective action. What that misses is that, just as much as collectivist ones, bureaucratic forms symbolize. They symbolize, variously, masculinity, power, political seriousness, and an overriding concern with effective outcomes. These associations – this is the important part – may be the source of such forms’ appeal within the movement as well as outside it. For example, the middle-class professionals who staffed the alternative health


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clinic Sherryl Kleinman (1996) studied in the 1980s saw themselves as bearers of the countercultural impulse of the 1960s. They held hands before meetings and had group hugs after them, strove for consensus in all-night meetings, and were critical of conventional markers of professional accomplishment. But they also insisted that each meeting be recorded in “minutes that had a bureaucratic look – lengthy, well-typed, with lots of headings, subheadings and underlinings” (pp. 38–39). One staffer created an uproar when she submitted minutes of a previous meeting in longhand and with illustrations, and staffers carefully rewrote the minutes line by line. Kleinman had never seen anyone actually refer to minutes from earlier meetings and there was no evidence that staffers believed that imitating mainstream organizational procedures would get them more clients or funding. Rather, it was necessary to their self-conception as a “serious” organization. Minute-taking, in as conventional way as possible, was a sign of legitimate standing. More broadly, theorizing activists’ practical choices only in terms of their efforts to juggle cultural and instrumental commitments makes it difficult to see the ways in which culture shapes activists’ very definitions of what is instrumental, what is political, what is a resource, and so on. By treating culture solely as a brake on instrumental calculation, the standard perspective offers no analytical purchase on the source of activists’ cultural commitments. Thinking of culture instead as models for action and interaction directs our attention to the sources of such models, as well as to why they come to dominate movement fields or subfields, and how they shape activists’ practical choices and their chances for success. Of course, as Elizabeth Clemens (1996, 1997) points out, activists are not restricted to imitating the strategies and tactics of alreadyexisting movement organizations. Rather they can draw on familiar associational forms outside politics. They can modify and combine models to create the kinds of hybrids that are publicly viewed as “appropriate,” whether for women or working class people or explicitly political claimsmaking, and yet are different enough to be effective.3 So Clemens (1997) shows how women activists barred from formal politics in the late 19th and early 20th century drew on alternative associational forms such as the club, parlor meeting, and charitable society to become a major force for social reform. Another example comes from a very different context: Communist organizers in 1940s China recruited women mill workers into “sisterhoods,” in which four or five women pledged allegiance to each other in a ritual ceremony. The form was one that women mill workers had long used to protect themselves from abuse by employers and by neighborhood thugs; now it generated the bonds of mutual trust and solidarity that made for sustained activism (Honig, 1985). The black Baptist ministers who founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference organized it along the lines of the southern Baptist church (Fairclough, 1985; Morris, 1984). Familiar associational forms supply the

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normative expectations that help to recruit members, sustain their participation, and provide real-life referents for values such as equality, cooperation, and care. And yet familiarity also comes with dangers. The SCLC’s ministerial structure created persistent jockeying among SCLC officials for Dr. King’s favor (Fairclough, 1985). In tracing experiments in radical democracy in seven movements over the last hundred years, I found that activists tended to model their deliberations variously on the relations between religious fellows, teachers and learners, or friends (Polletta, 2002). While each relationship supplied the mutual trust and respect that made it possible for activists to deliberate with a minimum of negotiation and challenge, each one also came with norms that, in predictable circumstances, made consensus impossible and generated sometimes debilitating organizational crises. For instance, friendship’s tendency to exclusivity and its aversion to difference made it difficult for 1960s activists to expand their groups beyond an original core. When they tried to implement mechanisms designed to equalize power, friendship’s resistance to formalization impeded their efforts. When newcomers joined the group or when veterans experienced disagreement as betrayal, deliberation broke down. In a similar vein, Carol Conell and Kim Voss (1990) show that when the Knights of Labor attempted to organize less-skilled ironand steelworkers into the sectional forms with which the Knights were familiar, rather than into broad-based organizations, the Knights limited such organizations’ potential for growth (see also Lichterman, 1996). We can also trace the processes by which some organizational templates come to be seen as “appropriate for” certain activities or people. So Rebecca Bordt (1997b) shows that collectivist organizational forms became normative among radical feminist activists in the 1970s. The pressures exerted by funders and government agencies to adopt conventional bureaucratic structures continued strong but feminists setting up collectives also operated in an alternative environment of feminist bookstores, heath centers, foundations, and media – all providing support for collectivist ideals. The result was that collectives took on “a rulelike status” (p. 146); institutionalized, collectivism became feminism. For radical black activists, I have argued (Polletta, 2002), the collectivist forms described by Bordt had shifted even earlier from being seen as practical and as “black” to being seen as expressive and as “white.” As a result, and at a time when their counterparts on the new left were eagerly abolishing national offices and insisting on consensus-based decisionmaking, black activists implemented more centralized and bureaucratic procedures (see Armstrong, 2002 on the emergence of identity-based organizations in the gay and lesbian movement). Activists rarely eschew convention entirely. As they fundraise, bring lawsuits, talk to the press, and collaborate with allies, they try to capitalize on some rules of the institutional games they play at the same time as they challenge


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others. But playing by the rules may have costs, since the rules are oriented more to sustaining the institution than to affording opportunities for challenge. For example, the stories of individual victimization people are required to tell in courtrooms may simultaneously win the movement legal victories and alienate potential recruits who are unwilling to see themselves as victims (Bumiller, 1988). The legal framework that military women drew on to challenge the discrimination they faced limited the scope of their claims, strategies, and eventually, success (Katzenstein, 1998). It is hardly surprising that activists sometimes fail to anticipate the costs of playing by the rules, especially since the risks in breaching the rules are substantial and the gains uncertain. So the animal rights activists Julian Groves (2001) studied discouraged women from serving in leadership positions because they believed that women were seen by the public as prone to the kind of emotional accounts that would cost the movement credibility. Activists spent little time debating whether women were in fact prone to emotionalism, however, or whether emotional stories rather than rational arguments were in fact bad for the movement (an assumption questioned by Jasper, 1999). So their calculations were strategic but were based on gendered assumptions about reason and emotion. The anti-Gulf war activists observed by Stephen Hart (2001) relied on a pragmatic, nuts-and-bolts style in their internal discussions, effectively ruling out of order discussions of participants’ personal commitments or broad ideological visions. But that “constrained” discursive style served them less effectively than did the “expansive” discourse characteristic of faith-based organizing groups, in which participants’ ethical commitments were threaded through all discussions. A discourse valued for its pragmatism, ironically, proved less effective than one valued for its moral depth. Together, these studies elucidate the conventions that govern activists’ uses of cultural forms (from organizational templates to emotional performances to legal categories to styles of discourse), and they trace the consequences of those conventions for movement groups’ capacities to effect changes. Rather than treating culture as the opposite of strategy, they show the ways in which culture sets the very terms of strategic action. But far from free-floating, culture is treated as anchored in familiar organizational forms, dominant legal institutions, and traditions of progressive politics.

CONCLUSION Taking full account of culture in movements requires more than recognizing people’s creative capacities for interpreting political conditions, the changes that

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movements effect outside the formal political sphere, and the cultural commitments that co-exist alongside activists’ instrumental ones. Our tendency to define culture in contrast to structure, as a realm of social life outside politics, and as an orientation to action that competes with an instrumental one has made it difficult to answer some of the most important questions we ask, about the sources of the interests and identities on behalf of which people mobilize, the political causes and consequences of mobilization, and activists’ strategic choices. However, the solution is not to trade a narrowly structuralist model for a cultural fundamentalism. Instead, the work I have cited draws our attention to the institutional dynamics by which new interests, identities, and stakes in protest gain currency; to the ways in which movements reshape the rules of the institutional game; and to the institutional sources of the understandings that inform activists’ strategic calculations. I have highlighted the ways in which the symbolic hierarchies in which institutions are embedded shape movements’ form and impacts. Much work remains to be done. We should know more than we do about how and when models of collective action diffuse across institutional settings as well as across movements and geographical regions (for promising work along these lines, see Soule, 1999; Wood, forthcoming). We should be able to better specify the conditions for cultural innovation in movement forms, strategies, and tactics (see e.g. Armstrong, 2002; Polletta, 2003). We should be able to assess how the diverse institutional settings in which activists operate shape their tactical, emotional, and ideological repertoires (see e.g. Whittier, 2001). And we should know more about the organizational, discursive, and social psychological mechanisms by which familiar cultural templates set the terms of strategic action. Movements both reflect and help to create the “unsettled times” that cultural theorists see as crucibles for cultural change (Swidler, 1986). At the same time, they often reproduce within their own operation the cultural frameworks that make protest a relatively rare event. In exploring the tension between challenge and accommodation, between innovation and constraint, movement theorists can contribute to our understanding of cultural processes much more broadly.

NOTES 1. At the same time, however, we should avoid treating the state as just one among the institutions that activists have challenged. More than most other institutions – science, say, or religion, or the family – the state influences the strategies, tactics, and organizational forms activists use and the impacts they have. Indeed, we need more research on the ways in which federal, state, and local laws around policing, tax status, and fundraising, for example, shape what movement groups can and cannot do (Jenkins, 1995; McCarthy,


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Britt & Wolfson, 1991). In analyzing non-state oriented movements, we should not lose sight of the state’s powerful role in many of these movements. 2. There is a real ambiguity in how scholars have conceptualized institutions, however, captured in the question of whether we should consider a handshake an institution. For some authors, an institution is the sum total of the organizations, networks, and people that produce a culturally recognized product, say art or medicine (Friedland & Alford, 1991; Katzenstein, 1998; Moore, 1999). For others, institution is defined more as the product of institutionalization: the process by which a practice comes to be infused with value (Selznick, 1957; see also Jepperson, 1991; Swidler, 2001). So, a handshake is institutionalized in American society as a sign of goodwill and respect. In this essay, I use institution in both senses, though I refer to the former sometimes as “larger institutions” or “institutional spheres.” 3. There is an interesting tension in conceptions of how groups innovate strategically. One can contrast Charles Tilly’s notion of a repertoire, a limited set of routines that evolve through struggle between claimsmakers and authorities (1995; see also Steinberg, 1999, concept of a discursive repertoire), with the imitative process that new institutionalists describe.

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WORKING IT OUT: THE EMERGENCE AND DIFFUSION OF THE WORKPLACE MOVEMENT FOR LESBIAN, GAY, AND BISEXUAL RIGHTS Nicole C. Raeburn ABSTRACT Amidst the backlash against gay rights in the U.S., a rapidly expanding number of companies are instituting inclusive policies. While in 1990 no major corporations provided health insurance for the partners of lesbian and gay employees, by early 2004, over 200 companies on the Fortune 500 list (approximately 40%) had adopted domestic partner benefits. This study of Fortune 1000 corporations reveals that the majority of adopters instituted the policy change only after facing pressure from groups of lesbian, gay, and bisexual employees. Despite such remarkable success, scholars have yet to study the workplace movement, as it is typically called by activists. Combining social movement theory and new institutional approaches to organizational analysis, I provide an “institutional opportunity” framework to explain the rise and trajectory of the movement over the past 25 years. I discuss the patterned emergence and diffusion of gay employee networks among Fortune 1000 companies in relation to shifting opportunities and constraints in four main areas: the wider sociopolitical context, the broader gay and lesbian movement, the media, and the workplace. Next, using the

Authority in Contention Research in Social Movements, Conflicts and Change, Volume 25, 187–230 Copyright © 2004 by Elsevier Ltd. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 0163-786X/doi:10.1016/S0163-786X(04)25008-X

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same wide-angle lens, I explain the apparent decline in corporate organizing since 1995. My multimethod approach utilizes surveys of 94 companies with and without gay networks, intensive interviews with 69 networks and 10 corporate executives, 3 case studies, field data, and print and virtual media on gay-related workplace topics. By focusing on not simply political but also broader institutional opportunities, I provide a framework for understanding the emergence and development of movements that target institutions beyond the state. Amidst the long-standing backlash against gay and lesbian rights occurring across the United States (Adam, 1995; Epstein, 1999; Vaid, 1995), a rapidly expanding number of corporations are including sexual orientation in nondiscrimination policies, providing gay-inclusive diversity training, and extending health insurance and other benefits to domestic partners of lesbian and gay employees. Equitable benefits, often referred to as domestic partner benefits, represent the latest expansion in the definition of workers’ rights. Research shows that in 1990 just three corporations provided family and bereavement leave for lesbian and gay employees (Mickens, 1994), and none provided health insurance coverage for domestic partners (Baker et al., 1995; Navarro, 1995). But by the middle of the 1990s, domestic partner benefits had practically become a household word given their adoption by numerous big-name companies. By fall 1999, the rate of adoption among major employers had climbed to approximately two per week (Herrschaft, 1999). In just the first quarter of 2001, over 20 Fortune 500 companies adopted domestic partner benefits or announced that they would do so by mid-year (Data Lounge, 2001). According to the most recent figures provided by the WorkNet workplace project of the Human Rights Campaign, as of February 14, 2004, 211 Fortune 500 companies (42%) had instituted equitable benefits (HRC, 2004). Joining these corporations were 6,863 other companies, nonprofit organizations, and unions, along with 198 colleges and universities, 10 states, and 130 local governments. In all, then, by mid-February 2004, at least 7,412 employers had adopted equitable benefits (HRC, 2004). According to a survey of 570 large U.S. employers conducted by Hewitt Associates, a global management consulting firm specializing in employee benefits, 22% of corporations offered equitable benefits as of spring 2000. Of the yet-to-adopt companies, over a third (35%) said they were considering the extension of such benefits in the next three years (Hewitt Associates, 2000, p. 11). Likewise, a 2002 study done by the Society for Human Resource Management found that 23% of U.S. firms provide same-sex domestic partner benefits, up from 7% only five years earlier (Simanoff, 2002).

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My study of the “Fortune 1000,” or Fortune magazine’s list of the top 1000 revenue-generating companies in the U.S., reveals the crucial role of the workplace movement in bringing about this sea change. While shifts in the wider sociopolitical and corporate arenas also influence policy decisions (Raeburn, 2004), employee activists clearly spearheaded this major transformation in the business world. Of the 20 companies that first adopted equitable benefits, at least 16 did so in response to internal mobilization by lesbian, gay, and bisexual employees (Baker et al., 1995). My research shows that, as of 1999 (when data collection on employee groups ended), corporations with gay employee networks still constituted twothirds of Fortune 1000 adopters (56 out of 83, or 67%). Thus, although institutional processes have come into greater play such that the presence of a gay network is now less necessary for policy change, the workplace movement remains a significant source of momentum driving the transformation of corporate America. With a fledgling start in the late 1970s and early 1980s, only two major corporations witnessed the birth of gay employee networks. By the late 1980s, small numbers of lesbians and gay men began to mobilize for inclusive policies and practices in their places of work. Still, by the end of that decade, only 10 gay employee groups had sprung up among the Fortune 1000. By the late 1990s, however, the numbers had swelled to over 80 documented networks, which together constitute a pioneering force for social change. Serving as powerful reminders that the state is not the sole contested terrain, these “institutional activists” (Santoro & McGuire, 1997) demonstrate that committed individuals “do” politics not simply on the streets or in voting booths but also in the cubicles, offices, and board rooms of companies across the country. Although the gay, lesbian, and bisexual rights movement is one of the most highly mobilized campaigns on the current political landscape of the U.S. (Adam, 1995; Adam, Duyvendak & Krouwel, 1999; Gamson, 1995; Jenness, 1999; Taylor & Raeburn, 1995), scholars have yet to direct their attention to the workplace movement, one of the most significant developments in the struggle for equal rights. Amidst the anti-gay backlash in the formal political arena, how did the workplace movement take off and gain enough visibility and partial success such that the New York Times referred to gay-inclusive corporate policies as “the workplace issue of the ’90s?” (Baker et al., 1995). To answer this question, I combine social movement theory and new institutional approaches to organizational analysis. In particular, I discuss the patterned emergence and diffusion of lesbian and gay employee networks among the Fortune 1000 in relation to shifting opportunities and constraints in four main areas: the wider sociopolitical context, the broader gay and lesbian movement, the media, and institutional openings in the workplace. Next, using the same wide-angle lens, I consider alternative explanations for the apparent decline in new corporate

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organizing beginning in 1995. I then close with a brief summary of my key theoretical contributions. By focusing on the role of not simply political but also institutional opportunities, I provide a framework for understanding the emergence and trajectory of movements that target institutions beyond the state. Although such “unobtrusive mobilization” often remains unseen by the wider public (Katzenstein, 1990), institutional activists can effect wide-ranging societal transformations and thus deserve the same degree of scholarly attention as those challengers who focus on the formal political arena. My multimethod approach utilizes surveys of 94 Fortune 1000 corporations with and without gay activist networks; intensive interviews with 69 lesbian and gay employee networks and 10 vice presidents of human resources; three case studies; print and virtual media on gay-related workplace topics; and extensive field data gathered from multiple workplace conferences, participation in the social activities of a regional umbrella organization, and attendance at the weekly meetings of one of the oldest and most well respected employee networks in the movement.

THE RISE AND GROWTH OF THE CORPORATE WORKPLACE MOVEMENT Examining the number of lesbian, gay, and bisexual employee groups that have emerged each year among Fortune 1000 companies reveals a distinctive patterning of network formations across time. As shown in Table 1, organizational births are clustered within three main periods such that the trajectory of corporate organizing can be described as follows: (1) a slow rise between 1978 and 1989; (2) rapid growth from 1990 to 1994; and (3) a decline in new organizing from 1995 to mid-1998 (when data collection on network formations ended). Table 1 details the number and percent of gay employee networks that emerged each year and, in aggregate, the organizational birthrate for each of the three periods. During the first period of the workplace movement, between 1978 and 1989, only 10 gay networks appeared among the Fortune 1000. The slow rate of mobilization over that 12-year stretch contrasts sharply with the next five years, which witnessed the birth of 50 new groups from 1990 through 1994. Put differently, while during the first wave of mobilization the organizational founding rate was less than 1 new group per year, that figure climbed to 10 per year between 1990 and 1994. The third period of the workplace movement is marked by a significant decline in the pace of new organizing. Only nine employee groups emerged between 1995 and mid-1998. At first glance the decrease may appear to be an artifact of unequal time comparisons (5 years in period 2 vs. 3.5 years in period 3). But this does not explain the fact that the organizational birthrate

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Table 1. The Emergence and Diffusion of the Corporate Workplace Movement: The Clustering of Organizational Births Across Time. Period

Year

n

1. (1978–1989): Slow rise

1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989

1 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 3 2 2 10

14

1990 1991 1992 1993 1994

10 6 9 17 8

14.5 8.7 13.0 24.6 11.6

50

72

Period 1 subtotal 2. (1990–1994): Rapid growth

Period 2 subtotal 3. (1995–mid-1998): Decline in new organizing

Period 3 subtotal Total

1995 1996 1997 Thru mid-1998

3 3 2 1

% of Organizational Population (N = 69) 1.4 1.4

1.4 4.3 2.9 2.9

4.3 4.3 2.9 1.4

9

13

69

100

Note: Period 1 Birthrate: less than 1 (0.83) new organizations per year; Period 2 Birthrate: 10 new organizations per year; Period 3 Birthrate: less than 3 (2.57) new organizations per year. Overall Birthrate: over 3 (3.37) new organizations per year. Data are from surveys and interviews with 69 gay, lesbian, and bisexual employee networks in the Fortune 1000, conducted primarily between May 1998 and October 1998. Subtotal percentages are rounded to the nearest whole.

dropped from 10 new networks per year in the second wave to fewer than 3 per year in the third. All of these contrasting patterns will begin to make sense when viewed through the trifocal lens of the shifting political climate, the actions of the broader gay and lesbian movement, and institutional opportunities in other arenas, namely the

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media and the workplace. For now, it bears mentioning that by the end of the third period, after over 20 years of workplace mobilization, lesbian and gay employee groups had emerged in 85 documented Fortune 1000 companies, 69 of which are included in this study. For the dozen or so networks not tapped, I had no contact information and so asked the vice president of human resources to forward my request for study participants. In virtually all those cases, I never heard back from executives even after repeated attempts on my part; I thus never knew whether my request had been forwarded.

The Sociopolitical Context of Corporate Organizing As political process theorists suggest, shifts in the wider political environment help to explain the rise and trajectory of social movements (Freeman, 1975; Gamson & Meyer, 1996; Jenkins & Klandermans, 1995; Katzenstein & Mueller, 1987; McAdam, 1982; McAdam, McCarthy & Zald, 1996; Tarrow, 1989, 1998; Tilly, 1978). For example, Doug McAdam (1982) contends that the civil rights movement emerged in response to new political opportunities that were made possible by the collapse of the cotton-based economy in the South and the mass migration of African Americans to industrial regions of the North. Similarly, Craig Jenkins and Charles Perrow (1977) argue that the success of the farm workers’ movement in the late 1960s grew out of political realignments, policy reform, and broad economic trends that created a more supportive set of conditions for insurgent activity. The rise of the gay and lesbian workplace movement and the distinctive patterns of network formation over the past 20 years likewise reflect changes in the broader sociopolitical context. The New Right and the First Wave of Employee Activism The tentative pace of early corporate organizing is hardly surprising given the rise of the New Right in the late 1970s and its consolidation of power in the 1980s. Mobilized around fiscally and socially conservative goals, including the defense of traditional gender and sexual norms, and drawing from a broad network of well organized single-issue groups, evangelical Christians, and various members of the corporate elite, the New Right took aim at the gains that had been made by the gay liberation movement in the 1970s (Adam, 1995; Epstein, 1999). Beginning with Anita Bryant’s highly publicized “Save Our Children” campaign in 1977, which resulted in the repeal of a gay rights ordinance in Dade County, Florida, a wave of similar repeals spread across the United States (Adam, 1995). The day after the Dade County repeal, California state senator John Briggs introduced the infamous Briggs Initiative, which aimed to purge the school system of gay men

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and lesbians as well as anyone who presented homosexuality in a positive light (D’Emilio, 1992). In response to the growing anti-gay backlash, 300,000 people turned out for San Francisco’s Gay Pride Day in 1978 (D’Emilio, 1992, p. 89), and over 30 organizations sprang up across the state to fight the initiative (Epstein, 1999, p. 47), a groundswell of mobilization that historian John D’Emilio (1992, p. 89) described as “the most far-reaching and sustained gay organizing campaign” the movement had ever seen. Later that same year, Dan White, a disgruntled former member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and former police officer, assassinated mayor George Moscone and city supervisor Harvey Milk, one of the first openly gay office-holders in the country. When White received a manslaughter rather than murder conviction, five to ten thousand people marched on City Hall (D’Emilio, 1992, p. 92), where some smashed windows and others torched police cars to express their rage at the injustice (Adam, 1995). It was during that turbulent year of 1978 that the earliest known gay employee group formed in corporate America. Not surprisingly, its location was California, as was the case for four of the 10 employee networks that emerged during the first wave of the workplace movement. During the same year, the organization then known as the National Gay Task Force released the first movement study of antigay workplace discrimination in the private sector. Nonetheless, aside from the second corporate network that formed in 1980, the next five years of that decade produced no other gay employee groups. The increasingly hostile political climate had halted new organizing among lesbian and gay employees. The stunted growth of the workplace movement may have stemmed from the recession of the early 1980s as well since economic downturns make it more difficult for progressive social movements to advance their cause (Adam, 1995; Ryan, 1992, p. 68; Taylor & Rupp, 1993; Whittier, 1995). Lesbians and gay men were already concerned for their economic livelihoods given their vulnerability to job loss and other forms of anti-gay employment discrimination (Badgett, 1995; Blumstein & Schwartz, 1983; Levine, 1979, 1992; Levine & Leonard, 1984; Lewis, 1979; Schneider, 1984, 1986, 1988; Taylor & Raeburn, 1995; Weinberg & Williams, 1974; Woods, 1993). How much stronger the fear of coming out must have been when compounded by the rising rate of unemployment generally. But an even more direct explanation for the five-year hiatus in corporate organizing can be found in the New Right’s consolidation of power in the early 1980s. The presidential election of Ronald Reagan in 1980 and the announcement of a renewed anti-gay campaign by Jerry Falwell’s Moral Majority served to entrench the New Right (D’Emilio, 1992), thereby forcing the gay and lesbian movement to focus on defensive rather than proactive measures (Adam, 1995).

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Struggling against the powerful conservative momentum of the Reagan era and the rise of the AIDS epidemic, gay and lesbian activists concentrated not on gaining recognition in the workplace but rather on preventing further assaults on gay rights, battling the deadening silence of the media and political establishment over AIDS from 1981 to 1983, and then defending against the widespread panic and virulently anti-gay attacks that followed once word of the epidemic hit the news (Adam, 1995; Epstein, 1996, 1999; Gamson, [1989] 1998). Early news reports of the deadly virus, both reflecting and reinforcing the dominant cultural mythology, strengthened the supposed link between gay men and pathology and fed the rightwing’s continuing attempts to equate homosexuality with inherent deviance and public threat (Schmidt, 1995). Thus the first two gay employee networks, both in the high-tech industry, remained the solitary representatives of the corporate workplace movement from 1980 until well into the second term of Ronald Reagan, when they were finally joined by a slow trickle of other gay networks beginning in 1986. By 1989, lesbian, gay, and bisexual employees had mobilized in 10 Fortune 1000 companies. The workplace movement was thus re-awakening from the doldrum years of the early to mid-1980s, a period of “abeyance,” to borrow Verta Taylor’s (1989) term, during which activists had been forced into a holding pattern amidst an unreceptive political climate (see also Rupp & Taylor, [1987] 1990). The revival of corporate activism by the end of the 1980s came on the heels of what Barry Adam (1995, p. 130) has called the “faltered” momentum of the New Right in the middle of the decade. These changes, compounded by sex scandals among the Christian fundamentalist leadership of the Right beginning in 1987 and Pat Robertson’s failure to obtain the Republican presidential nomination in 1988, portended a shifting political environment. Lesbians and gay men then increasingly mobilized “in all spheres of civil society . . . at work, in communities, in churches, in health and social services, in sport, and in the media, education, and the arts” (Adam, 1995, p. 130). Clinton’s Rise to Office and the Second Wave of Employee Activism The second wave of the workplace movement is marked by a significant jump in corporate organizing beginning in 1990, which ushered in a five-year period of rapid growth and diversification. While during the first wave of the movement it took 12 years to produce 10 gay networks, the year 1990 alone brought 10 more groups, starting a growth trend that would continue throughout the second wave of mobilization such that by the end of that period in 1994, 60 networks had formed among the Fortune 1000. The relative explosion of corporate organizing during the second wave corresponds to the changing political climate that eventually brought Bill Clinton to the presidency.

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Beginning in the early 1990s, the larger gay and lesbian movement encountered a more favorable set of environmental conditions, including the aggressive courting of the gay vote by Clinton (Vaid, 1995). Openly gay people were prominent on Clinton’s campaign team and his list of presidential appointments (Epstein, 1999). Discussing other significant openings in the structure of political opportunity for the gay rights movement, Sidney Tarrow (1994) notes the split among the political elite over the definition of “family values,” the electoral realignment of 1992 that brought a Democrat into the White House after 12 years of Republican occupancy, Clinton’s attempt to end the long-standing military ban on gay and lesbian service members (see also Korb, 1996), and the increasing presence of gay-friendly allies among the women’s movement, civil rights groups, and various members of Congress. Just days after the election, President Clinton sent a letter to the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (NGLTF) in which he thanked members for their advocacy work and campaign support, asked for help in implementing positive change, and extended a warm welcome to those who were attending NGLTF’s annual Creating Change conference. Describing both the immediate impact and wider significance of Clinton’s gesture, one audience member later reflected, “When Urvashi Vaid [then NGLTF director] read Bill Clinton’s letter . . . the crowd went wild. The President Elect’s letter to us, lesbian, bisexual, and gay activists from all over the U.S., was at once a recognition of the role of our community in his victory and a positive sign for the future” (Bain, 1992a, p. 7; emphasis in the original). Issues of fairness and equal treatment in the workplace also gained considerable attention as politicians began to furiously debate Clinton’s 1991 campaign pledge to rescind the military’s anti-gay policies (Vaid, 1995). Fifty years earlier the military had taken a strikingly similar stance against racial integration of the armed forces. Faced with Clinton’s promise, the military dusted off its racist arguments and sent them into battle over gays in uniform, warning again of breakdown in unit cohesion and threats to combat readiness (Herek et al., 1996; Raeburn, 1998). The controversy culminated in 1993 with the so-called compromise policy known as “don’t ask, don’t tell, don’t pursue,” which even conservatives describe as varying little from the former ban (Korb, 1996, p. 295). Nevertheless, the furor brought to the public eye not only the exclusionary policies of the armed forces but also the holes that could be shot through the military’s defense of the ban. These weaknesses in military rhetoric revealed deeper questions about the rationale for – and rationality of – anti-gay attitudes in the workplace generally. New Strategies of the Right In 1992 the workplace movement experienced a different kind of jolt following passage of Colorado’s Amendment Two. A statewide ballot initiative that legally

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banned civil rights protection for lesbians, gay men, and bisexuals, the measure overturned gay rights laws that had been passed in Aspen, Boulder, and Denver (Adam, 1995, p. 133; Dugan, 1999). While the lesbian and gay movement was accustomed to battling the repeal of gay rights ordinances, this measure and others like it in Oregon and later in Idaho and Cincinnati, Ohio, represented a new form of legislation “that sought to make it legally impossible for gay rights laws ever to be established” (Epstein, 1999, p. 68; see also Blain, 1997; Dugan, 1999). Although in 1996 the United States Supreme Court ruled the Colorado amendment unconstitutional, its passage in 1992 by 53% of voters led outraged lesbian and gay activists to issue a national boycott against travel to the state (Epstein, 1999, p. 68). Media attention to this new and more virulent strain of anti-gay legislation, a “suddenly imposed grievance” in movement terms (Walsh, 1981), also precipitated an increase in corporate mobilization. As shown in Table 1, nine new employee groups (13% of the current sample) emerged in 1992, making it the third most “fertile” year of the workplace movement’s 20-year history. Commenting on the mobilizing impact of the legislation, one Colorado-based activist explained in our interview, “After voters in my district supported Amendment Two, I decided it was time for a gay employee resource group at my company.” While none of the other employee networks that formed that year were located in Colorado, the New Right’s success in passing a more insidious form of anti-gay legislation created a wave of gay and lesbian mobilization that reverberated across state lines and into corporations around the country. As Traci Sawyers and David Meyer (1999) argue, unfavorable legislation or hostile judicial rulings can be seen as opportunities since challengers can use them to generate publicity, raise consciousness and money, and gain new recruits or even increased leverage in other policy domains (see also Burstein, 1991; Meyer & Staggenborg, 1996).

The Impact of the Wider Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Movement Taking it to the Streets . . . and into the Workplace Situated within nested institutional environments (see also Meyer, 2003), the workplace movement faces windows of opportunities and walls of constraint that stem not simply from actions of the state and of countermovements but also from the efforts of the broader lesbian, gay, and bisexual movement. Just as suddenly imposed grievances can incite activism, so too can movement protest itself lead to increased and more widespread mobilization (Sawyers & Meyer, 1999). For example, the cluster of first-wave employee groups that sprang up during the late 1980s followed the record-breaking turnout for the second National Gay and Lesbian March on Washington in 1987. In response to the New Right’s vitriolic

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attacks and the ever expanding AIDS crisis, and in the aftermath of the Bowers vs. Hardwick Supreme Court decision in 1986 that upheld sodomy statutes and denied lesbians and gays the right to privacy, anywhere from half a million to over 650,000 people descended on the Capitol to demand justice, equality, and a cure (D’Emilio, 1992, p. 267; Epstein, 1999; Vaid, 1995, p. 99). The radical presence at the march of newly formed ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power), a direct action, grassroots alliance, and the participation of 5,000 activists at the national Civil Disobedience Action the following day at the Supreme Court (Vaid, 1995, p. 99), attracted considerable media attention. ACT UP expanded the strategic repertoire of the movement by reincorporating tactics that had been abandoned after the heyday of gay liberation (Berzon, 1994; D’Emilio, 1992; Epstein, 1999). As ACT UP’s “SILENCE=DEATH” slogan diffused rapidly to the public spaces of mainstream America, its message struck a responsive chord among many. While fear of discrimination and harassment had kept countless gay men and lesbians from coming out at work, the AIDS crisis and the life-saving necessity of speaking out pushed many out of the closet (Swan, 1997). In the words of journalist Thomas Stewart (1991, pp. 44–45), who interviewed over 100 lesbian and gay people in corporate America, volunteering in AIDS organizations and mobilizing against the disease had “ended the isolation that confined many gay professionals.” Once connected through AIDS organizing, and once empowered to be visible, many gay men and lesbians decided to mobilize in their own places of work. The first gay network to emerge in a utility company, for example, grew out of the efforts of six employees who had persuaded their west coast employer to sponsor an internal AIDS hotline. Although one of the founders was a gay rights activist who had previously worked for a civil rights organization, the gay employee network started out as a purely social group. Shortly thereafter, however, members took on explicitly political aims both within and outside of the company. Many other gay networks in the Fortune 1000 likewise began as informal “support groups,” but members soon expanded their goals, renamed themselves “diversity networks” or “employee resource groups” (the terms commonly used by preexisting networks for women and people of color), and sought meetings with corporate decisionmakers about the need for gay-inclusive policies (see also Swan, 1997). As alluded to above, however, the birth of several gay employee networks in the late 1980s after a five-year hiatus came not simply from the mobilizing carry-overs of the AIDS epidemic. The 1987 March on Washington fanned the flames of that organizing impulse. As activist-writer Urvashi Vaid (1995, p. 99) explained, the march and day-long demonstrations of civil disobedience “ignited gay and lesbian activism” in local communities across the country and in multiple institutional spheres, sparking a trend of movement growth and organizational diversification

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that continued well into the next decade. Movement scholar John D’Emilio (1992, p. 267) commented eloquently on the impact of the 1987 march: [T]he weekend in Washington proved uncontainable. The display of the Names Project quilt, the massive wedding ceremony at the National Cathedral, and the impressive parade of contingents from every state in the nation, struck a chord of self-respect so deep that it could not be ignored. People returned to their home communities transformed, ready to do what seemed unimaginable a few days before.

D’Emilio’s words ring true in the founding account of the largest lesbian and gay employee group in the country, a telecommunications case study that I refer to as “GLUE” (Gay and Lesbian United Employees). Located in a company headquartered on the east coast and formed in 1987 by a small circle of friends who had attended the march, by 1996 the network had over 2,000 members in 30 chapters across the U.S. Even though the group’s membership was reduced after the corporation split into three separate companies, two of which entered the high-tech industry, GLUE is still the largest network in the movement with 1,300 members and 28 chapters nationwide. The 1987 March on Washington made such an impression on the founders that even their informational brochure mentions its significance. As explained in the pages of the flyer, GLUE’s first chapter formed after some friends in the company who had been meeting informally “returned home from the March on Washington inspired, energized, and convinced that they could change their part of the world . . . that they could make [their company] a place that welcomed ALL of its employees!” (emphasis in the original). We’re Here, We’re Queer, We’re Fabulous, Get Used to Us . . . Although GLUE witnessed the emergence of gay employee groups in six other companies between 1987 and 1989, it was not until the 1990s that gay networks began to appear in far greater numbers, due in part to an attention-grabbing development in the wider gay and lesbian movement. In 1990, word spread like wildfire about a new social movement organization called Queer Nation. Formed in New York City, where it mobilized large and visible demonstrations against gay bashings, the group distributed 15,000 flyers at the New York Lesbian and Gay Pride Parade (Epstein, 1999, p. 60). News of Queer Nation’s loud and raucous entry at the pride march traveled fast, and “within days it seemed that groups calling themselves Queer Nation were springing up around the country” (Gross, 1993, p. 82, as cited in Epstein, 1999, p. 60). Adopting a grassroots, direct action, “in-your-face” style of organizing and a binary smashing position that rejected the notion of fixed sexual identities, Queer Nation was a purposeful reaction against the mainstream tactics and essentialist stance of the larger gay and lesbian rights movement (Gamson, 1995).

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As a means of challenging what queer theorists have called heteronormativity (Ingraham, 1994), Queer Nation claimed public – and implicitly heterosexualized – space by holding “kiss-ins” or “queer-ins” while leafleting at shopping malls and bars (Epstein, 1999). Posting neon-colored stickers and wearing t-shirts with confrontational slogans such as “queers bash back,” members popularized the “we’re here, we’re queer” chant that now echoes through the crowds of pride marches across the country (Faderman, 1991; Podolsky, 1994; Vaid, 1995). The corporate activism that took off in the early 1990s and gathered momentum throughout the second wave was, to be sure, a far cry from the transgressive style of queer politics. Nevertheless, the rise of Queer Nation and its offshoots in 1990 and the heightened militancy of ACT UP injected a new energy into the lifeblood of the larger movement, garnering an increased visibility that facilitated multiple forms of organizing. As shown in Table 1, 10 gay employee groups (15% of the current total) formed among the Fortune 1000 in 1990, making it the second most prolific year of the workplace movement. Of course, this eruption of corporate organizing was generated not simply by a spillover of activist energy from the streets to the workplace. The second wave was fueled as well by the momentous turning of the media spotlight to lesbian and gay employment issues. Although queer activists were not solely responsible for this pivotal shift in media attention, their success in generating mainstream visibility clearly benefitted the campaign for equal rights in the workplace. At the start of the decade, queer activists succeeded in shifting the gaze of the media to lesbian and gay concerns (Rouilard, 1994). Once journalists and news producers widened their focus of coverage to include queer politics, it was only a short matter of time before light was cast on the workplace movement itself. Since the media tends to give short shrift to social movement concerns generally (McCarthy, Smith & Zald, 1996) and gay and lesbian issues in particular (Adam, 1995), this remarkable interest in gay topics merits further analysis. Mainstream Media’s “Year of the Queer” In a published chronicle of the lesbian and gay movement, 1990 earned the title “Year of the Queer” given the unprecedented media coverage of gay activism (Rouilard, 1994). While media attention to movement concerns is often a crucial component of successful mobilization, such visibility can be exceedingly difficult to come by (McAdam, 1996, McCarthy & Zald, 1977). Due in part to what scholars have termed corporate hegemony, the news media are not apt to grant much access to movement actors whose demands are seen as threatening to the interests of media elites or their corporate sponsors (McCarthy, Smith & Zald, 1996, p. 297). Why then, in 1990, did the mainstream news establishment suddenly devote so much air time to queer politics?

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In fact, that year queer activists targeted the media establishment directly, issuing charges of bias against the New York Times, the Washington Post, and other major news carriers (Rouilard, 1994, p. 358; Vaid, 1995, p. 201). Well aware of the fact that media discourse can be harmful if coverage presents a “biased and ridiculed picture of the movement” (Klandermans & Goslinga, 1996, p. 319; see also Gitlin, 1980), gay and lesbian activists mobilized within and against the mainstream media. Queer Nation, ACT UP, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, OutWeek magazine, and organized groups of lesbian and gay journalists challenged the corporate media giants on inaccurate reporting, urged more extensive coverage of the gay community and movement, and pushed for nondiscrimination in employment (Rouilard, 1994, p. 358; Vaid, 1995, p. 201). News executives had also been facing pressure from the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), which formed in 1985 to push for fairness and accuracy in the media. By 1992, the Los Angeles Times described GLAAD as “possibly the most successful organization lobbying the media for inclusion” (GLAAD, 1999). It seems likely, therefore, that the increased and more accurate coverage of gay issues beginning in 1990 stemmed in part from the self-interest of major corporate players in the news industry, who were defending against public attacks that threatened their reputation as upholders of the highest journalistic standards. But expanded media access also came in response to another important force, namely, innovations in the strategic repertoire of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender movement. Due to the increasingly creative symbolic politics of “self-proclaimed queers” who were “seasoned media-savvy activists” (Rouilard, 1994, p. 357), the movement finally met what Doug McAdam (1996, p. 346) has called “the first requirement of media coverage”: it had achieved the title “newsworthy” in the eyes of media gatekeepers. As the flashy new tactics of queer activists grew ever more spectacular – figuratively and literally in the sense of a “media spectacle” (see McCarthy, Smith & Zald, 1996, p. 309) – they brought much needed visibility not only to the street fighters themselves but to gay and lesbian issues in general. Given the dramatically disruptive nature of myriad queer actions in 1990, major television networks and newspapers suddenly began to focus on the concerns of lesbian and gay people, including their experiences with employment discrimination (Rouilard, 1994). In the words of activist and writer Richard Rouilard (1994, p. 357), “Week after week, we were six o’clock news.” From AIDS activists interrupting the Rose Parade in Pasadena, California; challenging President Bush during his first speech on AIDS; and halting traffic on the Golden Gate Bridge during rush hour and deadlocking 14,000 cars; to street protestors issuing a national boycott of Miller beer and Marlboro cigarettes for manufacturer Philip Morris’ corporate donations to anti-gay senator Jesse Helms,

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the movement in 1990 at last grabbed the serious attention of the media (Rouilard, 1994, pp. 357–358; Thompson, 1994, pp. 359–360). Indeed, widespread press coverage of queer activists created a ripple effect as major business publications then turned their attention to sexual orientation issues in the workplace. In a later section of this chapter, I examine how the workplace movement itself played a part in and benefited from this new media focus, but first I delve more deeply into the relationship between queer politics and employee mobilization. We’re Here, We’re Gay, and Professional We’ll Stay . . .. Aside from winning expanded media access, queer activists provided additional aid to corporate challengers in the form of a “radical flank effect” (Haines, 1988). Many employee activists reasoned that their “professional” requests for equality at work seemed far less threatening to corporate elites than did the militant stance of queer activists. Explicitly contrasting their tactics with those of ACT UP or Queer Nation, employee respondents repeatedly emphasized that network members always behaved “professionally” and never made “demands.” While respecting the boldness of these radical groups – at times even expressing a frustrated desire to adopt similar strategies – employee activists nonetheless defined their own collective identity through a distancing from queer politics. Students of various social movements have documented a similar process of identity construction, whereby activists develop a collective self-definition through emphasizing boundaries not just between themselves and outsiders (Taylor & Raeburn, 1995; Taylor & Whittier, 1992) but also between themselves and others within the larger movement (Einwohner, 1999a, b, 2002; Mueller, 1994; Rupp & Taylor, 1999; Whittier, 1995). In the case of the workplace movement, however, boundary demarcations between institutional activists and “queer nationalists” seem to stem less from ideological divisions than from strategic necessity. Situated within multiple institutional spheres, employee activists feel constrained to strike a more restrained course through the corporate terrain. Regardless of the apparent inappropriateness of queer strategies at work, the burst of corporate activism beginning in 1990 clearly corresponds to the heightened media visibility of queer organizing during that same year. Workplace activists were thus drawing energy from, if at times envying, the activities of their queer peers on the streets. Queer radicals, then, can simultaneously inspire workplace activism and temper its apparent threat to corporate elites who, when faced with both kinds of challengers, see extremism and bad press in one and moderation and professionalism in the other. Through this process of indexicality, to borrow from phenomenological analysis (Pfohl, 1994), the meaning of workplace activism is constituted as “reasonable” vis-à-vis queer politics. The radical flank thereby improves the bargaining position of institutionally-based activists and their allies.

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“It is this unity of purpose, even in the face of ideological and strategic differences,” argue Traci Sawyers and David Meyer (1999, p. 203), “that makes social movements challenging and potentially powerful.” And the Movement Marches on . . . Much like the shot in the arm that the birth of Queer Nation delivered in 1990, the third National Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual March on Washington in 1993 stimulated the largest growth spurt that the workplace movement has ever experienced. Depending on the estimates used, the march drew to the Capitol anywhere from 300,000 to 1,000,000 participants (Epstein, 1999, p. 68). The enthusiasm generated by the march obviously carried over into the workplace wing of the movement. While in 1990, 10 new gay networks had formed among the Fortune 1000, followed by six more in 1991 and nine others in 1992, the number of organizational births in 1993 shot up to 17. Looked at from the perspective of the current organizational sample (n = 69), one-quarter of all corporate networks were born in 1993 (see Table 1). With the help of the March on Washington, then, the workplace movement had grown to include 52 Fortune 1000 companies by the end of 1993. As their numbers reached a critical mass, employee activists’ grievances, goals, and successes became the subject of media attention, which in turn furthered the growth of the movement. In the next section, I examine expanded media access as both a process and an element of what I call “institutional opportunity.” Drawing from gay and lesbian publications, mainstream news outlets, and the business press, I analyze media representations of employment discrimination and workplace activism in order to assess the mobilizing impact of media visibility.

Expanded Media Access as an Element of Institutional Opportunity: The Benefits of Mainstream Visibility for Workplace Activists Given the variable openness of the media system to movement concerns, political process theorists have recently begun to consider the mass media as an important component of political opportunity (Gamson & Meyer, 1996; McAdam, 1996). However, since the term “political opportunity structure” has been used almost exclusively in reference to the state, a focus that has been criticized as overly narrow and structurally biased (Goodwin & Jasper, 1999; McAdam, 1994), it seems more appropriate to view media access as an element of what I call institutional opportunity. Openings in institutional arenas such as the media and the corporate sector can facilitate collective action in much the same way as shifts in the traditional political domain. Activists, however, do not simply wait for opportunities such as expanded media attention. As discussed above,

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challengers can create openings for themselves and others by drawing on the power of disruptive tactics or by planning other media-focused events (Gamson & Meyer, 1996; Gamson & Wolfsfeld, 1993; Koopmans, [1993] 1997; McAdam, 1996; Tarrow, 1996, 1998). Energized by the numerous queer images reflected in mainstream news venues and on the big screen (Thompson, 1994), and cognizant of the opportunity afforded by this new visibility, lesbian and gay employees mobilized within their companies at a more rapid pace than ever before. With the increased media attention to queer lives in 1990, 10 new networks emerged among the Fortune 1000, thus creating in only 12 months what had taken the earlier workplace movement 12 years to achieve. The doubling of the organizational population from 10 to 20 networks meant that lesbian and gay employee groups would become far more visible not just within but also outside of the corporate arena where they arose. “Corporate Bullies” and the Gay Press The jump in workplace organizing in the early 1990s, however, was not simply a response to the new mainstream visibility of gay issues. The lesbian and gay movement’s own media also contributed to the upswing in corporate activism (see also Klandermans & Goslinga, 1996, on the use of movement media). In 1990 the gay and lesbian movement’s national news magazine, the Advocate, “changed dramatically” and adopted an “aggressive investigative reporting” style (Rouilard, 1994, p. 358), including a cover story in one issue entitled “Corporate Gay Bashing” (Hollingsworth, 1990). The article attacked several major “corporate bullies” for anti-gay employment discrimination, especially their refusal to adopt domestic partner benefits. The sudden focus of the Advocate on the lack of equitable benefits came on the heels of the decision by Ben and Jerry’s, the popular ice cream makers that pride themselves on their socially responsible reputation, to adopt the benefits in late 1989. Besides the Village Voice newspaper, Ben and Jerry’s, with 600 employees, was the only company to have opened its healthcare plan to domestic partners (Baker et al., 1995). The AIDS epidemic had also added tragic saliency to the issue of equitable benefits. Without bereavement leave, for example, many gay men who had just lost their partners to the disease were forced to stay at work and “grieve in the bathroom” (Hollingsworth, 1990, p. 28). Reporting on a small number of lawsuits brought by individual employees seeking equitable benefits, the author of the Advocate cover story, Gaines Hollingsworth, commented, “Many believe it is time to stop grieving in the bathroom and say it is time to receive equal pay for equal work, and that includes benefits” (p. 28). Expanding on the equal rights angle, Hollingsworth pointed out that “although employee benefits are, under law, considered to be part of wages,” even companies

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with gay-inclusive nondiscrimination statements do not view the policies as applicable to benefit plans (p. 30). Calling for equal pay for equal work, some lesbian and gay employee activists now frame their arguments for equitable benefits by highlighting this inconsistency, mainly by describing the lack of benefits as compensation discrimination, especially since benefits comprise as much as 40% of an employee’s compensation (Kohn, 1999, p. 9). At the time this “corporate bullies” article was published, however, the push for domestic partner benefits by gay employee networks had barely begun. Noting the emergence of “gay and lesbian support groups” in the corporate workplace, Hollingsworth lamented their reluctance to fight for equitable benefits: “Gays and lesbians who are currently fighting employment and compensation discrimination publicly . . . can be counted on fewer than two hands” (p. 30). This cover story published by the movement’s national news source thus sounded a call to arms. While lesbian and gay employees are painfully aware of their lack of legal rights, the wider public remains largely ignorant of the situation, a state perpetuated, no doubt, by the New Right’s extensive campaigns against gay rights as “special rights” (Blain, 1997; Duggan, [1994] 1998, 1999). Nevertheless, press coverage of particularly blatant cases of discrimination can chip away at misinformation and jar people from a state of passivity. The audacity of some employers to publicly announce their anti-gay policies – and of some localities to preemptively ban any legal protections against such discrimination (Epstein, 1999) – can actually be a boon to advocates of equal rights in the workplace. Cracker Barrel’s Crusade and the Impact of “Suddenly Publicized Grievances” In January 1991, Cracker Barrel corporation, a chain of restaurants located in 16 southern and midwestern states, issued a press release announcing an official policy against employment of “homosexuals.” Signed by the vice president of human resources, the policy mandated the termination of individuals “whose sexual preferences fail to demonstrate normal heterosexual values, which have been the foundation of families in our society” (as cited in Bain, 1992b, p. 1). The company then fired 11 gay and lesbian employees, all from jurisdictions that lacked gay rights ordinances. When word hit the national news networks, protestors quickly staged demonstrations and sit-ins at various restaurant locations, and activists from across the country issued calls for a boycott (Vaid, 1995). The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force launched a nationwide campaign against the company, and for the first time in the history of shareholder activism, a U.S. corporation was faced with a shareholder resolution that sought to institute explicit protections against anti-gay discrimination (Bain, 1992b, p. 1). Much like the lunch counter sit-ins of the civil rights movement (McAdam, 1983; Morris, 1984), the Cracker Barrel sit-ins helped to elicit additional and “highly

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sympathetic” press coverage of lesbian and gay employees’ grievances (Bain, 1992b, p. 2). Stories appeared on programs such as Oprah Winfrey, Larry King Live, and ABC’s 20/20 (Equality Project, 1999). Even months later the company’s policy was receiving national media attention. During a November 1991 segment of 20/20, which was said to have been rescheduled so that it would air prior to Cracker Barrel’s annual shareholder meeting, Barbara Walters announced that she would not patronize the chain (Bain, 1992b). Dan Quayle, on the other hand, showed public support for the corporation’s intransigence by visiting one of the restaurants during his campaign for the presidency (Vaid, 1995). Nonetheless, the Cracker Barrel protestors had won support from several public officials and a broad range of organizations, including the NAACP, labor unions, pension funds that held stock in the company, and liberal religious institutions (Bain, 1992b). The company’s actions were later featured in a firstever documentary on anti-gay workplace discrimination entitled Out at Work. Premiering on PBS, the film subsequently aired on HBO in January 1999 as part of the cable channel’s “America Undercover” documentary series (Gay People’s Chronicle, 1999). Long before then, however, in the words of corporate activist and writer C. Arthur Bain (1992b, p. 8), Cracker Barrel’s decision to trumpet its policy far and wide had “brought the issue of homophobic discrimination into sharp focus in boardrooms and living rooms across the country.” To borrow the language of movement scholars, media attention can help activists turn uninformed or nonsupportive individuals into “adherents,” who believe in movement goals, and adherents into “constituents,” who offer resources in support of the cause (McCarthy & Zald, 1977). As a recruiting mechanism, press coverage of movement concerns can also motivate “potential beneficiaries” to join the struggle. Thus mainstream media’s Year of the Queer in 1990, followed by extensive coverage of the Cracker Barrel protests in 1991, sounded like beacons for the movement, calling “Come out, come out, wherever you are . . ..” In his delineation of key types of “expanding cultural opportunities” that can spur people to action, Doug McAdam (1994, p. 40) highlights the impact of “suddenly imposed grievances” such as the Three Mile Island nuclear reactor disaster, which incited numerous anti-nuclear protests at both the local and national levels (Walsh, 1981; Walsh & Warland, 1983). The aftermath of the Cracker Barrel disclosure suggests that suddenly publicized grievances can have the same mobilizing impact. While the firings were certainly nothing new to the gay community, the company’s brazen announcement brought into the open what other equally discriminatory employers practice but rarely codify: i.e. a ban on the hiring or promotion of “known or suspected” gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered people. As Traci Sawyers and David Meyer (1999, p. 202) have argued, “harsh rhetoric and unsympathetic policy . . . can strengthen a movement by creating a crisis which mobilizes its

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adherents.” Thus, as the media publicized a particularly striking example of longheld grievances in the gay and lesbian community, six more employee networks formed among the Fortune 1000 in 1991, followed by nine others the next year. In 1990, the second wave of corporate activism had begun with the birth of 10 gay networks. Comparatively speaking, then, the workplace movement experienced a drop in new organizing after the Cracker Barrel story hit the news in 1991. Nonetheless, media coverage of the incident set in motion a new set of developments in corporate organizing that helped to mitigate the potentially chilling effect of the firings. Cracker Barrel’s crusade against gays and lesbians persuaded many employee networks, which had been mobilizing separately, to join forces in order to share resources and hone strategies for making the workplace a safer space. In the wake of the Cracker Barrel fury in 1991, activists from several different companies organized the first two conferences in the country to focus on lesbian, gay, and bisexual issues in the workplace. As will be discussed in a later section, both of these 1991 events constituted a critical turning point for the workplace movement. The east coast conference, which focused on educating corporate elites, generated considerable press coverage (Swan, 1997). The west coast effort, called “Out and Equal in the Workplace,” was organized primarily for gay and lesbian employees and was so successful that it became an annual event. The Business Press Takes Note Even staid, buttoned-down business publications began to devote some of their pages to gay issues generally and the workplace movement in particular. A first in the world of business publishing, on December 16, 1991, Fortune magazine ran a cover story called “Gay in Corporate America,” with the subheading, “What it’s like, and how business attitudes are changing.” Above the by-line on the first page of the featured article was the following statement, set off in bold print: “In the company closet is a big, talented, and scared group of men and women. They want out – and are making the workplace the next frontier for gay rights” (Stewart, 1991, p. 42). Reporting that lesbians and gay men in major corporations were “rapidly forming employee groups,” journalist Thomas Stewart described the agenda of this “new activism”: gay-inclusive nondiscrimination policies, diversity training, and equitable benefits (p. 43). The article also mentioned one of the two conferences on gay and lesbian workplace issues that had taken place earlier that year, to which CEOs and human resource directors from companies across the country had been invited. Emphasizing the need for such events, Stewart cited one of the replies that organizers received in response to their invitation: “To all the fags, gays, homos, and lezzies. Do not mail me any of your fag shit lezzie homo paperwork to my business” (p. 56).

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In an in-laid side feature entitled “A Cutting-Edge Issue: Benefits,” Stewart also discussed the historic move by high-tech Lotus corporation in September 1991 to extend to same-sex domestic partners all of the benefits already offered to the spouses of heterosexual employees (p. 50). Adopted in response to the organizing work of an informal group of lesbian and gay employees who had requested the benefits over two years earlier (Laabs, 1991), the policy change made Lotus, with its workforce of 3,100, the first major corporate adopter of equitable benefits (Stewart, 1991, p. 50). “Will Lotus set a trend? Probably not,” concluded Stewart. Little did he know. As I will discuss in the next section, Lotus’ move reflected a significant institutional opening for the workplace movement. Inspired by the news and committed to winning equal rights in their own places of work, gay activist networks would eventually push many other companies to follow along in Lotus’ footsteps. In sum, this 1991 cover story appearing in the widely read pages of Fortune magazine brought much needed visibility to the workplace movement and to the cutting-edge issue of equitable benefits. That same year, articles on lesbian and gay issues in the workplace, including domestic partner benefits, began to appear in personnel journals as well. To this day, workplace activists celebrate such articles, especially those published in outlets like Fortune magazine that reach far wider audiences than specialty journals. At one of the many employee network meetings I attended, for example, members excitedly pored over the pages of a magazine article on gay workplace issues and then distributed copies to everyone on their mailing list, including those who worked for other companies. Thus, as greater numbers of lesbian and gay employees heard about the struggles and successes of some of the early networks, many decided to mobilize in their own places of work, creating a new wave of activism that would eventually usher in a sea change in corporate America.

Institutional Opportunities in the Workplace: Early Adopters of Equitable Benefits and “Walking the Walk” of Diversity The Rise of Domestic Partner Benefits The dawning of equitable benefits on the corporate horizon spurred many gay and lesbian employees into action. Several founders of second-wave networks said that hearing the good news about early adopters prompted them to form employee organizations in their own companies. Other gay networks decided to add the benefits to their list of goals or, if already present, to give them higher priority. While the Village Voice newspaper in New York City was actually the first employer in the country to adopt equitable benefits back in 1982 (Baker et al., 1995), word of

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the policy change did not spread far. The successful efforts of the union’s gay and lesbian caucus thus went unnoticed in the wider business world. In contrast, after Lotus’ decision in 1991, national newspapers started to cover stories about domestic partner benefits, which had already begun to arise in a small number of cities. In 1992, there was an acceleration of benefits adoption: 21 employers extended their plans to cover domestic partners, including major corporations such as west coast-based Levi Strauss & Co., Silicon Valley’s Borland International, MCA/Universal Studios, a few hospitals and legal firms, and a handful of universities. Of the 21 adopters that year, only three were cities. The following year in 1993, 36 employers, 20 of which were companies, adopted equitable benefits. Corporate America had begun to outpace employers in other sectors and has been in the forefront of change ever since. The vast majority of early corporate adopters extended their policies only after being persuaded to do so by groups of lesbian and gay employees. Elsewhere I address the institutional and movement processes that helped to bring about these groundbreaking changes (Raeburn, 2004). For the purposes of the present discussion, however, the relevance of early benefits adoption by major corporations lies in the energizing impact that it had on the workplace movement. As Lotus’ policy change in the fall of 1991 jump-started the corporate campaign for equitable benefits, leading to a dramatic increase in adopters between 1992 and 1993, the pace of new organizing likewise quickened in response. While six networks formed among the Fortune 1000 in 1991, the next year brought nine new groups, followed by 17 more in 1993. “Walking the Walk” of Diversity The second-wave momentum that generated new gay employee networks across the country also drew fuel from another institutional opening in the corporate world. According to many network founders, the surge of corporate organizing in the early 1990s stemmed in part from the glaring omission of gay men and lesbians from their companies’ newfound interest in diversity issues. While some executives began to see diversity training and the formation of diversity task forces, councils, and/or offices as examples of corporate “best practices,” lesbian and gay employees largely found themselves excluded altogether from these initiatives. Nevertheless, some corporate elites began to view diversity as a business imperative, reflecting the diffusion of what institutional scholars Frank Dobbin and John Sutton (1998) describe as a new human resources paradigm. Lesbian and gay employees saw in this expanded corporate mindset an institutional opening that offered new hope for a place at the table. In diversity-embracing companies, gay employees watched the doors begin to open wider for people of color and women in general. Responding to this

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“open moment” (Gourevitch, 1986) that indicated “Big Opportunity” (Gamson & Meyer, 1996, p. 280), and taking a collective deep breath, lesbians and gay men attempted to walk through those doors as well. Although sometimes met by corporate bouncers on the other side, gay employee activists remained steadfast in their determination to join the party. The rush of corporate activism during this period thus coincided with a new institutional opening available to those whose employers had begun “talking the talk” of diversity. Responding to their changing corporate culture, lesbian and gay employees stepped in – or rather “out” – to be sure that their companies would, as workplace activists often put it, “walk the walk” when it came to addressing gay concerns. The emergence of the largest gay employee network in the country clearly demonstrates the importance of expanded institutional opportunities at the organizational or corporate level. As already discussed, GLUE was formed in a telecommunications company by a small group of friends who were inspired by the 1987 March on Washington. But even before the march, when meeting for lunch in restaurants or after work in their homes, the friends had talked about the need for an officially recognized lesbian and gay employee organization “like the other diversity groups” in their company for women and people of color. The majority of gay networks that eventually emerged in the Fortune 1000 likewise cited the existence of preexisting diversity groups in their companies as indirect but important motivators behind their decision to organize. These preexisting networks, which Sidney Tarrow (1998) would call “early risers,” had already successfully mobilized for official recognition and resources, alerting gays and lesbians to the potential fruitfulness of claims-making on the corporate elite. As Tarrow (1998, p. 87) has put it, early risers “can pry open institutional barriers through which the demands of others can pour.” Thus, much like periods of change or instability in the political system that make the state “vulnerable to political challenges” (Gamson & Meyer, 1996, p. 280), the changing corporate culture in some companies signaled possible openings for lesbian and gay employees, who quickly mobilized in response. With an eye trained only on the formal political arena, as is the habit of political process theorists (Goodwin & Jasper, 1999), one would miss the presence of opportunities that materialize in other institutional spheres. Obscured from one’s gaze would be the transformations that were taking place in more and more companies whose executives saw dollar signs in the face(s) of diversity. By widening the theoretical focus to include other institutional arenas, this research extends the applicability of the political process approach to uncover the impact of opportunities that arise beyond the state. In sum, the markedly greater fertility of the workplace movement during the second wave was the fruitful result of multiple factors that reflect both

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political and institutional opportunities. The more receptive political climate and unprecedented media coverage of queer activism and employment discrimination, in combination with early institutional shifts toward corporate diversity and equitable benefits, made for relatively inviting waters during the early 1990s. Lesbian, gay, and bisexual employees hence took the plunge in greater numbers than ever before, creating visible workplace organizations aimed at effecting widespread institutional change. While most of the first-wave networks had labored in relative isolation, gay employee groups that mobilized during the second period could draw courage – and vastly improved networking opportunities – from the knowledge that they were not alone. During the second wave of the movement, between 1990 and 1994, institutional activists worked hard to create and foster interorganizational linkages among gay employee networks. These connections ranged from informal social gatherings and e-mail exchanges to more fully institutionalized networking mechanisms such as annual workplace conferences and formal umbrella groups consisting of gay employee networks from a wide variety of institutional settings. In response to the burgeoning grassroots movement for workplace equality, the two most prominent national gay rights organizations in the country, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and the Human Rights Campaign, instituted workplace projects in order to provide resources and additional networking opportunities for employee activists from across the country. As the linkages among employee activists grew increasingly dense and formalized during the second wave, the workplace movement experienced a certain coming of age. Much like other rites of passage, this period of development came with its own set of tensions and a heightened reflexivity as leaders struggled over the type and degree of formalization that would best suit networking at the regional and national levels. Some local umbrella groups folded while other regional organizations attempted to broaden their geographic reach. Efforts to form umbrella networks at the national level underwent a series of bumps and starts. In all, however, these growing pains resulted in a bigger, stronger, more densely connected movement. By the mid-1990s, after a slow and tentative start back in 1978, the workplace wing of the gay and lesbian movement had finally come into its own. Numerous umbrella groups, two national workplace projects, and an abundance of conferences and Web sites that focus on gay employment issues were all well established by the middle of the decade. Their continued presence signifies the successful institutionalization of the workplace movement. In addition to nourishing the commitment of employee activists and increasing the visibility of the workplace campaign, these multi-network structures educate corporate decision-makers as well as individual activists, thereby improving what Paul Burstein, Rachel Einwohner, and Jocelyn Hollander (1995) would call the

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movement’s “bargaining” position in the institutional policy domain. Indeed, the infrastructural efforts of activists during the second wave have helped the workplace movement achieve relatively remarkable policy success into the third wave and beyond.

THE EBBING THIRD WAVE: THE SLOWDOWN IN NEW CORPORATE ORGANIZING Despite the rapidly increasing number of policy victories during the second wave, beginning in 1995 the workplace movement’s organizational birthrate dropped significantly. Indeed, the momentum of new corporate organizing slowed to a snail’s pace. As revealed in Table 1, while the second wave of the corporate workplace movement (1990–1994) averaged 10 new employee organizations per year, the third wave (1995 to mid-1998) produced less than three networks per year. What factors help to account for this paradoxical decline in corporate organizing? To answer this question, I first consider changes in the political environment. I then turn to the institutional conditions that potential challengers faced when deciding whether to mobilize inside their companies. I focus in particular on how gay network formations were influenced by the partial policy success of the workplace movement and by the distorted accounts of equitable policy change that were issued by the larger gay rights movement and the mainstream media. Drawing on social movement and new institutionalist perspectives, I treat political and institutional opportunities as socially constructed. I thus emphasize the interpretive processes that mediate the relationship between the environment and social actors, who must perceive both the necessity of activism and the possibility of change before they will engage in collective action (Gamson & Meyer, 1996; McAdam, 1982).

The Sociopolitical Context of Third-Wave Organizing Advances of the New Right Since the mid-1990s In some ways, the third-wave slump in corporate mobilization is hardly surprising. In the November 1994 elections, conservatives secured a majority in both the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. The New Right’s increased strength was apparent not only in the unprecedented number of anti-gay measures considered by Congress but also in the actions taken by the Clinton administration (NGLTF, 1996a, b, c, 1997, 1999a, b, c, d). Beginning in the mid-1990s, many lesbian and gay activists were forced to redirect their attention toward staving off antigay marriage bills that arose in response to the presumed possibility of same-sex

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marriage in Hawaii (LLDEF, 2000; Stacey, 1996). Draining the gay and lesbian movement of crucial resources, including money, time, and activist energy, the conservative crusade resulted in the so-called Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) at the federal level, which Clinton signed in 1996, and numerous anti-gay marriage statutes at the state level (HRC, 2002a). Although redundant given federal law, by mid-February 2004, 38 states had enacted DOMAs of their own (HRC, 2004). Anti-gay legislation in general increased dramatically in the middle of the 1990s. Between 1990 and 1994, no more than five states per year faced anti-gay measures at either the local or state level (NGLTF, 1996a). In 1995, however, 29 states saw the introduction of 64 anti-gay pieces of legislation (NGLTF, 1996b, 1997). By 1999, the numbers had increased to 44 states facing 205 unfavorable measures (NGLTF, 1999c, d). Faced with an increasingly hostile environment beginning in the mid-1990s, it would appear that gays and lesbians were either fearful of mobilizing in the workplace or consumed by battles in the formal political arena. Yet an alternative explanation for the drop-off in new corporate organizing seems equally plausible. One could interpret the slowdown in employee mobilization as stemming not from the right-wing backlash itself but rather from the very prospect that same-sex marriage could be legalized. With headlines such as USA Today’s reading “Legal Gay Marriage on the Nation’s Horizon: Hawaii May Be First State to Take Step” (Weiser, 1996), and other similar stories appearing through the end of the 1990s, such an interpretation would not seem out of place. Believing that the Hawaii Supreme Court would hand down a decision legalizing gay marriage, many gay and lesbian couples began dreaming of their long-awaited wedding day (Epstein, 1999). To all but the most progressive members of the lesbian and gay rights movement, such institutionalization would have rendered obsolete the fight for domestic partner benefits. Civil Unions, Civil Marriage, and the New Trend in Anti-Gay Organizing Although conservatives prevented same-sex marriage in Hawaii and elsewhere, in a historic move on April 25, 2000, responding to a ruling by the Vermont Supreme Court, the state legislature passed a “civil unions” law that extended to lesbian and gay couples all the state-level rights, privileges, and benefits of marriage except the name itself (Lockhead, 2000, p. A1). The groundbreaking law ignited a fury of anti-gay organizing in and outside of the state. Signifying what the Human Rights Campaign called a “new trend” in anti-gay mobilization, right-wing legislators began to introduce bills that “were even more restrictive than most anti-gay marriage laws currently on the books” in that “instead of simply barring recognition of marriage, they also address civil unions, domestic partnerships, and/or ‘other forms’ of same-sex relationships” (HRC, 2002b, d).

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Riding this wave of legislative activity, in May 2002, a conservative group of legislators in the House of Representatives proposed an anti-gay amendment to the U.S. Constitution, stating that marriage “shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman” and that no state or federal law “shall be construed to require that marital status or the legal incidents thereof be conferred upon unmarried couples or groups” (HRC, 2002c, d; emphasis added). The Right has recently thrust the Federal Marriage Amendment to the top of its political agenda in light of two landmark legal decisions. On June 26, 2003, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down all sodomy laws. Liberals and conservatives alike agree that the 6-3 Lawrence vs. Texas decision has “laid the groundwork for legal challenges to all laws that discriminate against gays and lesbians” (Lockhead, 2003, p. A1). Just five months after the decision, the Massachusetts high court ruled on November 18, 2003, that same-sex couples in the state are legally entitled to civil marriage (Lockhead, 2004). In early February 2004, confirming its initial ruling, the state court reiterated that the legislature had until May 2004 to bring existing statutes into line, and that “civil unions” and “domestic partnerships” would not be acceptable alternatives (Greenberger, 2004). Then on February 12, 2004, San Francisco made history when, at the mayor’s initiative, City Hall began issuing marriage licenses to, and performing wedding ceremonies for, same-sex couples, making the newlyweds the first legally married gay and lesbian couples in the country (Gordon, 2004). Thus right-wing calls for passage of the Federal Marriage Amendment continue to grow louder and more urgent. Mixed Signals: Acknowledging the Complexity of the Sociopolitical Environment Since the middle of the 1990s, then, the sociopolitical environment has sent out a complex array of mixed signals to gay men and lesbians. Although the New Right gained a stronghold in the 1994 elections and then proceeded to deliver a barrage of anti-gay measures, a 1994 Newsweek poll showed that 74% of Americans opposed workplace discrimination against gays and lesbians (HRCF, 1994), a figure that has since climbed to 85%, according to a June 2001 Gallup poll (HRC, 2002e). Indeed, the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), which proposed to ban discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, was first introduced in Congress during the summer of 1994 with the backing of 185 religious, labor, and civil rights organizations. In the fall of 1996, ENDA came within one vote of passing the Senate (New York Times, 1996). Perhaps many non-activist members of the gay and lesbian community interpreted both the introduction of ENDA and its near win in the Senate as evidence that mobilization in the workplace would soon be unnecessary, thereby justifying inaction on their part. Moreover, since press coverage of the bill rarely mentioned that it did not apply to benefits packages, many people may have

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incorrectly assumed that ENDA’s adoption would mandate equitable benefits. In any case, while ENDA has yet to pass either house of Congress, as of fall 2002, over 80 companies had publicly endorsed the legislation, joined by 45 cosponsors in the Senate and 194 in the House (HRC, 2002f). Since its inception, then, the workplace movement, like other movements, has faced a complex mix of environmental conditions that, in many ways, cannot be defined a priori as either favorable or unfavorable. Although the more stable components of political and institutional opportunity seem more readily susceptible to “objective” definition, some of the more volatile aspects are open to widely varying, and sometimes conflicting, interpretations. Taking seriously the argument that opportunity, organization, and framing are interactive rather than independent components of collective action (McAdam, McCarthy & Zald, 1996; Snow et al., 1986), William Gamson and David Meyer (1996) highlight the “framing of political opportunity.” They describe opportunity as relative, in that social movement actors must define a particular situation as favorable or unfavorable. Indeed, they argue that “the definition of opportunity is often at the center of what is most contentious.” In other words, political opportunity, while predominately viewed in structural terms, is also socially constructed since the strategic actions of challengers depend on their perceptions of particular circumstances as either hopeful or hopeless. As Gamson and Meyer conclude, “An opportunity unrecognized is no opportunity at all” (p. 283). Traci Sawyers and David Meyer (1999) likewise refer to “missed opportunities,” focusing on situations that appear unfavorable on the surface but which nevertheless contain seeds of possibility. For example, movement leaders can create opportunities out of hostile legislation or rancorous court rulings if they use them to increase publicity, raise consciousness, and woo additional adherents and resources (see also Meyer & Staggenborg, 1996). While I agree that activist interpretations of their environment as overly unfavorable can result in missed opportunities, this scholarly focus leaves unexplored another possible scenario in the complex framing of political and institutional opportunities. Namely, actors can define a situation as so hopeful or favorable that additional collective action is seen as unnecessary. In the next section, I consider this interpretation as another possible explanation for the third-wave decline in new corporate organizing.

The Paradox of Success: The Ironic Impact of Institutionalization and the Mythical Domino Effect To fully understand the varying levels of corporate mobilization over time, the focus must be widened to include not simply the political environment but also

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the other institutional conditions that potential challengers face. In other words, when deciding whether to mobilize in their own places of work, lesbian and gay employees look not only at the sociopolitical climate but also at the state of affairs in corporate America generally. At the end of the first wave in 1989, after 12 years of workplace mobilization, fewer than 20 employers had adopted domestic partner benefits. In contrast, by the end of the second wave in 1994, the workplace movement was thriving and had won equitable benefits in a sizeable number of organizations. According to data provided to me by the Human Rights Campaign, by the close of 1994, the number of adopters had risen to almost 150, most of which were companies, including 17 Fortune 1000 corporations or their subsidiaries. Yet, even as the pace of equitable benefits adoption accelerated throughout the third wave, very few gay and lesbian employees in the Fortune 1000 formed networks of their own. From 1995 to mid-1998, only nine new corporate networks joined the movement. This relative inactivity seems especially puzzling when one considers the fact that, by the end of 1998, domestic partner benefits had been instituted in 427 workplaces. Most of the adopters were corporations, 67 of them in the Fortune 1000. Why, at a time when the workplace movement had much to celebrate and seemed on the brink of even greater success, did gay and lesbian employees not rush to the party in droves, hoping to win similar victories in their own places of work? Why, in the face of greater publicity, resources, and favorable outcomes, did the number of gay network formations plummet rather than mushroom during the third wave? Complacency: the Irony of Partial Success Scholars have found that policy victories can energize a movement and inspire increased mobilization (Costain, 1992; McAdam, 1982; Sawyers & Meyer, 1999). Less attention has been paid to the opposite possibility: namely, that success on the part of some challengers can lead to complacency among other potential beneficiaries. Scholars interested in the so-called “postfeminist” era have documented a similar process. Although the notion of postfeminism has been duly criticized by feminist scholars, the term nevertheless arose in response to the complacency of some young women who, while benefitting from the gains of feminism, no longer see a need for it (Stacey, [1987] 1997; Taylor & Rupp, 1993; Taylor & Whittier, 1997; Whittier, 1995). Ironically, then, the institutionalization of certain movement goals, although favorable in terms of policy outcomes, can result in unfavorable mobilization outcomes (for the distinction between types of outcomes, see Staggenborg, 1995). Indeed, I propose that it is the visible success of the workplace movement that helps to explain the third-wave decline in new corporate mobilization.

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But it is not simply the quickened pace of equitable benefits adoption, or the media’s increased attention to it, that accounts for inaction on the part of other lesbian and gay employees. The meaning of corporate policy change – that is, how it will be interpreted by potential challengers as well as potential adopters – varies depending in part on who is doing the adopting. I argue, in other words, that it is not simply the number of adopters that matters. New institutional theorists, emphasizing a cognitive approach to organizational change, have made similar arguments about the social construction of organizational fields (Scott, 1995; Scott & Christensen, 1995). Empirical studies have found, for example, that the policy decisions of elites rest in part on whom they consider to be their competitors and whether the initial adopters of an innovation are seen as high- or low-prestige organizations (Burns & Wholey, 1993; Galaskiewicz & Burt, 1991; Lant & Baum, 1995; Porac et al., 1989; Porac & Thomas, 1990). I extend the logic of this framework by arguing that potential beneficiaries undergo a similar interpretive process. The “need” for institutional activism, in other words, is socially constructed. In deciding whether or not to mobilize in their own places of work, lesbian and gay employees look not simply at the number of companies that have instituted equitable benefits but also at the organizational identities of adopters, and what they “see” is influenced by the reputation those companies have in the wider gay, lesbian, and bisexual community. What gays and lesbians saw in 1995 may help account for the slowdown in new organizing. Unlikely Adopters: “Oversignification” and the Meaning of Corporate Policy Change Although numerous employers had already adopted domestic partner benefits before 1995, that year two of the Fortune 1000 adopters were corporate giants whose decisions came as a great shock to many: the Adolph Coors brewing company and the Walt Disney corporation. The significance of their policy announcements rests not simply in their big-name status but in their previous reputations in the lesbian and gay community. Coors had been the target of a gay boycott for almost 20 years. After the company adopted equitable benefits, Christian fundamentalists called for a boycott of their own (Mathews, 1995). Losing its most-favored status among conservatives, Disney was likewise targeted with a widely publicized boycott by the Southern Baptist Convention, which charged the company with abandoning its “pro-family legacy” (GLOBES, 1998). Coors’ decision to adopt equitable benefits was a surprise to many on both ends of the political spectrum. The company, founded and still majority-owned by an archconservative family, had long raised the ire of gays and lesbians. After word got out in 1977 that Coors was asking applicants their sexual orientation and using lie detector tests to root out gay employees, lesbian and gay activists

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issued calls for a boycott (Adam, 1995). Although decades have passed since then, many still refuse to buy the beer because of the long-standing reputation of the Coors family as key contributors to the New Right. As one journalist put it, “The family foundations . . . remain crucial backers of a who’s who of antigay politics” (Bull, 2001). One such foundation gives the largest of its grants to anti-gay groups such as the Heritage Foundation, founded by Joseph Coors, and the Free Congress Foundation, chaired by Jeffrey Coors (Mirken, 1997a, b; Wilke, 2002). The latter organization is “generally credited with demonizing the ‘gay agenda,’ ” a homophobic rhetorical strategy that has become a highly successful “political and fund-raising [tool] for the far right” (Mirken, 1997c, p. 6). In the mainstream media as well as the gay press, coverage of Coors’ benefits adoption highlighted the company’s negative reputation in the lesbian and gay community, and follow-up stories likewise reported on divisions within the community over ending the boycott (e.g. Bull, 2001; Gilpin, 1995; Hoback, 1995; Mathews, 1995; Mears, 1995; Mirken, 1997a, b, c; Wilke, 2002). Thus even those who previously had been unaware of the acrimonious relationship between Coors and the gay rights movement would, given the media visibility, see Coors’ policy change in a drastically different light than policy shifts by other employers. This was not simply another company adopting domestic partner benefits; this was a company that for decades had been equated with anti-gay hatred. Why then in 1995, when two of the most unlikely organizational candidates embraced gay-inclusive policy change, did the pace of new corporate organizing suddenly decline? Perhaps when Coors’ decision hit the news, gay and lesbian employees located in other companies “oversignified” the importance of the policy change by assuming that, since this notoriously anti-gay employer had adopted equitable benefits, others would surely follow suit in quick order. Likewise, although Disney had no such anti-gay record, it seems equally plausible that its reputation as the traditional “family values” company led to a similar process of oversignification in the lesbian and gay community. Disney’s policy change, which generated a great deal of media attention, may have convinced many that if the family values giant could expand its definition of family to embrace gay men and lesbians – after holding out as the last major player in the entertainment industry to do so (Deibel, 1996) – then widespread policy change was sure to occur in the rest of corporate America. The fact that press coverage rarely mentioned the presence of gay employee groups in these two companies only reinforced this perception. Both corporations had faced internal pressure by lesbian and gay employees who mobilized for equitable benefits. Even though the vast majority of early benefits adopters were persuaded by organized groups of gay and lesbian workers, media accounts rarely noted the existence, let alone the impact, of these institutional activists. David, in

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other words, is left out of the story of Goliath. Even today, the mainstream press may be quick to cover benefits adoption by the corporate giants, but the story they convey is often incomplete. Media Representations of Corporate Policy Change Journalistic reports rarely, if ever, describe how equitable benefits came to be or who was behind their adoption. Thus the public is likely to see benefits adoption as an apparently seamless process that, once instituted by enough leading innovators, will eventually diffuse widely to the rest of the business world. Institutionalization of an innovation appears inevitable, guided by the invisible hand of the market as employers play “follow the leader.” Indeed, media references to the mythical “domino effect” abound. Not realizing the movement processes behind most companies’ benefits adoption, many employees in other corporations may simply assume that their employer will eventually follow suit. Reading about the rapidly growing pace of corporate change, potential beneficiaries in yet-to-adopt companies may be lulled into complacency. As William Gamson and David Meyer (1996, p. 285) argue, media access is not simply a key component of political opportunity; media attention also plays a role in defining political opportunity for movements. Likewise, media representations define the process of policy change in such a way that the general public, straight and gay alike, may come to see benefits adoption as a fait accompli. Inaction on the part of gay and lesbian employees therefore seems justified. Of course, the media is not solely to blame for this faulty perception. I suspect that, even when lesbian and gay employees have pushed long and hard for equitable benefits, corporate spokespersons, whether responding to a reporter’s questions or issuing a press release, rarely identify the impact of gay employee groups on the decision-making process. In many cases, for example, the vice presidents I interviewed downplayed the role of employee activists in effecting policy change even in the face of evidence that proved otherwise. But it is not just the media, corporate elites, or public relations professionals that present an incomplete or inaccurate picture of how policy change comes about in the corporate world. Wider Movement Discourse and the Mythical, Market-Driven Domino Effect Leaders in the gay and lesbian rights movement – as opposed to the workplace wing itself – often adopt what I refer to as “domino discourse” when discussing the corporate adoption of equitable benefits. When issuing press releases or when asked by the media to comment on the most recent adoption, spokespersons from national gay rights organizations often portray the policy change in marketbased terms: once enough business leaders adopt the benefits, it is only a matter of time until others follow suit. Although leaders in the wider movement often

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acknowledge, where applicable, the role of gay employee groups, they frequently refer either implicitly or explicitly to “the domino effect,” popular terminology for what institutional theorists would call mimetic isomorphism (DiMaggio & Powell, 1991). This explanation of policy change emphasizes that once a few leaders adopt equitable benefits, others in the field will eventually do the same in order to remain competitive or to achieve legitimacy. In other words, once enough big players adopt an innovation, others feel pressure to adopt the newest “best practice.” When movement leaders utilize the domino effect, it is of course an intentional discursive strategy that is meant to frame the adoption of equitable benefits as a rational, profits-oriented move that will enhance an employer’s position in a competitive labor market. Utilizing what I call a “profits frame” allows potential adopters, who often fear right-wing backlash, to publicly rationalize benefits adoption not so much as “the right thing to do” but as simply “good business sense.” Indeed, the latter phrase appears frequently in corporate-issued press releases and in media accounts that quote organizational decision-makers. But when movement leaders themselves rely too heavily on a discourse that emphasizes institutional or market processes, they may play an unwitting role in fostering complacency. Domino discourse obscures the role of social movements and agency generally. Thus, while this frame may seem a reasonable tactic for influencing potential adopters, it can reinforce inaction on the part of potential beneficiaries. In other words, emphasizing mimetic institutional processes can negatively affect future success, since non-activist gays and lesbians may come to see employee mobilization as unnecessary for policy change. William Gamson and David Meyer (1996, pp. 285–286) argue that, to counter the “rhetoric of reaction” that casts activism as either futile or too risky, movement leaders must adopt a “rhetoric of change” that “systematically overestimates the degree of political opportunity.” My research shows that leaders in the wider gay and lesbian movement sometimes adopt a rhetoric of change that overestimates the role of institutional processes, which unintentionally justifies inaction by lesbian and gay employees. This paradox stems not from carelessness on the part of leaders but from the conflicting requirements that challengers face. Activists must engage in strategic framing efforts that are directed not simply at winning adherents and constituents but also at influencing various policy targets (Einwohner, 1999a, b, 2002). I argue that because activists must reach multiple audiences – both potential beneficiaries and potential adopters – and because those targets are differentially positioned in terms of power, resources, and interests, framing efforts that seem to resonate with one audience (corporations) may have an unintended effect on other audiences (non-activist employees). In sum, the third-wave decline in new corporate organizing appears far less mysterious after taking into account the complexity of the sociopolitical and

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institutional environments, including the ironic effect of partial success and the way that media and movement accounts portray policy change. The decisions of lesbians, gay men, and bisexuals are shaped by a complex mix of factors. Whether seen as political opportunities or institutional opportunities, these factors defy strictly objectivist determination. Opportunities are not merely structural; they are processual in that environmental conditions are always mediated by the interpretations of potential challengers, current activists, elites, and media professionals, to name but a few. Difficulties in Assessing the Extent of Workplace Mobilization One other factor may help to account for the apparent decline in gay network formations. It is possible that the level of mobilization during the third wave was actually higher than current measures indicate. It is difficult to determine the true extent of workplace mobilization since I lacked the resources to survey all the companies in the Fortune 1000. Even if I were able to survey every corporation, it would sometimes be impossible to determine whether a company had a gay employee group. When I lacked an activist contact, I had to rely on corporate decision-makers to tell me whether a gay network existed. This approach proved problematic since corporate elites are reluctant to participate in studies on this subject. Aside from the difficulties posed by a low response rate, relying on elites to document the existence of challengers is unreliable since some gay employee groups intentionally start out with a low profile. Given the methodological limitations of this study, therefore, it may be safer to issue a caveat: what appears to be a decline in third-wave mobilization may only be, at least in part, apparent quiescence. Moreover, since my data collection on gay network formations ended in 1998, it is also possible that there has been an upswing in employee mobilization since then. Lesbian, gay, and bisexual employees may be mobilizing in the Fortune 1000 at a rate that matches or even exceeds that of previous waves. It could be that these younger gay employee networks, still trying to get on their feet, are less “hooked in” to the larger workplace movement. Not connected to networks in other companies, and uninvolved in workplace conferences, for example, these new groups would not appear on the contact lists that circulate via print and electronic media. They would thus remain invisible to outside observers. Future research is therefore needed to trace the trajectory of workplace organizing in the new millennium in relation to changes in the sociopolitical environment, the actions of the broader gay and lesbian rights movement, and the variable conditions present in other institutional spheres, particularly the media and the workplace. Whether the drop in new organizing is real or artificial, the considerable infrastructure that movement leaders built during the second wave continues to

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provide information, resources, and motivation for the ongoing efforts of employee activists across the country. This infrastructure bodes well for the future of workplace organizing since new and veteran employee networks – linked together through the Internet, lesbian and gay workplace conferences, and regional or national umbrella groups – can not only share strategies and tactics but also offer emotional support to each other as they take up the hard work that lies ahead. These dense interorganizational connections will help sustain workplace activism through both the peaks and valleys of mobilization.

CONCLUSION: WINNING EQUALITY IN CORPORATE AMERICA FROM THE INSIDE OUT Some 25 years ago Mayer Zald and Michael Berger (1978) issued a cogent yet still seldom heeded reminder that social movements can take place inside organizations and not just in or toward nation-states. Gay, lesbian, and bisexual employee activism is a powerful case in point. Emerging from the intersection of workplace organizations and social movements, the adoption of gay-inclusive corporate policies represents the latest expansion in the definition of workers’ rights. Yet to date the workplace movement has been ignored by social movement scholars (for an analysis by organizational researchers, see Creed et al., 2002; Foldy & Creed, 1999; Scully & Creed, 1998; Swan, 1997). Aside from the explanatory power of an institutional opportunity approach for analyzing the emergence and trajectory of the workplace movement, the framework I developed here expands the usefulness of political process theory in general by widening the purview to include multiple terrains of struggle, not just the formal political arena. My conceptualization of institutional opportunities thus reflects not simply a shift in terminology but, more importantly, an expansion in theoretical and empirical focus. An institutional opportunity framework directs attention to the opportunities and constraints that challengers face both in and beyond the state. Activists are simultaneously situated in multiple, nested environments that separately and in combination exhibit variable and at times contradictory conditions (Meyer, 2003). Social movement scholars have noted that activists sometimes face a conflicting set of political opportunities (Gamson & Meyer, 1996; Tarrow, 1998). This environmental complexity applies all the more to institutional activists, who are embedded in multiple institutional spheres that include not only the sociopolitical arena but also the more immediate site of contention, such as the corporation, and the organizational field in which that target organization is located. Whether utilized to study mobilization inside workplaces, universities, or religious congregations, an institutional opportunity framework should prove

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useful for understanding the rise of groups seeking equality for those laboring, learning, or worshiping within. Although mobilization inside institutions often remains invisible to the wider public, unobtrusive activists can effect significant transformations in the institutional landscape (Katzenstein, 1990, 1998). Indeed, by coming out and organizing inside their places of work, lesbian, gay, and bisexual employees, along with their heterosexual allies, are winning equitable policies and practices in organizations across the country. A testament to the power of activism inside institutions, their fight for equal rights reveals how committed groups of people can bring about wide-scale social change.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This work draws from several chapters of the author’s 2004 book, Changing Corporate America from Inside Out: Lesbian and Gay Workplace Rights (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press). The author gratefully acknowledges the helpful suggestions of the AIC editors and two anonymous reviewers, as well as the following sources of financial support: a National Science Foundation Doctoral Dissertation Research Grant (SBR-9700763); an American Sociological Association/National Science Foundation Fund for the Advancement of the Discipline Award; a Martin P. Levine Memorial Dissertation Fellowship Honorable Mention from the Sex and Gender section of the American Sociological Association; and various scholarly and financial awards from Ohio State University.

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Mueller, C. McC. (1994). Conflict networks and the origins of women’s liberation. In: E. Laraña, H. Johnston & J. R. Gusfield (Eds), New Social Movements: From Ideology to Identity (pp. 234–263). Philadelphia: Temple University Press. National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (NGLTF) (1996a). The record on gay-related referenda questions (NGLTF Report, last updated May 20, 1996). Washington, DC: National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (NGLTF) (1996b). Beyond the beltway: State of the states 1995 (NGLTF Report, final update made January 1996). Washington, DC: National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (NGLTF) (1996c). Capital gains and losses: A state by state review of gay-related legislation in 1996 (NGLTF Report, last updated December 5, 1996). Washington, DC: National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. Retrieved June 15, 1999, from http://www.ngltf.org/cgintro.html. National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (NGLTF) (1997). Capital gains and losses: A state by state review of gay-related legislation in 1997 (NGLTF Report). Washington, DC: National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. Retrieved June 15, 1999, from http://www.ngltf.org/97cgal/intro.html. National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (NGLTF) (1999a). Capital gains and losses: A state by state review of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and HIV/AIDS-related legislation in 1998 (NGLTF Report, last updated January 21, 1999). Washington, DC: National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. Retrieved June 15, 1999, from http://www.ngltf.org/98CGAL/intro.html. National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (NGLTF) (1999b). Legislative update (NGLTF Report, last updated June 2, 1999). Washington, DC: National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. Retrieved June 15, 1999, from http://www.ngltf.org/legupdate99/legup060299.html. National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (NGLTF) (1999c). Task force 1999 state legislative update; record number of GLBT-related bills for session start Washington, DC (NGLTF e-mail, sent January 28, 1999). Washington, DC: National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (NGLTF) (1999d). 1999 capital gains and losses: A state by state review of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and HIV/AIDS-related legislation in 1999 (NGLTF Report by Dan Hawes, issued December 13, 1999). Washington, DC: National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. Retrieved October 30, 2002, from http://www.ngltf.org/downloads/cgal99.pdf. Navarro, M. (1995). Disney’s health policy for gay employees angers religious right in Florida. New York Times (November 29), A20. New York Times (1996). Senate votes on marriage and rights. September 11, A16. Pfohl, S. (1994). Images of deviance and social control: A sociological history (2nd ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill. Podolsky, R. (1994). Birth of a queer nation. In: M. Thompson (Ed.), Long Road to Freedom: The Advocate History of the Gay and Lesbian Movement (pp. 367–369). New York: St. Martin’s Press. Porac, J. F., & Thomas, H. (1990). Taxonomic mental models in competitive definition. Academy of Management Review, 15, 224–240. Porac, J. F., Thomas, H., & Badden-Fuller, C. (1989). Competitive groups as cognitive communities: The case of the Scottish knitwear manufacturers. Journal of Management Studies, 26, 397–415. Raeburn, N. C. (1998). A review of Out in Force: Sexual Orientation and the Military, edited by G. M. Herek, J. B. Jobe & R. M. Carney (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996). Contemporary Sociology, 27, 238–239. Raeburn, N. C. (2004). Changing corporate America from inside out: Lesbian and gay workplace rights. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

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THE AMERICAN LABOR MOVEMENT’S (SURPRISING) ECONOMIC IMPACT: HOW UNIONS CHALLENGE CONSUMERISM AND CORPORATE GOVERNANCE Teresa Ghilarducci ABSTRACT Many traditional economists view trade unions as monopolies; unions challenge capital by having control over labor as a production input and threatening to withhold it to achieve union goals. Yet, unions also strategize around citizenship and consumer roles with political action and consumer boycotts. Little researched is how unions challenge corporate authority by encouraging workers to defer consumption and become owners of capital through pension funds. This new role as capital owners is leveraged through pension fund activism, which challenges corporate decisions that are not much affected by political action, organizing, or collective bargaining. This chapter puts these developments in the context of familiar theories of the economic effect of trade unions and the history of union pension activism. Oh really?


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Senator Bill Bradley, when discussing his bold plan to boost American savings rate in 1994 and hearing that over 80% of union members have pensions. Labor unions, see Labor history, Readers Guide to Periodicals, October, 1984.

Only 9% of American workers are unionized, which is the lowest union density among OECD nations and the weakest union presence in the U.S. in 80 years. Yet, union density is not the best measure of union strength. A whopping one out of four voters in the 2000 presidential election lived in union households. Although, unfortunately, less than half of workers have employer pension plans; over 83% of union members have pensions (National Compensation Survey, 2000). In addition, over half of the $6 trillion in pension assets is derived from collective bargaining and influenced by union activity.1 Furthermore, because unions filed more shareholder resolutions – a key way to influence corporate decisions – than any other group since 2000 (Hebb, 2001), new thinking about how unions affect the economy must take into account the labor movements’ influence over “the composition of compensation.” A complete view of the role of unions in society must take into account how unions help workers both accumulate capital and challenge corporate authority through pension fund activism. Figure 1 summarizes the many ways unions affect American society. Comparing union influence in various aspects of the political economy helps us understand how workers use unions to contend with the employer, which is the most powerful authority in their lives whose interest often and significantly contradicts their own. The plan of this chapter is as follows: the first part introduces the framework in which unions challenge corporate authority. The second section describes unions’

Fig. 1. Unions’ Economic Roles goes Beyond Membership.

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first step in influencing pension fund management, which is, of course, to obtain pensions. Unionized workers have longer term relationships with employers and their occupation and are more likely to have curbed instant gratification by trading wages for time off, health insurance, and pensions. Furthermore, the second section describes the labor law and economics framework which unions bargain in, which opine that stable and fair outcomes occur when workers’ can form unions that act like countervailing monopolies against employers’ power. The third section describes how this power-balancing strategy has always had its limits because collective bargaining regulations define very narrow areas of legitimate discussion between the bargaining parties. Labor-management negotiations are largely determined by outside market forces. Consumers want more for less and actors in financial markets make their profit maximizing decisions with workers’ pension funds. None of these forces and “decisions” are subject to bargaining. The third section also describes the events that led up to unions using its newest role as accumulator and pension fund activist. Because, unions negotiate pensions to help the transition to retirement; and because evolving securities, trust, and fiduciary law require share owners to be more active managers; and, because, pension funds own over half of all corporate bonds and corporate equities; and, because, unions are among the largest groups with grievances against corporations (environmentalist and churches also grieve), unions have a high profile in “pension capital campaigns.” One measure of unions’ prominence is that unions’ filed 28% of all shareholder resolutions 2002 (which is much larger than the 9% union density in the private work force). The fourth section describes how unions challenge consumerism by being an advocate for deferred compensation and leisure time. The following section describes the current union capital campaigns and how they are affected by and affect the contours of regulation and corporate power. The chapter conclusion appreciates the irony that American unions are the most vociferous representatives of capital owners; and that the corporate scandals of the early 21st century gave credence to union complaints about the logic of corporate dominance over economic life. Surprisingly, the two prominent economic effects of unions in the last two decades have been to mitigate the savings crises and to help reshape corporate governance. Both of these effects challenge corporate authority over workers’ immediate standard of living and capital investment decisions.

A FRAMEWORK FOR UNDERSTANDING UNION-INVESTOR STRATEGIES This chapter does not review the history of the U.S. labor movement – which has its own tensions about what actor takes center stage: the ordinary worker, the important

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leader, the pivotal event. Yet, the particularly bitter struggles between management and workers and the structure of labor law that gives precedence to corporatedetermined organizational structures and management prerogatives over most aspects of production is the stage where workers, through their unions, challenge corporate authority over “wages, hours, and working conditions” (the mandated scope of bargaining under the NLRA) but also over decisions traditionally under the purview of shareholders, consumers, and citizens. Since the 1970s, the labor movement’s pension tactics have taken off in many directions. In some, unions use the fact that pension funds provide business to banks and other money managers as leverage to get their corporate clients and borrowers to make pro-worker decisions – these efforts are called corporate campaigns. Launching shareholder resolutions against a company often initiates discussion with other parties-of-interest which helps boost their bargaining power. Since pension funds invest in construction projects and own buildings; the labor-oriented pension fund manager insist the work is unionized and that building managers don’t fight unions. Union pension fund investors obtain agreements before investing that the building owner not resist a “Justice for Janitors” campaign that organizes janitors. Many times union success in challenging authority, in supporting the minimum wage, social security, health and safety regulation, for instance, spills over to nonunion workers. This is also true in the capital owner activism arena. The AFL-CIO (the American Federation of Labor and the Council of Industrial Organizations) almost single handedly pressured the Securities and Exchange Commission, in February 2003, to rule that mutual funds (which six months later became the target of accusations and admitted they cheated investors by allowing short traders) to disclose how they vote corporate proxy issues such as stock – option packages and elections for directors seats. Not only does the AFL-CIO challenge the mutual fund industry about their proxy votes but they are the representative to all investors who want lower fees and more accountability. One can easily see that unions using their role as capital owner to hold capital accountable may bring about more balanced power relations between workers and corporations. It is important to appreciate that the labor movement is obtaining these traditional goals through the power of an owner, a shareholder, and not as citizens, workers, or “stakeholders.” And, here comes the rub: the trustee, who is a union or employer representative in an adversarial setting, is bound, as a trustee, by fiduciary law – which constitutes another set of rules and legal culture than collective bargaining. A pension fund trustee must act exclusively in the best interests of the pension participants and, as shareholder, challenge corporate management on the grounds that profits aren’t maximized. Shareholders have no standing to complain if management doesn’t pay workers


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enough or otherwise promote workers’ economic lives. The paradoxical roles are not as difficult to surmount as it may seem. Unions, as legitimate owners, for example, argue that corporate corruption is de facto a failure to maximize profits. Unions also argue that capitalists who treat workers well maximize long term profits. How can we view pension fund activism? Have unions been engaged in this activity for a long time? This chapter argues that unions the use of this tool to affect corporate authority is relatively new. Over time, through the accumulation effect, unions generate more household saving and less debt which has provided the opportunity for unions to leverage corporations using the role as share owner. The union share owner pressures corporations to spend less on mergers and acquisitions and to invest long term. The very first labor organizations, formed in the 1820s, sought to influence employer decisions affecting their members’ economic lives. Commonly, the most prominent source of leverage is workers’ role as key production inputs. But, employees are also consumers and, through boycotts, and “Look-for-the-UnionLabel” campaigns, workers have used the “power of the purse” to punish non-union competitors of pro-union firms. One famous example is the United Farm Workers 1970s boycott of produce from non-union growers. The labor movement also leverages the role as citizen. Campaign donations, campaign work, research and lobbying or government income security programs, labor standards, such as the minimum wage, employee rights, the boycott, involve workers acting as consumers and citizens. The fourth economic role, the most recently evolved and not well understood is that workers, especially union members, are capital accumulators. Management expert Peter Drucker’s (1976) understood in his famous book “How Pension Fund Socialism Came to America.” Drucker argued 30 years ago that America was socialist because workers, through their pension plans owned the means of production. It took decades of intellectual work, professional administration, and activist investigation to refine the notion that having a connection to finance markets and having workers share interests with owners of capital by owing shares, is not the same thing as having control (Blackburn, 2000; Jacot, 2000).2 Recently, the labor movement is strategically using their role as a saver/investor to reward the companies that have good labor relations. One tactic is to have a “Look for the Union Label” when shopping for investment vehicles as well, as well as, non-union table grapes. This section defined the evolving framework in which labor unions aims to improve wages, hours, and working conditions of American workers which is centered on developing tactics around their members’ four economic roles: as productive inputs, as citizens, as consumers, and the fourth, and newly evolved role, as accumulators – as savers and investors.

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Fig. 2. Dynamics of Unions Challenging Corporate Authority.

I am offering a framework that helps illustrates the roles unions and workers play to affect corporate decision making. The framework is graphically represented in Fig. 2. The framework within which how unions challenge corporate authority has been greatly affected by unions challenging and working within the corporate governance structures that are the source of corporate investment and location decisions and certain aspects of corporate culture. Labor was always limited in what could be discussed once they surmounted the difficult hurdle of organizing members into unions, winning the NLRB election, and getting the employer to negotiate in good faith. The International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT), in the 1940s, was one of the leading union innovators to strategically use pension funds to strengthen their members’ bargaining position because their employers were undercapitalized unregulated operators and their members were from the most underprivileged and discarded members of society. They need unorthodox methods of contesting the operators and warehouse owners conditions. IBT President James R. Hoffa and local presidents awarded the business of administering the growing IBT pension funds to community banks that supported the unions’ goals. Other unions felt the same limitation and frustration in trying to organize and negotiate contracts. Indeed, policy makers wanted “optimal frustration” when unions


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contested corporate authority; but, clearly the legal intention is to enable workers to organize. Unchecked corporate authority is not seen by the state as optimal social policy. This next section describes the theories that helped formulate the idea of that it is legitimate and desirable that unions limit corporate authority in setting wages, hours, and working conditions. Policy historians argue that, in the United States, scientists and social scientists since the Progressive Era have a great deal of authority themselves to form the “scientific” basis of law and a well-functioning and efficient government The economists voices, as well as legal scholars, about the effect of trade unions on society and the economy are especially important.

THE ORIGINS OF THE LEGAL AND ECONOMIC LEGITIMACY OF UNIONS The early debate around the Wagner Act and the post war analysis of the growth in contract negotiations and strikes concentrated on the distributional effects of a union wage increase. Two economic paradigms competed to explain what unions did: the monopoly view of unionism and a Keynesian-Institutionalist view (Brofenbrenner, 1956; Friedman, 1956). In the monopoly view paradigm, unions cause distortions in otherwise well-functioning markets. In the later view, workers form unions and employers adapt to economic exchanges made in the context of power and community. An intellectual justification for the passage of the National Labor Relations Act in 1935 was that unions and collective bargaining may “level the playing field” by balancing the power between workers and employers who hires and fires at will. Ironically, the idea was that government regulation of the process, and not the outcome, would simulate the mechanism of a “free market” where power is distributed equally and both sides bargain to a mutually beneficial contract. Unions were seen as a countervailing monopoly to the inevitably stronger position of capital in the market for wages, hours, and other conditions of employment. (Kaufman, 1989). Medoff and Freeman (1979) advanced the Keynesian view by collecting evidence against the “monopoly” view of unions. They supported the “voice view of unionism that focused on the productivity, rather than the distributional effect of a collectively bargained labor contract. What do Unions do? Economic models about unions’ ability and legitimacy in challenging corporate authority focus on workers’ rights to organize and, once designated duly-elected

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representative, compel employers to bargain collectively in good faith. The key to understanding unions’ legitimacy in an economic framework centers on the various answers to the one question: “who pays when unions raises compensation?” Indeed, unions create a “union premium” – union members earn more than comparable non-union workers, even when many productivity characteristics are controlled for (for a review of this literature see Mishel, Schmitt & Bernstein, 2000). Union members earn over $30 per hour in total compensation of which only 65.5% is cash. Non-union workers earn much less, $21.03 and, a larger share is in cash, 73.9% (Employment Cost Index, 2002). The union pay “premium” has been measured since the 1940s and the evidence deviates from the economic theory that says equivalent factors should get equal value.3 If union workers are being compensated at higher levels than they would have if they were not union, who pays? The answers divide into two parts: no one pays and someone pays. The first view is that unions are illegitimate because the workers who are paid more are merely more productive and would have been paid more without being in a union. The argument is that the union targets these high productivity workers and their higher compensation is falsely attributed to union bargaining power. This is the illusion theory of unions. The illusion effect, derived from the monopoly view, directly contradicts the “everyone benefits” view when unions increase pay and that union challenge corporate authority. This contrasts starkly with the view unions help everyone and no one pays. Unions foster long term employment relations so employers and workers can more easily invest in training. Everyone benefits and no one pays because workers are working better and harder and their union wage is just reflecting their superior productivity (Freeman & Medoff’s [1982] “voice view”). Closely related is that unions help everyone by raising wages which, in Keynesian fashion, prevents underconsumption. In this, unions, ironically, help business because they union creates an uber-consumer, not a saver. I claim this is in direct contrast to recent developments. The next set of ideas is that “someone pays” and corporations are, indeed, challenged by unions. Union detractors argue that unions force other workers to pay the premium by causing inflation (thus other workers have to pay higher prices) or that other workers are crowded out of the union sector causing oversupply in the non-union sector which causes their wages to fall. There is little evidence this occurs but there is a great deal of evidence that unions raise wages by reducing profits (see Eschuk, 2001, for an exhaustive review of this literature). Economists (believe it or not) view this as a beneficial result for the overall economy especially if the profits are derived from uncompetitive conditions.4 Ulman (1990) notes that economic models put unions in an optimizing framework – either as correctors or detractors from “proper” markets – and not as


239

challengers to authority. In the orthodox views of unions Ulman argued, the union is either the savior or the problem. Unions affect the economy by taking wages out of competition, removing the whipsaw advantage enjoyed by many firms, and by their very existence as a threat to non-union employers, boosting the pay and improving the working conditions of non-union workers whose employers fear an organizing drive. But all the momentum unions, working through these channels, might have had came to a screeching halt with the rapid decline of union density in the 1970s. No matter what the cause of union decline (there is a cottage industry of explanations for union decline (Licthenstein, 2000): import penetration of cheap labor, political attacks, new employer aggression, moribund unions etc.) the fact remain that union members are aging and vibrant areas of the economy are thriving without ever dealing with organized workers. The decline of unions occurred during a time when union ability to organize should have been at an all time high. Unemployment rates were often at very low levels and the Democratic Presidents were in power almost as long as Republicans. In this context, unions’ took a harder look at their role as savers and accumulator of pension fund capital. Another important aspect of union pension activism is that American union’s capital strategies are being undertaken in the context of this nation’s exceptionally poor public social insurance system. In the U.S., compared to other nations, basic programs such as pensions and health insurance must be obtained at work. American workers are paid in more deferred compensation compared to other OECD workers and American unionized workers more than similar non-union workers. Though American unions have always recognized their role as saver and investors and have always asserted property rights over pension fund assets, the sheer size of assets, the weakness of other tactics, and the shareholder rights movements gave unions special moment in history.

THE FIRST STEP TO PENSION FUND ACTIVISM: CHALLENGING CONSUMERISM In the three decades after World War II, the U.S. employer-based benefit system grew to cover two-thirds of the working population for health insurance, and onehalf of the working population for pensions.5 Non-union companies frequently matched the unionized firms’ benefit offerings in order to thwart unionization efforts. While employers may have agreed to provide employee benefits and accede to union demands for business reasons, to attract scarce workers etc., these developments profoundly changed social expectations and beliefs that “good” employers provide pensions and health insurance.6

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TERESA GHILARDUCCI

Table 1. The Increases in Employer Costs for Union and Non-union Workers in Wages and Benefits Between 1988 and 2002.

Total compensation Wages Total benefits Paid leave Supplemental pay (premium) Non-production bonus Health, life and disability insurance Pensions Other

Union 1988

Union September 2002

Union % Change

$18.16 12.04 6.12 1.35 0.64

$30.06 19.69 10.37 2.13 1.05

65.53 63.54 69.44 57.78 64.06

1.45

2.9

0.86 0.06

1.68 0.08

Non-Union 1988

Non-Union September 2002

Non-Union % Change

$12.9 9.61 3.29 0.89 0.26

$21.03 15.55 5.48 1.37 0.55

63.02 61.81 66.57 53.93 111.54

100.00

0.64

1.27

98.44

95.35 33.33

0.36

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