Political Opportunities, Social Movements and Democratization, Volume 23 (Research in Social Movements, Conflicts and Change)

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Author: Patrick G Coy

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POLITICAL OPPORTUNITIES, SOCIAL MOVEMENTS, AND DEMOCRATIZATION

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RESEARCH IN SOCIAL MOVEMENTS, CONFLICTS AND CHANGE Series Editors: Patrick G. Coy and Isidor Wallimann

Most recently published volumes: Volumes 19–21: Edited by Michael Dobkowski and Isidor Wallimann Volume 22:

Edited by Patrick G. Coy

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RESEARCH IN SOCIAL MOVEMENTS, CONFLICTS AND CHANGE VOLUME 23

POLITICAL OPPORTUNITIES, SOCIAL MOVEMENTS, AND DEMOCRATIZATION EDITED BY

PATRICK G. COY Center for Applied Conflict Management, Kent State University, Ohio, USA

2001

JAI An Imprint of Elsevier Science Amsterdam – London – New York – Oxford – Paris – Shannon – Tokyo

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ELSEVIER SCIENCE Ltd The Boulevard, Langford Lane Kidlington, Oxford OX5 1GB, UK © 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. This work is protected under copyright by Elsevier Science, and the following terms and conditions apply to its use: Photocopying Single photocopies of single chapters may be made for personal use as allowed by national copyright laws. Permission of the Publisher and payment of a fee is required for all other photocopying, including multiple or systematic copying, copying for advertising or promotional purposes, resale, and all forms of document delivery. Special rates are available for educational institutions that wish to make photocopies for non-profit educational classroom use. Permissions may be sought directly from Elsevier Science Global Rights Department, PO Box 800, Oxford OX5 1DX, UK; phone: (+44) 1865 843830, fax: (+44) 1865 853333, e-mail: [email protected]. You may also contact Global Rights directly through Elsevier’s home page (http://www.elsevier.nl), by selecting ‘Obtaining Permissions’. In the USA, users may clear permissions and make payments through the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc., 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, USA; phone: (+1) (978) 7508400, fax: (+1) (978) 7504744, and in the UK through the Copyright Licensing Agency Rapid Clearance Service (CLARCS), 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1P 0LP, UK; phone: (+44) 207 631 5555; fax: (+44) 207 631 5500. Other countries may have a local reprographic rights agency for payments. Derivative Works Tables of contents may be reproduced for internal circulation, but permission of Elsevier Science is required for external resale or distribution of such material. Permission of the Publisher is required for all other derivative works, including compilations and translations. Electronic Storage or Usage Permission of the Publisher is required to store or use electronically any material contained in this work, including any chapter or part of a chapter. Except as outlined above, no part of this work may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission of the Publisher. Address permissions requests to: Elsevier Science Global Rights Department, at the mail, fax and e-mail addresses noted above. Notice No responsibility is assumed by the Publisher for any injury and/or damage to persons or property as a matter of products liability, negligence or otherwise, or from any use or operation of any methods, products, instructions or ideas contained in the material herein. Because of rapid advances in the medical sciences, in particular, independent verification of diagnoses and drug dosages should be made. First edition 2001 Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Political opportunities, social movements and democratization/edited by Patrick G. Coy. p. cm. – (Research in social movements, conflicts and change. Supplement; v. 23) ISBN 0-7623-0786-2 1. Social movements. 2. Democratization. I. Coy, Patrick G. II. Series. HN15.5.P629 2001 303.48'4–dc21

2001041347

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record from the British Library has been applied for. ISBN: 0-7623-0786-2 ISSN: 0163-786x (Series) ⬁ The paper used in this publication meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper). Printed in The Netherlands.

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CONTENTS INTRODUCTION Patrick G. Coy

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PART I: POLITICAL OPPORTUNITY STRUCTURES, IDENTITY, AND SOCIAL MOVEMENTS CULTURE AND POLITICAL OPPORTUNITY: RASTAFARIAN LINKS TO THE JAMAICAN POOR A. E. Gordon Buffonge

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COMPROMISE IN SOUTH AFRICA: CLASS RELATIONS, POLITICAL OPPORTUNITIES, AND THE CONTEXTUALIZED “RIPE MOMENT” FOR RESOLUTION Kristin Marsh

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EXPANDING POLITICAL OPPORTUNITIES AND CHANGING COLLECTIVE IDENTITIES IN THE COMPLEMENTARY AND ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE MOVEMENT Melinda Goldner

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RIVAL TRANSNATIONAL NETWORKS AND INDIGENOUS RIGHTS: THE SAN BLAS KUNA IN PANAMA AND THE YANOMAMI IN BRAZIL Gregory M. Maney

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THE ORIGINS OF THE PROTEST MOVEMENT AGAINST NUCLEAR POWER Stephen Adair

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RUNNING HEAD

INACTION, INDIVIDUAL ACTION AND COLLECTIVE ACTION AS RESPONSES TO HOUSING DISSATISFACTION: A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF BUDAPEST AND MOSCOW Chris Pickvance

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PROTESTER/TARGET INTERACTIONS: A MICROSOCIOLOGICAL APPROACH TO STUDYING MOVEMENT OUTCOMES Rachel L. Einwohner

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PART II: DEMOCRATIZATION AND DISORDERS AS POLITICAL CHANGE MECHANISMS WELSH NATIONALISM AND THE CHALLENGE OF ‘INCLUSIVE’ POLITICS Paul Chaney and Ralph Fevre

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A DIFFICULT BIRTH: DISSENT, OPPOSITION, AND MURDER IN THE RISE OF MEXICO’S PARTIDO DE LA REVOLUCIO´N DEMOCRA´TICA Sara Schatz

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CAMPUS RACIAL DISORDERS AND COMMUNITY TIES, 1967–1969 Daniel J. Myers and Alexander J. Buoye

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ABOUTH THE EDITOR/AUTHORS

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INTRODUCTION: POLITICAL OPPORTUNITIES, SOCIAL MOVEMENTS, AND DEMOCRATIZATION Patrick G. Coy For well over a decade now many research projects on social movements have been organized around a trinity of issues: political opportunities, mobilizing structures and various kinds of framing processes. Some of the more interesting research projects have focused not on simply one or the other of these aspects, but on all three and on their relationships to each other. Not surprisingly, research focused on all three has also tended to contribute the most to the development of social movement theory. However, disentangling how these three factors interact with each other and thereby influence not only the emergence, but also the growth and eventual decline of social movements has been far from easy. This is the task that A. E. Buffonge ably takes on in his analysis of the Rastafari movement’s ideological challenge to the Jamaican government. Buffonge’s research demonstrates the critical role that Rastafari cultural framing processes had in developing a credible challenging movement and maintaining it over time. He also shows, through a detailed analysis of Rastafarian reggae music, how mobilizing structures helped build the movement for change. Research on political opportunity structures has often focused simply on the effects that changing political opportunity structures have on movements. Although it has been much too infrequently studied, we also know that there is, in fact, another side to this cause and effect coin: social movements themselves contribute to changing political opportunity structures. The two-way interaction in this case – between the Rastafari movement and the political structures of Jamaica – receives careful analytical attention in Buffonge’s paper, including through his treatment of the interrelationship between culture and structure.

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Kristen Marsh’s paper on political compromise in South Africa continues our focus in section one of this volume on social movements and political opportunity structures. But Marsh also effectively bridges the multiple foci of this series by expanding her theoretical treatment of the struggle against apartheid to include an analysis of it as an example of compromised revolution. In South Africa, the compromise was partly the result of shifting class relations, financial and political instability, effective non-violent action, and a military and political “hurting stalemate.” Marsh usefully combines stalemate theory from conflict resolution literature with the political opportunities research in social movement theory to understand the broader lessons embedded in the South African situation. She also identifies three necessary factors that converge to shape state recognition of a hurting stalemate and of negotiations as a preferable and viable alternative to continued conflict. Social movements are often engaged in conflict with power-holders and other status quo representatives. As such, movements develop collective identities as part of their origin activities, as part of their complex self-definition processes as challenging groups, and even through their waging of conflict to bring about social change. In her paper on the complementary and alternative medicine movement, Melinda Goldner moves both social movement theory and identity theory forward with a detailed, careful analysis of the intersections between expanding political opportunities and changing collective identities. Based on social observation and interviews with complementary and alternative medicine activists in the San Francisco Bay area of California, Goldner’s interesting case study addresses the important question of what happens to a movement’s collective identity when the political climate shifts and becomes more favorable to the challenging movement and its goals. In his comparative analysis of the San Blas Kuna of Panama and the Yanomami of Brazil, Gregory Maney rejects the social movements interpretive framework in favor of a more specific “issue networks” perspective. Like Goldner’s work on the alternative medicine movement, Maney’s research also examines the multiple roles that collective identity constructions play in social movements and issue networks. He argues that collective identity concerns combine with ideology and strategic considerations to influence the selection of collective action frames. His research shows that the status of indigenous rights in the two cases studied is the product of contention between rival networks of organizations. This ambitious paper successfully argues that the degree of pressure generated by each network depended upon variables that are now familiar to social movement theorists: resources and organizational capacities, inter-organizational dynamics, political opportunities, collective identities and collective action

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frames, and the forms of contention chosen. While familiar in one sense, what is distinctive about Maney’s work is his consideration of all these factors and his creative use of them in a comparative way across transnational networks. In so doing, he makes a number of important contributions to theory-building. Careful readers of this volume will quickly discern that all is not quiet on the fronts of political process theory and political opportunities theory. This is as it should be, and is nowhere more apparent than in Stephen Adair’s study of the origins of the anti-nuclear power movement in the United States. Relying on diverse and rich data sources, Adair argues convincingly that political opportunity theory is inadequate to explain the emergence in the 1970s of the movement against nuclear power in the United States. Although that in itself is a useful theoretical contribution, Adair goes on to advance a counter argument that features a critical theory of power, and a concept that he terms “political condensation.” When paired together, this allows him to account for the fact that some of the strongest mobilizations against the nuclear power industry did not occur where the industry was the weakest (as political opportunity theory would suggest). Using Seabrook and the Clamshell Alliance as a paradigmatic case, Adair argues that significant citizen mobilizations occurred at those nuclear power sites where the alliance between the state and the nuclear industry was the strongest, the most visible, and where both entities committed substantial political and economic resources to save the nuclear plant. This joint mobilization and “power condensation” by the state and industry created a simultaneous collective perception of injustice among potential activists, leading to movement emergence and sustained activism. Scholarship on social movements is, by definition, concerned primarily with collective action. But when confronted with injustices, and before the choice to engage in collective action is made, individual citizens consider multiple options. As Christopher Pickvance demonstrates in his article comparing responses to housing dissatisfaction in Budapest and Moscow, the arena of choice includes inaction, individual action and collective action. Pickvance advances a model in which the choice between these three modes depends upon the political opportunity structure, the ease of resource mobilization, the degree of structured inequality, the nature of the issue domain, and the results of the individual calculus regarding collective action. His model attempts to theorize inaction, individual action and collective action together rather than separately, as is more often done. Over the last few years many social movement scholars have increasingly turned their attention to the thorny problems associated with conducting research that attempts to measure the outcomes of social movement activity. Even while acknowledging how difficult it is to measure movement outcomes with ix

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accuracy, it still seems fair to argue that this turn in the research road is overdue, that social movement scholars have long taken too much for granted in ascribing discrete, or even general, effects to social movement actions. Given the relative newness of this development, it is not overly surprising that one broad pattern in the movement outcomes research focuses on the theoretical and methodological difficulties associated with studying outcomes in meaningful ways, as opposed to carrying out detailed case studies that attempt to measure actual outcomes. The paper by Rachel L. Einwohner is part of this tradition. She argues for a micro-sociological approach to outcomes research, one focused on face-to-face interactions between movement activists and their targets. Illustrating her theoretical claims with examples drawn from her own research of animal rights demonstrations and from earlier published studies of protester/target interactions, Einwohner suggests that such an approach contributes positively to being able to make causal claims about the immediate outcomes of protest activity. A shorter, but no less important section on democratization closes this volume, and takes up another historic focus of this research series in the process: social and political change. Paul Chaney and Ralph Fevre contribute an empirically rich paper on democratization developments in Wales in the late 1990s. They focus on the challenges that the “inclusive politics” approach of the period created for the nationalist, and exclusivist political party, Plaid Cymru, the Party of Wales. Based on 280 interviews conducted in 1999 and 2000, Fevre and Chaney document and explain Plaid Cymru’s “civic nationalism” and their dramatic electoral breakthrough into the political mainstream as the party gradually moved from espousing an exclusive nationalist ideology to a more inclusive one. This fascinating paper is not only important for its useful explanations of the growing nationalist social movement in Wales, but for the insights and lessons it contains for scholars and policy makers attempting to understand other nationalist movements in Quebec, Basque Country, Scotland, and elsewhere. The authors test Plaid Cymru’s claims to inclusiveness against the party’s record of engagement with traditionally marginalized sectors of the Welsh polity. The paper on democratization in Wales provides a stark contrast with, while also complementing an equally strong case study of the use of political violence in Mexico during the 1990s as the dominant PRI party faced effective electoral challenges from the left. Sara Schatz demonstrates that political violence, particularly in the form of what she calls “political homicide” has increased substantially over the past decade, and has played a key role in the difficult relations between the formerly dominant political party and the left wing PRD. Considering but eventually rejecting other hypothesis for explaining the reasons

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behind the use of political homicide, Schatz’s careful analysis concludes that this tactic was adopted as a control mechanism with a dual purpose: to protect existing political and economic structural arrangements, and to marginalize and minimize any threats to the same. Given the broad institutionalization of political violence by states and para-state organizations in Sri Lanka, Colombia, the Great Lakes region of Africa, and elsewhere, Schatz’s empirical study and structural analysis of its use in Mexico takes on added theoretical significance. We close this section and the volume itself with a paper by Daniel J. Myers and Alexander J. Buoye on the 1960s campus racial disorders in the United States and their social and economic ties to the local community in which they occurred. The authors set out to correct a glaring problem with previous research into the racial disorders that rocked the United States during this period, namely, the elimination of campus-based disorders from the data sets used to understand the racial riots and disturbances of the period. The campus events were often set aside on the assumption that urban collective violence was related to local economic and social conditions while the campus-based disorders were not. Buoye and Myers demonstrate the falsity of that assumption; in fact, the research they present here shows a strong connection between campus racial disorders and their local economic and political conditions. This is the second volume under my editorship, and like the previous one, the contents of this volume reflect the multiple themes around which this series has been historically oriented. The papers included here contribute to theorybuilding in a number of theoretical literatures which, while they are in fact interrelated, are too often developed in isolation. The case studies in this volume contribute to theories of conflict resolution, collective identity, social movements, issue networks, democratization, collective action, and especially to the robust literature on political process and opportunities. This kind of cross-fertilization was the vision of Louis Kriesberg when he founded this series over twenty years ago; I am pleased that we are able to maintain that vision, thereby advancing multi-disciplinary scholarship across multiple literatures. I extend my gratitude to Jennifer Barress, my research assistant, whose able and gracious work on this volume contributed to its completion.

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Culture and Political Opportunity

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PART I: POLITICAL OPPORTUNITY STRUCTURES, IDENTITY, AND SOCIAL MOVEMENTS

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CULTURE AND POLITICAL OPPORTUNITY: RASTAFARIAN LINKS TO THE JAMAICAN POOR A. E. Gordon Buffonge

ABSTRACT This paper asserts that the Rastafarian movement’s ideological challenge to the Jamaican democracy became meaningful to the Afro-Jamaican poor and political elites for three reasons. First, given their origins among the Afro-Jamaican poor, the Rastafarians were able to construct resonant challenging frames out of a shared history and experience. The Rastafari were able to construct frames that were built upon the experiences and narratives of their target group. These frames tapped pre-existing pan-African visions such as Marcus Garvey’s, the grinding poverty faced by many urban and rural Jamaicans, and benefited from the presence of actual African retentions such as the Revival religion. These emphases made the frames empirically credible and therefore particularly resonant to the Jamaican poor. Second, changing political opportunities, including changes in the political structure and the elevated prestige of the Rastafarian movement led some political elites to use Rastafarian frames to mobilize support among the poor, and helped shift Rastafarian frames from the periphery to the political mainstage. Third, certain mobilizing structures, including the popularity of Rastafarian reggae, augmented the dissemination of Rastafarian precepts. The paper highlights the Political Opportunities, Social Movements, and Democratization, Volume 23, pages 3–35. 2001 by Elsevier Science Ltd. ISBN: 0-7623-0786-2

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interrelationship between culture and structure in a movement’s emergence and success. Structure constrains movement possibilities, but the framing capablilities of movement actors help create maneuverability for the movement.

INTRODUCTION This paper focuses on how the Rastafarian movement, which emerged in communities of desperately poor and uneducated Afro-Jamaicans, managed to have important political consequences for the Jamaican capitalist democracy. The Rastafarians based their ideological challenge of Jamaican political elite preferences upon perceived abuses of the Afro-Jamaican poor by the wider society, and became important articulators of the needs of the poor. A cursory glance at the Jamaican economy and politics from the time of the movement’s emergence in 1930 through the 1960s and 1970s very clearly places the Afro-Jamaican poor at the bottom of both arenas (Bell, 1964; Stephens & Stephens, 1986). This structural location suggests that the Afro-Jamaican poor should have been peripheral to Jamaican politics and unable to influence national political discourse around issues such as state legitimacy and national identity or have a broader impact upon political culture. Indeed a number of Jamaican political scientists have argued quite convincingly that inasmuch as the Jamaican poor have participated in politics, that participation was mainly in the form of political clientelism (Buchanan, 1992; Edie, 1991; Stone, 1980). Nonetheless, the Rastafarians were able to make the concerns of the poor more central to Jamaican politics of the 1960s and 1970s.1 Other inquiries which are focused on the Rastafari address the movement’s origins, development, worldview, and some of its consequences. The now classic studies by M. G. Smith, Roy Augier, and Rex Nettleford (1960), Leonard E. Barrett, Sr. (1977, 1988), Joseph Owens (1976) and George Eaton Simpson (1955) all seek to explain these aspects of the Rastafarian movement. More recent scholarship, by Barry Chevannes (1994, 1995a, b, c) has sought to situate the cultural origins of, and explain the Rastafarian worldview. However, these studies did not examine the Rastafari, their ideology, and their encounter and confrontation with the Jamaican state and political representation system.2 Consequently, the question of how the Rastafarian ideological challenge was politically meaningful has only been answered in part. I have argued elsewhere that the Rastafarians launched their ideological and framing challenge against political elites who argued for the legitimacy of the state and for a particular definition of the Jamaican national identity (Buffonge, 1998). Jamaican political elites based their notions of the state’s legitimacy

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upon full political independence and the Westminster model of parliamentary democracy. They argued that the national identity should be multi-racial and race neutral in its projections, exemplified by the national motto, “Out of many, one.” The Rastafari built their challenge to these positions in part around the state’s origins in colonialism and slavery and upon the persistent devaluation of most African products within Jamaican society. Certainly the Rastafarians had their successes. They accomplished what Sydney Tarrow (1994, 182) calls changes in signification, as some politicians began referring to the poor as “sufferers” and increasing numbers of Jamaicans called their capitalist democracy the “Babylon system.” In fact, the Rasta frame of “Babylon system” became a master frame through which a number of subsequent actors and the Black Power movement examined the Jamaican condition. The purpose of the current paper is not to argue that Rastafarian frames and ideology were effective in completely generating the kinds of change sought by the Rastafari in political life, but to demonstrate how the overall challenge was meaningful to Jamaican citizens. With that in mind, I will examine how the Rastafarians managed to negotiate the Jamaican cultural and structural landscape. How did the Rastafarians move from peripheral afterthoughts to an ideologically important force? How and why were the Rastafarian frames resonant?

THE RASTAFARIANS The Rastafarians have been the longest-lasting and most consistent challengers to the Jamaican state. Their political/ideological challenge, with its religious and cultural roots, was first marshaled against the British colonial incarnation of the state and then adapted after full independence to an attack on the parliamentary democratic state. Throughout its duration, the Rastafarian challenge exhibited shifting degrees of effectiveness, due in part to variations in both the cultural and structural environments in which it unfolded. Quite naturally, the Rastafarian challenge was least effective at the beginning of the movement because this was the moment when its adherents were most peripheral and its claims seemed most preposterous. The Rastafarian movement began in Jamaica shortly after the coronation of the Emperor Haile Selassie I of Ethiopia in November of 1930. The event was featured on the front page of the main Jamaican daily newspaper, The Daily Gleaner, in the November 11th, 1930 issue (Smith et al., 1960). The Emperor’s official titles, some of which were listed in the Bible as those of the Messiah, were “King of Kings, Lord of Lords, Conquering Lion of the Tribe of Judah, Elect of God and Light of the World” (Chevannes, 1994, p. 42). Subsequent 5

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to the newspaper’s publication, a number of individuals in Jamaica began to preach that the Emperor was the Living God. Five men are credited with preaching the new religion. They were Leonard Howell, Joseph Hibbert, Archibald Dunkley, Robert Hinds, and Altamont Reid (Chevannes, 1994). Howell is generally considered the first to preach the doctrine (Smith et al., 1960). These men built up their congregations in the poor black communities of Kingston and in Port Morant of the Parish of St. Thomas. From this beginning the movement has grown in size and reach so that there are Rastafarians as far away as Africa, Europe, Japan, Australia and North America. Rastafarians and other individuals sporting dreadlocks abound in Jamaica and throughout the world today. Membership in the movement is for the most part informal and hinges on the adoption of certain core beliefs and practices. The movement is therefore comprised of a variety of formal, semi-formal, and informal organizations, as well as unaffiliated individuals. Since the 1950s three sects are noteworthy within the overall movement in that, although they do not constitute the majority of the Rastafari, they offer the only examples of centralized and hierarchical organizations among the Rastafari. These are the Bobo led by Prince Emmanuel Edwards;3 Claudius Henry and the African Reform Church; and the Twelve Tribes of Israel led by Vernon Carrington also known as the Prophet Gad (Chevannes, 1995b). In addition, the majority of the Rastafari are members of an overarching quasi-organization called the House of Nyabinghi. Membership and participation in terms of time and money is left to the individual Rasta to decide (Chevannes, 1995b). The actual population numbers of the Rastafarian movement are difficult to pin down. The House of Nyabinghi was not so formal as to have these numbers available; it did not during the period of study (1930–1981) seek to record its numbers. One researcher however puts the movement and its sympathizers at around 300,000 in 1977 out of a population of around 2 million (Barrett, Sr. 1988, 2). An optimistic and influential Rasta leader in the same period felt that 60% of Jamaicans were Rastas or Rasta sympathizers.4 More important to our study than the actual population numbers of the movement is where they were influential. Carl Stone in a 1971 poll of the Kingston-St. Andrew Corporate Area found less than 10% support for the Rastafari among the business and professional classes, but as much as 30% of the lower class (marginals)5 supported the movement (Stephens & Stephens, 1986, 37). The influence of the movement is not restricted to its number of adherents, for as argued by Stone (1973, 156), “[w]hile the proportion of the marginal population which practices Rastafari in its orthodox form . . . is certainly smaller, acceptance of the general interpretation of history and social reality offered by

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the Rastafarians . . . is even greater.” The decision of both the People’s National Party (PNP) and the Jamaica Labor Party (JLP) to employ Rastafarian representations and language in their political campaigns particularly in the 1970s underlines how widespread and influential the Rastafarian framings had become (Waters, 1985). The reach of the movement is greatest among Jamaica’s poor. Given the movement’s ideology, this is not surprising. The majority of blacks in Jamaica are poor, and the majority of the Jamaican poor are black (Bell, 1964, 10). Additionally, although Jamaica experienced rapid economic growth in the 1950s and 1960s, most of the growth was in the capital-intensive sectors and only served to exacerbate the unequal distribution of income (Stephens & Stephens, 1986, 25). Thus the movement existed in communities whose relative wealth was declining. The structural location of the descendants of slaves at the bottom of the economic, social, and political ladders makes sense given the history of slavery. The movement sought to counter that sense of inadequacy by offering an ennobling explanation of the poverty of Afro-Jamaicans. They emphasize the history of enslavement, and placed the modern Afro-Jamaicans, the descendants of slaves, within the biblical context of the “chosen people” oppressed by their enemies.

THE ROLE OF POLITICAL OPPORTUNITY AND CULTURAL CONTEXT IN THE RASTAFARIAN IDEOLOGICAL CHALLENGE To examine how the Rastafari managed to mount a meaningful ideological challenge to the Jamaican democracy, we must uncover what made the challenge possible and the ideology compelling. We must address not only how the movement emerged, but also how its political significance increased. Additionally, we must investigate why Rastafarian frames resonated with Jamaican citizens. Students of social movements argue that it is political opportunities, coupled with sufficient mobilizing structures, and successful framing processes, which make movement emergence possible (McAdam, McCarthy & Zald, 1996, 3–6). As noted above, the Rastafarian movement began rather peripherally in 1930. However, by examining the role each of the preceding factors has played in the movement’s emergence and development, we will discover “how” the Rastafarians challenged the Jamaican democracy. A couple of points are worth mentioning. First, given the rather unusual length of time between the emergence of this social movement in 1930 and its period of highest influence in the 1960s and 1970s, the kinds of political opportunities and mobilizing 7

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structures which became available to the Rastafari varied. Second, the success of the Rastafari framing processes, as with all successful framings, depended upon a mastery of their cultural environment. Political Opportunities In investigating the political opportunities which facilitated the Rastafarian movement’s emergence, this project utilizes Sidney Tarrow’s recent formulation of the term. Tarrow refers to political opportunities, or rather to the political opportunity structure as “consistent – but not necessarily formal, permanent, or national – signals to social or political actors which either encourage or discourage them to use their internal resources to form social movements” (Tarrow, 1996, 54). Four broad dimensions of political opportunity structures have recently been delineated in the literature and each helps explain why the Rastafarians emerged when they did. They are: (1) The relative openness or closure of the institutionalized political system; (2) The stability of that broad set of elite alignments that typically undergird a polity; (3) The presence of elite allies; (4) The state’s capacity and propensity for repression (McAdam et al., 1996, 10). The author uses these dimensions of political opportunity structure primarily to examine social movement formation. Examining these dimensions in the Jamaican context however will not only reveal conditions that allowed the Rastafarian movement to form, but also the conditions which allowed the Rastafarian ideological challenge to grow. At the time of the Rastafarian movement’s emergence in the early 1930s, Jamaica was still under Crown Colony rule by the British. Therefore the political system was closed and did not offer the Afro-Jamaican poor an avenue for representation. The worker rebellions in 1938 ultimately led to limited self-government and universal suffrage for Jamaica in 1944 and then to full independence in 1962. Therefore as a result of this transition from Crown Colony government to internal self-rule, elective political representation was open to the Afro-Jamaican poor. However, the underlying poverty that was a part of these communities remained in place throughout this period, with the income disparity between rich and poor increasing across the years (Stephens & Stephens, 1986, 25). Because of this increasing income discrepancy, and despite the change in the voting status of citizens, Afro-Jamaicans might still argue that the difficult economic circumstances that led to the 1930s rebellions remained in place.

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The Rastafarian movement emerged in these difficult economic circumstances, survived, and eventually began to flourish. Initially, the Colonial state did repress the movement by arresting a number of its leaders. Many of the movement’s early leaders including Leonard Howell, Robert Hinds, Archibald Dunkley, and Joseph Hibbert were arrested and convicted of sedition in the 1930s (Barrett, Sr., 1988, 86). However, the repression brought against the movement by the state was insufficient to eradicate it. The movement, perhaps because it possessed the fervor/devotion of religion, continued to survive on the periphery. Upon his release from prison, in an effort to avoid harassment from police, Leonard Howell established a Rastafarian commune in the rural hills near Sligoville called Pinnacle. Pinnacle was raided by the police; the Rastafarians were arrested in 1941 and again in 1954 (Barrett, Sr., 1988, 86–88). In the 1954 arrests the Rastafarians were acquitted as nuisances, but the Pinnacle commune was destroyed by the police; these Rastafarians then settled in the slums of Kingston.6 The eradication of the Pinnacle settlement forced the Rastas into close proximity with the urban poor. Since the central Rastafarian method of ideological dissemination and religious conversion involves face to face sessions with others, the government unwittingly increased the Rastafarian likelihood of success. The Afro-Jamaican poor were, after all, the group most susceptible to Rasta philosophy. Although by 1944 the political process was open to the Afro-Jamaican poor, the political system remained completely closed to the Rastafari until the University Report of 1960. Up through the 1950s, Jamaican society had its own definite opinions about Rastas, considering them to be “psychopaths, criminals, and undesirables” (Chevannes, 1977, 242). Ironically, a series of actions in the 1950s involving some Rastafarians in part confirmed some of society’s opinions of the brethren, but at the same time created an opportunity for society to get a more accurate reading of the movement as a whole. In 1958 Prince Emmanuel Edwards called a Rastafarian convention, at the end of which there was to be repatriation to Africa. A year later, Claudius Henry made a similar claim. Both bids at repatriation failed, but they did constitute the beginning of both Claudius Henry’s and Prince Emmanuel’s respective organizations. On the heels of this failure with repatriation, the Jamaican security forces uncovered weapons at Henry’s headquarters in Kingston, and Henry’s son was captured with a small band of guerrillas in the Red Hills above Kingston. The capture of the young Henry and the other guerrillas in training took several days; it cost the lives of two British soldiers of the West India Regiment and Royal Hampshires (Lacey, 1977, 83). This action startled Jamaican society; Jamaican citizens had not taken up arms against the state since Paul Bogle’s uprising in 1865. With the popular mood increasingly concerned with the 9

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“dangers” presented by the Rastafarians, a number of elder brethren approached the University Chancellor and asked him to commission a study on the movement in order to correct the misperceptions about the Rastafari. The Rastafarian movement had no significant elite allies until 1960. The University report changed this. The Rastafari were interested in giving the public an accurate view of the movement, with a special interest in the public’s awareness of the movement’s non-violence. Three university scholars conducted the study, which looked into the doctrines and social conditions of the movement. The Report on the Rastafari Movement in Kingston, Jamaica was submitted to, and accepted by, Premier Norman Manley. The Report urged the police to “leave the innocent Ras Tafari brethren alone, stop cutting off their hair, stop moving them on, stop arresting them on minor pretexts, and stop beating them up.” (Smith et al., 1960, 36) The Report also made a series of recommendations designed to address the living conditions and goals of the Rastafarian movement. The Report legitimated the Rastafarians as members of Jamaican society. Despite opposition from other elites, Premier Manley took a number of these recommendations seriously. Premier Manley’s acceptance of the University Report and implementation of some of its recommendations improved the movement’s image in Jamaica. By carrying out the Report’s recommendation of a mission to Africa, which included some Rastafari in the mission, Manley had given the movement some national credibility. The visit of Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie in 1966, and his wild reception among the Afro-Jamaican poor also served to highlight and justify the movement’s African focus. The Rastafari and the Afro-Jamaican poor overran the airport and welcoming ceremony with cries of “This is our day! This is our God! It is him we come to see! It is we who welcome him (Barrett, Sr. 1988, 159)!” Other cries included, “The day has come. God is with us. Let me touch the hem of his garment” (Owens, 1976, 250–252). The reception for the Emperor at King’s House included Rastafarians, wealthy Jamaicans, and poor Jamaicans as well (Owens, 1976). While this social mix did not play at future functions throughout the island, a barrier had been breached. The Rastafarians were being included in Jamaican society in a way they had not been before. The visit increased the movement’s social prestige and at the same time served to underline the Rastafarian movement as the premier indigenous Afro-centrists. What had begun as a fringe group of imagined lunatics and criminals now began to gain a greater measure of support in the wider society. The international reputation of the Rastafarians was helped, or rather to a large extent cultivated, by the success of a number of Rastafarian reggae musicians. Men like Bob Marley and Peter Tosh were able to take the

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Rastafarian worldview to the world community. Their music was well received and respected in international circles. This reception in turn, served to elevate perceptions of the music and the Rastas at home, many Jamaicans long having looked to the West for political and cultural guidance. The Rodney Riot of October 1968 was also important in outlining new opportunities and allies for the Rastafari. Walter Rodney, a Lecturer in History at the University of West Indies, and also the instigator of the Black Power Movement in Jamaica (Chevannes, 1977, 249), was not allowed to re-enter the country after a conference in Canada. The JLP government of Prime Minister Hugh Shearer considered Rodney a sufficient threat, accusing him of being a communist who had visited three communist countries in 1962 alone and of being “actively engaged in organizing groups of semi-illiterates and unemployed for avowed revolutionary purposes” (Keith & Keith, 1992, 192). The Prime Minister clearly overstated the Rodney threat. However, Rodney did lecture on African History and Black Power among the students at the University of the West Indies campus, among the urban poor, among the middle class clubs, and among the Rastafari. He argued that intellectuals and these other groups of individuals should be allied in the struggle for Black Power. The Rodney exclusion from Jamaica resulted in a student march into the capital, which escalated into a riot of some elements of the urban poor in Kingston (Girvan, 1967, 59–61). Rodney’s argument about how to develop Black Power and deal with the racial problems in Jamaica was built in part upon Rastafarian analyses. However, his philosophy also constituted an opportunity for the movement to expand its influence. Rodney posed the question, “How do we break out of this Babylonian Captivity?” (Girvan, 1967, 62). He suggested that “the black academic must attach himself to the activity of the black masses” (Girvan, 1967, 63). Rodney himself demonstrated this approach in his discussions with the Rastafari brethren in impoverished sections of Kingston. Rodney states that “I have sat on a little oil drum, rusty and in the midst of garbage, and some Black Brothers7 and I have grounded8 together” (Girvan, 1967, 64). Despite his exclusion from Jamaica, Rodney’s desire and example that the Rastafarians be included in a movement with the intelligentsia came to fruition with the Abeng9 group. Building on Rodney’s suggestion of creating links with the poor as a way to advance the cause of Black Power, the weekly Abeng was first published in February of 1969. It promoted themes of black nationalism and linked Rastafari doctrine and reggae music with issues of racial and class conflict (Waters, 1985, p. 96). Abeng ended publication in October of 1969 when the printery was destroyed in a suspicious fire (Waters, 1985, 97). It had a total national circulation of 20,000 (Waters, 1985, 97–98). 11

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The impact of the Abeng group on other groups in Jamaican society is revealed by its members joining a variety of organizations. Some members formed Marxist-Leninist groups, such as the Workers Liberation League, the Communist Party of Jamaica, and the Independent Trade Unions Advisory Council (Gray, 1991, 188). Another group of members formed the PNP Youth Organization and the Youth Forces for National Liberation. Rastafarians in the Abeng group joined the Rastafarian group Twelve Tribes. D. K. Duncan and Arnold Bertram, prominent members of the Abeng group joined the People’s National Party (PNP) (Gray, 1991, 218). Thus the Rasta-influenced politics of the Abeng group spilled over into a number of political organizations, including the PNP. The Rastafarian movement also became important in the PNP campaign for office against the JLP government. The PNP and Jamaica Labor Party (JLP) attempts during electoral contests to cash in on the Rastafarian links to the Afro-Jamaican poor presented an opportunity for movement growth. As early as the 1967 election two JLP candidates, one of them the future Prime Minister Edward Seaga, were employing Rastafarian symbols as part of their political campaigns (Waters, 1985, 83). By the 1972 election, Rastafarian symbolism and reggae music were in heavy use by the opposition PNP. Opposition leader Michael Manley had visited the Emperor Haile Selassie and returned with a walking stick which he called the “Rod of Correction”10 and at the same time, had assumed the biblical appellation, Joshua. Prime Minister Hugh Shearer of the JLP would on occasion speak in the adjusted terms of the Rastafari (Waters, 1985, 123). Both parties used the language and symbols of the Rastafarian movement and reggae music as part of their campaigns from the 1972 elections through to 1980 (Waters, 1985, 291–296). The PNP, which had by this time cast itself as the party of the poor, was the more vigorous in its use of Rastafarian tools. The use of Rastafarian symbols and language by political elites in the 1970s served to legitimate some aspects of the Rastafarian ideology in mainstream Jamaican society. Because of the movement’s solid identification with the Jamaican poor, the PNP, particularly in its 1972 electoral challenge, successfully employed Rastafarian frames to win a larger section of the popular vote.11 However, to achieve this, the PNP had to project Rastafarian language throughout a national campaign. The party therefore became, in part, a transmitter of some aspect of the Rastafarian message. The movement began in obscurity without allies. However, over the decades, allies became available. While the Rastafari were not uniformly supported by elites, particular elites began to see either the merits of the Rastafarian positions or the usefulness of the Rasta presence. Partly because of these new

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perceptions of the Rastafarians, the state reduced its repressive actions against the Rastafari. Thus, a variety of political opportunities allowed for the emergence and survival of the Rastafarian movement. Additionally, political opportunities provided the ideological space for the Rastafarian challenge. What began in the 1930s as a minor poor people’s movement also found a number of international aids for a rise in its prestige (Haile Selassie’s visit, and Bob Marley’s international success) and local actors within the political mainstream who added credibility to some of the Rastafarian positions. Together, these factors served to elevate the Rastafarian ideological challenge. Mobilizing Structures The Rastafarian movement and its mobilizing structures were never particularly suited to a classical political challenge. This was in part due to the movement’s religious origins, and their perception of the political structure as derived from Babylonian evil. The perceived origins of the Jamaican state left most Rastafarians unwilling to participate in its activities in any formal sense. There was never any canvassing of homes for votes on candidates or issues or any action of that nature. Despite the non-traditional and religious nature of the challenge, the Rastas still managed to impact the political system. Ironically the Rastafarian challenge was political because of the nature of their religion. Their notion of a black God and chosen people was the starting point of a race-based critique and challenge to the socio-political orthodoxy. Their mobilizing structures were therefore built upon the exposition of this worldview. These “collective vehicles, informal as well as formal, through which [the Rastafarians] mobilize[d] and engage[d] in collective action” (McAdam et al., 1996, 3) included face to face proselytization in communities of the urban and rural poor, the performance of reggae music and public drummings, and the wearing of dreadlocks and other African-derived forms of style. While information from the 1930s through the 1950s was transmitted primarily in face to face “reasoning” sessions, and in conversations with neighbors and acquaintances throughout communities of the poor, Rastafarian musicians have more recently been able to transmit their message through many kinds of media. Consequently, the Rastafarian message which in earlier times was not only hampered by the seeming ridiculousness of their claims in the pre-1960s cultural climate, but also by the limited availability of their worldview to a wide audience, gained greater acceptance after 1960. Subsequent to the University report, the Rastafari were able to piggyback their message on the work of some 13

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academics. Additionally, the work of the Black Power movement, the Abeng group, and the political parties, served to help disseminate the Rastafarian “truths.” Thus an improvement in the availability of more varied and farreaching mobilizing structures also contributed to the success of the movement’s challenge. Culture, Framing, and the Rastafarian Movement The mobilizational capacity and resonance of the Rastafarian ideological challenge is to a great extent dependent on the meanings Rastafarian frames have for Jamaican citizens, particularly the Afro-Jamaican poor. To understand the movement it must be placed in its particular cultural context, for it is the cultural environment which determines each frame’s meanings. Frames constitute a manipulation of the broader elements of culture by a social movement in order to project to the wider populace a particular ideology or worldview. Whether these frames will be effective depends upon how adept social movement actors are at frame construction. Frames Building on the work of Erving Goffman (1974), David Snow and his colleagues developed the use of the term “frame” for social movement scholars who sought to analyze movement ideologies. Elaborating on their earlier work with their collaborators (Snow, Rochford, Jr., Worden & Benford, 1986, 464), Snow and Benford (1992, 133–155) outline three characteristic features of collective action frames. The first listed is punctuation where the frame “underscore[s] or embellish[es] the seriousness and injustice of a social condition” or “redefine[s] as unjust and immoral what was previously seen as unfortunate but perhaps tolerable.” The second characteristic feature is attribution. It is either diagnostic in that the frame identifies a problem, or prognostic in that it provides a solution to a problem. The final feature listed is articulation through which the frame can align seemingly unrelated “events and experiences so that they hang together in a relatively unified and meaningful fashion.” Snow and Benford also offer methods for examining the resonance of master frames. Their approach is similarly useful for examining the resonance of non-master frames as well. The following questions, if answered in the affirmative, point to the resonance of a particular frame. Is the frame, or rather the frame’s diagnosis, empirically credible to the targets of its mobilization efforts? (Snow & Benford, 1992, 140). Are the problems framed commensurable with the experiences of those targeted for mobilization? (Snow & Benford, 1992, 141). And finally does the frame possess an ideational centrality or a narrative

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fidelity with the “extant beliefs, myths, folktales, and the like” that exist in the targeted group’s lives? (Snow & Benford, 1992, 141). While the Rastafari engage in a variety of framings about life in Jamaica, there are a few central frames which remain at the heart of their ideology. There are two frames in particular, both emerging out of Old Testament roots, which emerge as potential master frames12 and are useful for our discussion. First is the Rastafari observation that modern Jamaica and the West, with its history of slavery, colonialism, the impoverishment of people of African origin, is Babylon or the Babylon system. Second is their argument that people of African origin are the true Israelites, the actual chosen people of God, and are victims of an overall Western project which obfuscates and devalues Africans and their true history. Both the Babylon system and the chosenness frames are interrelated and emerge out of the Rastafarian reading of the Bible (King James Version). Having read the Emperor Haile Selassie I, a black African, as the Messiah of the Revelation of St. John the Divine (and as such God), the Rastafarians deduce that if God is black then the chosen people must be black. In the Rastafarian reading, Africans replace modern Jews and Israelis as the true descendants of the Israelites of the Old Testament. These children of Ras Tafari become the progeny of David and Solomon. If, as the Rastafarians argue, people of African origin are the chosen, then they have been imprisoned during their past by the Egyptians and Babylonians. Consequently, through the process of articulation this biblical history of exploitation is married to the history of modern AfroJamaicans in order to construct the Babylon system frame. From this kernel of interpretation springs a whole network of meanings. The modern exile of Africans in the New World parallels the Old Testament enslavement of the Israelites in Babylon and Egypt. The colonial state, the Jamaican democratic state, England, the United States, the West in general are all incarnations of Babylon. Roman Catholicism is damned many times over having been related to the Roman dispersal of the Jews from the Promised Land in 73 A.D., the crucifixion of Christ, and to the denial of the African heritage of the chosen people. The Babylon system frame becomes the lens through which the Rastafari examine their experiences. They view the modern world as a series of interlocking practices which oppress people of African origin and deny the truth of their origins. In the Rastafarian view, the religious, educational, and political systems as they exist in the contemporary period are implicated in the enslavement and oppression of black people. Christian religions for example, either ignore the blackness of God, or project an image of God as white. The educational and political systems reinforce and perpetuate the disadvantages borne by Afro-Jamaicans. 15

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Thus the Babylon system frame punctuates the persistent poverty of AfroJamaicans and demonstrates that of all Jamaicans, it is the people of African origin who are disproportionately impoverished. Bearing in mind that the Rastafari emerged in a climate where domestic and international political elites argued that hard work and equal opportunity would garner benefits for the poor, there was an ongoing perception that the failure of individuals to succeed was related to their own limited intellects and low levels of motivation. The process of punctuation therefore, highlighted both the material and ideological disadvantages borne by Afro-Jamaicans. Working within their Babylon system frame, the Rastafari were able to employ its attributional elements to offer an opposing explanation which blamed the failures of the impoverished on a history of exploitation that was broad-based and ongoing. In the Rastafarian view, the suffering of AfroJamaicans in the economic arena could not be divorced from a wider network of oppressive practices which included religion, politics, and education. In addition, the contemporary difficulties of Jamaicans of African origin could not be disconnected from the suffering of any African/Israelite people in any epoch. Additionally, the Rastafarian diagnosis of the problems facing the Afro-Jamaicans included the process of articulation. The Babylon system frame clearly revealed myriad difficulties in contemporary Jamaican society. The Rastafarians chose to address the problem of living in Jamaica in a number of ways. The Rastafari expected adherents, much in the style of the Old Testament prophets, to vocalize their displeasure with the Jamaican society and expose its shortcomings for all to see and hear. Certainly the work of reggae musicians such as Bob Marley and Peter Tosh was one way in which the message was disseminated. In fact Bob Marley in his song “Babylon System” calls upon Afro-Jamaicans to rebel.13 The development and use of the chosenness frame was one way the Rastafarians attacked the Babylon system’s devaluation of Africans. The suffering of the AfroJamaican poor was already punctuated by the Babylon system frame, but through articulation the chosenness frame linked that suffering with the burdens borne by the ancient Israelites and New World slaves. In fact, building upon that linkage, the Rastafarians used the attributional elements of the frame to diagnose contemporary oppression as the expected hardship of the chosen, with eventual deliverance from that oppression possible and even inevitable, provided the chosen followed the precepts of Jah, Ras Tafari. In the Rastafarian view, Jah had delivered them before as a people and as individuals. While Moses leading the children of Israel out of Egypt remains the preeminent example, the lesser examples of Daniel surviving the lion’s den and Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego unharmed by fire are similarly instructive of Jah’s relationship with his people.

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The evaluation of the resonance of Rastafarian framing in part involves the subsequent discussion of the Rastafarian relationship to their cultural environment. However, in a more immediate sense, the Babylon system frame certainly possessed both empirical credibility and experiential commensurability. The targets of the frame did indeed live in great poverty and comparative disadvantage in Jamaica. The Rastafarian description of the Babylon system and its Eurocentric components was quite simply an explanation of life in Jamaica as it existed for the Afro-Jamaican poor. Both the Babylon system and chosenness frames resonate with Jamaicans because of the role that Christianity and the Bible play in Jamaican society. There are however a greater number of cultural elements which impact frame construction and frame resonance. Culture and Frames Explaining how the Rastafarian framing challenge was meaningful must involve the examination of the tools employed by Jamaicans in making sense of those frames. This necessarily entails an investigation of the broader Jamaican cultural practices upon which the Rastafarians may have intentionally and unintentionally built their frames. In examining the wider culture, the Rastafarian proficiency or good fortune as manipulators and interpreters of the culture of the Jamaican poor will be evaluated. For the purposes of this investigation, I am interested in two levels of cultural analysis. First, I wish to examine the ways in which the larger cultural context within Jamaica constrained or facilitated the effectiveness of Rastafarian frames and attempts at mobilization. The larger culture produces the conditions and circumstances in which the meanings of particular frames take hold. Thus, by examining aspects of Jamaica’s cultural past, we can uncover the cultural climate in which certain meanings develop and resonate. Through this approach, I seek to uncover what culture means to the individuals who live it, and to reveal what practices are acceptable or possible within a given cultural environment. Second, I am interested in how the Rastafarian movement employs the larger culture to create their own meanings. Culture is the “tool kit” from which the Rastafarian movement and other social actors may construct “strategies of action” (Swidler, 1986, 276) and their own movement subculture. It is from this tool kit that the Rastafarian movement must construct the frames and ideology to mobilize opposition to the Jamaican democratic state. In constructing frames, movements adapt, change, reconstruct, and reinterpret the cultural artifacts to their purposes. To investigate culture on this level, the project examines the development of the frames of the Rastafarian movement, and how 17

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they are constructed in opposition to the Jamaican state and political representation system. It also examines how these frames mobilize citizens by tapping culturally seductive issues, employing culturally enticing objects, and promoting culturally resonant actions. Culture as the Larger Context I turn now to examine some of the ways that the larger culture facilitated or constrained the effectiveness of Rastafarian frames. There are certain key features of the larger cultural context that this project considers. I examine the African religious tradition of the Jamaican peasantry, the role of Marcus Garvey among the Jamaican poor, the King James Bible, the memory of slavery, and the role of popular music in Jamaica and the anglophone Caribbean. Among the factors of greatest importance to the explanation of the larger cultural context are the traditions and practices of Jamaican slave/peasant religions which preceded the Rastafarian movement’s emergence and some of which continue to exist today. Barry Chevannes argues convincingly that the Rastafarian movement is in part a new departure from, but also a continuity with, what he terms the “Revival14 worldview” (Chevannes, 1995b, 38–39). This worldview, and the Revival religion itself, grew out of the merging of African-derived and Christianity-derived religious practices15 and religions among Jamaican slaves, and subsequently, the Jamaican peasantry. While certain features of the Revival religion remain tangential to the project at hand, an explicitly political discussion of the process which led to the development of Revival and Rastafarianism is important for our reading of the Rastafarian movement. Revival, with its African retentions and its leaders who made political claims against the Colonial state, primed the Jamaican peasantry and urban poor for the Rastafarian message. Revival grew out of Myal and adapted Christianity. Myal was a Pan-African religion which developed in Jamaica some time before 1760. Monica Schuler (1979) claims that it was instrumental in the planning and execution of the 1760 slave rebellion, also known as the Taki rebellion, which was the first to include multiple tribal groups.16 On the other hand, the influence of Christianity on the Jamaican slave population was negligible until the arrival in the late 18th century of Baptist preachers who were American slaves, and had been brought to Jamaica by Loyalists fleeing the American Revolution (Chevannes, 1995a, 7). By incorporating Christianity into the Myal framework, the Africans created the Native Baptist Movement. Chevannes delineates three reasons for the success of the Native Baptist movement. First, it allowed for “the relative autonomy and charismatic authority of the catechists or class leaders on the fringe of the orthodox Protestantism”

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(Chevannes, 1995a, 8). Sam Sharpe, one of these types of religious figures, led the Great Rebellion of 1831–1832 which is considered by some to be the impetus in 1834 for the abolition of slavery in the British Caribbean. Second, it allowed for the emergence of dual membership. Some Jamaicans were able to maintain membership in the orthodox Baptist church and an independently functioning “post-Myal” group (Chevannes, 1995a). The third reason was the Great Revival of 1860, which had begun in Ireland and ultimately spread to Jamaica. The Revival greatly increased all Christian congregations, but with the rising numbers, came African religious practices such as convulsions and other elements of spirit possession. These elements were denounced as the work of the devil, and these practices found a home outside of the formal churches giving rise to Zion Revival in 1860 and Pukumina in 1861, two variants of modern day Revival (Chevannes, 1995a). Modern day Revival enjoyed its heyday from its inception up until 1920. Its decline coincided with the arrest and institutionalization of one of its leaders Alexander Bedward17 in 1921. Bedward, a successful and popular Revival prophet, had been arrested in 1895 for preaching that blacks should overthrow their white Oppressors, referring to Afro-Jamaicans as the “black wall” who must rise up and destroy the “white wall” that surrounded them (Chevannes, 1994, 39), and who prophesied the end of the world in 1920. Thus we see in Bedward a Revival leader who offers a call to action that is similar to the challenge brought by the Rastafari in more recent times. The preceding discussion of Revival is important in a number of ways. First, we see an unwillingness of the Jamaican peasantry to completely divorce itself from African practices. Like the Rastafari, they have been willing to incorporate elements from Christianity into their religious practices, but it is Christianity or partly Christianity on their terms. A second important feature of our discussion is that religion in these communities seemed to provide an important starting point for rebellion. In Taki’s rebellion of 1760, which lasted from April to September of that year (Patterson, 1967), according to Schuler, Myal provided an opportunity for separate tribal groups to unite in a common cause. The Sam Sharpe Rebellion which lasted two weeks from 1831–1832, was led by the Baptist catechist, and planned within the framework of the Native Baptist Movement. Paul Bogle, leader of the 1865 Morant Bay peasant rebellion, was himself a Baptist preacher. Thus, while religion may be the “opiate of the masses” for Marx, it has a long tradition of providing a structure for resistance and rebellion in Jamaica.18 A third element, which may be taken from the review of Revival, is the tradition of leaders speaking in prophetic and racial terms. The example that has been raised so far is that of Alexander Bedward, but Marcus Garvey was 19

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to have an even more direct effect on the emergence of the Rastafarian movement. Garvey is reported to have prepared the way for the subsequent interpretations of the Emperor Haile Selassie as the Messiah by saying to his followers that they should “Look to Africa, when a black king shall be crowned, for the day of deliverance is near” (Smith et al., 1960, 5). Still the popularity of Bedward portends the arrival and resonance of the Rastafari, with the biblically-based pronouncements of the divinity of Haile Selassie, the righteousness of black people, and the need to fight White domination. A final feature of consequence concerns the traditions of the Jamaican peasantry and their migration to Kingston. The presence of Revival among communities of the Afro-Jamaican poor suggests that the Jamaican peasantry was accustomed to an ongoing religious and ideological conversation which was outside of middle and upper class discussions. The examples of religious leaders such as Sam Sharpe and Paul Bogle who led rebellions against the socio-political order suggests that this peasant religious and ideological discourse had a logic and life of its own, which ran parallel to a counterpart elite discourse which was much more European derived. These conversations and traditions came to the urban areas, particularly Kingston, with the migration of the most destitute elements of the peasantry to the cities. The size of Kingston doubled from 1921 to 1943, and grew by 86 per cent from 1943 to 1960.19 Early adherents of the Rastafarian movement came from this segment of the Jamaican population. In fact, a Rastafarian sect founded in 1949 called Youth Black Faith broke from early Rastafarian leaders like Joseph Hibbert because they employed Revival practices such as attempts to “burn candles”20 for individuals (Chevannes, 1995c, 79–81). It is important to note that the Rastafarians as a whole have come to reject practices such as Revival and Pukumina in much the same way that they reject broader elements of Christianity. It is ironic that a movement so rooted in its affection for Africa, dismisses actual African retentions. This is in part possible because the Rastafarian movement is not African. It is instead a Jamaican construction and product with an African focus. Despite the Rastafarian disapproval of these religious practices, their underlying commitment to Africa in general does in the end elevate all things and practices that are African. The Afro-Jamaican experience with Revival and Pukumina, indeed the larger commitment to religions that are at least in part African, not only paves the way for the Rastafarian movement, but also for the resonance of the movement’s frames. Rastafarian frames in reaching toward both Christianity and Africa are able to build their narrative fidelity upon beliefs, myths and folktales developed by the forbears of modern day Jamaicans. Additionally, the example of Youth Black Faith does suggests that the emphasis of Rastafarian

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frames upon an African focal point was commensurate with the pre-existing experiences and practices of a number of Jamaicans. I have shown some of the ways in which the general Jamaican peasantry and the urban poor had been prepared for the Rastafarian message through the presence of Revivalism in Jamaican society. They were certainly accustomed to an African focus and particular African-derived practices. However, outside of the existence and memory of slavery itself, no single force more properly paved the path of the Rastafari than Marcus Mosiah Garvey. Garvey, who had been born in Jamaica in 1887, founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) and the African Communities League (ACL) in 1914. Having traveled through Europe and been inspired by the nationalisms that eventually led to World War One, Garvey formed these organizations in Jamaica. He had not attracted much notice until the end of the war when he had already migrated to the United States. At the vanguard of the “New Negro” Movement in the Interwar Period, Garvey pursued the racial emancipation of blacks and the political redemption of Africa.21 Garvey promoted racial pride by presenting the historical accomplishments of Africans, promoting entrepreneurship, and building an impressive organization for the dissemination and implementation of his programs. Garvey was imprisoned for fraud in the United States in 1925, and later was granted clemency by President Calvin Coolidge and deported to Jamaica in 1927 (Hill, 1992, xix–xx). On his return to Jamaica, however, Garvey continued his activities. He held a UNIA convention in Jamaica for the first time in March of 1929. Chevannes argues that Garvey planted four broad themes in Jamaican society (Chevannes, 1995, 95–98). The first was “Africa for Africans at home and abroad.” Within this claim, Garvey argued for the return of self-rule to Africa and the end of the European colonial presence there. The racial dignity and worth of Africans everywhere was tied to the notion that they had a land to call their own. Garvey’s second theme was racial unity and his third was self-reliance, but not so much personal self-reliance as racial group self-reliance. Educated blacks, for example, should educate other blacks. The fourth and final theme concerns individual deportment before whites. In this instance, he tried to encourage blacks not to lower their heads and eyes in the presence of whites and mulattos, his argument being that it was appropriate to respect these individuals but that respect should be reciprocal. The Rastafarian worldview mirrors these maxims of Garvey. A final point from Chevannes is useful here. In this community of Jamaicans, historical knowledge is transmitted more often orally than in written form. In such a society, Chevannes argues that myth plays a significant role in the development of a national consciousness (Chevannes, 1995b, 99) and the national 21

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memory. He discovers that a number of myths (Chevannes, 1995b, 100–110) have developed around the memory of Garvey, these in particular among the Rastafari, but no doubt circulating in the wider communities that the Rastafari inhabit. The first of these is that Garvey is divine. Another myth is that Garvey is John the Baptist, having foretold that Haile Selassie is the messiah. The Rastafarians claim that Garvey prophesied “look to Africa for the crowning of a king to know that your redemption is nigh” (Chevannes, 1995a, 10). Two other myths speak of Garvey’s gifts of prophecy and his ability to administer curses. Garvey’s role in Jamaican history then, is also crucial to the resonance of Rastafarian framings. The myths of Garvey, as John the Baptist and as divine, are very much bound within the chosenness frame and the “Haile Selassie as the Christ returned” frame. Marcus Garvey is an essential portion of the ideational elements of Rastafarian frames. Clearly then, both Marcus Garvey and Revival were important in preparing a cultural landscape that made the emergence and development of the Rastafarian movement possible. Both also contributed to an arena in which the Rastafarian afrocentric focus could flourish. The Rastafari themselves acknowledge these broader cultural links. In “So Much Things to Say” Marley (1977) states: . . . I’ll never forget no way they crucified Jesus Christ I’ll never forget no way they sold Marcus Garvey for rice I’ll never forget no way they turned their backs on Paul Bogle So don’t you forget no youths who you are and where you stand in the struggle.

There are however other factors which make the Rastafarian frames compelling. The Bible has long held a central role in the lives of the Jamaican poor. It is important to the Christians, the Revivalists, and the Garveyites in Jamaica. It is also essential to the Rastafari. It is, after all, from this source22 that they divined that the race of God is black, and that the chosen people are likewise black. In “Redemption Song” Marley (1979) asks “[h]ow long shall they kill our prophets while we stand aside and look” and answers that “some say it’s just a part of it, we’ve got to fulfill the book.” The Bible inspires such Marley titles as “Exodus,” “Chant Down Babylon,” “The Heathen,” and “Give Thanks and Praises.”23

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The memory of slavery in Jamaica is also important to the wider cultural context of Rastafarian frames. As such, it shows up repeatedly in Rastafarian framings. It is, of course, in part the parallel of their modern enslavement that links Africans in the New World to the plight of the biblical Israelites. “Redemption Song” offers a harrowing description and memory of capture and the middle passage in its opening lines: Old Pirates, yes, they rob I Sold I to the merchant ships Minutes after they took I From the bottomless pit . . .

“Buffalo Soldier (Marley, 1983) speaks of “being stolen from Africa” and “brought to America.” Finally, in examining the larger cultural context it is useful to note the significant role of popular music in Caribbean societies. Since the end of slavery in the Caribbean, and perhaps before, popular music has been a means to comment on social and political life. Thus there is a tradition of listening to popular music for serious political commentary. Whether it is the calypsonians, the Mighty Sparrow of Trinidad, in “Ah Diggin’ Horrors”24 singing that “cost of living strangling everybody, no food in we house to feed we family” or Arrow of Montserrat in “Wind of Change” asking “Which change coming? Is it communism? Which change coming, is it socialism? It’s difficult to say but change is on its way!” Bob Marley and other Rastafarian performers continued this tradition in such songs as “Johnny Was” (Marley, 1976) which comments on a senseless act of violence in Kingston with the words “Woman hold her head and cry, cause her son has been shot down in the street and died from a stray bullet.” Thus Caribbean popular musicians have demonstrated an ability to critique their societies over time. Bob Marley is aware that his music fulfills this role. He demonstrates this awareness in his song “Chant Down Babylon” (Marley, 1983). Marley argues in the song that “reggae music [will help he and his listeners to] chant down Babylon.” He takes the position that “music you’re the key . . . Bring the voice of the Rastaman/Communicating to everyone.” Reggae music then for Marley is a key tool for bringing the ideological challenge to “Babylon.” I have covered a number of aspects of the larger culture which were important in shaping the environment in which the Rastafarian challenge emerged. The presence of Revival among communities of the Afro-Jamaican poor shows a continuing link to African-derived practices in their lives. It therefore suggests that the Afro-centric emphasis of the Rastafari would have a particular resonance among these individuals. Additionally, the examples of Sam Sharpe 23

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and Paul Bogle reveal that there was a tradition of resistance emerging out of lower-class religious groupings in Jamaica. Therefore, in that sense, the idea of a Rastafarian challenge from below was not particularly novel, religion long being a source of criticism of the society. The presence of Marcus Garvey as a precursor to the Rastafari also prepared the way for Rastafarian criticisms of the Jamaican state and society. Garvey, of course, promoted the worth of Africa and the self-worth of people of African origin, trying to instill in Afro-Jamaicans a sense of pride. Garvey also pointed to those who enslaved Africans and colonized Africa as a main source of the difficulties Afro-Jamaicans faced in his time. Thus, the ideological landscape among communities of the Afro-Jamaican poor had already been prepared for the types of criticisms the Rastafarian movement was to bring against the Jamaican state. The Rastafarian use of the Bible as the source of their arguments was also helpful for conveying their message. The stories of the Bible were transmitted to Jamaicans in churches and schools through anecdotes and expressions. Therefore, the biblically-rooted language of Rastafarian arguments had a certain familiarity for Afro-Jamaicans. Finally, the fact that music was a familiar way of conveying information and arguments throughout the Caribbean proved helpful to the movement’s transmission of its ideology. Rastafarian musicians such as Bob Marley, Peter Tosh, and Bunny Wailer were able to disseminate Rastafarian positions in the local dancehalls, over the local airwaves, as well as internationally. Stephens and Stephens observe that “[r]eggae . . . did . . . become the dominant form of music on the air (in Jamaica) and Marley became a national cultural hero revered by Jamaicans of all parties and classes (Stephens & Stephens, 1986, 55).” Therefore, all of these features of the larger culture served to make the Rastafarian challenge possible and their frames resonant. In fact the wider resonance of Rastafarian frames, and in particular of the Babylon system and chosenness frames, becomes apparent in light of the preceding discussion on the larger culture. By employing these frames the Rastafari tap into a long tradition of religiously rooted opposition and a long history of the oppression of Africans. The chosenness frame articulates the same sense of the special-ness that is apparent in Garvey’s work. Additionally, much of the narrative of Rastafarian framing was based on their readings of the Bible. This linked Rasta frames to broader ongoing narratives within the communities of the Jamaican poor. Similarly, the Rastafarian use of music as an avenue of frame promotion was consistent with the manner in which music was experienced in wider Caribbean society. Consequently, Rastafarian framings were particularly resonant for the Jamaican poor.

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Culture as a “Tool Kit” Just as culture plays the role described above, it also serves as a “tool kit” from which the Rastafari assemble their own meanings. Among the tools that the Rastafari employ are the King James Bible, local metaphors, manipulations of the English language, the wearing of dreadlocks, and lessons from everyday life. As we will see from the analysis of Bob Marley’s songs, many of these tools are used together. This Rastafarian approach to frame construction which employs indigenous narratives and experiences serves to cement the resonance of their frames. Much of the framing is in fact empirically rooted in the lives of the Afro-Jamaican poor. Our discussion of the Bible thus far certainly denotes it as a likely tool of the Rastafari. Bits and pieces of biblical passages and phrasings are employed to convey the weight of a particular point. This is apparent in Marley’s (1977) “Guiltiness”: Guiltiness, rest on their conscience, oh yeah And they lead a life of false pretense, each and every day. These are the big fish, who always try to eat down the small fish the small fish They would do anything to materialize their every wish But wait! Woe to the downpressor, they’ll eat the bread of sorrow Woe to the downpressor, they’ll eat the bread of sad tomorrow . . .

Marley’s language here feels very much like the admonitions of Old Testament prophets, such as Jeremiah. In his words we see hope given to the oppressed today of an ultimate retribution for the powerful in the future. The preceding lyrics of “Guiltiness” also point to additional tools manipulated by Marley and the Rastafari. The use of the words “these are the big fish, who always try to eat down the small fish” builds upon metaphors in play in local conversations. Other metaphors in “Small Axe” (Marley, 1973) warn the “evil men” that “if you are the big tree, we are the small axe sharpened to cut you down” or “whosoever diggeth a pit, shall fall in it.” Another feature which appears in “Guiltiness” is the manipulation of the English language to subvert the deceit and confusion of the colonizer’s tongue.25 The Rastafari use of language also becomes important because they assign a 25

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divine power to words. One Rastafarian claims that “the Word is God, because the greatest weapon is the creation of words (Owens, 1976, 179).” Because the word is “God” the use of words is vitally important to the Rastafari. Thus the word “oppressor” becomes “downpressor” in the song. “Understanding” becomes “overstanding” in Rastafarian discourse. Perhaps most importantly, the Rastafari do not believe in the divinity of Haile Selassie, they know that Selassie is God. “Belief,” to the Rastas, implies doubt. Another aspect of the manipulation of language which appears in Marley’s lyrics is the particular use of the word “I”. The Rastafari emphasize the I as a link to their God, Haile Selassie I. It is also a way for the brethren to avoid the use of the servile “me” (Owens, 1976, 65) and to establish each individual Rastafarian as a separate individual who has discovered through his own study who God is. This special individualism is reflected in the term “I and I” which the Rastafarians use in place of “we” or as a reference to the movement as a whole. This emphasis on I is also reflected in other words. In “So Jah Seh,” Marley (1974) pleads “Inite oneself and love Imanity” which means “unite yourselves and love humanity.” Thus from English and Jamaican creole the Rastafari try to carve a separate language niche for themselves. Marley also employed the lessons of real life to convey the power of his message. The situation and words of “Johnny Was” is a case in point: Woman hold her head and cry Cause her son had been shot down in the street and died From a stray bullet. Woman hold her head and cry Explaining to her was a passerby Who saw the woman cry How can she work it out? Now she knows that the wages of sin is death Gift of Jah is life . . . Johnny was a good man . . . never did a thing wrong

The image of a woman holding her kerchiefed head seems archetypal in our observations of suffering around the world. Thus, immediately there is a familiarity with her story. Marley uses this compelling personal story to convey the difficulty of life in Kingston in the 1960s and 1970s. Another song, “Talkin’ Blues,” underlines once again the hardships of ghetto life to the Jamaican poor. Marley sings that “Cold ground was [his] my bed last night and rock was my pillow too/I’m saying talking blues, talking blues/They say your feet is just too

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big for your shoes.” In “Ambush in the Night,” Marley comments on the difficulties brought on by patron-clientelism in the ghetto. Marley argues that the politicians “through political strategy/They keep us hungry, and when you gonna get some food/Your brother got to be your enemy.” “Johnny Was,” “Ambush in the Night,” and “Talkin’ Blues” emphasize the difficulties of life in the Kingston ghetto. Marley’s ability and willingness to speak about the specific conditions of the lives of the poor places him in an effective position to recommend solutions for their difficulties. The Rastafari also demonstrate a willingness to be creative with language to convey their own particular meanings, and demonstrate their own linguistic separation from the language of the oppressor. Naturally, since a form of English is the primary language they speak, they are incapable of a complete linguistic separation. However, the gesture remains important. Given their linguistic limitations (that is, their reliance on the English language), they use this bit of culture or language as a part of their methods of resistance. Their creativity with the tools that life presents them is again reflected in their wearing of dreadlocks. It demonstrates a separation of these locksmen from the modes of dress and behavior of other Jamaicans. Their self-presentation becomes a representation of their link with Africa and their ongoing struggle against the Babylon system. The Rastafari initially wore their dreadlocks as a way to distinguish themselves as Rastafarians and present themselves for derision from the wider society (Chevannes, 1995c). The first Rastafarians were known as Beardsmen because some of the brethren wore beards like the Emperor Haile Selassie. The Youth Black Faith of young Rastafarians began wearing locks as a way of throwing off the compromising attitude of older members of the movement (Chevannes, 1995c, 87). According to Chevannes, matted hair had been worn before traditionally by derelicts. Thus, the members of Youth Black Faith borrowed this aspect of the derelicts’ appearance to present an image of themselves as shocking, uncompromising, and outside traditional Jamaican society. From this beginning, the Rastafari have managed to imbue themselves and their mission with an heroic component and a sense of noble purpose. In “Ride Natty Ride,” Marley (1979) sings “[d]ready got a job to do and he’s got to fulfill his mission . . . no matter what they do, Natty keep on coming through . . . Natty Dread rides again.” The Rastafarian frames are compelling because they use elements of the immediate cultural environment to construct their arguments against the Babylon system and the methods of action they take against it. They employ passages from the Bible, or local anecdotes and metaphors to convey a particular point. These cultural products are bits of language or styles of presentation with which the Afro-Jamaican poor would already be familiar. In fact the appropriation of 27

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another Babylon frame and sense of chosenness was already in operation as Psalms 137 had long been adapted and performed in slave communities as the song, “By the Rivers of Babylon.” The resonance of their frames is also reflected in their readiness to link the experiences suffered by the Afro-Jamaican poor in their everyday lives within the overall framework of their critique of the Jamaican democratic state. The tools of the Rastafarian challenge to the Jamaican democracy are crafted from materials familiar to the Afro-Jamaican poor. Social movements exist in the context of a specific society and must be analyzed contextually. It is within the context of the culture of that society that citizens come to assign and understand the interpretation of the world they live in. The Rastafarian movement, particularly in its targeting of the Afro-Jamaican poor to rise up and challenge the Jamaican democratic state, drew upon preexisting cultural symbols and traditions to mobilize this group into action.

CONCLUSION: CULTURE, STRUCTURE, AND THE RASTAFARIAN MOVEMENT In discussing how the Rastafarians have moved from peripheral actors on the Jamaican political stage to more influential roles, we have been forced to examine the interrelationship between culture and structure. Whether we are evaluating the political opportunities, mobilizing structures, or framing processes which contributed to the rise of the movement, both cultural and structural components are apparent. At first glance, one may be tempted to define the movement’s success as a feature of the resonance of their frames, but clearly certain structural conditions made it possible for the Rastafarian voices to be heard. The explosion of the Jamaican music industry on the international stage certainly provided a venue for the articulation of the Rasta worldview; however it was the talent of the individual artists, the seductiveness of the music, and the compelling elements of the Rastafarian argument which made reggae such an effective vehicle of proselytization. Moreover, the Jamaican state’s unwillingness and inability to repress or eradicate the Rastafarians was both structural and cultural. It was structural in that the constitutional forms of the Jamaican democracy did not allow the physical elimination of citizens, neither did the Jamaican state possess the institutional apparatus (e.g. a pre-existing secret police) necessary for the execution of such a task. It was cultural because the Rastafarian challenge, seen through the lens of the prevailing elite worldview (Liberalism and Christianity), seemed far-fetched and unthreatening. Certain cultural features of Jamaican society made the emergence of the Rastafarian movement possible. Among those elements was the emergence of

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a challenge to the prevailing order by non-elites and the beginnings of an articulation of a counterclaim based on religious beliefs and practices. The earliest example of this kind of challenge was Taki’s rebellion. Additionally, the slave rebellion led by Native Baptist Sam Sharpe, and the peasant rebellion led by Paul Bogle both fall within this category. Alexander Bedward and of course Marcus Garvey led two of the most significant recent examples of attacks against sitting Jamaican governments. The Rastafarians retained some of the characteristics from these earlier challenges, building their critique upon religion and race. In fact, the duration of the Rastafarian challenge was in large part due to its religious underpinning. While the Rastafari attempt to articulate their positions as a logical form of argumentation, their attachment to its precepts go beyond an intellectual commitment. Their logical deductions may be the beginning of their religious knowledge, but the knowledge is deeply linked to religious faith. The individual Rastafarian’s affection for the precepts of his faith is beyond the reach of argumentation, making it difficult for the Jamaican state to eradicate either the movement or their beliefs. Thus the Rastafarian critique lay dormant in Jamaican society until that time when the broader culture and political structure became more receptive to it. This religious foundation does suggest that the Rastafarian challenge will endure. The Rastafarians also moved beyond the models that history had given them. While maintaining the unifying qualities of religion, the Rastafarians for example, attempted to shift away from individual leadership of the movement to more individuated responsibilities for the articulation of the overall movement vision. All individual Rastafarians were expected to project their versions of the Rastafarian worldview. The acephalous nature of the Rastafarian movement both hindered and aided the movement’s success and longevity. On one hand, there was never a tightly articulated and systematic strategy by which the movement outlined and pursued its goals. Therefore the primary ambitions of Rastafarian individuals and sub-groups often varied and progress on particular projects was often fragmented and limited. Consequently, it was not always apparent that the movement was achieving its objectives. On the other hand, each group of Rastafarians maintained their commitment to Rastafarianism beyond the ebb and flow of the movement’s broader appeal. The absence of a central leadership meant the state was never able to target a set of movement elites in order to eradicate the movement. The broad-based nature of Rastafarian goals allowed for some successes, such as a more Africanist orientation in Jamaican public life, and setbacks such as a no full scale Rastafarian repatriation to Africa, without the collapse of the movement’s 29

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challenge. The numerous and varied cells of Rastafari suggest that the movements critique will persist. In structural terms, people of African origin have remained at the bottom of Jamaican society. Certainly, between the time of the movement’s emergence in the early 1930s and the 1960s and 1970s, the lot of Afro-Jamaicans had improved. However, as a group they remained largely poor and disadvantaged relative to other social groups. Thus the Rastafarian articulation of the burdens of the Afro-Jamaican poor remained accurate and resonated with many Jamaicans. From within the cultural arena, Rastafarian frames punctuated the structural disadvantages faced by the Afro-Jamaican poor. This was possible because Rasta frames emerged out of the experiences and day to day lives of the Jamaican poor. Certainly there were metaphorical components based in biblical history and part of ongoing and pre-existing frames in communities of the poor. However, Rasta frames were largely about people and situations known to this set of Jamaicans. In many instances, the Rastafarian audience knew the whole or real story that gave rise to the frame. This link was at the heart of the resonance of Rasta frames in urban and rural Jamaica. Some political elite articulations of what was transpiring and would transpire in Jamaica differed from the Rastafarian vision. Indigenous democratic political elites argued that the difficulties of the poor would be addressed once Jamaica was rid of the Colonial government and pursued some version of liberalism and capitalism. By the mid-1960s, however, some political elites and other social movements began to seek alternative approaches to the problems which confronted Jamaica. They did not have far to look as the Rastafarian critique represented the longest lasting, most far-reaching indigenous ideology available. The resonance of the Rasta ideology among the poor led political elites and other social movements to employ elements of the Rastafarian critique as they sought Jamaican answers and support for ongoing Jamaican social and economic problems. Additionally, due to among other things, the University Report, the visit of the Emperor Haile Selassie and the teachings of Walter Rodney, the public perception of the movement improved dramatically from 1930s to the 1970s. Thus the persistence of structural hardships for the poor along with changes in the movement’s prestige eventually helped create the elite allies who would aid the Rastafarian challenge. In the study of a movement’s emergence and success, it is difficult if not impossible to separate the role of the cultural and structural components. In fact, political opportunities for challenge emerge in both the cultural and structural arenas. The success of mobilizing structures depends a great deal on both their cultural resonance and their exploitation of structural realities. Successful

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frames are often based on their ability to highlight structural unfairness in ways that are culturally meaningful. However, if movement actors continue to seek particular outcomes, they will need to master their cultural universe if they are to become attractive to potential allies, build an effective organization, and negotiate the structural labyrinth in which they are embedded.

NOTES 1. I have spoken about the nature and effectiveness of the Rastafarian ideological challenge elsewhere, see Buffonge (1998). 2. I borrow the term from Jenkins and Klandermans (1995, 5, 15). The authors define the political representation system as “the institutionalized set of organizations that claim to represent and aggregate the interests of various social interests. This places political parties, interest associations, and various social institutions claiming to represent broad constituencies at the center of the interface between the state and civil society.” 3. The Prince has been called Prince Edward C. Edwards and Edward Emmanuel in different sources. 4. Ras Sam Brown in Barrett (1988, 2). 5. This collection of marginally employed and unemployed account for 34–37% of the population. In Stephens and Stephens (1986, 37). 6. There were already Rastafarians living in Kingston, however the inhabitants of Pinnacle certainly represented a new influx of Rastafarians who were used to engaging the state, see Barrett, Sr. (1988, 86–88). 7. “Black brothers” is one of Rodney’s terms for the Rastafari, see Girvan (1976, 67). 8. “Grounding” is a Rastafarian term meaning to discuss. 9. The Abeng group, a collection of Black Power advocates, Marxist-Leninists, and Rastafarians produced a weekly paper, also called Abeng, which addressed the issues of the Afro-Jamaican poor. 10. During the campaign, after burglars broke into Manley’s house, there was some concern for the “Rod’s” whereabouts. The next day Seaga claimed to have found the “Rod,” arguing that without it Manley had lost his power. A few days later, Manley held a meeting to produce, before the cheering crowd, the true “Rod,” see Waters (1985, 111–112). 11. Carl Stone finds that the vote of the Rastafari-influenced youth proved decisive in Michael Manley’s victory in the 1972 election, see Chevannes (1995a, 14). 12. “. . . [M]aster frames perform the same function in collective action as movement-specific collective action frames, but they do so on a larger scale,” in Snow and Benford (1992, 138). 13. The majority of the Rastafari profess non-violence and Marley’s call to rebellion must be read with that precept in mind. 14. “Revival” takes its name from the “Great Revival.” This was a Christian movement which began in Ireland and spread to Jamaica in 1860, see Chevannes (1995a, 8). 15. Chevannes makes these arguments in Chevannes (1994) and (1995a). 16. Most of the subsequent discussion of the development of Revival is taken from Chevannes (1995a, 6). 31

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17. In 1921 Bedward was arrested and placed in a mental institution where he died. 18. The fact that religion is used in this way, is not exceptional for Africans in the New World. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and the Reverend Jesse Jackson, all provide American examples of the same. The work of Diane Austin-Broos (1997) on Pentecostalism in Jamaica bears out this observation. 19. Chevannes (1994, 16) is citing Clarke (1975). 20. To “burn candles” for someone means to be willing to employ the services of an obeahman who uses a variety of fetishes to adversely impact the life of that individual. This is part of the Revival tradition, see Chevannes (1995c, 80). 21. The preceding discussion of Garvey’s life is based on Hill (1992). 22. Song of Solomon 1:5–6 (King James Version.). “I am black, but comely, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, as the tents of Kedar, as the curtains of Solomon. Look not upon me because I am black . . .” The Rastafari use passages such as this to determine that King Solomon, and consequently, the children of Israel, were black. 23. Bob Marley, “Exodus” and “The Heathen” from the Exodus album in 1977, and “Give Thanks and Praises” and “Chant Down Babylon” from the posthumous Confrontation in 1983. 24. In the Caribbean of the late 1970s “ah diggin’ horrors” was a way to say I am enduring hard times. 25. For a more in depth discussion of Rastafarian language see the work of Pollard (1985), Alleyne (1988), and Homiak (1995).

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I am grateful to Nancy Bermeo and Kathryn Oleson for their comments and suggestions on the various drafts of the manuscript. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the sixth annual conference of Socialism, Capitalism, and Democracy of the International Political Science Association. I would also like to thank the anonymous reviewers who commented upon the paper. I thank Research in Social Movements, Conflicts and Change editor Patrick Coy for his assistance.

REFERENCES Alleyne, M. (1988). Roots of Jamaican culture. London: Pluto. Austin-Broos, D. J. (1997). Jamaica genesis: Religion and the politics of moral orders. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press. Barrett, Sr., L. E. (1977, 1988). The Rastafarians. Boston: Beacon Press. The Holy Bible, King James version. Bell, W. (1964). Jamaican leaders: Political attitudes in a new nation. Berkeley: University of California Press. Benford, R. D. (1997). An insider’s critique of the social movement framing perspective. Sociological Inquiry, 67, 409–430. Buchanan, P. L. (1992). Community development in the ‘ranking’ economy: A socio-economic study of the Jamaican ghetto. Kingston, Jamaica: College of Arts, Science and Technology.

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Buffonge, A. E. G. (1998). Babylon besieged: the rastafarian challenge to Jamaican democracy. Unpublished doctoral. dissertation. Princeton University. Campbell, H. (1987). Rasta and resistance: From Marcus Garvey to Walter Rodney. Trenton, New Jersey: Africa World Press. Chevannes, B. (1977). The literature of rastafari. Social and Economic Studies, 26(1), 239–262. Chevannes, B. (1994). Rastafari: Roots and ideology. Syracuse, New York: Syracuse University Press. Chevannes, B. (1995a). Introducing the native religions of Jamaica. In: B. Chevannes (Ed.), Rastafari and Other African-Caribbean Worldviews (pp. 1–19). London: Macmillan Press, Ltd. Chevannes, B. (1995b). New approach to the rastafari. In: B. Chevannes (Ed.), Rastafari and Other African-Caribbean Worldviews (pp. 20–42). London: Macmillan Press, Ltd. Chevannes, B. (1995c). The origin of the dreadlocks. In: B. Chevannes (Ed.), Rastafari and Other African-Caribbean Worldviews (pp. 77–96). London: Macmillan Press, Ltd. Clarke, C. (1975). Kingston, Jamaica: Urban development and social change, 1692–1962. Berkeley: University of California Press. Edie, C. J. (1991). Democracy by default: Dependency and clientelism in Jamaica. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc. Goffman, E. (1974). Frame analysis. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Girvan, N. (1967). After Rodney – the politics of student protest in Jamaica. New World Quarterly, 4, 3, 59–68. Gray, O. (1991). Radicalism and social change in Jamaica, 1960–1972. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press. Hill, R. A. (1992). Introduction. In: A. Jacques-Garvey (Ed.), Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey. New York: Atheneum. Homiak, J. (1995). Dub history: Soundings on rastafari livity and language. In: B. Chevannes (Ed.), Rastafari and Other African-Caribbean Worldviews (pp. 127–181). London: Macmillan Press, Ltd. Jenkins, J. C. (1995). Social movements, political representation, and the state: An agenda and comparative framework. In: J. C. Jenkins & B. Klandermans (Eds), The Politics of Social Protest: Comparative Perspectives on States and Social Movements (pp. 14–35). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Jenkins, J. C., & Klandermans, B. (Eds) (1995). The Politics of Social Protest: Comparative Perspectives on States and Social Movements. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Jenkins, J. C., & Klandermans, B. (1995). The politics of social protest. In: J. C. Jenkins & B. Klandermans (Eds), The Politics of Social Protest: Comparative Perspectives on States and Social Movements (pp. 3–13). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Keith, N. W., & Keith, N. Z. (1992). The social origins of democratic socialism in Jamaica. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Klandermans, B. (1988). The formation and mobilization of consensus. In: B. Klandermans, H. Kriesi & S. Tarrow (Eds), From Structure to Action: Comparing Movement Participation across Cultures, 1 (pp. 173–196). Greenwich, Conn.: International Social Movement Research, JAI Press. Lacey, T. (1977). Violence and politics in Jamaica, 1960–1970: Internal security in a developing country. Totowa, NJ.: Frank Cass and Company. McAdam, D., McCarthy, J. D., & Zald, M. N. (1996). Introduction. In: D. McAdam, J. D. McCarthy & M. N. Zald (Eds), Comparative Perspectives on Social Movements: Political Opportunities, Mobilizing Structures, and Cultural Framings (pp. 1–20). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Owens, J. (1976). Dread: The rastafarians of Jamaica. Kingston: Sangster. Patterson, O. (1967). The sociology of slavery: An analysis of the origins, development and structure of negro slave society in Jamaica. Rutherford, NJ: Farleigh Dickinson University Press. Pollard, V. (1985). Dread talk – The speech of the rastafarian in Jamaica. Caribbean Quarterly Monograph, 32–41. Schuler, M. (1979). Myalism and the african religious tradition in Jamaica. In: M. Crahan & F. W. Knight (Eds), Africa and the Caribbean: The Legacies of Link. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Simpson, G. E. (1955). Political cultism in West Kingston, Jamaica. Social and Economic Studies, 4(2), 321–442. Small, R. (1971). Introduction. In: W. Rodney. (Ed.), The Groundings with my Brothers. London: The Bogle-L’Ouverture Publications. Smith, M. G., Augier, R., & Nettleford, R. (1960). Report on the rastafari movement in Kingston, Jamaica. Kingston, Jamaica: Institute of Social and Economic Research. Snow, D. A., & Benford, R. D. (1992) Master frames and cycles of protest. In: A. D. Morris & C. M. Mueller (Eds), Frontiers in Social Movement Theory. New Haven: Yale University Press. Snow, D. A., Rochford, Jr., E. B., Worden, S. K., & Benford, R. D. (1986). Frame alignment processes, micromobilization, and movement participation. American Sociological Review, 51, 464–481. Stephens, E. H., & Stephens, J. D. (1986). Democratic socialism in Jamaica: The political movement and social transformation in dependent capitalism. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Stone, C. (1973). Class, race and political behavior in urban Jamaica. Mona, Jamaica: Institute of Social and Economic Research, University of the West Indies. Stone, C. (1980). Democracy and clientelism in Jamaica. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, Inc. Swidler, A. (1986). Culture in action: Symbols and strategies. American Sociological Review, 51, 273–286. Tarrow, S. (1994). Power in movement: Social movements, collective action and politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Tarrow, S. (1996). States and opportunities: The political structuring of social movements. In: D. McAdam, J. D. McCarthy & M. N. Zald (Eds), Comparative Perspectives on Social Movements: Political Opportunities, Mobilizing Structures, and Cultural Framings (pp. 41–61). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Waters, A. M. (1985). Race, class, and political symbols: Rastafari and reggae in Jamaican politics. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books. White, T. (1991). Catch a fire: The life of Bob Marley. London: Omnibus Press. Zald, M. N. (1996). Culture, ideology, and strategic framing. In: D. McAdam, J. D. McCarthy & M. N. Zald (Eds), Comparative Perspectives on Social Movements: Political Opportunities, Mobilizing Structures, and Cultural Framings (pp. 261–274) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Musical Recordings of Bob Marley Marley, Marley, Marley, Marley,

B. B. B. B.

(1973). (1983). (1977). (1974).

Burnin’. United Kingdom: Island. Confrontation. United Kingdom: Island. Exodus. United Kingdom: Island. Natty Dread. United Kingdom: Island.

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Marley, B. (1976). Rastaman Vibration. United Kingdom: Island. Marley, B. (1992). Songs of Freedom. Jamaica: Tuff Gong. Marley, B. (1979). Survival. United Kingdom: Island.

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COMPROMISE IN SOUTH AFRICA: CLASS RELATIONS, POLITICAL OPPORTUNITIES, AND THE CONTEXTUALIZED “RIPE MOMENT” FOR RESOLUTION Kristin Marsh

ABSTRACT South Africa’s struggle against apartheid illustrates a theory of compromised revolution. Compromise is associated with three levels of analysis: the immediate level of bargaining conditions; the structural level of political opportunities; and the societal level of class relations. By the late 1980s in South Africa, all parties were increasingly aware of an emergent military stalemate, and both sides saw negotiation as the only way out of indefinite war. Beyond this proximate level of analysis, shifting class interests and political instability during heightened financial crisis shaped cost assessments and political realignments within the National Party government. Movement and government efficacy fluctuated in response to one another during the 1980s, effecting a shift in the balance of power that increasingly favored the opposition and opened the possibility of negotiations. Attention to the interplay between class relations and political alignments in shaping the “ripe moment” for resolution highlights Political Opportunities, Social Movements, and Democratization, Volume 23, pages 37–68. 2001 by Elsevier Science Ltd. ISBN: 0-7623-0786-2

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the usefulness of a multi-dimensional explanation of negotiation, thereby contributing to a more comprehensive understanding of the structures and dynamics of conflict and compromise.

INTRODUCTION To study the development of capitalism is thus the best way to study race inequality, for to do so places socio-economic relationships at the heart of the problem, and shows how underdevelopment and racial inequalities developed together . . . The seemingly “autonomous” existence of racism today does not lessen the fact that it was initiated by the needs of capitalist development or that these needs remain the dominant factor in racist societies. Mugabane, 1990, p. 3.

South Africa’s transition to majority rule is both one of the most familiar contemporary examples of the black struggle against white domination and one of the most paradoxical cases of compromise. The South African government faced mounting internal and external pressure, including various forms of sanctions, against its racist apartheid policies. Well before the conflict escalated sharply in the 1980s, the South African black majority was strengthened by a growing transnational struggle against racism. The South African struggle, like other internal struggles during the late twentieth century, was simultaneously about socio-economic relations and political democratization. Costly to both the government and insurgents, the protracted struggle culminated in military stalemate. The government sought to alleviate pressure through partial political and economic liberalization, but the crisis escalated sharply in the 1980s, a period of both reform and unprecedented repression. Although the issues appeared intractable and both sides were initially unwilling to negotiate with one another, the conflict did end in compromise, thereby averting full-scale revolution. Further, the settlement clearly represented a process of compromise on both sides. Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress (ANC) held fast to their demand for majority rule, but this was reconciled with National Party (NP) concern that the white minority not be subjected to complete domination by the newly enfranchised black majority. The two sides structured a stable power sharing arrangement into the peace agreement and the constitution. Although an important and fascinating story in itself, can the South African experience help us explain negotiation toward a compromised settlement to civil war? The historical evidence from one successful case of compromised revolution is useful for social scientists and policy makers alike in building a better understanding of the circumstances shaping compromise as a viable choice for the leadership of all parties. The South African conflict can help us

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identify the convergence of factors that allows committed adversaries, embroiled in conflict, to finally agree to sit down at the bargaining table and attempt to resolve their differences. In this paper, I analyze South Africa’s struggle over apartheid using an integrated theory of compromised revolution. In the first section, I introduce the case of negotiated settlement in South Africa and explain the moment of negotiation in terms of proximate level factors, or bargaining conditions, such as the ripe moment for negotiation and the availability of a third-party mediator. While the proximate level understanding “makes sense” in the South African case, and usefully describes the conditions prevailing at the point of negotiations, this level of analysis is inadequate toward a complete understanding of conflict and compromise. In the second section, I specify and apply the second and third theoretical dimensions – political opportunities and class relations – to the historical case of South Africa, assessing the fit between theoretical expectations and historical evidence. At the level of political opportunities, state and society resources shape the balance of power between the regime and the opposition. A strong regime and successful state policy work in favor of the state. On the other hand, any success on the part of the opposition toward standing up to state repression and/or resisting co-optation can upset the power balance, further motivating and mobilizing the populace and opposition. At the level of class relations and economic development, focus shifts to the broader structures and processes of conflict and compromise, and the ways that potential outcomes are subject to changing interests and relations of economic and political actors. Both political opportunities and class relations provide the broader political context within which the “ripe moment” for resolution emerges. In the final section of the paper, I conclude by reiterating important findings from the South African case, and I assess the fit between theoretical expectations and the experience of conflict and compromise in South Africa. The South African struggle for majority rule illustrates the usefulness of a multi-dimensional view of political conflict that incorporates both structurally shaped possibilities and dynamic historical trajectories in the search for peaceful resolution.

NEGOTIATED SETTLEMENT IN SOUTH AFRICA: BARGAINING CONDITIONS AND THE PROXIMATE LEVEL OF ANALYSIS In the mid-1980s, the contradictions of the apartheid system were increasingly visible in the violence-ridden, economically strained, and internationally isolated country. South Africa badly needed a resolution to the conflict, but neither 39

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Nelson Mandela, leader of the ANC, nor State President P. W. Botha appeared willing to bargain. While Mandela had recognized the need for reconciliation by this point, he rejected Botha’s offer of freedom in exchange for his renunciation of violent resistance. At the same time, Botha refused to entertain any discussion of majority rule (Thompson, 1995). Compromise seemed a distant possibility at best; revolution seemed near at hand. In reality, however, the next decade would bring all-party negotiations, eventual settlement, and an amazingly successful, inclusive election. While violence was by no means averted (16,000 deaths were attributed to the conflict between 1983 and 1994), the escalation of rebellion, retaliation, and factional strife seen in the 1980s represented only a portion of the destruction that could have materialized.1 Furthermore, the South African settlement clearly resulted from bargaining, rather than from military victory and defeat. From prison in 1989, Mandela foresaw the need for real compromise on the terms of settlement: . . . I now consider it necessary in the national interest for the African National Congress and the government to meet urgently to negotiate an effective political settlement. Two central issues will have to be addressed at such a meeting: firstly, the demand for majority rule in a unitary state; secondly, the concern of white South Africa over this demand, as well as the insistence of whites on structural guarantees that majority rule will not mean domination of the white minority by blacks. The most crucial task which will face the government and the ANC will be to reconcile these two positions (Mandela, 1989, as quoted in Welsh, 1999).

It was at the point of President de Klerk’s 1990 announcement that we began to see that the government, as well, had determined to compromise. In addressing Parliament in 1990, de Klerk announced the lifting of bans on the ANC and South African Communist Party; the release of Nelson Mandela; and the lifting of the state of emergency. These pivotal measures took even de Klerk’s most extreme opponents by surprise. How do we explain the willingness to compromise demonstrated by the three major parties and their representatives: Nelson Mandela (ANC), President de Klerk (NP), and Chief Buthelesi (Inkatha Freedom Party)? From the perspective of political scientists and bargaining theorists who have become increasingly concerned with the process of bringing about peaceful resolution of protracted internal conflict, negotiation is predicted when the cost-benefit analysis favors settlement, or when the issues at stake are divisible, such as territory in secessionist conflicts (Ayres, 1997; Boasson, 1991; Burton, 1990; Hampson, 1996; Kressel et al., 1989; Kriesberg, 1992; Licklider, 1993; Rabie, 1994; Stedman, 1988; Walter, 1997; Zartman, 1995a). Bargaining conditions refer to the immediate, or proximate, factors corresponding with the potential for compromise at each point in the conflict. These factors include the “ripe

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moment” for negotiation and a mediator who can navigate communication between adversaries, thereby facilitating the peace process (Zartman, 1995a, 1985; Hampson, 1996; Princen, 1992). Zartman’s ripe moment for negotiation depends on the convergence of three factors: (1) the conflict must reach mutually hurting stalemate, conceptualized as a perceived no-win situation of depleting resources for both sides; (2) each party to the conflict must have an identifiable legitimate authority or spokesperson; and (3) a potential alternative to the conflict must exist – a viable exit that “saves face” for both sides (Zartman, 1995a). At any point in the conflict, the potential gain to each party through negotiation can be contrasted with the cost of conflict, as indicated by the hurting stalemate. Ripe moments occur when the potential gain appears great enough and the risks are few enough, relative to continued conflict, to warrant negotiation. A stalemate in the conflict presupposes both sides’ perception that winning is unlikely or impossible (Zartman, 1995a). A protracted civil war is a possible indicator that a stalemate has been reached. First, the absence of early decisive military victory prolongs conflict and indicates relatively symmetrical power relations between the government and insurgents – the longer the conflict continues, the less likely either party will triumph. Second, the stalemate and conflict are costly. A high loss of lives over a lengthy conflict period depletes human resources and morale, so that, empirically, both longer and more deadly civil wars are more likely to end in successful compromise than are shorter or less deadly wars (Walter, 1997). In addition, the diplomacy of an external mediator can help the parties identify, take advantage of, and shape the ripe moment (Hampson, 1996). Different types of mediators are likely to facilitate the peace process in different ways and at different points in the conflict (Boasson, 1991; Kressel et al., 1989; Kriesberg, 1998, 1996; Wehr & Lederach, 1996). As an added party, mediators add complexity to the relationship between adversaries. The level of “interest” a mediator has in a conflict affects its acceptability to both sides. On the one hand, the more neutral a third party, the more readily it can be viewed as objective in facilitating negotiations. On the other hand, Wehr and Lederach (1996) point out that “neutral” mediators who are called in from outside the conflict (“external-neutrals”) lack the trust that is rooted in connectedness to the adversaries and to the conflict situation. In contrast, “insider-partials” are domestic parties who have a vested interest in long-term conflict management. Further, “external neutrals” are less able to influence intransigent parties, particularly if they do not carry the authority of state power. Nor are they likely to influence parties that may be tempted to break a settlement once it has been brokered and implementation is under way. Rather than applying indiscriminately one model of mediation in all cases, Lederach (1995) 41

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encourages a contextualized understanding of conflict and strategies for reconciliation, and suggests that both “external-neutrals” and “insider-partials” have complementary roles to play at different stages of the resolution process (Wehr & Lederach, 1996). Kriesberg (1996, 1998) similarly suggests that the varieties of mediating activities and stages of the conflict correspond with the complementary functions of both mediators (whether individuals, non-governmental organizations, or inter-governmental organizations) and quasi-mediators (associated with one side of the conflict, who may mediate between their superiors and the opposition). Mutually Hurting Stalemate All three elements to Zartman’s “ripe moment” were present in South Africa by the late 1980s, and Zartman (1995b) locates the potential for negotiation in South Africa in the mutual recognition of stalemate: “After the mid-1980s the perception of asymmetry was slowly replaced by the realization of symmetry and the understanding that the white minority government could not control the black majority at acceptable cost just as the black majority could not overthrow the white government at acceptable cost” (p. 148). Hyslop (1992) characterizes the situation as one of “deadlock,” in which the mass popularity of the insurgency denied the government legitimate control, while the powerful security apparatus of the state curtailed organizational effectiveness of the opposition. Over the long term, both sides realized that military victory was out of reach, and that the situation would have to be resolved by means other than continued violence (Murray, 1994; Thompson, 1995). The Afrikaner-based NP was increasingly aware that the institutional structure of apartheid, as an end and a means to a white dominated system of governance, could not be upheld without undue costs. The white death toll was on the rise and the military option was becoming both more costly and less effective (Landsberg, 1994). In 1990, de Klerk expressed the ascendant view that continuation on the present course posed greater risk than would negotiation: [W]e must also create a South Africa that enjoys the loyalty of the majority of its people. Unless we achieve this, the future will not be safe. Unless we achieve this there is no hope for our children and grandchildren . . . Do we want them to inherit a stagnant situation that has made no progress toward solution, where revolution continues to brew and bubble under the surface? Do we want them to inherit new sanctions and boycotts? (de Klerk, as quoted in Price, 1991, 278).

For the ANC’s part, Zunes (1999) argues that by the early 1980s the ANC fully recognized the odds against successful armed struggle, determining that non-violent strategies provided the only means of weakening state capacity without deligitimizing the movement. Armed struggle was never abandoned

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completely, retaining a supportive role to a general strategy of popular noncooperation. In addition, the Soviet Union recognized the need for peaceful resolution, and regional non-interference agreements served to further weaken the ANC’s external support base (Price, 1991). The ANC was not strong enough to seize power by force, and to attempt military victory would result either in prolonged deadlock or in extensive destruction and an escalated death toll. In the immediate aftermath of Mandela’s release from prison, the ANC executive agreed to end “the ‘armed struggle’ – which by then was so feeble as to be hardly detectable” (Welsh, 1999, 505). The mutual recognition of a hurting stalemate was more than a concession of failed armed struggle, however. In the context of South Africa, it represented a stalemate between the regime’s military strength and the opposition’s combined strategy of non-violent resistance and selective guerrilla attacks. Legitimate Spokespersons In spite of the complexity of social relations in South Africa, and in spite of the resulting factional divisions on both sides of the conflict, by the end of the decade three clear leaders had emerged as identifiable and legitimate spokespersons for the conflicting parties. Welsh (1999) argues that by imprisoning Nelson Mandela and removing him from the conflict and from ANC activity, the NP government inadvertently safeguarded him from any possible criticism that might be attached to the ANC leadership. Although the ANC had met with some scandal, and no small degree of uncontrolled violence and brutality had been attributed to ANC followers, Mandela could not be faulted. In addition, Mandela had been strengthened personally by his 26-year imprisonment (Welsh, 1999). The white government would probably have preferred to negotiate with Chief Buthelezi, leader of the Inkatha Freedom Party. Buthelezi had considerable support in KwaZulu, and he consistently demonstrated his willingness to accommodate government policy. Buthelezi resisted Mandela and the ANC as representatives of the opposition, and so remained involved in the reconciliation process. However, he did not have broad support, whereas Mandela could step back into the leadership as a worldacclaimed spokesperson of black South Africans. On the government side, P.W. Botha (NP leader and State President from 1979–1989) had the legitimacy of his position behind him. His support was waning by the end of his tenure, but this was partly due to the increasing pressure for action that he faced from both the Right and Left camps of the white electorate. Although Botha had initiated extensive “reform” throughout his tenure in South Africa, it is unlikely that he would have ever been able to bring himself to negotiate with the ANC (Welsh, 1999). As it turned out, failing health forced his resignation as NP leader early in 1989, but support for the NP and the 43

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hardline position was clearly waning. By the time of the elections, the NP was able to garner only a slim parliamentary majority and Botha’s successor, F. W. de Klerk, only had the clear support of a minority of the electorate. Yet his election was seen as a turning point. He had the determination to negotiate what turned out to be the end of his own presidency, and could do so even without the clear electoral support of white South Africans because he had the legitimacy of position behind him and because, as we’ll see later, a large enough segment of the white electorate had been pushing for more extensive change than the moderate NP had come to represent. Potential Alternative to Existing Conflict In 1988, the ANC took the first step toward compromise by softening its vision. With the Constitutional Guidelines for a Democratic Society, the ANC adopted the principles of multi-party democracy and a mixed economy (Welsh, 1999). This demonstrated the ANC’s willingness to compromise, but as long as it rested on straight majority rule, “multi-party democracy” would provide inadequate protection to the white minority and the government, and thus would not suffice as a model for political settlement. The Zimbabwean settlement of two decades before, however, did provide such a model. What was needed was a multi-racial constitution based on universal suffrage, but through which minority rights could be guaranteed via reserved representation in parliament and in the cabinet (Welsh, 1999). The Zimbabwean-style political model, coupled with the ANC’s softening of its socialist stance on the economy, provided enough of a conceptual blueprint for both sides to envision their role in the post-civil war society and to accept negotiations toward that society. The two sides had accomplished much in the course of the informal, semi-secret discussions leading up to the Convention for a Democratic South Africa. There remained the question of the degree of state centralization, but disagreement was most pronounced at the margins.2 By the time formal negotiations began in 1991, the ANC and NP shared a broad image of the new constitution as requiring a Bill of Rights, a unitary state, reincorporation of the homelands, a degree of decentralization of power, and a mixed economy (Murray, 1994). Mediation No high profile, mutually acceptable, external party filled the mediator role in the period leading to negotiations and the signing of the National Peace Accord in 1991.3 Instead, there was considerable dialogue involving innumerable interested third parties going on continuously. From the inception in 1985 of the progressive “trek to Lusaka” by various political, professional, and business representatives to discuss the conflict with the ANC elite (Price, 1991; Welsh,

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1999; Zartman, 1995b), it was clear that powerful elements on both sides were already talking. Added to these informal talks were the eventually pivotal roles of: (1) South African churches, particularly through the South African Council of Churches;4 and (2) South African business interests, represented in the Consultative Business Movement (Gastrow, 1995; Thompson, 1995). Formal negotiation was still a long way off, but these domestic “insider-partial” channels accomplished preliminary mediation. The central importance of an acceptable mediator is illustrated in President de Klerk’s attempt to convene the peace process in May 1991. After he asserted that it was the government’s role to keep talks going, and that he was in touch with all relevant parties, the ANC and other opposition parties declined to attend, forcing de Klerk to downplay the conference as the beginning of the peace process, rather than an end in itself (Gastrow, 1995). Facilitation by business and church interests also carried problems of legitimacy (Gastrow, 1995). Taken separately, these two interests were considered too partisan by one or the other side of the conflict. Together, however, they carried the legitimacy of relative balance. It was due to the active involvement of civil groups in South Africa that domestic mediators were successful in facilitating the National Peace Accord (NPA), and it was the NPA that brought the adversarial leaders together – first to sign the peace agreement, but also to initiate negotiations for constitutional reform (Gastrow, 1995). The central role of domestic civil groups in the period leading up to negotiations does not mean that external parties did not play an influential role, or that changing international relations did not have a role in shaping the hurting stalemate. By 1986, bi-polar Cold War tensions were on the decline, and U.S.-Soviet relations regarding southern Africa, particularly Namibia, were increasingly cooperative. Waning Soviet interest in South Africa meant a severe loss of military support for the ANC. At the same time, U.S. pressure on the government to resolve the conflict increased. Simultaneously, the collapse of the Soviet Union “deprived the ANC of its main sources of support, and . . . made nonsense of the NP’s claim to be protecting South Africa from a communist onslaught” (Thompson, 1995, 243). Landsberg (1994) warns against attributing too much causal influence to either external actors or the end of the Cold War. International influence was supplementary, but once the parties decided to compromise, international players were able to facilitate the negotiations through increasing positive influence (in place of the previous isolationist pressure). Once the state agreed to negotiate, its relationship with the rest of the world was immediately improved, and external influence became as important as domestic opinion in shaping the pace and content of the settlement. U.N. presence in South Africa followed the break45

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down of the Convention, but the U.N. role was limited to that of observer. In addition, the U.S., Britain, and Germany contributed important security guarantees, insisting that all parties adhere to the agreement, and thus alleviating concerns that the ANC would disregard agreements once in power. Finally, in the final days leading up to the election, former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and former British foreign secretary Lord Peter Carrington were brought in as leaders of a mediating team whose role was more of arbitrator rather than mediator (Landsberg, 1994). This effort failed, leaving a vacuum that was quickly filled with the Kenyan, Washington Okumu; Colin Coleman of the CMB; and Michael Spicer of Anglo American. Their success in bringing Buthelezi and the Inkatha Freedom Party back into the election process illustrated that the decision to compromise had to be made by the parties involved (Landsberg, 1994). Usefulness of Bargaining Conditions Clearly, the “ripe moment” and mediator are useful conceptual tools, highlighting the factors that, when present, contribute to an overall political climate conducive to bringing the parties together at the bargaining table. Each factor in the ripe moment – the hurting stalemate, legitimate spokesperson, and viable alternative – represents a necessary condition at the proximate point of negotiations. In the South African case, we can understand why the adversaries, particularly the ANC and NP government, agreed to talk when they did. Both sides had come to recognize the weighty costs of the stalemated situation, and the potential for the stalemate to persist indefinitely. Both sides by 1990 had a leading representative who could not only legitimately speak for his constituency, but who was willing to lead that constituency into a settlement that would include difficult compromises. Further, both sides had already worked significantly toward recognition that there was, indeed, a viable constitutional solution offering greater benefits to both sides than the continuing conflict. These bargaining conditions, and the proximate level of analysis at which they occur, explain why the negotiations in South Africa happened when they did, rather than one, five, or ten years earlier. However, knowledge that the ripe moment must be present in order for negotiations to take place begs a larger question. How do we know – ahead of time – which conflict situations are headed toward a ripe moment, and which are destined for military escalation? We are still left without a theoretical understanding of why the South African conflict resulted in negotiations rather than escalating into revolution. In the next section, I argue that we must step back from the proximate level of analysis to understand the broader social context within which the bargaining

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conditions emerge. The second and third theoretical dimensions – political opportunities and class relations, respectively – include, first, background structural factors that shape the reason for the conflict in the first place; and, second, changes to those factors that contribute to a more complete understanding of the historical trajectory shaping the ripe moment and leading to compromised revolution.

POLITICAL OPPORTUNITIES, CLASS RELATIONS, AND THE CONTEXT OF CONFLICT AND COMPROMISE IN SOUTH AFRICA Theoretical Contributions of Political Opportunities and Class Relations Political opportunities and class relations direct analysis toward the state structure and larger socio-economic context of conflict. At the level of political opportunities, relative strength, or the balance of power between the state and opposition, affects the strategic options open to both sides. As long as a balance of power is maintained, neither side is able to bring the conflict to decisive conclusion militarily and a stalemate results. However, the stalemated conflict may be maintained at a low enough level of intensity that the costs are not great enough to warrant the risks of negotiation for either side, and it takes a moderate shift in the balance of power to give the opposition sufficient bargaining strength to lure them (and force the government) to the bargaining table. This shift in the balance of power, coupled with the heightened costs of continued engagement, allows both sides to recognize the hurting stalemate. In explaining rebellion, the likelihood of movement mobilization is related to regime repressiveness, the potential for non-violent expression of grievances, and the perceived efficacy of movement participants and leaders (Muller, 1985; Tilly, 1978; Tarrow, 1994; McAdam, 1982; Colburn, 1994). On the side of the opposition, popular support can expand and be further mobilized in response to several factors affecting perceived efficacy. Partial successes – such as concessions to labor strike demands or the relaxation of certain political restrictions, or even the experience of mass mobilization or community-level organizing – can demonstrate to the population that the state’s power is not limitless and there is, indeed, strength in numbers. On the side of the state, the potential for successful revolutionary overthrow depends on regime structure and regime strength (Skocpol, 1979; Wickham-Crowley, 1992). If the ruling party is unable to govern effectively – as evidenced by a prolonged security state, extensive human rights violations, or a loss of internal order – external supporters and the business elite begin to question continued support for the regime. Coupled with partial liberalization of the political system, breakdown 47

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of the ruling elite coalition presents the crucial political opportunity shaping political party realignments, leadership transitions, shifts in official policy, and – finally – official commitment to real reform, reconciliation, and even legitimation of the opposition through negotiations. Changes in political opportunities, and shifts in political relations among elite segments, also correspond to changes in the economic structure and class relations. The complex relationships between class, ethnicity, and economic grievances shape revolutionary potential, and help explain the emergence of oppositional movements from below (Boswell & Dixon, 1993; Gurr, 1993; Muller & Seligson, 1987; Paige, 1975; Schock, 1996). In addition, class analyses can be extended to predict the potential for compromise of conflict situations. For example, while Paige (1997) focuses on shifting ideologies among the elite in Central America, his analysis also demonstrates the process by which insurgency from below forces a split between segments of the elite classes. Capitalist development loosens the historical interdependence between elites, thereby allowing moderate segments to ally with the rebels in favor of political reform, at the expense of the traditional elite and intransigent members of the government. Class compromise between moderate elites and the rebels is forged on the promise of stability and potential for future growth. The extent to which splits among the elite sectors effectively shape the ripe moment and the potential for compromise depends on the make-up of the government’s constituency. Further, the correspondence between class interests and ethnicity fluctuates over time, so ethnicity may or may not correspond with class position, and it thereby plays a meaningful role in refining and shaping the relationship between economy and polity. Finally, elite class interests are variously sensitive to international pressures, depending on the extent of the state’s reliance on external military support, sensitivity to fluctuations in global economic relations, and therefore vulnerability to private and state-sponsored sanctions. This third set of factors – the societal-level factors of economic grievances, domestic and international class relations, and correspondence between class and ethnic relations – do not directly impact the decision to negotiate. Rather, they shape the potential for compromise indirectly, through the political structure and opportunities provided by shifting governmental alliances and constraints to evolving policies. Finally, both societal level factors and changing political opportunities form the context for the first level of proximate causes, providing available “insider-partial” mediators from the moderate elite segments, and allowing both sides to recognize a mutually hurting stalemate and take advantage of the ripe moment for resolution. How well do the second and third theoretical dimensions explain the ripe moment and the potential for compromise in the South African struggle for

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majority rule? In the remainder of this section, I consider the fit between the trajectory of events leading to the dismantling of apartheid and the second and third theoretical dimensions – political opportunities and class relations. Throughout the discussion, I highlight the link between the broader socio-political context, the hurting stalemate, and the ripe moment. I argue that three critical factors developed during the course of conflict that eventually led both sides to acknowledge the shift in the balance of power, and to therefore accept the situation as ripe for compromise. First, the South African state faced increasing pressure from within. Initially, the state was successful in repressing and demobilizing the opposition. Over the course of the 1980s, however, the mobilizing potential and salience of the mass-based opposition was increasingly effective against state legitimacy. Second, a consequential split developed among the political elite regarding state policy. Initial ethnic divisions between Afrikaner and British elite segments had softened over the course of development as greater numbers of Afrikaners joined the ranks of business. As a result, moderate segments of the elite became available to open dialogue with the ANC, and party and electoral splits on both the left and right eventually undermined NP cohesion regarding apartheid policy. Third, the South African state, already highly vulnerable to world economic fluctuations, came under heightened economic strain due to growing international commitment to sanctions and divestment. Taken separately, these factors (internal opposition from below; split elite; and economic strain) provided insufficient pressure on the state, causing no more than partial reforms and tightened repression – changes within the system. When they converged in the mid-1980s, however, these factors reinforced one another. Repression and partial reforms were clearly providing only temporary fixes to a long term and increasingly costly problem. Structuring Class Relations Along Ethnic Lines The early history of South Africa highlights the correspondence of race and class in structuring social power. White racial domination emerged with colonial settlement, continued through the establishment of the Union in 1910, and was fully institutionalized in the aftermath of the 1948 electoral victory of the Afrikaner-based National Party (NP).5 The governing elite enjoyed a high degree of consensus and group cohesion, and Afrikaner ideology and apartheid state policy developed hand in hand during the fifteen-year period following the 1948 elections. Apartheid policies included strict residential and social segregation of the races, as well as political and economic exclusion of Black, Coloured, and Indian South Africans. Through state policy, whites limited the supply of black labor, the level of black residency in the townships, and the organizational capacity of blacks, thereby coercively excluding blacks from both 49

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the labor and consumer markets (Seidman, 1994; Price, 1991; Gelb, 1991). Theoretically, this sharp racial division, and the strong correspondence between race and class, forewarns of revolutionary potential. In addition, while the conflict in South Africa was principally between an excluded black majority and dominant white minority, ethnic cleavages between Afrikaner and British whites further delineated the relationship between class and politics. Among whites, NP policy privileged Afrikaner over British interests.6 While the British owned 94% of the manufacturing sector, British capital was relatively powerless in Parliament. Favoring white agriculture (predominantly Afrikaner) and white labor (also Afrikaner), the NP government promised to strengthen the “color bar” in labor. This policy of restricting blacks to unskilled labor benefited both agriculture and white labor, to the detriment of business interests and black workers. The state also facilitated Afrikaner access to business, awarding government contracts to Afrikaner firms, creating parastatal firms, and hiring only Afrikaans speakers in nationalized industries. British business complained, but business was not yet strong enough or unified enough to attempt to force a reversal of these policies. Although they did not always agree with government policy, and were generally opposed to what they saw as a dangerously inefficient system of labor segmentation, white business leaders usually opted to work for change within the system rather than align with relatively radical political parties (Kobach, 1990). Class and race in general, and class and ethnicity within the white population, reflected one another during the early years of apartheid, so that the structuring of conflict in South Africa initially flowed from racial and ethnic divisions, as well as from class relations. As we will see below, however, the correspondence between class interests and ethnic cleavages fluctuated over time, complicating predicted political alignments and the likely outcome of conflict. Capitalist Development: Blurring Ethnic Alignments within the White Electorate During the 1960s, the state increasingly centered domestic policy on the principle of “separate development” through “decolonization.” However, quality of life in the homelands worsened (including a shortage of housing, general overcrowding, declining health care, and a decline in education), so while the policy was popular among the Afrikaner electorate, it garnered little support in other circles (Southall, 1983). In the economy, this period was marked by several trends, including a decade of unprecedented growth, shifting relations among the economic elite, and dramatic changes in the organization of production. First, as is indicated in Table 1, growth in GDP averaged 7.07% between 1961

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and 1965 and 5.48% between 1966 and 1970. Second, both mining and manufacturing were characterized by increasing capital concentration and technological development. For capital, this meant a greater need for skilled labor at a time when the color bar was strictly enforced and skilled white labor was increasingly scarce (due to upward mobility into civil service jobs). Third, Afrikaners began to own a larger share of the non-agricultural private sector, and manufacturing was accounting for an increasing share of GDP while the importance of agriculture continued to decline. From this period forward, white interests would no longer be segmented along strict ethnic lines; rather, a divergence emerged between liberal Afrikaner (big business) interests which generally corresponded with British capital, and conservative Afrikaner (small business, worker, and white collar) interests (Kobach, 1990). Although business was generally opposed to the government’s policy of separate development (as well as the accompanying mandate for geographical decentralization of industry), the stability and remarkable economic growth of the period kept business leaders from voicing strong opposition. Nevertheless, these various changes to the economy and class/ethnic relations foreshadowed important future shifts in political alliances. It was during this period of growth and stability that changes to the organization of production caused shifts within economic elite that had consequential, longterm political effects. In particular, the Afrikaner elite – increasingly independent of state patronage and control – was free to express its new economic interests (now aligned with British capital) in the political sphere. Throughout society, the rewards of a strong economy continued to accrue to the minority white population. Two pivotal causal elements of conflict and compromise are therefore present in South Africa even before the outbreak of violent political protest and insurrection. Widening black/white racial cleavages

Table 1. Growth of GDP, Constant Prices, 1961–1990. Years

% change, GDP

1961–1965 1966–1970 1971–1975 1976–1980 1981–1985 1986–1990

7.07 5.48 4.16 2.75 1.17 1.81

Source: 1999 World Development Indicators CD-ROM. Washington, D.C.: The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/The World Bank.

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ensured the eventual outbreak of insurrection; at the same time, interest realignments within the Afrikaner elite allowed for this segment’s eventual support for compromise. From Protest to Rebellion: Sustaining Mass Resistance The state did not implement its restrictive policies free of resistance. The African National Congress (ANC), established in 1912 to represent black and Coloured middle class interests, initially worked to reform the South African legal order (fighting, for example, to extend the Cape franchise to other provinces). The African Political Organization, the South African Indian Congress, and the Industrial and Commercial Workers Union (ICU) provided alternative representation for non-white South Africans. By the 1940s, the ANC had broadened its constituency and radicalized both its strategies and goals. Cooperation between segments of the ANC and the South African Communist Party corresponded with the increasing frequency of various forms of non-violent mass action, including worker strikes, consumer boycotts, and acts of resistance against restrictive legal policies. In 1952 the Congress of the People, a mass convention of opposition groups, adopted the Freedom Charter denying government authority over unrepresented peoples.7 Seven years later, after the formation of the Pan-Africanist Congress, thousands of activists boycotted the pass laws by showing up at police stations without them. At Sharpeville, in 1960, one such gathering was violently repressed, with the police killing at least 67 and wounding 180 when they fired on the crowd. In protest, thousands of workers went on strike, leading the government to mobilize the army, outlaw all opposition, and arrest thousands. The effect of the government’s relentless repression on the non-white population was devastating. The ANC and Pan-Africanist Congress were banned, effectively driven into exile, and the South African Council of Trade Unions disintegrated. The state’s brutal response, successful muting of the opposition, and swiftness in returning the country to stability was impressive. At this point, the ANC turned (temporarily) to more violent means of resistance, including sabotage and guerrilla warfare, organized from exile. Meanwhile, the effect on the mobilizing potential of the workers and the population was fatal, bringing a defeatist outlook to the majority of black South Africans that could only be altered through time and the dedication of a new generation. As Zunes (1999) argues, the organized opposition recognized by the early 1980s that conditions were not conducive to a successful violent revolutionary campaign. The ANC had access to only limited resources, while the South African state had considerable capacity to sustain a prolonged campaign. Coupled with selective violent attacks, the opposition shifted to a largely non-

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violent strategy of non-cooperation. Initially, community organizations and trade unions mobilized in response to localized, specific grievances (e.g. wage and working conditions, educational reforms, rent hikes, and community councils). When grievances went unresolved the links between generalized reformist policies and local issues became undeniable. Community groups increasingly pursued political issues, culminating in the founding of the United Democratic Front (UDF) in 1983. By this time, workers and students were mobilizing in concert: “When the Lekoa Town Council refused to scrap the rent increases, the Vaal Civic Association called for a general strike of workers and students in the townships of the East Rand. An estimated 60% of the area’s workers and 93,000 students heeded the call” (Price, 1991, 184). The ensuing battle lasted a month locally, but spread throughout South African townships over the next two years. In response to the insurgency, business politicization reached a new peak (Kobach, 1990). More and more business leaders were calling for an end to apartheid, although a smaller conservative, increasingly reactionary, segment demanded decisive control of the insurgency and a retraction of reforms. Positions were hardening, and crisis was imminent. South Africa and the International Economy: External Influence through Sanctions and Divestment Increasingly over the latter years of apartheid and in the period leading up to negotiations, external players attempted to shape the political situation in South Africa through various forms of sanctions. The threat of sanctions (military and economic; governmental and private) was a concern for the state as early as 1960, when the U.N. General Assembly passed its resolution against apartheid. The U.N., British Commonwealth, and Organization of African Unity (OAU) were the international governmental organizations most concerned with South Africa (Klotz, 1995). In 1962 the U.N. General Assembly asked for an arms embargo, economic sanctions, and diplomatic sanctions, and the U.N. Security Council adopted an arms embargo in 1976 but never passed economic sanctions. The Commonwealth passed the Declaration of Commonwealth Principles in 1971, committing to intolerance of racist policies, but it was not until the mid-1980s that the Commonwealth implemented restrictions on loans and military assistance. In contrast, the Organization of African Unity (OAU) presented a unified front against apartheid, particularly through efforts of the Front-line States (FLS) (Klotz, 1995; Legum, 1982). Private divestment led federal economic sanctions in the U.S. and internationally. When the U.N. Security Council and the U.S. government proved reluctant to impose economic sanctions against the South African state, student, consumer, and community groups targeted private investment and protested 53

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against private banks, individual corporations, and institutional investors, including universities and local and state governments (Davis, 1996). U.S.-based multi-national corporations, financial institutions, and even local and state governments were increasingly proactive and attuned to public sentiment (Hufbauer et al., 1990). Initially, the U.S. tacitly supported the NP government, but by the mid-1980s, official U.S. policy changed to reflect public opinion and international norms. The visibility and broad-based appeal of the U.S. anti-apartheid movement helped change the political mood in Washington (Davis, 1996; Price, 1982; Thompson, 1995; Culverson, 1999). In 1986, the U.S. Congress passed the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act over President Reagan’s veto. Between 1985 and 1989, financial outflows from South Africa approached $10.8 billion, including debt repayments and capital flight. In addition, between January 1984 and mid-1987, 99 U.S. companies had completely withdrawn from South Africa, accepting drastically discounted prices. Driven by risk assessment, only 136 of between 300 and 400 U.S. companies remained in South Africa in mid-1988 (Hufbauer et al., 1990). International sanctions played a critical role in conjunction with other factors shaping prolonged economic crisis in South Africa. Sanctions coincided with non-violent methods of domestic resistance, including labor militancy and consumer boycotts, in accumulating economic and political strain. Moreover, the unique character of the South African economy and its particular role in the international division of labor shaped the emergent financial crisis from the early 1970s as a convergence of contradictory needs: the need to sustain capital inflows, the need to offset capital account deficits with current account surpluses, and the growth needed to generate employment (Kahn, 1991). South Africa’s position in the international economy was shaped by the predominance of the primary export sector (particularly gold), the increasing capital intensity of manufacturing (coupled with a stagnating capital goods sector), and a growing dependence on loan capital as compared with direct and indirect investment (Freund, 1991; Kaplan, 1991; Padayachee, 1991). Table 2 reports the contributions of mining, agriculture, and manufacturing to total exports between 1968 and 1987. Overall, mining constituted the largest sector of the economy throughout this period, accounting for between 44.3% and 62% of exports. Gold’s dominance within mining, coupled with the particularly volatile nature of the gold price, created volatility in the current account as a whole. The inverse relationship between the strength of the U.S. economy and the gold price has generally put South Africa’s business cycles out of phase with the core, generating problems for export expansion during domestic upswings (Kahn, 1991). Further, while mining was the predominant export

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Table 2. Export Contributions by Major Sector, 1968–1987. Year

Gold %

Total Mining %

Agriculture %

Manufacturing %

1968 1972 1976 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987

33.7 34.3 32.4 50.9 45.8 45.0 48.2 44.6 42.3 39.8 41.2

46.7 44.3 46.4 63.3 59.6 60.6 62.0 60.1 60.5 57.1 57.0

19.3 11.8 8.4 5.2 6.4 6.0 4.0 2.9 2.9 3.2 3.6

37.3 37.2 35.2 28.4 29.7 29.0 31.1 33.8 33.1 37.4 37.2

Source: Adapted from Kahn, B. (1991). The Crisis and South Africa’s Balance of Payments. In: S Gelb (Ed.) South Africa’s Economic Crisis (pp. 175–197). Cape Town: David Philip (Table 5, p. 73).

sector, manufacturing accounted for the vast majority of imports and growth in import value between 1968 and 1987 (Kahn, 1991). Since 1970, foreign capital investment and the emergence of a private international credit market worked to finance current account deficits and the gradual accumulation of debt in South Africa. Whereas political uncertainty in South Africa during the late 1970s led to a temporary slow-down in direct investment, both the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and private banks generally showed considerable flexibility in granting requested loans and debt rescheduling in South Africa. During the 1970s, IMF borrowing was used to buffer the net effect on the current account of a falling gold price (exports) and rising capital goods prices (imports). In 1979, the gold price experienced a brief boom, but this boom had reversed by 1982. Dependence on the international credit market rendered South Africa particularly vulnerable to financial sanctions. A 1982 loan request to the IMF for $1.1 billion proved highly controversial. International outcry did not stop this loan from passing, but in its immediate aftermath the U.S. and the IMF reversed their standing on future South African requests. After this point, South Africa was forced to rely on short-term private financing. On the surface, the state initially claimed resistance to real change, responding to external pressures and internal solidarity with defensive policies meant to sustain the country’s economy and polity until international pressures waned (Klotz, 1995). The government mixed modest domestic reforms with regional détente to partially appease labor and community groups, minimize the costs of sanctions, and strengthen the case that South Africa was serious about reform. 55

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However, non-violent resistance grew in visibility and effectiveness during the 1980s, coupling increasing frequency and duration of labor action with community support via consumer boycotts (Zunes, 1999). Price (1991) identifies 1988 as a transition year in business’ perception of the costs of sanctions. The expansion of “inward industrialization” had coincided with a small economic boom in 1986 and 1987, which temporarily bolstered domestic business’s confidence in the economy’s ability to survive in isolation. Growth was modest (see Table 2), and there were opportunity costs, but it appeared that the government would regain internal stability and hold out economically (Gelb, 1991). However, the mini-boom collapsed in 1987: “Economic expansion in the sanctions environment meant a short period of growth, followed by a balance-of-payments crisis, followed by decline” (Price, 1991, 275). Between 1986 and the end of 1988, imports had increased 60%, and foreign borrowing (with which import substitution is usually financed) was unavailable under sanctions. To business in 1988, the prognosis was clear: economic survival depended on reintegration into the international economy, which meant much more than partial reforms at home. The specific political steps that would have to be taken for sanctions to be lifted included both political liberalization and the release of political prisoners, in addition to all-party constitutional negotiations. From this vantage point, the escalated economic crisis of 1988, in combination with continued domestic instability, caused business elites to call for the normalization of relations both regionally and at home, thereby leading to an emergent debate among the governing party elite. The Convergence of Mass Mobilization, Economic Strain, and Elite Dissensus The state’s immediate response to the Vaal Triangle strike and the spread of urban insurrection was not one of heightened repression, but of stepped up reform. Whereas reform had previously been gradual and modest, reforms implemented after 1984 included the abolition of pass laws and influx controls, as well as essential business, residential, employment, and segregation reforms. All points of contention at the turn of the decade, these reforms were not actually implemented until the height of insurgency. The government inadvertently acknowledged the legitimacy of the grievances, transforming them into real points of contention. Instead of quelling black anger, they only fuelled mobilization. When reform failed, Botha declared the 1985 state of emergency, intending to destroy the opposition. Police and army troops, sent into the townships to restore order, arrested and killed thousands of Africans, with media coverage banned in order to minimize publicity of the attacks. However, the state continued to perceive its hands to be tied regarding the use of repression, so

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that efforts were defensive and limited to “ad hoc police attempts to prevent large public manifestations of mass mobilization” (Price, 1991, 252). At first, the state of emergency appeared to bring the situation under control, and the initial return to stability aligned liberal business behind the NP once again. Although the extension of the state of emergency in 1986 did not receive unanimous business support, the NP again won an overwhelming victory in the 1987 parliamentary elections. While temporarily demobilizing domestic opposition, however, it contradicted both Botha’s reformist rhetoric and his co-optive strategy, which had the effect of heightening international criticism, bringing the call for sanctions to a new consensus, and further radicalizing the black opposition. South Africans seemed to be headed for large-scale, violent revolutionary insurrection. By the time of the second state of emergency, the state had begun to reevaluate strategy. Sanctions seemed a foregone conclusion, and the survival of the regime increasingly depended on a successful counter-revolutionary effort. However, the regime in the post-1986 period was no better equipped to improve socio-economic conditions than it had been initially. Under conditions of inward industrialization and a stagnating economy, the government had little room to maneuver infrastructure reforms or create employment. Finally, the government’s efforts to co-opt political linkages at the community level seem to have failed miserably. Price (1991) reports continued overwhelming (90%) support for local UDF organizations, in contrast with meager (3%) support for local counter-organizations. The NP government’s response to increasing strike activity and political protest beginning in the mid-1980s differed from management’s response. Within the context of the second state of emergency, the Minister of Manpower reversed earlier reforms by outlawing all industrial strike activity in 1987. In contrast, by this time labor and management seemed headed toward cooperation (Bennett, 1990). With the inclusion of black African workers in collective bargaining in 1979 and growth of the black African labor force, the organizational strength of the Congress of South African Trade Unions expanded rapidly, and strike activity escalated over the 1980s. Large scale strike activity resulted in substantial losses in both wages and production, leading to tactical conciliation between labor and management. By 1988, the number of strikes remained high, but individual strikes were more limited and less costly to both labor and management. Many unions and employers were beginning to channel their industrial conflict through the collective bargaining process (Bennett, 1990). As a whole, events of the mid-1980s had a powerful and liberating effect on black South Africans. First, community groups began to provide services where the government failed to do so. Communities set up alternative school systems, 57

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providing education to students who had long refused to attend the increasingly under-funded, overcrowded, and ineffective system of Bantustan education run by the state. An emergent dual sovereignty clearly indicated to black South Africans that where the state was failing, the community could succeed. Further, the sheer magnitude of the Vaal strikes, the ensuing insurrection, and the failure of the state of emergency to completely control the situation, symbolized to many that the balance of power between the state and the opponents of apartheid had permanently shifted. This recognition of the increased power within the opposition had the effect of sustaining a continued level of mobilization at the community level, where local residents retaliated against local government representatives, perceived state supporters, white businesses, and state/paramilitary troops. Finally, paramilitary bands at the community level were ensuring that a state of emergency would fail to fully re-establish peace and security for white South Africans. Split Elite and the Electoral Politicization of Capital While apartheid had successfully structured a formal system within which Afrikaner whites established their upwardly mobile economic status, the contradictions inherent in that system were increasingly apparent, and they eventually came to threaten the transcendent principle of white supremacy. As Prime Minister Vorster had recognized, considerable reform within the system of apartheid was necessary if it was to remain viable. Prime Minister Botha, appointed after Vorster’s resignation in 1978, took the idea of reform one step further. He argued that apartheid would have to be dismantled if whites were to continue to enjoy their expected economic privilege, political power, and physical security. It was this strategy shift that allowed the first split within the ruling elite (Welsh, 1999; Price, 1991). Within the NP, a significant segment adamantly opposed change, and this “rightist” element eventually split from the NP to form the Conservative Party in 1982. By 1987, the Conservative Party posed enough of a threat to NP hegemony to garner 45% of the Afrikaner vote, thus limiting NP leverage in reforming apartheid. Nevertheless, as consequential as the Conservative split was to NP leverage in dictating policy, it never posed a threat to the overarching commitment to continued white political dominance. In contrast to the split among conservatives, the necessary split for the potential for compromise would have to come from within the moderate elements of the party. The first indication of an emergent moderate split came in September 1985, with the first “trek to Lusaka,” when several of the most prominent South African manufacturing executives met in Zambia with members of the ANC’s National Executive Committee (Price, 1991, p. 238). This was the first of several amicable meetings between elite members of business, clerical, academic, political, and other South African communities. The central

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government opposed these visits but was unable to stop them. The emerging “split to the left” became gradually more consequential for the NP as previously vocal supporters of the NP one by one denounced official policy and publicly questioned Party reformist intentions in 1987. In 1989 the split was formalized with the formation of the Democratic Party, a coalition formed from the Progressive Federal Party and other small dissident-NP parties. The Democratic Party favored majority rule and proportional representation, which would ensure continued political voice for the white minority population. As Price points out, however, these splits within the NP represented a new pluralism within the white polity, not a new consensus.8 This significant difference was reflected in the 1989 general election results, whereby both the Democratic Party and the Conservative Party siphoned votes from the National Party center. In effect, the “left split” contributed to the weakening of central party cohesion, not a consensus for compromise, and certainly not acceptance of one-person, one-vote elections. Nevertheless, this split introduced a new potential for dialogue, particularly as the manufacturing elite was heavily represented in the Democratic Party. It was this segment that had its interests most heavily represented in negotiation. This new pluralism found its final manifestation in the debate at the center of the NP, between previously dominant “securocrats” and the newly emergent “internationalist reformers.” While the securocrats maintained that any move away from the state of emergency would pose too great a risk to the security regime, the internationalist reformers had come to recognize the status quo mix of international isolation and domestic conflict as much too costly. In addition, internationalist reformers saw that: (1) regional détente would be useless toward the international relaxation of sanctions without considerable domestic improvements, and (2) the domestic situation could not be resolved without inclusion of the ANC and UDF in negotiations. The final political opportunity that resulted from this split in the party was represented in F. W. de Klerk’s successful bid for the NP leadership and the Presidency. De Klerk, a leading adherent of the “internationalist reformer” perspective, represented a major turn in governmental policy (Price, 1991; Murray, 1994; Thompson, 1995). Whereas significant segments of the business elite had long given priority to ameliorating the economic deterioration and spiraling socio-economic manifestations (and had thus been increasingly open to negotiations with the opposition), de Klerk’s presidency represented the first time that government and business were aligned in support of real political change. And de Klerk wasted no time. In addressing the parliament in 1990, de Klerk announced: (1) the lifting of bans on the ANC and Communist Party; (2) the release of Nelson Mandela; and (3) the lifting of the state of emergency. Through 59

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these pivotal measures, which took even his most extreme opponents by surprise, de Klerk had simultaneously taken the necessary steps that would open the way for real negotiations to take place and the majority of international sanctions to be lifted. This “left split” within the NP reflects the theoretical point that the symbiotic interdependence between the state and business elite holding under normal conditions becomes increasingly tenuous during periods of political conflict. While the state and particular sectors of business may or may not hold similar positions on policy issues, the two do share a division of labor regarding the societal goals of economic prosperity and social stability. In general, the state’s role is to maintain social stability, while capital drives economic prosperity. Although the NP played an unusually significant role in shaping economic policy in South Africa, business leaders generally attempted to stay out of policy questions even when they disagreed with them. During the escalation of civil war, however, business became increasingly willing to speak out on political issues, to participate in certain low-intensity acts of protest and non-compliance, and to organize politically in opposition to state policy (Kobach, 1990). In sum, the situation by the late 1980s had reached the point of prolonged inability of the government to suppress the opposition. The political opportunity structure looked much different during the late 1980s than it had twenty, fifteen, and even ten years earlier. The balance of power had shifted, and it was not within the government’s reach to reverse that shift. If repression could not stop the insurgency, and partial reforms were not enough to co-opt the opposition, then how would the economic and political contradictions, and the resulting civil war, be resolved? This would be the topic of debate within the NP for the remainder of the 1980s. Whereas capital had recognized the need to negotiate an end to apartheid as early as 1985, viable resolution through compromise depended on dramatic shifts in official state policy and political ideology. The opposition had successfully maintained a sufficient level of social unrest to alarm business and the white population, and the state continued to lose external legitimacy and economic viability, as well. The shift in the balance of power was visible to all, and its effect was to heighten the perceived long-term costs of conflict. It is at this point that the consequences of changing class alignments and political opportunities begin to converge to shape the hurting stalemate and “ripe” socio-political context for negotiations. The NPA as Compromise The National Peace Accord represented the culmination of the coordinated efforts of key persons within South African civil society. As Gastrow’s (1995) analysis makes clear, however, in many ways it also signified a pivotal set of political

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opportunities. First, the signing of the NPA was a symbolically significant moment, as it was the first time the opposing leaders had appeared together in public. Second, during the design process, the architects of the NPA established their own working relationships, building networks and trust among negotiators. These same leaders would be involved in the constitutional negotiations, so much of the necessary bases of trust were in place. Finally, the NPA provided a preliminary set of agreements regarding fundamental rights and freedoms that structurally opened the way for multi-party constitutional negotiations, begun in December, 1991. The NPA represented major agreement on preliminary issues of peacekeeping and provided for institutional structures that would function, independent of the NP and the ANC, during negotiations as well as during the transition period. Institutional structures included national codes of conduct for political organizations and security forces, established to ensure principles of political tolerance and civil rights. The NPA also established the National Peace Committee (including representatives who had brokered the NPA to begin with), the National Peace Secretariat (NPS), Regional and Local Dispute Resolution Committees, the Commission of Inquiry Regarding the Prevention of Public Violence and Intimidation, and the Police Board. In addition, the Accord attempted to address needs for socio-economic development.9

CONCLUSION The political-economic model described above is useful in understanding compromise in South Africa. The conflict clearly reached a ripe moment for negotiations by 1989: mutually hurting stalemate, acceptable mediators, and legitimate spokespersons characterized the conflict at the point when negotiations became a rational decision for both sides. These bargaining conditions are useful in understanding why negotiations in South Africa occurred when they did. The second and third levels of analysis, however, help explain which conflict situations hold the potential for the ripe moment and negotiations. Stepping back from the moment of resolution allows us to make sense of the relationships between political and social conflict, economic development, and the complex historical trajectory that South Africa followed to finally arrive at the point of the ripe moment and negotiations. Both the structural level of political opportunities and the background level of social structure and economic growth highlight the interplay in South Africa between domestic policy, social unrest, international pressures, and compromise. In effect the ripe moment represents more than the combination of a hurting stalemate, legitimate spokespersons, effective mediator, and viable alternative – these factors more accurately describe the ripe moment than explain its emergence. In addition, explanation requires identifying the necessary and 61

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sufficient causes that converge to allow the “ripe moment” to emerge and fully develop. Just as rebellion and political conflict is best viewed within the context of political opportunities and economic relations, so too can a political economic perspective enhance our understanding of the potential for compromise experienced in the “ripe moment.” In South Africa, the ripe moment represented a convergence of three pivotal political and economic factors: (1) increasingly effective mobilization from below corresponded with (2) shifts in elite alignments, and (3) heightened economic pressure and international isolation. The result of this convergence was a crucial undermining of consensus within the state regarding apartheid policy, an opening of dialogue regarding the appropriate course of action, and long-awaited consideration of the alternatives to apartheid, the relative benefits of compromise, and the growing costs of continued conflict. Class Relations South Africa represents a striking case of ethnic conflict between, principally, an excluded black majority and dominant white minority, yet the two parties were able to work out a viable alternative to the conflict. This was possible because, while South Africa exemplifies ethnic divisiveness on many levels, much of the conflict eventually manifested in the economic and political realms. The conflict was not solely about ethnic identity, but also about the essential contradictions inherent in a capitalist economy structured to exclude the vast majority of its population. South Africa is a highly unequal society: the Gini coefficient in 1975 was 0.68, with 5% of the population owning 88% of personal wealth (Bethlehem, 1992). In addition, the rigidly exclusionary system of apartheid structured widespread economic deprivation among black South Africans. By the mid1980s, for example, the correspondence between racial status and quality of life meant that black per capita income equaled less than 10% of white income, black infant mortality was seven times that of white infant mortality, literacy rates for blacks were one-third the literacy rates of whites, and state spending per black pupil was one-fifth that for white pupils (Segal, 1991). In turn, political exclusion and economic deprivation fuelled long-term majority opposition. The insurgents’ goals centered upon de-racialization of the political and economic systems, as well as in education, housing, and health care. When considering the role of class relations in shaping political alignments and state policy, two lessons emerge from South Africa. First, the relationship between ethnicity, class, and political constituency is changeable, so that the interests and alignments of class actors remain contingent on historical circumstance. In South Africa, the NP government remained in control of the state thanks, predominantly, to a relatively cohesive Afrikaner constituency that

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blurred class divisions. Afrikaner farmers, civil servants, workers, and small business owners supported a government whose policies ensured Afrikaner dominance and privilege. However, these same state policies also inadvertently undermined Afrikaner ethnic cohesion among the business class. By privileging Afrikaner-owned enterprise, the state facilitated that group’s inclusion among the growing class of large business conglomerates. Over time, Afrikaner big business tended to share the views of British business on political matters, and ethnic divisions were blurred within common class position. Loss of this small but significant segment of Afrikaner conservatism did not directly translate into loss of NP support. Rather, it represented the beginning of a liberal shift within the party and within the growing debate over apartheid. Second, the politicization of capital is never directly determined by class alignments, but depends on the particular convergence of extreme social instability and economic stagnation (Kobach, 1990). As Kobach (1990) illustrates, business leaders in South Africa generally refrained from making strong political statements – even when the apartheid strictures clearly contradicted their interests, and even during periods of economic downturn. Rather, capital intervention has depended on extreme political instability, which causes an immediate loss of business confidence. In South Africa, the Sharpeville massacre, Durban strikes, Soweto uprising, and continuation of unrest after the Vaal Triangle strikes all corresponded with economic downturn and the call for specific state policy changes by the business elite. However, it was not until the fall-out from the last of these political crises (the continuation of unrest following the Vaal Triangle strikes) that the state recognized the situation as a hurting stalemate. Political Opportunities What happened between the Sharpeville massacre of 1960 and the Vaal Triangle strikes of 1984 that caused such different outcomes to the public expression of grievances? In the case of Sharpeville, the government responded with swift and decisive repression, effectively muting the opposition for a full decade. By 1984, however, options open to the state had diminished as a result of increasing international pressure, the expense of regional interference, increasing domestic economic instability, and general failure to co-opt important moderate segments of the business elite and non-white population. Stepped-up reforms in 1984 served as a barometer: The state was visibly weakened, and the opposition responded to the opportunity with insurrection. The balance of power between the state and opposition, and thus the political opportunities open to each, had undergone a dramatic shift. At this point of heightened state vulnerability, domestic and international mobilization against apartheid was most effective. Community based insurgency 63

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within South Africa maintained instability through all but the most severe repression – coupled with international opposition, the unfavorable business climate enhanced international commitment to sanctions against the apartheid state. Reforms had failed to quell the opposition, and the new level of repression reached after 1984 could only be seen as a temporary measure. Many segments of business and the state recognized that long-term solution depended on apartheid’s demise. In sum, the trajectory of events in South Africa supports the usefulness of the political economic model of compromise introduced in this paper. In South Africa, insurgency from below created and eventually sustained a prolonged period of instability that undermined the daily security and quality of life of white South Africans. That instability, in turn, undermined business confidence, which caused the politicization of domestic capital, the flight of international capital, and an eventual realignment within the political system and the National Party. By the mid-1980s, the balance of power had shifted in South Africa to the extent that the government could no longer control the insurgency and the popular opposition recognized its own strength and ability to force change. Yet neither side had both the military power and political leverage to win the conflict outright, and compromise presented the only available option. It was this shift in the balance of power, therefore, that allowed for the emergent “ripe moment.” The socio-political context of the latter 1980s was conducive to negotiations, and it was at this point that the various bargaining conditions began to converge. Domestic mediators, hurting stalemate, legitimate spokespersons, and a viable alternative to the conflict finally allowed all parties to see their way to the bargaining table, forced them to make difficult compromises, and – importantly – averted final escalation from insurrection to revolution. What can the case of South Africa tell us about conflict and compromise more generally? In the end, any emergent theoretical model is strengthened not only by elegance and simplicity, but also by explanatory power, scope, and comprehensiveness. South Africa illustrates the theory of compromised revolution as a whole, but one case cannot decisively identify the combination of necessary and sufficient factors explaining compromise more generally. This study, and its case-specific conclusions, point to the need for further study: individual analyses and carefully chosen comparisons, as well as cross-national statistical analyses of the population of cases of post-World War II civil war.

NOTES 1. Consider, for example, the scale of death elsewhere in southern Africa in this period: Mozambique (1,050,000 between 1981 and 1994, attributed to civil war and famine); Angola (750,000 between 1975 and 1995).

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2. Conservative political organizations, on the one hand, and Black Consciousness and socialist factions, on the other, contended that their constituents were being sold out by the conciliatory stance of the NP and ANC leadership, respectively (Murray, 1994). 3. In 1986, Commonwealth members attempted to mediate, but the delegation acted more to pressure the state into a particular course of action. Two months later, the government attacked ANC bases in neighboring Commonwealth countries, demonstrating unwillingness to compromise. The mediation ended immediately, but a general model for compromise had been introduced. Later, Britain and the U.S. attempted mediation between the ANC and NP, but their efforts were seen as disingenuous (Landsberg, 1994; Thompson, 1995). 4. Not all South African churches supported reforms or the negotiation process. By 1986, however, even the Dutch Reformed Church (NGK), had publicly rejected apartheid, a major shift in policy that led to the establishment of new, splinter churches still willing to uphold the system (Welsh, 1999). See Kuperus (1999) for analysis of the largely symbiotic, if complex, relationship between the NGK and the NP government. 5. The system of apartheid in South Africa was based on race and class relations rooted in European colonization and competition (Mugabane, 1990). See Thompson (1995), Welsh (1999), and Wilson and Thompson (Eds) (1968–1971) for comprehensive historical analyses of South Africa. For a broader treatment of the southern Africa region, as a whole, see Omer-Cooper (1994). 6. Afrikaner and British rivalry was rooted in early competition over the Cape Colony, culminating in Britain’s victory over the Boer Army in the South African War (1899–1902). During the post-war period of reconstruction, emergent patterns of social, political, and economic relations included Afrikaner dominance in politics (to the exclusion of black Africans), English economic dominance (in the newly rationalized gold and diamond mining industries), and heightened levels of social conflict and white (Afrikaner) worker resistance. 7. Marx (1992) presents a refined analysis of the development and interrelations of major opposition movements and movement organizations in South Africa throughout the apartheid period. Jukes (1995) highlights the opposition leadership roles of Mandela, Biko, and Matthews. See also Holland (1989) for a history of the ANC, Ellis and Sechaba (1992) for the ANC’s relationship with the Communist Party. 8. Debate within the white electorate, of course, had been ongoing and included white opposition to apartheid as represented in the South African Communist Party and the Liberal Party. See Vigne (1997) for a history of the Liberal Party. Krüger (1960) and Kotzé and Greyling (1991) provide details on party politics and political organizations throughout South Africa’s history. 9. See Gastrow (1995) for a reprint of the content of the NPA, as well as a concise discussion of its implementation, including successes and weaknesses.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Southern Sociological Society Meetings, New Orleans, April 2000. Bill Winders, John Boli, Richard Rubinson, Terry Boswell, Mamadi Matlhako, Richard A. Garnett, E. C. Ejiogu, 65

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Edwin H. Rhyne and Donald N. Rallis were especially generous with their time and ideas. In addition, graduate student and faculty participants in the Sociology Department Seminar at Emory University provided helpful comments on an early version of this research. Finally, the editor and two anonymous reviewers for Research in Social Movements, Conflicts and Change provided insightful suggestions, helping shape its current form. I am grateful to all of these individuals.

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EXPANDING POLITICAL OPPORTUNITIES AND CHANGING COLLECTIVE IDENTITIES IN THE COMPLEMENTARY AND ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE MOVEMENT Melinda Goldner

ABSTRACT This study examines how collective identities change when the political opportunity structure becomes more favorable to a social movement. Activists within the complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) movement in the San Francisco, California Bay area have traditionally competed with physicians by criticizing Western medicine and providing an alternative medical model for consumers. Physicians are increasingly interested in CAM given financial changes within Western medicine, and increased consumer interest and governmental recognition of CAM. Activists in the Bay area are beginning to form networks with physicians to develop an integrative model of medicine, which combines Western and alternative approaches. Consequently, some activists are changing their collective identity now that they are advocating an integrative, rather than Political Opportunities, Social Movements, and Democratization, Volume 23, pages 69–102. Copyright © 2001 by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved. ISBN: 0-7623-0786-2

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alternative, model of medicine. Activists within any social movement do not always agree on goals and strategies, however. The aim of this research is to contrast the collective identity of “alternative” and “integrative” activists, and to show that the latter identity is gaining prominence as political opportunities become available to the movement. This research contributes to the work of contemporary social movement theorists who are examining the relationship between the political opportunity structure and collective identities.

INTRODUCTION This study examines how collective identities change when the political opportunity structure becomes more favorable to a social movement. I argue that San Francisco, California Bay area activists within the complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) movement have traditionally competed with physicians by criticizing Western medicine and providing an alternative medical model for consumers. The collective identity of many activists within the movement, both as practitioners and clients, has in the past reflected their status as “outsiders” to Western medicine. They have achieved success with this strategy, especially since physicians and consumers are increasingly frustrated by their lack of choices and control under managed care. As an increasing number of consumers have tried CAM, the federal government has begun to support research on these techniques. Financial changes, increased consumer interest and governmental recognition have led to political opportunities for the movement. Activists in the Bay Area are beginning to form networks with physicians and develop an integrative model of medicine. Integrative medicine combines Western and alternative approaches. Consequently, some activists are changing their collective identity now that they are advocating an integrative, rather than alternative, model of medicine. I use the word “changing,” rather than “changed,” for two reasons. First, integrative medicine is an emerging trend so most activists are just beginning to change their collective identity. Second, I attempt to answer Melucci’s (1995) call to examine collective identity as a “processual,” rather than “reified” part of movements. Activists within any social movement do not always agree on goals and strategies. Some activists will always advocate an alternative medical model despite increasing opportunities, while others have always desired integration with Western medicine despite long-existing barriers. The aim of this research is to describe two identities that exist within the CAM movement in the Bay area, a collective identity for “alternative” activists and one for “integrative” activists. More importantly, I argue

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that the collective identity of integrative activists is gaining prominence as political opportunities become available. This research contributes to the work of contemporary social movement theorists who are examining the relationship between the political opportunity structure and collective identities.

THE LINK BETWEEN THE POLITICAL OPPORTUNITY STRUCTURE AND COLLECTIVE IDENTITIES WITHIN THE CAM MOVEMENT Social movement theorists have increasingly understood that we must simultaneously study cultural elements such as collective identities and structural elements such as political opportunities (Taylor & Whittier, 1995). Tarrow (1994) defines the political opportunity structure as “consistent – but not necessarily formal, permanent or national – dimensions of the political environment which either encourage or discourage people from using collective action” (18). Factors external to social movements, such as support from the government and political elites, comprise the political opportunity structure. Activists develop collective identities within this broader “system of opportunities and constraints” (Melucci, 1995, 47). Social movement theorists have examined how activists change their collective identity when the political opportunity structure is more hostile to a movement (Gamson, 1995; Taylor, 1989; Whittier, 1995). This study adds to this literature by describing how activists alter their collective identity as the political opportunity structure becomes more favorable to the CAM movement. Collective identities transform individuals into political actors and unite activists within a movement. Taylor and Whittier (1992) define collective identity as the “shared definition of a group that derives from members’ common interests, experiences and solidarity” (105). Collective identities enable participants to turn their sense of who they are into a sense of “we” tied into a movement aimed at social change (Billig, 1995; Gamson, 1992; Klandermans, 1992; Taylor & Whittier, 1992). This transformation from individual to political actor takes place within “social movement communities,” which are “informal networks of politicized participants who are active in promoting the goals of a social movement outside the boundaries of formal movement organizations” (Buechler, 1990, 61). Activists construct collective identities within these communities by defining boundaries to differentiate challengers from groups in power, developing political consciousness to define their shared discontent and interests, and creating strategies to politicize everyday life (Taylor & Whittier, 1992, 111). Researchers linking the political opportunity structure with collective identities examine whether activists open or close their boundaries during hostile 71

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political climates. Joshua Gamson (1995) argues that theorists need to question under what political conditions social movements need a stable collective identity. He suggests that closing group boundaries, one element of collective identities, is a necessary survival strategy. Taylor (1989) argues that social movement organizations can act as “abeyance structures” sustaining a movement during a “non-receptive political environment” (761). Though the movement operates on a smaller scale, activists sustain a collective identity that gives them a sense of purpose. Activists focus on maintaining their commitment, rather than recruiting new participants. Taylor’s research illustrates how feminists in the National Woman’s Party survived the hostile period between the 1920s and the 1960s by closing the boundaries of their collective identity. Whittier (1995), on the other hand, shows that feminist boundaries became more permeable during the abeyance period in the 1980s and 1990s. On the contrary, this study examines what happens to activists’ collective identity when the political opportunity structure becomes more favorable. Political opportunities arise when influential allies, such as physicians, make themselves available to activists or when cleavages are created among elites (Tarrow, 1994).1 Physicians are making themselves available to activists within the CAM movement. This is due to the growing dissatisfaction that physicians have with structural changes within medicine, the increasing interest their patients have in CAM, and the escalating attention paid to CAM by the federal government. First, financial and organizational changes in Western medicine, such as the development of managed care, frustrate consumers and physicians alike. As medicine becomes a for-profit enterprise, financial managers assume power at the expense of physicians (Gray, 1986, 172). Some physicians become frustrated by their loss of authority; whereas, some consumers become frustrated by their lack of choices in this type of business arrangement. I have argued elsewhere that this has led to a small, but increasing number of physicians who are beginning to search for alternative ways to practice medicine, as well as alternative means to retain frustrated consumers. Second, there are a variety of reasons, extending well beyond frustration with managed care, as to why consumers try CAM. For example, some consumers believe that CAM is more effective than Western medicine for chronic conditions such as back pain or arthritis (Eisenberg et al., 1993; Mattson, 1982). Two important points are that the number of consumers trying CAM is substantial and growing (Eisenberg et al., 1998), and that physicians are increasingly exploring these techniques due to consumer interest and demand for CAM. Finally, government sponsored research on CAM has made physician interest more acceptable. The federal government established the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine as part of the National Institutes of Health in 1992 (formerly the Office of Alternative Medicine). More physicians are


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willing to discuss CAM as scientific research on the efficacy and safety of specific techniques becomes available (Greene, 2000). Changes in the political opportunity structure help us explain why activists have been able to change their strategy from providing an alternative model of medicine to creating an integrative model that combines Western and alternative medicine. Physicians are increasingly interested in CAM given the changes just described. Yet, most physicians do not abandon their Western training or techniques to practice CAM. Rather, they find ways to incorporate CAM into their Western practice. These physicians are assisting activists with an “integrative” model of medicine, rather than an “alternative” system. This is the explicit aim of organizations such as the American Holistic Medical Association (Goldstein et al., 1987; Wolpe, 1990). As physicians advocate CAM, the hospitals where they work have begun to incorporate some of these techniques, as well. For example, patients can learn yoga and meditation at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center in Worcester or the Deaconess Hospital in Boston (Barasch, 1992, 8–9). As activists begin to see opportunities to influence Western medicine, some shift their boundaries and political consciousness to reflect their new goal.

METHODOLOGY I studied the CAM movement in the San Francisco, California Bay area. Researchers and participants identified this location as an early and continued arena of activism within this movement (Baer et al., 1998; Berliner & Salmon, 1979). From 1996 to 1998 I conducted interviews, observed various organizations and analyzed secondary materials (Van Maanen, 1982). First, I interviewed forty individuals. Of the forty respondents, thirty (75%) were practitioners who used a variety of alternative techniques, such as acupuncture, massage, Traditional Chinese Medicine, homeopathy, chiropractic, Reiki, Qigong and Rolfing. Though at the time of the study the remaining ten respondents were clients of alternative techniques only (25%), two of these individuals were training to become alternative practitioners, but had not finished. Overall,2 respondents were overwhelmingly female (73%) and Caucasian (97%), and ranged in age from 35 to 63 (mean age = 47). All respondents had taken some college courses, and 71% finished some graduate work or earned graduate degrees. Religious or spiritual affiliation varied greatly, though 26% said they had no affiliation whatsoever. Forty percent of respondents are currently married, though an additional 33% were previously married. Finally, respondents did not report their incomes accurately enough to ascertain a reliable range or mean. 73

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After I completed the majority of the interviews, the second part of my research entailed clinical observations of a women’s clinic, a solo practitioner sharing office space with other alternative practitioners, and an integrative clinic that combines Western and alternative medicine. First, the women’s clinic offers a variety of gynecological services, both Western and alternative. Second, the solo practitioner is an acupuncturist who rents office space to other bodyworkers who each have an independent business. Third, the integrative clinic brings together a variety of practitioners, such as an acupuncturist, massage therapist, chiropractor, physician and nurse. Staff members work together as a team to integrate Western and alternative medicine on a case by case basis, rather than just refer clients back and forth as is the case with the solo practitioners. Patients may use Western or alternative medicine exclusively or integrate both types of treatment modalities. Observations in the three clinics varied depending on the type of access I was allowed and the number of interviews I was able to conduct. In one clinic I interviewed staff members and informally observed the setting and interactions while waiting for these appointments. In the other two clinics I interviewed practitioners, observed in the waiting room and interviewed clients before or after their appointments. In addition to the three clinics, I observed a professional association, with nearly 200 members, that is exploring integrative medicine. One newsletter said the group consisted of over 60 physicians, various alternative practitioners such as chiropractors, acupuncturists, naturopaths, bodyworkers, and a small number of lay people. Members educate each other about complementary and alternative techniques and discuss ways to integrate Western and alternative medicine. In addition to observing and interviewing members, I analyzed videotapes of eight monthly meetings and a professional symposium members had organized (Jorgensen, 1989, 22; Van Maanen, 1982, 103). Finally, I analyzed secondary materials such as newspaper and magazine articles, activist newsletters, event announcements, position papers and clinic handouts (Jorgensen, 1989, 22). I did not limit these sources to published material, because I was also interested in literature that activists would give to clients of alternative clinics or members of alternative organizations. This was not a random sample, nor were these documents representative of the movement as a whole. Rather, they helped me understand what was occurring within the movement in the San Francisco, California Bay area. Schneirov and Geczik (1996) argue that the larger CAM movement operates on two levels simultaneously. First, it acts as an interest group through lobbying groups such as the Nutrition Health Alliance and professional associations such as the American Holistic Medical Association, an organization comprised of approximately 350 physicians and osteopaths (Goldstein et al., 1987; Wolpe, 1990).


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Interest groups try to mobilize support through advocating legislative reform, educating the general public, acquiring resources, and developing coalitions (Schneirov & Geczik, 1996, 630–631). Second, the movement operates in submerged networks of social movement communities (Buechler, 1990). Activists attempt to create and sustain an alternative way of life through sharing information (Schneirov & Geczik, 1996, 631). Submerged networks have played a larger role within the CAM movement than formal organizations such as lobbying groups. Building on their work, my data provide further information on both interest groups and submerged networks. I first describe the collective identity of activists advocating alternative medicine within submerged networks so that the transition to the newer collective identity of integrative medicine is clear.

COLLECTIVE IDENTITY OF ALTERNATIVE ACTIVISTS Alternative activists began by creating an alternative model of medicine intending to challenge Western medicine and influence individuals. These activists created boundaries that positioned themselves as an alternative to Western medicine. Alternative practitioners and their patients developed a political consciousness as they learned that others had the same frustrations and experiences with Western medicine. Their personal troubles became public issues that required collective, structural solutions (Mills, 1959). Activists turned their practice and use of CAM into a form of activism that politicized everyday life in order to improve upon Western medicine and support alternative beliefs. This collective identity, though retained by some activists today, was more prevalent at the beginning of the movement. Activists were trying to justify their place, however narrow, within the health care system. English-Lueck (1990) points out that this strategy was also advantageous because “any alternative system must define itself as narrowly as possible outside orthodox medicine. In the beginning, this [was] a wise strategy – orthodox medicine was unmoved by the intrusion of an upstart fad” (150). Boundaries Activists create collective identities that clarify their opposition to dominant representations, beliefs and discourse. Developing this collective or oppositional identity requires that activists establish boundaries that define who is inside or outside the movement (Taylor & Whittier, 1992). First, Schneirov and Geczik (1996) argue that activists construct “a moral boundary between alternative health and the outside world” by differentiating themselves from larger society, 75

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which they describe as overly consumerist, undisciplined and passive (638). Second, activists define their interests in opposition to dominant groups since they draw a boundary between themselves and Western medicine. EnglishLueck (1990) positions CAM as “part of a larger social movement, introducing countercultural values and rejecting the dominant views of orthodox medicine and traditional authority” (2). In the beginning of a movement, activists need to assert their differences with existing models in order to convince the public that they provide a better alternative. An activist in my study explains that “in the early phase of social movements you have to justify yourself, and you put someone down to do that.” This means that alternative activists were competing with physicians (Rosch & Kearney, 1985). As English-Lueck (1990) explains: holistic health, despite individual allies within the orthodox medical world, is not part of the elite. In fact, for its own initial survival, it needed to compete with that elite . . . Each needed to define itself more clearly to exclude the other . . . (150).

Activists identified as alternative both out of desire and necessity. On the one hand, they “desire to stay outside ‘the system’ ” (English-Lueck, 1990, 155). For example, Kleinman (1996) examines a holistic health center where the practitioners and staff identified as alternative actors within an alternative organization. One member asked, if “we aren’t on the edge, who will be” (48)? On the other hand, activists are excluded by Western medicine given the competitive stance they had taken towards physicians. Gevitz (1988) says that “unorthodox practitioners” only share “alienation from the dominant medical profession” (2). Or as one activist in this study put it, “both sides are weary of the other.” In my research, the women’s clinic best exemplifies the boundaries drawn by an alternative identity. The director clearly states their position in relation to Western medicine in the following quotation: I think we were a decade ahead of what everyone else was doing. That was part of our problem. We were so sophisticated and so simple in what we were doing that it [was] difficult to be recognized by insurance, back-up doctors, hospitals [and] traditional medicine. So you [had] to work within that battle. It [was a battle], because in that model we [were] being an anarchist to the system [emphasis added].

Political Consciousness Just as boundaries are oppositional, activists develop a political consciousness that is based on opposition to existing frameworks and understandings (Coy & Woehrle, 1996). Political consciousness involves “interpretive frameworks that emerge out of a challenging group’s struggle to define and realize its interests”


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(Taylor & Whittier, 1992, 114). Individuals begin to evaluate and critique Western medicine as they interact with activists in social movement communities. Activists do more than introduce participants to specific ways of believing and acting. Social movements need to enable individuals to blame their grievances on a structural rather than personal cause in order to develop an oppositional or political consciousness (Feree & Miller, 1985). So activists enable participants to blame the structure of Western medicine for their discontent, not their individual relationships with Western providers.3 Their critique revolves around Western techniques such as drugs and the way physicians practice Western medicine. I limit the discussion here to activists’ critique of Western techniques, because this is what differentiates alternative and integrative activists. I discuss activists’ critique of physicians’ practices under integrative medicine, because the newer identity shares this critique. Alternative activists believe that Western medicine is ineffective given its limited set of techniques. An acupuncturist notes that, “Western medicine has nothing to offer or what they have to offer is dangerous.” One chiropractor adds that Western medicine is “black and white. Take these drugs or have this surgery or that’s it. There’s nothing in between. [There are] not enough options.” Similar to Lowenberg’s (1989) findings, alternative activists in my research were particularly frustrated that physicians rely upon drugs that are ineffective at treating the underlying condition. A nurse says physicians overuse prescription drugs because they “have lost touch with any other way to cure people. I don’t think they know how to do anything but write prescriptions. I think it’s pretty sad.” A homeopath says that parents have “seen their child [receive a] fifth course of antibiotics, and [their child] still [has] an earache.” One holistic nurse explained that the largest growth in her practice was from parents seeking alternatives to Western drugs for their children. In particular, activists believe that drugs simply mask symptoms. In contrast, activists believe that alternative medicine “treats the source of the illness rather than the symptoms.” One activist adds that in alternative medicine the: healing process [is] different. They actually feel better from the inside and it’s a unique experience – not what you get from a drug – they are restored to a state of health you are supposed to have which is different from a drug that’s masking symptoms.

Specifically, many clients of alternative medicine have chronic or terminal diseases, as opposed to acute conditions. Respondents believe alternative medicine is better for chronic ailments such as arthritis, because it can improve their quality of life; whereas, Western medicine does not have much to offer. A respondent says: My own doctor says the hardest thing as a doctor is to have this revolving door [for] a number of patients [where all she] can do is give painkillers or some kind of maintenance

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MELINDA GOLDNER drug. For example, people with backaches are constantly with doctors and very often they can do very little about it, or they can help the patient get over this bout of back pain and it’s back in six months again. Many of the alternatives help people to deal with that and get rid of that on a permanent basis.

Likewise, a woman studying Qigong suggests that “most of the ones who have conditions like cancer are the ones [where the] Western medicine profession says we can’t do anything else.” Unwilling to give up, they turn to alternative practitioners. A clinic director explains that “there are the truly desperate people. They’ve done everything. They are very sick. They don’t have options so they figure I don’t care if it’s the voodoo man, I’m going to try something.” As a chiropractor puts it, “some are fearful. They don’t know quite what to expect. They could be [thinking] I don’t think it’s going to work, but I’ll try it because what have I got to lose.” Activists see that Western medicine as a whole, not just their individual physician, has problems curing many illnesses and overusing drugs. Some activists gain this perspective as practitioners. To illustrate, a physician’s assistant said he grew frustrated with the lack of results in Western medicine since he “worked in hospitals and labs specifically, and he didn’t see people getting better. I kept seeing the same people coming back over and over again.” Others developed a critique of Western medicine when they learned that others shared their experiences as patients. Members share information and stories within social movement communities. One woman who organizes support groups says: There are people who come to the [support] groups who are very cynical about the whole medical profession. They’ve been put through the ringer some of them. It’s just a ghastly experience. Sometimes it’s been a year and finally the diagnosis is made and if they’d gotten it a year ago they would have been so much better off. So they come bruised, beaten down, very discouraged and very angry. They come here for healing. That’s what we are all looking for.

Members develop a political consciousness through exchanging stories and finding that they are not the only ones with this type of negative experience. This organizer goes on to say that people learn through these groups that “we are all in the same boat.” To illustrate, each week group members tell the others how they are feeling, and what is going on with their medical condition. Other members then get to: respond to one another because most of the people understand what the person’s talking about. [They] have experienced something very similar or exactly the same thing. We do not give advice. [Instead] they are sharing [to] affirm one another.

These stories also provide members with an alternative approach to health care. They help individuals who are sick “find someone who has lived another way” (Dr. Rachel Naomi Remen, book promotion, Mill Valley, California, 10/8/96).


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Activists must also begin to identify with alternative beliefs and practices in order to acquire a political consciousness. Core beliefs include defining health as well-being, not the absence of disease, stressing individual responsibility for health, advocating health education, controlling social and environmental determinants of health, and using “natural” therapeutic techniques (Kopelman & Moskop, 1981). Activists in my study advocate all of these beliefs. In particular, many individuals begin to realize that they are personally responsible for their health. Alternative practitioners offer clients more involvement in their health care. One client says, “I think part of it is just observing, and then becoming curious enough or taking some responsibility and realizing that thoughts are creating our picture of health, our attitudes [and] our reality.” Another client says she “self-monitored [my Grave’s disease]. I guess most people think it’s risky, but I think I can monitor my body.” An acupuncturist adds that when they see results they know “they have a part in that.” The women’s clinic provides an ideal illustration, because clients refer to it as “an oasis for self healing.” The practitioner’s role is to educate and “guide” clients in developing their “self-healing life-force energies” (flyer). The director remembers coming to this clinic as a client when it first opened. She had a chronic condition that physicians kept telling her was a “medical problem.” When she told the Nurse Practitioner that she thought it was not a problem but her normal physical condition, the Nurse Practitioner agreed. She recalls how powerful it was to have a nurse tell her she was correct about her own body. After that, she never had a physical problem with the condition again. She does not believe that her body changed. Rather, this experience with the Nurse Practitioner changed her knowledge and confidence. One client agrees with the director that this clinic is different because the practitioners listen and believe clients know their own bodies. She says that there is more communication with the practitioners at this clinic. She feels they really listen to her, and “respect me for being an intelligent person who knows my body.” Activists may have tried alternative medicine in response to their frustrations with Western medicine, but they stay with alternative practices because they believe that the techniques work and the beliefs resonate. “If people weren’t getting results, they wouldn’t continue,” explains one respondent. A hypnotherapist said that one of the other practitioners she works with had back pain that Western medicine could not help. Within a week of various alternative therapies “he was up and about. When that happens it does make a really profound difference in your life. You see that there’s something else out there.” Most importantly, these experiences have a transformative effect because participants turn their use or practice of alternative medicine into identification 79

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with the CAM movement. A client says she is active in the movement, because alternative medicine has “changed my life.” Polizticizing Everyday Life Some of the first studies of the CAM movement noted that alternative activists were more focused on changing individuals than existing institutions (Alster, 1989; Berliner & Salmon, 1979; Mattson, 1982). They epitomized what Gusfield (1994) describes in the following quotation: Many health movements, such as holistic health care . . . [are] not directed at changing the state or an institution. Holistic health movements will have little impact on the state, nor do they seek it. They are dissenting movements within medicine, but do little to change professional medicine, develop new state laws, or protest current medical or hospital practices. They become arenas of action with little direct conflict with institutions. They are alternatives to professional medicine; they are not movements to change the medical institutions. In a sense, then [sic] bypass rather than change institutions (65–66).

Similar to other social movements, alternative activists have employed what Lichterman (1995) calls personalized political strategies (Echols, 1989; Taylor, 1996; Taylor & Rupp, 1993; Taylor & Whittier, 1992; Whittier, 1995). Activists engage in personalized political strategies in their everyday life, not through their participation in social movement organizations (Lichterman, 1995). Following the work of Gusfield (1994), as well as Schneirov and Geczik (1996), my study finds that the CAM movement is embedded in everyday actions and interactions in addition to organized and directed action. Some participants define their lifestyle changes as a form of activism, because they put their ideology into practice. These are “action[s] taken with the recognition that it is not isolated and individualistic” (Gusfield, 1994, 66). Membership is fluid in this type of social movement, meaning that “movements can have consequences and influence behavior without the kind of commitment or ideological agreement that is often posited for them” (Gusfield, 1994, 70). Many participants perceive their actions as activism that is connected to something much larger. In my study, activists engage in personalized political strategies when they choose alternative medicine as consumers. In contrast, practitioners deliver services, empower people and transform the workplace as Hoffman (1989) found with activists in other health movements. Clients believe that using alternative medicine is a form of activism, because their choices have political consequences. One respondent says she is active in the movement “in so far as I boycott Western medicine as much as I can.” Another client says that part of his activism is “letting people know what has worked for me. I’d be happy to give them my acupuncturist’s phone number.


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[I try to] get people to move on things.” He adds that “everybody who knows me is much more open about acupuncture because of my experiences. A number of people have tried it because of that.” Using alternative medicine and sharing one’s experiences are both personalized political strategies. Activists empower themselves and others in order to make social changes. A volunteer at an alternative clinic says: I think change starts from within yourself, so that’s what I’m focusing on right now. Then [I will] empower individuals. I think working with individuals, the word will spread, not just words, but feelings and thoughts. So they’re more empowered because of their health. Whether it be political change or social change, they’ll be able to be more focused and more sensitive . . . That’s really powerful, I think, to let other people realize they have this unlimited power that’s inside.

He goes on to say that “protesting and boycotting [are] all good, but I just know there’s other ways of having your voice heard, and other ways of making change than [the] traditional marching in. Those [methods] are good. There are just other ways.” A homeopath adds, “I think the world will change more when people change rather than holding a sign. That’s holistic too – to have the whole person involved, not just what they say or do.” The relationships practitioners develop with their clients are deliberate strategies that address patient’s concerns with Western medicine and provide an alternative model of medicine. These relationships are the critical variable differentiating alternative and Western medicine (Lowenberg, 1989), and form the basis of the personalized political strategies that practitioners use. For example, practitioners transform the workplace into an arena for empowering individuals. Practitioners include clients in medical decisions based on the core belief that individuals must take responsibility for their health (Kopelman & Moskop, 1981). The director of the women’s clinic says that: instead of this person [physician] having all the information and know[ing] what’s best for you at all times . . . there is an exchange of information, communication and education that enables the person to heal [him or herself].

Practitioners and clients both see these personalized political strategies as activism since empowered individuals can eventually influence others and society. Similar to clients, a homeopath sees “activism as healing and teaching work – activating people from the inside out by practicing and teaching homeopathy. Joining a [professional homeopathic] organization is more outer preparation.” Individuals create oppositional identities through these interactions (Schneirov & Geczik, 1996; Taylor & Whittier, 1992). Social movement communities allow individuals to experiment with “new authority patterns, new forms of organization, and new ideas” (Schneirov & Geczik, 1996, 638). 81

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Participants are also able to share stories and provide alternatives to dominant cultural codes about professional medicine within these social movement communities (Fine, 1995; Lichterman, 1996; Melucci, 1985). As the political opportunity structure becomes more favorable to the movement some activists will retain the collective identity just described; however, others will change their collective identity given their increased involvement with Western medicine and a desire to gain even more access. English-Lueck (1990) argues that movements organize on four levels; the individual, the group, the network and the community at large. Describing the CAM movement, she adds: The individual level is more important at one phase of the movement, the group in another, and so forth. As critical crossroads are reached within the movement, some practitioners will opt to stay with the stage emphasizing the individual, for that is why they joined (110).

In my research I find that some activists are beginning to identify differently, though, given that their position in relation to Western medicine has changed. This formerly narrow collective identity becomes less necessary and advantageous.

COLLECTIVE IDENTITY OF INTEGRATIVE ACTIVISTS The newer collective identity behind integrative medicine broadens activists’ boundaries, political consciousness and strategies. Examining transformations in collective identities can help us understand how social movements change over time since identities are not static (Coy & Woehrle, 1996; Melucci, 1995; Whittier, 1995). Whittier (1995) argues that even a few years can make a significant difference in an identity since attitudes, information and the opposition’s position change rapidly. Whittier explores how the collective identity of feminist changed as new cohorts entered the women’s movement. Following Whittier’s framework, I outline how some Bay area activists are beginning to change their collective identity from “alternative” to “integrative.” Activists change their boundaries, political consciousness and strategies as political opportunities arise. In terms of boundaries, some activists in this study have expanded their definition of “we” to include physicians. Physicians bring legitimacy and resources to the movement so this group of Bay area activists embrace their increasing involvement, even though they must make adjustments. For example, activists are very concerned with appearing professional since physicians are garnering more media exposure for the movement and activists are wanting to emulate physicians. Integrative activists are still critical of the way physicians practice Western medicine, especially their objectification of


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patients and over-reliance on technology and physical processes; however, activists are less openly critical of Western techniques such as drugs and surgery. This reflects a significant change in their political consciousness. Finally, activists have developed a range of strategies to gain access to mainstream institutions such as hospitals. Attempting to influence existing institutions is allowing activists to extend beyond the personalized political strategies they were employing to change individuals. Activists are now seeking support from businesses and insurance companies. Opening Boundaries Boundaries identify individuals as members of a group, because they establish differences between themselves and those outside the group (Taylor & Whittier, 1992). In this way collective identities regulate membership and distinguish activists (Melucci, 1995). These boundaries make participants aware of their similarities with other activists, as well as differences from outsiders. Given changes in physicians’ attitudes toward CAM and the resources they can garner, some activists in the Bay area now welcome physicians into the movement. Activists alter their definition of “outsider” as physicians move from adversary to possible ally. Rather than staying on the fringe of Western medicine, these activists are trying to “bridge the gap” between Western and alternative medicine as one respondent said. Physician involvement has changed interactions within the movement. Activists try to mimic physicians’ professional norms, especially since physicians bring a heightened level of exposure to the movement. “Imitating the professional trappings of orthodox health practices can be seen as one practical solution” for gaining legitimacy (English-Lueck, 1990, 154). Activists begin to change their collective identity as more physicians join their organizations and practices. A practitioner involved with an integrative practice says, “I just see that there’s interest in alternative medicine. For a while it didn’t include many physicians, and now that seems to be one of the groups leading the way.” A physician is on staff at the integrative clinic. Physicians established the professional association, and one acts as the director. The latest figures for this organization’s membership show that more than 60 of the 200 current members are physicians. This study cannot determine the extent to which physicians simply advocate CAM or actually identify with the CAM movement. Yet, as more physicians explore CAM, whether they identify or not, activists begin to change their collective identity. Activists now call their work “complementary” or “integrative,” rather than “alternative.” A dance therapist says she views her work “as complementary. Clients would agree with that. A few people wouldn’t want to see a physician, but the majority combine modalities.” 83

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Activists are willing to open the movement to physicians because they are noticing changes in physicians’ attitudes toward CAM. A Rolfer says she “noticed a change in physician’s reactions. [Physicians] have heard of Dr. Bernie Siegel.4 There is more popular awareness [among physicians] that alternative medicine can work in some cases, and that nothing works universally.” Another practitioner says she sees “a lot of AMA types reaching out for holistic healing.” A client even says she has been “moving back into including Western medicine, because it seems a little more open than it was.” In particular, activists recognize vast changes in the medical training that physicians receive. A practitioner says that: medical schools are starting to offer strong options for nutrition, acupuncture and homeopathy. It’s not enough yet, and it’s still offered on an elective basis as far as my understanding goes, but I think that’s where the changes are going to occur. [Medical schools] already are shifting so radically.

Seventy-five medical schools are now offering courses on CAM, including Yale, Johns Hopkins, Stanford, Mount Sinai, Harvard and Columbia (Conan, 2000; Phalen, 1998). Activists hope that this education will lead to acceptance. A client explains: I have seen much greater acceptance within the Western medical community. There will be some level of openness as more doctors in training hit the streets. They were weaned on the idea that the Western scientific method gives us good medicine, but has its own biases and limitations. I know someone going to medical school and he’ll be open. He may be concerned with the amount of money being spent by the client, but not since he wants it. He won’t be inherently threatened. He won’t be trained in the “I am God” series.

Activists are also embracing physician support because of the resources that they bring to the movement, such as increased media exposure and public support. The media have certainly covered CAM more in the past several years. Due to their credentials and respectability, physician interest in CAM is responsible for much of this media attention. Dr. Andrew Weil and Dr. Deepak Chopra are particularly visible.5 In part, activists open their boundaries to physicians for the resources, such as media attention, they provide. Activists want to appear credible to these physicians and to be worthy of their participation. However, these activists also recognize that the movement receives more public exposure and support given physician involvement. As Lowenberg (1989) argues, “once a group of physicians started advocating these themes [of holistic health], the public listened. When less powerful groups such as nursing and public health had represented the same themes, they did not have the equivalent impact on public perceptions” (91). Activists are even willing to make significant changes to their collective identity given the power physicians continue to hold in our society.


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Allowing physicians into the movement changes interactions between activists and physicians. One respondent calls herself “an evolutionist not an activist,” because of her desire to work with physicians. She rarely attends conferences solely for alternative practitioners, nor does she join alternative organizations, because she wants to maintain her legitimacy with people in the system. Activists who are working directly with physicians are also concerned with appearing professional. To illustrate, the professional association organized a symposium to educate practitioners about alternative techniques and explore ways to integrate Western and alternative medicine. Speakers explained a range of techniques, such as homeopathy and acupuncture, and audience members asked questions as to how to incorporate these techniques into their work. Members discussed professionalism throughout the organizing stages, especially since they wanted favorable media coverage. They had a strict dress code for speakers that included specific information on how to look best on camera. A professional meeting planner asked each speaker to prepare a one minute sound bite on their presentations in order to increase the chances that the local news stations would cover their symposium. One member said: they were concerned that [the symposium] came off looking professional, and I think they achieved that. It was not a scientific conference. It was more of a program that was orchestrated. I knew that going in. As long as you don’t masquerade as one thing and do another, [it is okay to do this].

This group had been interested in their public image long before the symposium. They have a public relations committee focused “on maintaining our public image.” These examples illustrate how members are aware of how they need to portray themselves professionally if they want favorable media coverage. Yet, members’ concern for professionalism is also tied to the fact that physicians were involved. One member said: [Physicians] are taking a risk [by exploring integrative medicine], and with good justification. It’s not just paranoia.6 They know the power of the state board and what it can do to you . . . And they see security in numbers. If they get a movement going that’s large, and therefore has political strength, they will be less susceptible to divide and conquer tactics. So they want [the symposium] to look good (emphasis added).

Activists use professionalism as a way to appear legitimate before the larger public and physicians within their movement. Activists believe it is advantageous to bring physicians into the CAM movement despite any changes they may need to make. Social movement theorists argue that collective identities can be “disembedded from the context of their creation so they are recognizable by outsiders and widely available for adoption” (Taylor & Whittier, 1995). Friedman and McAdam (1992) warn 85

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against this. They argue that social movements should restrict access to their collective identity, because activists can then control it as a “selective incentive” or enticement to participate (165). If activists do not restrict access, individuals may continue adopting the collective identity without participating in the social movement. “Their very success in disseminating the collective identity undercuts their basis of existence, and the movement will die for lack of participation” (Friedman & McAdam, 1992, 169). For example, women may still identify as feminist, but not participate in the women’s movement. Feminism may fade because the movement loses activists. On the contrary, I believe that opening access to the collective identity to new participants, even physicians, during more favorable political climates, gives the movement access to a variety of resources and level of success previously unimagined. Changing Political Consciousness As activists open their boundaries to physicians they begin to modify their political consciousness. I already explained that alternative activists are critical of how physicians practice Western medicine. For example, activists believe that physicians are too rushed and impersonal so patients end up feeling alienated and disempowered. Integrative activists retain this critique of physicians’ practices, even though activists now work more closely with physicians. What is different is that whereas alternative activists also critique Western techniques such as drugs and surgery, integrative activists are more vocal about the need to retain these techniques in some circumstances. For example, a YOGA teacher says “that’s not to say there is not a time for the scalpel, antibiotics or an anti-inflammatory. There certainly is, of course. Everything has a time and place.” An acupuncturist adds that he “would never omit all of the Western technological help that’s available.” Participants are willing to discuss the value of Western techniques now that they believe it is no longer a question of alternative or Western medicine, but how to use both. Even though integrative activists find value in Western techniques, integrative activists blame medical training for the weaknesses in the way physicians practice these techniques. They criticize physicians for being emotionally distant, impersonal and rushed (Langone, 1996, 43). Western medical schools often stress detachment, or the impression that the medical doctor is personally disinterested. Hafferty (1991) argues that when faculty and students ridicule physicians who display emotion and question their abilities as physicians they reinforce this message of detachment (48–49, 76). Jaffe et al. (1986) suggest that medical trainers assume that detachment helps a physician survive in a stressful job. One client said, “Western medical doctors are trained to not get


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involved, not be too warm or connected . . . There is no time, and they’d burn out if they tried to connect to that many people.” One female client adds that: a lot of physicians don’t receive training in what is traditionally called bedside manner. They’re not trained to empathize with the person. [Rather] they’re trained to look at this person to figure out what’s wrong with them, and give them something to make them better.

The result, activists argue, is that patients feel alienated and objectified. One client finds she has “very little personal interaction” with physicians. Activists suggest that CAM provides a better model. As stated before, proponents of holistic ideology believe that individuals are responsible for their health (Alster, 1989, 184). Consequently, alternative practitioners say they offer clients more involvement and control in their health care. An acupuncturist says she “thinks holistic health care is more personal. Rather than presenting yourself to the doctor and saying fix me, I’m broken, they can do something about it.” Activists also argue that CAM allows for an emotional connection between practitioners and their patients. “It is more of an emotional involvement in holistic health care than regular medicine,” because alternative practitioners typically ask about the client’s emotional and mental well-being, as well as physical health. Another respondent argues that “it’s more empowering to go to holistic practitioners . . . It tends to be more personal. You can feel their caring more. It’s not so distant, and you are not objectified.” Activists criticize physicians for more than being rushed and impersonal. When asked to define CAM, respondents were most likely to say that health entails wellbeing, rather than simply the absence of disease. To be well or healthy, one must have physical, emotional, mental and spiritual balance. To help individuals attain well-being, alternative practitioners address all of these aspects of a client’s life. They do not just focus on the diseased part of the client or the client’s physical health. As a practitioner says, CAM “look[s] at people’s health as not so much what’s wrong, but really how to make the most of life.” Activists argue that this belief, and subsequent clinical practice, runs counter to Western medicine’s focus on eliminating illness and physical symptoms. One acupuncturist says that CAM “looks at the true complexity that’s going on with each individual . . . Let’s not pretend it’s just about a lesion or a bug. That’s naive. People are more than that.” Activists continue to critique the way that physicians practice Western medicine and believe they offer a better alternative; however, activists are more vocal about the need to retain Western medicine, especially for diagnosis and crisis care. Several respondents said they would see a physician if they were in “a car accident,” or “hit by a truck.” One client says, “don’t get me wrong – there’s a place for crisis care, like with broken bones.” A hypnotherapist says that when clients come in: 87

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Activists also believe Western drugs are useful for certain infections. “Western medicine has its strengths. As my acupuncturist has reminded me, don’t come to me if you have pneumonia. There is nothing I can do for you.” A male client says that “sometimes a physician is important to give a shot or pills to fight infection.” A female client said she saw a physician “to make sure I wasn’t being foolish and ignoring a symptom that should be treated by Western medicine. There are times when I feel like attack is the best solution and go for the drugs.” Many of these activists do not discount Western medicine, because “we take our miracles where we can get them,” as one woman put it. Activists believe physicians should use Western and alternative techniques within the framework of holistic ideology. Chow (with McGee, 1995), an acupuncturist and Qigong teacher, says she: considered the positives and negatives of both Western medicine and Traditional Chinese Medicine. I decided to take the best of both approaches and blend them together to form a better system in terms of both cost and effectiveness . . . [She has] a very high regard for Western medicine, but strongly believes that if the impersonal high technology of modern Western medicine were combined with ancient Eastern concepts and practices, mankind would be better served (31–32).

A massage therapist adds that “doctors should be more tuned in to the holistic way of thinking.” Activists believe that integrating Western and alternative techniques without adhering to these beliefs “won’t get results.” Many feel that the worst case scenario is that physicians would co-opt alternative techniques such as acupuncture and homeopathy. Physicians would take over these techniques, and not use them in accordance with holistic principles. As activists develop integrative medicine, the extent to which activists will retain a commitment to holistic ideology remains to be seen. This study already found variation in how much alternative practitioners discuss the ideology behind their practices.7 Co-optation becomes a concern as activists expand their strategies to include engaging existing institutions more directly. Expanding Strategies Activists frequently base their strategies on the political environment, which consists of both resources and constraints (Freeman, 1979; Gamson, 1990, 1975; McAdam, 1983; Morris, 1984).8 For example, integrative activists retain the


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same personalized political strategies integral to the collective identity of alternative activists. Activists continue to deliver services and transform the workplace into an arena that challenges the practice of Western medicine and empowers clients. One activist says the movement is “very grassroots . . . but at the same time I think you do need someone looking nationally, or at least statewide, to work with the insurance companies, to work with [medical] education.” Consequently, activists have expanded their strategies to include seeking support from hospitals, businesses and insurance companies. Jenson (1995) argues that social movements seek recognition of their collective identity by institutions, even if this means making some concessions to gain entree. Activists now desire integration into mainstream organizations in addition to the personal changes in individuals they have always advocated. Activists still encourage consumers to use CAM, because these individual actions have political consequences. In part, physicians are interested in CAM because of increased consumer interest in these techniques (Eisenberg et al., 1998; Goldner, 1999). Activists are now extending beyond personalized political strategies, because they are hoping to influence existing institutions, as well. Some activists are hoping to influence Western medicine by working inside hospitals (Barasch, 1992). For example, yoga instructors work at some Kaiser Permanente hospitals in California, the Stress Reduction Clinic at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center in Worcester and Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center in New York City (Wolf, 1997). Activists also expand their strategies to influence insurance companies since they have a great deal of power. One rolfer said, “we are aware of the political side . . . We need to influence the powers that be. For example, we need to show the insurance companies that they will better their bottom line with integrative medicine.” He continues, “right now some [potential patients] call me up and ask if Rolfing will be covered, and when I say no, they don’t come in. So we need to push to get this changed.” Activists use several tactics to achieve this recognition by insurance companies. First, the professional association is providing care to a few individuals “in order to develop a database” on the cost effectiveness of integrative medicine. They hope that insurance companies will be convinced of the financial savings from these data. Second, several practitioners in my study encouraged their patients to “write their insurance company and legislators” when their services were not covered. Finally, the integrative clinic was devising a strategy for obtaining clients through businesses and insurance companies. Some individuals were unable to pay for CAM. The director realized that insurance companies and businesses often have more power in making these decisions than individual consumers. For example, employers often pay for an employee’s insurance, thus determine the range of options available. 89

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Practitioners within the integrative clinic have emphasized cost-savings, and de-emphasized holistic ideology in order to obtain clients through insurance companies and businesses. Most of their fliers say they provide “effective, efficient and affordable” care. By emphasizing results and cost-savings, this clinic is trying to work within the existing cultural framework and speak the language of businesses. They do not discuss their ideology, because they do not want employers or clients to think that they need to believe in holistic principles to get results. Therefore, the director said he would approach companies by saying “forget all of the philosophy. We can help your employees stay healthier . . . ” He continues on to say, “I’m very careful about talking about this in general. When I speak in public it’s more about building bridges with the mainstream, [and] trying to be very, very inoffensive without compromising [the] basic principles.” Hunt et al. (1994) explain that when movements interact with mainstream institutions, activists try to “talk their language.” Activists may examine “audience” identities to determine how to obtain their support. For example, a member of Nebraskans for Peace says that their organization realizes that elected officials face financial constraints so activists emphasize the financial “bottom line” when they discuss movement issues with these politicians (200). Hunt et al. (1994) argue that we have to examine the collective identity of the “antagonist” and “audience,” not just the “protagonists,” since identities are social constructions (192). Similarly, Coy and Woehrle (1996) argue that activists “shaped their oppositional voices so they could be heard and accepted by specific audiences” (287). Integrative activists want to change more than individuals. They want their ideas and techniques to transform Western medicine and financial organizations. Activists open their boundaries to physicians because they bring increased exposure, legitimacy and allies to the movement. This means they must moderate their political consciousness so as not to exclude physicians or their techniques. As activists open their boundaries and modify their political consciousness, physicians and their patients become potential recruits. The extent to which physicians have actually joined the CAM movement, rather than simply supporting its goals, cannot be answered from this study. Yet, activists have new opportunities to influence Western medicine, insurance companies and the society at large through their associations with physicians, whether they are activists within the movement or not. Activists are willing to forge new relationships with their former opposition, since physicians can help the movement achieve even greater success. Not every activist will change his or her collective identity as the political opportunity structure becomes more favorable, so multiple identities now exist within the CAM movement. Some activists will resist integration with Western


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medicine, because they fear co-optation. Other activists have always advocated integration, but have been unsuccessful with this goal until recently. Yet, I have shown that many activists in the Bay area acquire this newer collective identity of integrative medicine as opportunities have expanded for the movement. Considerably more activists advocated integrative medicine as opposed to alternative medicine. Integrative activists included those respondents affiliated with the integrative clinic and professional association. This variation in identities best reflects an activist’s degree of contact with Western medicine, as English-Lueck (1990) found. For example, practitioners within the integrative clinic were more aligned with the collective identity of integrative medicine than the women’s clinic. This was due to the fact that they worked with Western medical providers and institutions more directly, as I just described. Physicians’ attitudes toward specific forms of CAM will influence the amount and type of contact that activists can have with Western medicine. One activist explains that marginalized alternative practitioners will be more likely to advocate alternative medicine; whereas, alternative practitioners, whose techniques are more accepted by physicians, will be more likely to pursue integrative medicine. I discuss later how physicians feel about specific alternative techniques. What is important here is that variation in identities cannot be explained by which form of CAM activists used or practiced. For example, two respondents, both involved with Qigong, nonetheless identified differently. The same was true for two respondents both affiliated with homeopathy. There are limitations with these data since I conducted a small, non-representative study of activists in one area, and not every respondent spoke to this issue directly since this research was exploratory. We need more data to clarify how significant this change is, and what factors can explain why activists choose one identity over the other. The question becomes how will this newer collective identity affect the larger CAM movement and the level of success activists can achieve? To what extent will the movement begin to advocate integrative, rather than alternative, medicine? Other researchers have suggested that more activists prefer the goal of integrative medicine (Goldstein, 1999; Sharma, 1992). For example, Goldstein (1999) argues that “most alternative practitioners and advocates see this process of assimilation as a good thing” (226) (emphasis added). However, the debate over whether to institutionalize may lead to divisions within the movement (Reinelt, 1995; Spalter-Roth & Schreiber, 1995), possibly diminishing the level of success or leading to the demise of one faction. Differing perceptions of appropriate identities and strategies could also divide activists into two separate, but co-existing social movements: an alternative and an integrative medicine movement. Integrative medicine could remain as a new 91

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collective identity or emerge into a new social movement. Another possible outcome is that integrative medicine becomes co-opted. I explore this next.

CONCLUSION New political opportunities are allowing activists in the Bay area to work more closely with physicians, thereby changing their collective identity. The increased complexity and scale of the medical field have led to new financial arrangements within Western medicine. Medicine has been transformed into a health care industry where profit, efficiency, financial managers and consumers take center stage. One physician suggested that people in his profession are now “outsiders” due to changes in medical reimbursement. Given the resulting dissatisfaction, some physicians are turning to complementary and alternative medicine for a solution. Other physicians are examining these techniques given increased consumer interest and governmental research. Activists see this opening in the political opportunity structure as an opportunity to work with physicians to integrate Western and alternative medicine. This study shows how some activists change their collective identity as a result. However, the outcome of this new strategy is far from clear. Following the work of recent social movement theorists, my study examines how activists transform their collective identity when they take advantage of expanding political opportunities. Physicians bring significant resources to the movement. For example, their power and legitimacy can influence insurance companies and businesses to support alternative techniques. Consequently, some activists willingly open their boundaries to physicians and change their political consciousness for both ideological and practical reasons. Holistic ideology states that practitioners need to use multiple therapies since they address more than physical symptoms; rather, practitioners need to examine how illness can result from emotional, spiritual and social problems, as well (Alster, 1989, 61). Activists have an “expanded selection of tools for helping patients” when they work with physicians (newsletter of the professional association). Practically, activists realize that the movement gains potential patients if they moderate their stance to advocate alternative techniques as a complement to, rather than replacement for, Western medicine. Fewer individuals are willing to use CAM if it means abandoning Western practices. Some activists alter their collective identity to bring increased resources to the movement. On a strategic level, alternative practitioners know they will gain legitimacy and possibly insurance reimbursement if they work with recognized medical professionals with more power and authority in our society. Activists within the CAM movement have started to advocate integrative medicine as a practical strategy to ensure their


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survival in a political climate that is more favorable, but still volatile and unpredictable. This strategy of integration is not without drawbacks. Most importantly, co-optation is always possible once activists achieve some success and interact more closely with established actors. The social movement literature has increasingly examined how institutional actors co-opt activists leading the movement to de-radicalize over time. Gamson (1975/1990) was one of the first social movement theorists to define co-optation, and others have built upon his work (Amenta et al., 1992; Cress & Snow 2000). He identifies four possible outcomes based upon whether activists receive new advantages and gain acceptance as a spokesperson with legitimate interests; co-optation, full response, preemption and collapse. Co-optation means that activists win full acceptance, but no new advantages for the movement. The CAM movement could be co-opted in several ways. One possible scenario is where physicians increasingly accept CAM. Yet, physicians practice these techniques themselves, without proper training and without the corresponding holistic ideology. This means the CAM movement gains acceptance, but no new advantages. Physicians have already begun to co-opt alternative techniques. In their review of the literature, Astin et al. (1998) found that, on average, 19% of physicians practiced massage and chiropractic, 17% offered acupuncture, and 16% used herbal therapy in their medical practices (2305). One respondent in my research noted that, “some [physicians] want to collaborate in group practices with a nutritionist, chiropractor, body worker, and use their knowledge. Some are doing that, but others may say I need to learn more about nutrition so I can prescribe it.” Given the diversity of techniques and practices included under CAM, physicians are more likely to co-opt some techniques than others. To illustrate, Mattson (1982) argues that techniques for stress management, such as meditation, would be the easiest to integrate into Western medicine; whereas, any form of CAM that includes a spiritual principle or practice would be much harder to incorporate. Baer et al. (1997), also examining the CAM movement in the Bay area, discuss the possibility of physicians co-opting acupuncture “not so much for philosophical reasons as fiscal ones” (536). Wardwell (1994), as well as Goldstein et al. (1985) and Wolpe (1985), go further to suggest that acupuncture has already been co-opted to the point where it is rarely considered alternative. Much like what happened to the “medical accommodation” of alternative birth centers, physicians could co-opt these practices based upon the need for “medical supervision” (DeVries, 1984, 89, 97). Activists try to achieve legitimacy by asserting their credentials, as Coy and Woehrle (1996) explain. Yet, physicians have more prestige in our society given the credentials they establish through extended medical education (Starr, 1982). This type of 93

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co-optation, where physicians usurp alternative practitioners’ techniques, is particularly difficult. As my respondents noted, it confines many activists to a “bitter role” since they “aren’t part of it” when Western medicine and CAM merge. Physicians and insurance companies “get all the glory and control” (and financial compensation) even though activists have done all the work. In short, the opposition receives credit for the movement’s ideas at the same time that they exclude activists from the process of change. Activists are especially concerned that physicians are not adequately trained in these techniques, and that physicians will use these alternative techniques without the corresponding holistic principles. I will use acupuncture and herbs to illustrate these forms of co-optation. First, an acupuncturist without a medical degree needs 2,400 hours of clinical training and experience for a license to practice acupuncture; whereas, a physician needs only 200 hours for certification (Phalen, 1998, 38). One acupuncturist said that you simply cannot learn the theory behind these practices in such a short time period. He adds that “they wouldn’t let me do needle biopsy” after simply reading a book on the subject. Thus, he says that “MD’s can practice acupuncture legally, but not well.” The resulting patient dissatisfaction, which acupuncturists in this study feel is inevitable, may reflect negatively on acupuncturists as a whole, however. Second, a physician may practice acupuncture, but not stress the connections between the mind and the body. By doing this, the physician is separating the technique of acupuncture from the alternative beliefs underlying this practice. This is especially likely among physicians who are motivated by financial gain, because it is time consuming (thus costly) for them to practice these techniques within the context of alternative beliefs. For example, it takes more time for an acupuncturist to ask a patient about his or her well-being and teach this patient about lifestyle changes, than it is simply to insert acupuncture needles. One respondent knew of an acupuncturist who stopped training someone for this reason. This student was “abbreviating his training to incorporate it into an HMO, which accepts anything as reasonable as long as you can see six clients in an hour. That’s where it goes awry.” Another example he provided is that physicians may simply “use herbs like prescription drugs.” They will be “ineffective” if they are used in this way, though, because he believes that herbs are only effective if used in accordance with alternative principles such as lifestyle changes. Activists are hopeful that physicians learn that integrative medicine requires the expertise of alternative practitioners given the time and effort involved in learning new techniques and altering their practices. One respondent says, “there’s a certain amount of fear by alternative practitioners that MDs will co-opt what they have, since MD’s already have the credibility and following.


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I think it’s very possible. But they don’t have time to learn all these things.” An acupuncturist adds that when “physicians see the amount of training needed for alternative techniques . . . they will know they can’t retrain in these techniques given their full workload.” Another practitioner adds that he does not think co-optation will occur, because: no one can become an expert in everything. No one can know everything there is to know. No doctor is going to have the skill I have [as a Rolfer] . . . none of us can be experts in all these things. MD’s realize it’s better to have skilled people that can give a total approach to each individual. It is important to look at the outcome of other social movements to see if activists’ optimism is warranted.

Two studies on co-optation of the hospice movement provide parallels to what could happen to the CAM movement. Osterweis and Champagne (1979) examined the hospice movement in the United States. In the late 1970s, the movement focused on grassroots activism to provide an “alternative form of care” (496). The authors argued that activists needed to maintain “programmatic integrity” as they began to integrate hospice into the health care system (494). I believe this is akin to the need for CAM movement activists to avoid separating CAM techniques from holistic ideology as I have discussed. Osterweis and Champagne thought it would be better for the movement if hospice remained as freestanding facilities, and assumed a cooperative rather than competitive stance. They also discussed the need for standards, licensure and stable reimbursement mechanisms. For the latter, the authors thought it was advisable to emphasize the cost-savings hospice could deliver to insurance companies and the government. Yet, they suggested that activists needed to emphasize other benefits the movement could bring beyond financial savings. Abel (1986), writing seven years later, shows how the hospice movement became more fully incorporated into the health care system. Activists initially remained separate from Western medicine both due to desire and necessity, as was the case with the CAM movement. Although [activists in the hospice movement] originally sought to provide alternatives to the established order, they were forced to rely on mainstream institutions for resources, political acceptance, and personnel. Integration, in turn, compelled them to modify their practices and goals (Abel, 1986, 71).

For example, activists within the hospice movement had to soften their critique of Western medicine since they now relied upon physicians for referrals. State accreditation and licensing forced them to restrict the experimental aspects of hospice that made them innovative. Most telling, Abel (1986) argues that “as the ideas of the hospice movement have been diffused, they have also been diluted and defused” (82). These are all issues the CAM movement needs to 95

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consider as they advocate integration with Western medicine. Most importantly, activists cannot underestimate how difficult it will be to advocate holistic ideology, not simply alternative techniques. Complementing Western medicine by expanding your selection of medical techniques is one thing. Transforming Western medicine in the way activists envision is quite another. Several players influence the eventual outcome of integrative medicine to varying degrees. I limit the discussion here to three influential groups. First, physicians retain a great deal of power to determine whether, and how, CAM merges with Western medicine. Burstein et al. (1995) use a bargaining perspective to argue that “the more dependent the target is on the SMO (Social Movement Organisation), the more power the SMO has over the target, and the more likely it is to succeed” (293). As of now, Western medicine retains the upper hand. As one acupuncturist in my study says, “this could easily be squashed. The AMA is very powerful, and they may just decide [they] don’t like this.” Second, insurance companies play a large role. One alternative practitioner said that: there is a push now with doctors trying to keep control. It’s economic. Those doctors aren’t a part of this group [the professional association]. So we need to go outside of that to the insurance companies and government. In California people have a choice. It’s the law. If they get in a car accident they can come see me without an MD’s referral. So I don’t think it’s something MDs will have complete control over. Insurance will play a role.

Third, activists also have some degree of control depending upon which strategy they emphasize. I have shown that alternative and integrative medicine are very different. Speaking of the CAM movement, Schneirov and Geczik (1996) argue that “the extent to which it has solid roots in the lifeworld (submerged networks)” affects activists ability to resist co-optation. Alternative medicine keeps activists further away from mainstream institutions and possible co-optation, because they remain primarily within submerged networks. On the other hand, integrative medicine requires a more fundamental change in Western medicine. Integrative medicine requires the use of Western and alternative techniques within the framework of holistic ideology. As I have discussed, physicians would have to do more than simply provide more personal care. They would have to radically restructure their practices. It will probably take years to determine the level of success that the CAM movement achieves with integrative medicine, because this medical model is so new. Not every activist will embrace the newer collective identity or strategy of integrative medicine; rather, some activists will hold on to the older collective identity of alternative medicine. Whether multiple identities lead to divisions or separate movements, as well as what level of success this newer strategy brings, remains to be seen. What is clear is that physicians remain powerful


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despite their loss of autonomy and authority. Moreover, not withstanding the recent successes of the movement, most physicians are not open to integrative medicine as activists conceive of it. Whether physicians begin to identify with the CAM movement is an empirical question unanswered in this study. Yet, changing collective identities among Bay area activists within the CAM movement may simply be the precursor to significant changes in medicine. As Phalen (1998) notes: The birth of integrative medicine will force the medical establishment to form previously unheard of alliances with practitioners once shunned by Western medicine. Transforming the course of our nation’s curative path, our sick care system will become obsolete. New strategies, blending the spiritual, emotional, and natural with high-tech procedures, will evolve. Although it may seem overwhelming, this change is close at hand (13).

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I wish to thank Craig Jenkins, Bob Kaufman and especially Verta Taylor for their insight and patience throughout my graduate career. I am grateful to the people who allowed me to interview and observe them. They were always generous with their time, and their perspective forced me to rethink many of my ideas. I want to thank Jeff who was a patient editor and sounding board for my research. Finally, Patrick Coy and three anonymous reviewers really enabled me to tighten my argument through their comments and questions. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the American Sociological Association Meetings in 1999.

NOTES 1. Some resource mobilization theorists explain that social movements arise and decline depending on the political opportunity structure (Jenkins & Perrow, 1977; McAdam, 1982; Tarrow, 1994; Tilly, 1978). For example, the civil rights movement emerged after African Americans migrated north and registered to vote in large numbers (McAdam, 1982). These changes made the political system more vulnerable. At the same time, the Democratic party’s rise to power made the political system more receptive to the movement’s goals and claims. The second wave of the women’s movement emerged, in part, from former President Kennedy’s creation of the Commission on the Status of Women (Rupp & Taylor, 1987). The women involved in this commission developed leadership skills and communication networks, and their grievances gained legitimacy. Likewise, coalition support from liberal organizations, along with divisions within the government, aided the farm worker’s movement (Jenkins & Perrow, 1977). 2. These percentages do not always represent all 40 respondents, because some did not respond to every question. 3. Even consumers who are satisfied with their relationship with a physician can develop a structural critique. Dr. Anderson (1993) sees many patients who “may like 97

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their individual doctors, but don’t like organized medicine” (33). Likewise, Starr (1982) points out that individual consumers may be satisfied with their physicians, but we are not confident about physicians as a group. For example, consumers are questioning whether Western medicine has made any difference in their overall health (Starr, 1982, 408). Many turn to alternative medicine and develop a structural critique of Western medicine since they are dissatisfied with Western medicine. 4. Dr. Siegel advocates CAM through books such as Love, Medicine & Miracles. 5. Of course, it is unrealistic to conclude that all media coverage on alternative medicine is now favorable given the voices of a few select physicians. Many articles continue to warn readers about unscientific practices. For example, one article in the San Francisco Chronicle says “take care not to get burned by alternative treatments” (December 9, 1996, C1, 2, 8). Hall, the author, goes on to warn that individuals or companies with commercial interests provide much of our information on alternative medicine. Yet, more media sources are covering alternative medicine, especially those praising its benefits. 6. Some physicians are concerned about the legal implications of discussing or practicing CAM. Referring to the latter, Michael Weintraub (1999) concludes that “professional liability law regarding complementary and alternative medicine is still an emerging field that presents medical and legal challenges. A great deal of uncertainty still exists” (1698). 7. On one extreme there is an acupuncturist who says it is not vital to share holistic ideology with patients, because “non-believers are healed.” At the other extreme are the practitioners who believe it is their responsibility to share the ideology even when clients are not receptive. Practitioners in the middle of these extremes assess the openness of their clients before discussing the ideology behind their work. A chiropractor asks “key questions,” such as whether they have tried other alternative techniques, before he discusses these beliefs. 8. Freeman (1979) adds that the structure of social movement organizations, values, ideologies and expectations about potential targets also influence strategies.

REFERENCES Abel, E. K. (1986). The Hospice Movement: Institutionalizing Innovation. International Journal of Health Services, 16, 71–85. Alster, K. B. (1989). The Holistic Health Movement. Tuscaloosa: The University of Alabama Press. Amenta, E., Carruthers, B. G., & Zylan, Y. (1992). A Hero for the Aged? The Townsend Movement, the Political Mediation Model and U.S. Old-Age Policy, 1934–1950. American Journal of Sociology, 98, 308–339. Anderson, R. (1993). The Healing Environment. In: B. Moyers (Ed.), Healing and the Mind (pp. 25–46). New York: Main Street Books. Astin, J. A., Marie, A., Pelletier, K. R., Hansen, E., & Haskell, W. L. (1998). A Review of the Incorporation of Complementary and Alternative Medicine by Mainstream Physicians. Archives of Internal Medicine, 158, 2303–2310. Baer, H. A., Jen, C., Tanassi, L. M., Tsia, C., & Wahbeh, H. (1998). The Drive for Professionalization in Acupuncture: A Preliminary View from the San Francisco Bay Area. Social Science and Medicine, 46, 533–537. Barasch, D. (1992). The Mainstreaming of Alternative Medicine. The New York Times Magazine, October 4, 6–9, 36–38.


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RIVAL TRANSNATIONAL NETWORKS AND INDIGENOUS RIGHTS: THE SAN BLAS KUNA IN PANAMA AND THE YANOMAMI IN BRAZIL Gregory M. Maney

ABSTRACT Why do some indigenous rights campaigns succeed while others fail? I explain the contrasting outcomes of two campaigns in terms of contention between rival transnational issue networks. Because of its considerable resources, organizational strength, positive member dynamics, salient indigenous identity, persuasive framing and effective tactics, the network supporting the San Blas Kuna in Panama readily took advantage of emerging political opportunities to secure the creation of a national park. The park has protected Kunan lands from further encroachments. With limited resources, weak organizational capacities, paternalistic dynamics, multiple indigenous identities, a narrow frame and ill-advised tactics, the network supporting the Yanomami in the Brazilian Amazon struggled in the face of both a strong, savvy, well-coordinated opposition and a more slowly opening, often fluctuating structure of political opportunity. The network tentatively secured an Indian reserve only after a considerable loss of indigenous lives, environmental destruction and cultural disruption. The findings underscore the need to account for organized opposition as Political Opportunities, Social Movements, and Democratization, Volume 23, pages 103–144. Copyright © 2001 by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved. ISBN: 0-7623-0786-2

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well as for transnational and local processes when explaining the policy consequences of indigenous rights movements. Please do not let this happen. Please do not let our land be reduced. Speak to your authorities so that they can speak to the Brazilian government. The situation is very dangerous. The government and other people know that they can earn a lot of money from the riches but all they want to do is kill. Kill the land, kill the fish, kill the Indians. -– Davi Kopenawa, Yanomami spokesperson quoted in Rafferty (1999, 8). There is too much land for the Indians, and the devastated economy of the state will make it inevitable that hungry colonisers will want to move in on the indigenous reserves. – Neldo Campos, Governor of Roraima quoted in Gamini (1998, 1).

INTRODUCTION With the colonization, cultivation and mineral extraction of rain forests over the last four decades, an increasing number of indigenous peoples have mobilized to defend their ways of life if not their very lives. The outcomes of their struggles have varied as exemplified by the two cases presented here. One case, involving the San Blas Kuna on the eastern coast of Panama (see Appendix A), entailed a fairly swift and effective defense of indigenous land rights, political sovereignty and cultural identity. In the other case, involving the Yanomami1 in the Brazilian Amazon (see Appendix B), indigenous land rights have received only tenuous legal recognition. Over the course of three decades of struggle, over a quarter of the Yanomami have died. Outsiders have committed massacres and spread diseases that have wiped out entire villages. Mercury has polluted once pristine waters. Noise from mining, roads and airstrips has chased away game depended upon by the Yanomami for sustenance. Yanomami women have been forced into prostitution. State agencies, corporations, prospectors and settlers continue to appropriate ever-larger tracts of lands for roads, airstrips, military bases, mining, logging, ranching and farming. What explains the different fates of the Kuna and the Yanomami? This article conceptualizes the status of indigenous rights as the product of contention between rival networks of organizations. One network promotes policies supportive of indigenous rights while its rival seeks to open up indigenous lands for non-indigenous use. In the two cases examined, the issue network placing higher levels of pressure upon state actors secured policy changes more in line with its objectives. The degree of pressure generated by each network depended upon factors widely recognized as important bases for mobilization: (1) its resources and organizational capacities; (2) its inter-organizational dynamics; (3) its structure of political opportunity; (4) its collective identities and collective action frames; and (5) its forms of contention.

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In both cases, international non-governmental organizations (INGOs) and international governmental organizations (IGOs) played key roles in contention. In particular, by manipulating transnational dependencies, external organizations placed considerable pressure upon both the Panamanian and Brazilian governments to alter their policies regarding indigenous land use. The presence of external allies alone, however, did not guarantee the timely attainment of indigenous rights objectives. Because the San Blas Kuna possessed considerably more resources, stronger organizational capacities, a more highly developed collective identity and more strategic savvy than the Yanomami, their support network more readily and fully took advantage of emerging political opportunities. The findings suggest that conventional social movements concepts, with refinements emphasizing oppositional mobilization, can be fruitfully applied to explain the outcomes of issue contention in cases beyond Europe and North America. Moreover, just as increased international trade, finance and investment threaten indigenous sovereignty, they also present opportunities for successful resistance against assimilation and destruction. And while the long tentacles of globalization mandate attention to transnational dimensions of protest, the policy outcomes of social movements cannot be fully understood without reference to local factors.

THEORY Rival Transnational Issue Networks The distribution of rights and resources within and across societies is the unfolding product of contention between rival transnational issue networks. I define rival transnational issue networks as coalitions of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and governmental organizations (GOs) that are based in more than one society and engage in activities, through some degree of cross-societal communication and exchange, that promote a common explicit objective on an issue of mutual concern.2 While certainly existing prior to World War II, transnational issue networks have flourished in the post-war era. Networks have formed around a variety of issues, including the status of indigenous peoples. Research has emphasized the positive contributions of international involvement to campaigns demanding the redistribution of social rewards and the promotion of human rights within a given society (Keohane & Nye, 1977; Sikkink, 1993; Pagnucco & Atwood, 1994; Risse-Kappen, 1995; Smith, 1995; Brysk, 1996; Coy, 1997; Schulz, 1998). Nonetheless, networks of insurgents and their allies do not always achieve their objectives. 105

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Defining Outcomes The potential consequences of issue network contention are as numerous and diffuse as they are difficult to demonstrate. Social movement researchers have noted the impacts of mobilization upon the identities of participants (McAdam, 1989, 1999; Melucci, 1989), political discourses (Coy & Woehrle, 1996), access to the polity (Gamson, 1975) and government policy (Meyer & Marullo, 1992). For the purposes of this article, I limit my focus to the impact of issue network contention upon the issue-specific policies of targeted actors. Issue networks are most successful when they rapidly achieve, at minimal cost to their participants and constituencies, major, lasting and desired changes in the policies of their targets. Given that this definition contains several dimensions of success (the rapidity of change, the cost of change, the scope of change, the permanence of change and the direction of change), success should be viewed as continuous rather than discrete. For example, an issue network achieving minor policy changes after years of contestation during which its members incur significant costs is better regarded as moderately successful than as a complete failure.3 Factors in the Outcome of Issue Contention Traditionally, researchers have focused upon social movements – their characteristics and the structures of political opportunity facing them – when explaining the political outcomes of mobilization (e.g. Gamson, 1975; Tarrow, 1994). However, demands for state policies to protect or augment the rights and resources of a specific social grouping generally encounter substantial resistance from a range of state agencies and private organizations favoring either the status quo or policies with opposite distributive effects (Meyer & Staggenborg, 1996). Policy formation, therefore, entails a process of contention between two networks of organizations with competing agendas. As a result, the characteristics, structures of opportunity and activities of both issue networks figure significantly in the ability of either to achieve its policy objectives. More specifically, the degree to which rival transnational issue networks attain their contrasting objectives depends primarily upon the relative levels of pressure they place upon a target (e.g. a state agency or multinational corporation) as well as upon each other.4 I define pressure as the extent to which an action promotes or jeopardizes a goal highly valued by the target. For instance, state officials often value a positive institutional public image (i.e. legitimacy) and public order (i.e. stability). When the actions of an issue network threaten to diminish or actually diminish the level of attainment of these values, they generate significant pressure for change.


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Figure 1 provides a hypothetical scenario of contention between rival transnational networks mobilized around the use of lands inhabited by indigenous peoples. As is often the case, the rival networks target a complex institutional actor such as a state. In Fig. 1, one agency in the targeted state supports the policy demand of the indigenous rights network (e.g. advocates outlawing logging on lands inhabited by indigenous peoples). Because of conflicting organizational imperatives or contrasting ideologies, another agency, however, opposes the demand. Still another agency partly responsible for formulating or implementing related policies has yet to take a position on the issue. In cases where a target is divided, neutral, or receptive, the issue network that places greater pressure upon the target as a whole will be more likely to obtain an outcome in line with its objectives. Thus when an indigenous rights network either jeopardizes or promotes, to a greater extent than its rival, goals valued more highly than those advanced by blocking the policy changes sought (e.g. legitimacy and stability), the target will make concessions to indigenous

Fig. 1.

The Status of Indigenous Rights as the Product of Rival Network Contention. 107

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demands. On the other hand, if the developmental network endangers or facilitates, to a greater extent than its rival, the attainment of goals more highly valued by the target than goals advanced by granting indigenous demands, then concessions to developmental demands will be forthcoming. Lastly, in cases where neither network can jeopardize or promote goals more highly valued by the target than their issue-specific agendas, a stalemate ensues. Drawing upon the insights of resource mobilization, political process and new social movement theories, the framework identifies five sets of factors that contribute to the ability of issue networks to generate pressure: (1) resources and organizational capacities; (2) inter-organizational dynamics; (3) structures of political opportunity; (4) collective identities and collective action frames; and (5) forms of contention. I now review the theoretical and empirical basis for the selection of these factors as sources of pressure, highlighting the need to account for the dyadic and dynamic nature of issue contention. Resources and Organizational Capacities Resource mobilization theorists have long asserted the importance of resources to the origins of social movements (Oberschall, 1973; McCarthy & Zald, 1977; Jenkins, 1983). Recruitment and logistics for collective action require substantial amounts of time, money and skilled effort. Several different types of resources are utilized such as financial, technological, information and human resources. The logic of resource mobilization also helps to explain the outcomes of issue contention. The levels and types of resources possessed not only by a network, but also by its rival are significant. By mobilizing more widely and intensively for longer periods of time, the rival transnational issue network that more effectively allocates higher levels of resources to pursuing an objective will generate greater pressure on behalf of its demands.5 Given the tendency of indigenous peoples to comprise “the poorest of the poor” (Brysk & Wise, 199, 77), non-indigenous organizations can serve as important sources of resources in the pursuit of indigenous rights (see also Yashar, 1997). In addition, resource mobilization studies emphasize how organizational factors shape the scope, intensity, duration and form of mobilization. High levels of pre-existing organization allow for effective planning and the marshaling of resources (Jenkins & Perrow, 1977; Morris, 1984; Rupp & Taylor, 1987). An issue network with strong organizational capacities, therefore, can readily engage in activities that jeopardize or promote a target’s highly valued goals. Conversely, a sparse organizational field characterized by groups lacking established operating procedures, membership communication and committed staffs with clearly defined roles limits the ability of a network to conduct widespread, intensive mobilization. Recent indigenous rights campaigns have experienced greater


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success in countries with historically strong indigenous organizational fields such as Bolivia and Columbia than in countries with weak fields such as Peru (Brysk & Wise, 1997; Van Cott, 2000). As with resources, the organizational capacities of the rival issue network also need to be considered. In Bolivia, for instance, the weakness of the national judiciary has minimized external interference in the local administration of justice in indigenous areas (Van Cott, 2000). Inter-Organizational Dynamics The combined resources and capacities of organizations comprising rival transnational networks tell only part of the story. Organizations within an issue network can greatly enhance their individual and collective capacities by exchanging resources, coordinating collective action and creating political opportunities for one another. Conversely, a network can languish or even self-destruct when its members refuse to share resources, link efforts, or exercise influence on one another’s behalf (McCarthy & Zald, 1977). Often organizations in divided issue networks devote more time to competing with one another than to pressuring a common target. A transnational issue network with positive dynamics will engage in higher levels of cooperation to jeopardize or promote a target’s highly valued goals than a rival beset with internal differences. What promotes positive dynamics in issue networks? Most research on the topic has emphasized network density. Dense networks have frequent and balanced interaction between participating organizations. Such interaction generates the trust, common collective identity and commitment necessary for sustained cooperation (Powell, 1990; Carley, 1991; Smith, 1995; Keck & Sikkink, 1998). It follows that organizations with weak, unbalanced ties operate less effectively than organizations with strong, balanced ties (Maney, 2000). In addition, relationships of dependency and power within an issue network greatly affect the level and utilization of its capacities. Dependency is defined here as a characteristic of a social relationship where the attainment of a highly desired goal requires, or is perceived to require, the help or consent of a specific and limited set of others.6 The possession of considerable resources, capacities and institutional access by external, non-indigenous organizations make their presence indispensable to the achievement of indigenous goals. Brysk (1996, 56) notes the potentially problematic consequences of these asymmetrical relationships: As governments, funders, and international organizations increasingly turn to indigenist organizations and other international allies instead of Indians themselves, the internationalization of Indian rights becomes fraught with the potential for a new, postmodern form of dependency.

The power of resulting from dependency encourages unilateral decision making, since weaker participants are seen as having little to contribute and fear risking 109

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the departure of their more influential allies by advocating alternative courses of action. As a result, issue networks with skewed distributions of dependency often fail to fully utilize their collective resources. Vital information and creative ideas possessed by marginalized organizations often go unnoticed or unheeded. Opportunities to strengthen other members and the network as a whole are missed. Conversely, networks characterized by interdependence – where the presence of each member is perceived as being indispensable to the attainment of a common objective – are more likely to exhibit higher levels of cooperation (Powell, 1990). Brysk (1996), for instance, finds that transnational networks making concerted efforts to draw upon indigenous groups’ local knowledge have more successfully opposed multilateral development bank policies. Structures of Political Opportunity More resources, higher levels of organization and positive inter-organizational dynamics do not guarantee that an issue network will achieve its policy objectives. The broader political context must also be considered. Tarrow (1994,171) writes: Success is the outcome of a parallelogram of forces from which even a weak challenger may emerge in a better position than a strong one when the former is well placed to take advantage of political opportunities. The political process is not quite a lottery, but it actively intervenes between the resources and goals of a movement and its success or failure.

Political process theory examines structures of political opportunity – the vulnerability or receptivity of elites to challenges from those excluded from the polity (Eisinger, 1973; Tilly, 1978). Political opportunities spark mobilization by reducing the anticipated costs of participation while increasing its expected benefits. While political process theorists have used precipitous shifts in structures of political opportunity to explain the origins of social movements, the concept can also be logically extended to explain their outcomes (Kriesi et al., 1995). Political opportunities serve as pressure points for issue networks. Openings in an exclusive political system, unstable political alignments, factionalism and diminished repressive capacities make it difficult for elites to ignore or suppress threats to economic growth, social stability and retaining political power. At the same time, these conditions encourage some elites to forge alliances with issue networks in the hopes of achieving objectives similar to those being threatened. In Columbia, threats posed by guerillas and drug-traffickers in peripheral areas along with a decline in regime legitimacy made the state more receptive to indigenous rights demands (Van Cott, 1996). Two adjustments to the concept of political opportunity structures increase its usefulness in explaining the outcome of contention between rival transnational issue networks. First, rival issue networks face distinct structures


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of political opportunity. Networks challenging the status quo benefit from institutional openings, splits and shifting coalitions among elites and the presence of influential allies and support groups (Tarrow, 1994). Similarly, for a network opposing such a challenge, factionalism within the challenger network, the emergence of influential allies and support groups and a decline in public sympathy for the insurgents constitute important political opportunities. With this adjustment in hand, it is claimed that the transnational issue network with the more advantageous constellation of political opportunities over the course of contention will be more likely to secure its policy objectives. Second, structures of political opportunity must be situated within a transnational context. Outcomes of movements have been seen as the product of “the structural political setting of a given country” (Kriesi et al., 1995, 213). Yet national-level political opportunities partly depend upon transnational patterns of political and economic interaction (Maney, 2001). Shifts in these patterns can create or expose the vulnerabilities of targets. For instance, instability in political alignments resulting from the international debt crisis of the 1980s encouraged the Bolivian government to forge alliances with indigenous peoples (Brysk & Wise, 1997).7 Moreover, as shall be seen below, by increasing transnational dependencies, globalization processes have created important opportunities to bring external pressure to bear upon targeted states (Van Cott, 1996; Smith et al., 1997; Keck & Sikkink, 1998). Intersecting Dependencies Intersecting dependencies occur among three or more actors. In the scenario depicted by Fig. 2, Actor Z’s dependency upon Actor Y intersects with Actor Y’s dependency upon Actor X. By manipulating this intersection of dependencies, Actor X can indirectly exert power over Actor Z. Unless Actor X demands that Actor Z provide something more valuable than what Actor Y provides to Actor Z, Actor Z will, if acting rationally, concede to Actor X’s demands. There exist numerous forms of economic and political dependency of Third World states on multinational corporations, international private banks, the states of advanced industrialized countries and multilateral lending agencies (e.g. Boswell & Dixon, 1990; Jenkins & Schock, 1992). Economic dependencies include heavy, concentrated reliance upon externally provided markets, loans, investment, advanced technologies, marketing and distribution and intermediate capital inputs. Political dependencies include reliance upon other states for military capacities, food and other forms of ‘humanitarian’ aid. When external actors upon whom Third World states depend are vulnerable to pressure by NGOs, a condition of intersecting dependencies exists. The utilization of these pressure points improves the chances that an indigenous rights network will 111

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Fig. 2.

Intersecting Dependencies: Conceptual Diagram.

win concessions if not its primary demands in their entirety. Considerable evidence points towards the importance of intersecting dependencies to the outcome of issue contention.8 For instance, networks supporting indigenous rights, rubber tappers and peoples threatened by hydro-electric dam projects have successfully pressured the World Bank to suspend loans to the Brazilian government (Conklin & Graham, 1995; Rothman & Oliver, 1999). Collective Identities and Collective Action Frames While largely overlooked by scholars until the 1980s, cultural factors such as collective identities and collective action frames significantly affect participation in social movements.9 These factors also affect the ability of issue networks to place pressure upon their targets. A strong sense of shared fate promotes willingness among organizations to cooperate and make sacrifices on behalf of common objectives (Melucci, 1989; Gamson, 1992). Moreover, widely and deeply revered collective identities can elicit greater public sympathy for the network’s members and their cause (e.g. Navarro, 1989; Escobar & Alvarez, 1992). An issue network characterized by highly developed and integrated collective identities with broad public appeal will be more successful at achieving its policy demands than a comparably positioned issue network with multiple and fragmented identities formed in direct opposition to the target.10


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Like collective identities, collective action frames that resonate with widely and deeply held beliefs increase participation in an issue network and, therefore, levels of resources and organizational capacities at its disposal (Snow & Benford, 1992).11 Moreover, resonant frames generate considerable symbolic pressure upon targeted actors. Failure to grant the “reasonable demands” of the network framing the issue raises concerns about hypocrisy and immorality in the minds of the general public and the target. By jeopardizing personal identities and by challenging social norms, opposition to demands linked to widely and deeply resonating frames carries significant costs. The issue network deploying collective action frames that more deeply resonate with the target and the general public will be more likely to experience success than will its rival. For example, by linking indigenous rights to tolerance, reconciliation and participatory democracy, indigenous delegates elected to Columbia’s National Constitutional Assembly garnered sympathetic media coverage and a positive response from President Gaviria (Van Cott, 1996). Both developments greatly assisted the delegates in pursuing their proposals. The adoption of collective action frames by issue networks generally requires extensive discussions among its members; discussions underpinned by strategic, identity and ideological considerations (Coy & Woehrle, 1996; Van Cott, 2000). Over time, networks often change frames, adjusting to shifting political circumstances (Rothman & Oliver, 1999). In recent years, frames linking indigenous and ecological concerns have garnered international sympathy and concerted action on behalf of the goals of indigenous rights networks (Conklin & Graham, 1995).12 Although ‘indigenous ecology’ frames appeal to a Western audience, indigenous organizations generally play active roles in their construction (Brosius, 1997). Developmental networks opposing indigenous rights demands also deploy a variety of collective action frames in the pursuit of their agendas. These networks use different types of frames depending upon whether the goal is to mobilize domestic support or to diffuse international support for their rivals. Frames linking nationalist and modernization discourses appeal to large segments of public opinion in peripheral and semiperipheral countries.13 To the extent that an indigenous ecology frame secures international intervention, it heightens the salience of accusations that foreign states wish to block the development of the country in question or to exploit its resources for their own benefit (Conklin & Graham, 1995). In this way, indigenous ecology frames generate sources of pressure not only for the indigenous rights network, but also for its rival. National development frames, on the other hand, produce domestic support while increasing international opposition. Recognizing this, strategically savvy developmental networks have altered their rhetoric in international forums. By adopting the 113

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terminology of the indigenous-ecology frame, developmental networks steal the thunder of their rivals by appearing to share their concerns. Frame co-optation can create confusion among the general public while lessening a sense of urgency among members of indigenous rights networks. Forms of Contention Tactical interplay between rival networks and their targets over time can critically affect the relative ability of the rival networks to mount pressure. As Fig. 1 suggests, tactics can increase participation in one issue network while triggering exits and defections from another. These changes, in turn, significantly affect other sources of pressure and, therefore, the extent and direction of policy changes. By deploying forms of contention that augment sources of pressure, an issue network increases the likelihood of achieving its goals. In a comparative study of three indigenous rights campaigns in Taiwan, Chi (1998) found that major differences in the media and organizational strategies of the campaigns as well as government responses to these strategies resulted in contrasting levels of success. Once again, the tactical efficacy of not only the indigenous rights network, but also its organized opponents and targets must be considered. While violence or threats of violence by indigenous peoples may produce concessions, such acts may also provide excuses for an escalation of violence by opponents who often possess greater coercive capacities. The stereotype of the fierce savage is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, the stereotype can lend credibility to threats of violence by indigenous groups. An emphasis upon conflict and sensation by the media also ensures coverage of protests staged by indigenous participants wearing body paint and carrying weapons (Turner, 1992). On the other hand, the stereotype can encourage violence against indigenous peoples by dehumanizing them and raising fears among the non-indigenous population. Targeted states (particularly those dominated by agencies opposing indigenous rights demands) frequently engage in repression against indigenous rights network members in efforts to reduce the pressure placed upon them. For instance, after international media coverage waned, Mexican federal troops intensified their activities against the Zapatistas (Nash, 1997). Targeted states have also engaged in Trojan horse tactics where apparent concessions to indigenous rights demands actually serve to undermine indigenous rights. In the early 1990s, the Colombian government responded to pressure by creating Indigenous Territorial Entities (ETIs) out of the Vaupes resguardo – a vast expanse of land inhabited by indigenous peoples. The government controlled the form, function and personnel of the new political administrative units. Rather than providing autonomy, the ITEs undermined indigenous political independence (Jackson, 1996).


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METHOD Case Selection and Overview I selected the cases of the San Blas Kuna and the Yanomami on the basis of both key similarities and differences. In terms of commonalities, both indigenous rights campaigns explicitly sought the creation of national parks that would recognize and protect territories traditionally inhabited by indigenous peoples. These common policy demands make it easier to compare the outcomes of the cases.14 Both cases also involved organized contention. Opposition came from groups advocating the use of indigenous lands for resource extraction and settlements of non-indigenous peoples. As the institutional actor with authority over indigenous lands, national states were targeted for pressure by the indigenous rights and developmental networks. Both the Panamanian and Brazilian states had military agencies with modernizing or developmental ideologies. The readily identifiable presence in both cases of organized opponents and targets facilitates the application of the rival transnational issue network framework. The cases also have important differences that make their comparison useful. The San Blas Kuna and their allies secured the establishment of a National Park more readily, more decisively and at a lesser cost to the indigenous population than their Yanomami counterparts. Variations in all the hypothesized determinants of pressure (resources and organizational capacities, inter-organizational dynamics, etc.) enable a full assessment of the ability of the rival transnational issue network framework to explain these contrasting policy outcomes. Other potentially significant differences include geographic location, natural resources and state capacities. Comparative historical studies have identified these factors as relevant to macro-level economic and political transformations (e.g. Stepan, 1985; O’Donnell & Schmitter, 1986). The article explores whether these factors are also helpful in understanding the status of indigenous peoples. The cases also differ in terms of the levels of indigenous contact with the outside world. The Kuna have interacted with outsiders more extensively than the Yanomami. This difference allows me to address whether external interaction invariably facilitates the assimilation or annihilation of indigenous peoples or, under certain circumstances, impedes either process. Data: Sources and Uses Drawing from anthropological, activist and newspaper sources, I created two files on organizations involved in issue contention as well as detailed historical chronologies. The organizational files provide details on the specific groups 115

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involved, their resources, their organizational capacities and the interorganizational dynamics prevailing within the respective issue networks. The historical chronologies served two purposes. Lists of events during the periods of contention assisted in the identification of the temporal relationship between the emergence of political opportunities and issue-specific policies in the two cases. In addition, longer historical overviews of the Kuna and Yanomami enabled an assessment of their prior interactions with external actors. Insufficient data existed to always make intra-case comparisons between the rival transnational issue networks. In certain instances, therefore, I have relied upon comparisons across cases to examine hypothesized sources of pressure. For example, evidence that the less successful indigenous rights network (i.e. the Yanomami network) had fewer resources and organizational capacities than its more successful counterpart (i.e. the Kuna network) provides a degree of support for the importance of resources and organizational capacities as sources of pressure. Nonetheless, the Kuna rights network could have faced a developmental network with greater resources than its own. Additional evidence that the Brazilian developmental network possessed greater resources and organizational capacities than its Panamanian counterpart, therefore, provides greater assurance that these factors are, in fact, relevant to the policy outcomes of contention over indigenous lands. Difficulty in defending causal claims and non-spuriousness has impeded research on the outcomes of social movements (Earl, 2000). That neither the Panamanian or Brazilian states had plans to create Kuna or Yanomami reserves prior to the formation of issue networks demanding and obtaining their creation (albeit belatedly and precariously in the Yanomami case) provides prima facie evidence of the efficacy of indigenous rights mobilization. Nonetheless, I address the challenge of establishing causality in three ways. First, where possible, I describe how hypothesized sources of pressure directly or indirectly affected issue-specific policy-making. Second, for each hypothesized source of pressure, I show that variations between the two cases coincided in expected ways with contrasting policy outcomes. Third, I document how changes in certain hypothesized sources of pressure such as shifts in structures of political opportunity immediately preceded or coincided with policy changes.

RESULTS Factors in the Outcome of Issue Contention A comparative historical analysis of the contrasting outcomes of contention over San Blas Kuna and Yanomami lands supports the significance of each


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expected source of pressure identified above. I now consider each source in turn. Resources and Organizational Capacities There existed a far greater gap between the resources and organizational capacities of the rival issue networks contending Yanomami lands than in the Kuna case. This wider disparity contributed to the longer period of time it took the Yanomami rights network to effectively secure its demands for a National Park. Comparing the strengths of the issue networks across cases makes the sources of these disparities clearer. For three reasons, the developmental network in the Panamanian case possessed fewer resources and organizational capacities than its Brazilian counterpart. First, the non-arability of land on the frontier of the Kuna’s territory combined with a lack of valuable mineral deposits minimized corporate, prospector and settler involvement in the Panamanian developmental network. External support came primarily from the U.S. Armed Forces and, for a time, from two U.S. bilateral lending agencies (see Appendix C). These organizations assisted the Panamanian government in building highways that encroached upon indigenous lands. In contrast, U.S. government-aided mineral exploration in the mid-1970s led to the discovery of uranium, gold, titanium and other valuable minerals on Yanomami lands. Along with state incentives for inward foreign direct investment, these discoveries contributed to multinational corporations participating in the developmental network. News of gold also led to thousands of landless peasants and urban poor rushing on to Yanomami lands. Despite their occasional expulsion by federal police, by the late 1980s, gold seekers, known as garimpeiros, outnumbered the Brazilian Yanomami by four to one. Along with timber merchants they became the dominant political force in the State of Roraima where the Yanomami’s territory is mainly located. Second, whereas no nation states bordered the San Blas rainforest, six straddle the Brazilian Amazon. The vastly larger size of the Amazon has resulted in the area serving as a safe-haven for guerillas and drug traffickers. Yanomami territory, therefore, presents greater strategic concerns for Brazilian military agencies than Kuna territory does for their Panamanian counterparts. Third, not only did the Panamanian state have less at stake, it could do less to achieve its agenda. Whereas the military coup in Panama in 1968 only began to establish modern bureaucratic administrative capacities, the Brazilian state had already established a highly developed administration. Stronger state capacities made the attainment of legal recognition of Yanomami land rights more difficult. While the Brazilian developmental network was stronger than its Panamanian counterpart, the opposite situation prevailed with the indigenous rights networks. 117

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While both networks received considerable support from external NGOs, significant disparities existed in the resources and levels of organization possessed by the two indigenous peoples. The finding underscores that, even in an era of globalization, local factors still critically affect the status of indigenous peoples. The San Blas Kuna rank among the wealthiest and best-organized indigenous peoples in the Americas (Helms, 1988; Langebaek, 1991). Revenues from molas (traditional women’s dress), tourism and savings from migrant Kunans working in the Canal Zone provide the Kuna with steady and sizable sources of income. By largely retaining control over ownership, marketing and distribution, a significant percentage of the wealth accruing from the production and exchange of goods and services remains in Kunan hands (Stephen, 1991). Moreover, a large part of these revenues goes towards funding community institutions. The Kuna’s self-managed production and affluence relative to other indigenous peoples reflects centuries of prosperous international and regional trade and successful resistance to colonization. As a result of their substantial financial resources, the Kuna put up $150,000 of their own money in 1983 to help finance the Udirbi National Park (Chapin, 1985). In addition, due to a longstanding tradition of educating tribal elites in Panama City and abroad, the Kuna have a large professional class providing information, technical and legal assistance for dealings with outsiders (Breslin & Chapin, 1988). For example, in the course of airplane rides to and from Panama City during the early 1970s, Kuna passengers noticed the advancement of deforestation towards their territory as a result of the slash and burn agriculture of land-starved peasants and cattle ranchers. Also aware of government plans to build a road from El Lano to San Blas, the Kuna developed a strategy to build a buffer at the point on the perimeter of their territory where the impending land invasion would most likely begin. The Kuna also possess strong organizational capacities. There exist longstanding, sophisticated and representative forms of political organization as well as extensive and enduring informal social networks between villages. On the village level, regular night-time gatherings of village leaders, elders and activists allow for community-wide discussions on matters of common concern as well as for the planning of village-wide events. Through rituals, chants and storytelling, the gatherings also provide shared cultural experiences that solidify collective identity (Howe, 1986). In times of crisis, the gathering unifies the community in the face of external threats (Chapin, 1985). Secretaries keep attendance lists to ensure participation. On a territory-wide basis, the General Congress serves a function similar to the gathering – communication, coordination and solidarity. The Congress is legally recognized by the Panamanian state as the government for the Kuna


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reservation. The Congress consists of the three caciques or leaders from every village across the reserve. The caciques – who most often serve as the Kuna’s representatives in negotiations with the Panamanian government – are held strictly accountable to the Congress and its wishes. The Congress invites representatives from Panamanian state agencies and allied organizations to receive and offer information regarding Kunan needs and concerns. By generating consensus among village leaders on goals and strategies, the Congress ensures that the Kuna are united and prepared for challenges that arise.15 In contrast, the Yanomami lack the resources and organizational capacities possessed by the Kuna. Even in recent years, the Yanomami have yet to collectively hold moneys for financing their activities. No professional class experienced with the Brazilian political and legal system exists. With limited information regarding events outside their own territory, the Yanomami were unprepared to take advantage of political opportunities initially presenting themselves. Since 1984, however, participation in the Union of Indigenous Nation’s (UNI) regional conference in Roraima has encouraged a strategic disposition through examples offered by more experienced delegates (Fuerst, 1985). In terms of organizational capacities, despite decades of attempts to create a representative political body, the Yanomami have little comparable to the gathering or the Kuna General Congress. No formal governmental structure exists either at or beyond the village level (Salamone, 1997). At the village level, decisions are mostly made by consensus, with the village leader informally consulting the rest of the adult villagers. Stable political authority is the exception rather than the norm. Political power derives principally, though by no means exclusively, from paternal lineage – with large, long-standing families holding considerable influence (Ramos, 1995). Because of the tendency for Yanomami kin to dissipate, the size and influence of different families within a community fluctuates rapidly. Without a formal process of succession, the death of a village leader can precipitate a power struggle that leads to large numbers of residents departing, either to start their own villages or to join other villages already in existence (Ramos, 1995). At the inter-village level, feasts involving villages with trade and marital ties provide opportunities for collective decision making. Frequent shifts in the alliances and conflicts between villages as well as uncoordinated patterns of migration, however, have prevented the formation of stable, durable inter-village networks that could serve as a solid foundation for a pan-Yanomami representative body.16 Commercial activities on Yanomami lands have introduced further obstacles to political unity. Before the development onslaught in the 1960s and 1970s, trails and streams served as “conveyor belts carrying 119

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the social impulses that keep alive the great chain of relationships between communities and render isolation and atomization of the local groups virtually impossible” (Ramos, 1991, 15). Mining quarries, airstrips and clearings have thrown several wrenches into these conveyor belts, impeding cross-village communication and mobilization. Moreover, non-indigenous individuals and organizations have waged massacres, armed one village against another and introduced diseases. By wiping out entire communities, these activities have further destabilized the inter-village political system (Ferguson, 1995a). With minimal resources or organizational capacities, the Yanomami have responded to threats to their well being mainly on the village level and in an ad hoc manner. Interaction with external political elites has required extensive facilitation by non-indigenous organizations. As will be seen in the next section, this reliance upon outsiders has limited the ability of the network to defend the rights of the Yanomami. Inter-Organizational Dynamics High levels of cooperation among its members helped the Kuna rights network to place significant pressure upon the Panamanian government to create a national park. In the case of the Yanomami, however, an internally divided indigenous rights network along with a well-coordinated opposition meant that, in many instances, the developmental network generated greater pressure upon Brazilian state agencies. Comparisons of the two indigenous rights networks as well as of the rival networks in the Brazilian case reveal the reasons for these contrasting dynamics. Indigenous and non-indigenous members of the Kuna rights network regularly interacted with one another. The very idea of the Udirbi National Park resulted from consultations between members of the Kuna agricultural colony at Udirbi, representatives from the Kuna General Congress and a NGO based in Costa Rica, the Center for the Teaching and Investigation of Tropical Agriculture (Chapin, 1985). CATIE worked intensively with the Kuna to create a grant proposal for the park. The Kuna’s insistence upon technical training translated into daily contact among network members. Along with CATIE, the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute and the Human Ecology Center trained the Kuna to manage the wildlife reserve. The groups maintain a permanent presence in the park. In contrast, external allies had less frequent and balanced contact with the Yanomami, leading to lower levels of cooperation. Both in 1976 and 1987, the Brazilian government forbade foreign researchers, missionaries and medical personnel from entering Yanomami territory. Imposed by a military-dominated National Indian Foundation (FUNAI), the 1987 ban lasted until late 1990 when pressure from the United Nations and Organization of American States resulted


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in its lifting (Ramos, 1995). While aimed at preventing INGOs from generating negative international publicity, the ban also largely severed communication between the Yanomami and their allies. In so doing, the development faction within the Brazilian state alleviated pressure placed upon it by the Yanomami rights network. Unlike the Yanomami network, high levels of contact and cooperation have characterized the Brazilian developmental network. State owned mining companies, foreign capital and local capital all participate in joint mining ventures (Davis, 1977). Allied Amazonian governors and members of Federal Congress frequently meet with the garimpeiros union that they depend upon for political support. The common pursuit of wealth may also facilitate cooperation. Allegedly, the military police and FUNAI staff regularly receive bribes from garimpeiros (Ramos, 1995). Through high levels of cooperation, the developmental network has postponed a resolution of the land dispute favorable to the Yanomami. In late 1989, deciding upon a case brought before it by international and national NGOs, a Brazilian Federal Court Judge ordered the removal of 42,000 garimpeiros from Yanomami territory. In an effort to shift blame for the plight of the Yanomami, the miners along with airplane owners and merchants brought sick Indians to hospitals and a FUNAI hostel in Boa Vista, Roraima. At the same time, 10,000 protested the court’s decision and called upon the President to reverse it. The Governor of Roraima, Members of Congress and military officials expressed support for the demonstrators. The Minister of Justice responded to these activities by agreeing not to enforce the court order if the garimpeiros voluntarily refrained from using mercury in the river and possessing firearms (Allen, 1992). Before stepping down, the military-backed President issued three decrees allowing garimpeiros to occupy 9.5 million hectares of indigenous lands (Ramos, 1995). Frequent and balanced interaction within the developmental network enabled a rapid, coordinated and effective series of responses to a judicial setback. In addition to the frequency of inter-organizational contact, another important network characteristic proved to be the direction of influence within the indigenous rights networks. In the Kuna case, external allies only provided help specifically requested by the Kuna General Congress. The Congress sought external help with an eye towards making it unnecessary in the future. With reference to the creation of Udirbi Park, Chapin (1985, 48) states of the Kuna: “while they fully realize that much of the technological assistance must be imported, they have no intention of allowing outsiders to dominate the project.” In fact, every phase of design and implementation involved Kunan representatives. Unwanted “development aid” was firmly rejected. Plans by the Panamanian Tourist Institute to build a luxury tourist hotel on the reserve met 121

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with the threat of violence against anyone conducting a feasibility study. Most Kuna bristle at even the thought of paternalism.17 As a result of the partnership that emerged between the Kuna and their allies, the network not only made efficient use of the resources and expertise of all actors involved, but also strengthened itself by increasing the technical and administrative skills of the Kuna. The same, however, cannot be said for the Yanomami rights network. With minimal indigenous resources or organizational capacities available to mobilize resistance to grave threats to the Yanomami starting in the mid-1960s, both international and Brazilian organizations felt compelled to act as guardians. While the impetus is understandable, such stewardship has reinforced relationships of dependency within the network. In 1992, a founding member of the Commission for the Creation of the Yanomami Park, Claudia Andujar, noted: . . . the Yanomami will have to understand their constitutional rights and learn to negotiate with the outside world, but for this they need time” (quoted in Aparicio, 1992, 29). The Yanomami have yet to meaningfully participate in the implementation, let alone the design, of campaigns on their behalf.18

This lopsided dynamic has negatively affected the defense of Yanomami lands in three ways. First, allies have committed tactical errors that could have been avoided with greater indigenous involvement. Upon issuing its call for the creation of a National Park, the CCPY underestimated the size of the territory traditionally utilized by the Yanomami (Aparicio, 1992). It took until 1985 before a joint study with FUNAI corrected the error. Indigenous participation in demarcation probably would have prevented under-estimation while providing an opportunity to link the Yanomami together on a territory-wide basis. Second, the absence of representative political bodies among the Yamomami has called into question the credibility of Yanomami spokespersons and, therefore, the indigenous rights network as a whole. Even some allies have suggested that non-indigenous NGOs have scripted the statements of high profile indigenous leaders such as Davi Kopenawa (Salamone, 1997). Furthermore, while Davi Kopenawa links protection of Yanomami land rights and culture with environmental protection and sustainable development, a Venezuelan Yanomami spokesperson has advocated mining concessions on tribal lands. Whether these individuals are pawns of NGOs or garimpeiros unions remains in dispute. Some Yanomami have forcibly resisted gold miners while others have begun to engage in mining themselves (Ramos, 1995). What is certain is that, in the absence of formal indigenous political institutions, the appearance of manipulation has undermined the legitimacy of the Yanomami rights network both within Brazil and beyond its borders. Third, whereas INGOs working with the Kuna generally cooperated with one another, an absence of a comparably organized Yanomami political leadership


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has resulted in external allies spending considerable time, money and effort attempting to discredit one another. Differences of opinion have emerged regarding who speaks on behalf of the Yanomami and what is in their best interest. Salamone (1997, 7) writes: Clashes with outsiders have led to noisy arguments within anthropology in particular and in development circles in general regarding the best ways in which to safeguard the Yanomami. At times, it appeared that the interests or desires of the Yanomami themselves were being overlooked as one faction or another attacked the position of their opponents. Each faction purported to speak for the Yanomami.

Feuding between anthropologists and missionaries has prevented the network from taking full advantage of important opportunities to strengthen Yanomami rights. For instance, the massacre of over a dozen Yanomami villagers by Brazilian garimpeiros received extensive international media coverage. The massacre occurred in 1993 – the United Nations Year of Indigenous Rights. As such, it presented an excellent chance to pressure the Brazilian government to expel the miners from Yanomami lands by appealing to international public opinon. Two presidential commissions were appointed to investigate the incident. An American anthropologist, Napolean Chagnon, headed one commission while a Bishop affiliated with Salesian missionaries headed the other. While both Chagnon and the Salesians had actively worked to promote the rights of the Yanomami, a turf-war ensued. The Bishop’s commission allegedly secured an order to expel Chagnon from the area under their investigation. Chagnon responded by writing an editorial in the New York Times accusing the Salesians of contributing to Yanomami starvation, disease, warfare and cultural assimilation. Soon, the war of words escalated. The Salesians mailed and distributed materials critical of Chagnon’s research to members of the American Anthropological Association. Without the Yanomami possessing the resources, organization and experience necessary to designate specific roles for external allies, disputes between their allies have depleted the network’s resources, reduced levels of interorganizational cooperation and resulted in missed opportunities for advancing a common cause.19 As a result, a coordinated, united rival has been able to block and even reverse policy changes favoring the Yanomami. Structures of Political Opportunity In both cases, indigenous rights victories followed shifts in political opportunities favoring the indigenous rights network. In the early stages of mobilization during the mid-1970s, the Kuna rights network faced a largely closed structure of political opportunities. With the coup d’etat in 1968, the Panamanian political system became even more exclusive. Other events favored the developmental network. A new constitution enacted in 1972 eliminated legal protection of the 123

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Kuna’s political and economic autonomy. Whereas previous laws prohibited the ownership of Kunan lands by non-Kunans, the new constitution guaranteed only to reserve for indigenous peoples land that the Panamanian government felt was necessary for their well being (Wali, 1984). The state had closed off previously available legal avenues for defending Kuna tenure. By the early 1980s, however, things shifted decisively in favor of the Kuna rights network. In the late 1970s, the Kuna gained seats in the Panamanian National Assembly. The representation offered a high profile public forum for airing grievances as well as a chance to forge alliances with Panamanian political elites. In 1981 General Omar Torrijos stepped down as President, leading to squabbles among officers competing for higher positions in the new regime. By making it more difficult to ignore or suppress the activities of the Kuna rights network, these developments increased the pressure upon the state to grant the national park demanded. A similar reversal of fortunes took place in the struggle over Yanomami lands, only over a far longer period of time. Initially, political conditions favored the developmental network. Upon overthrowing a democratically elected leftist government in 1964, the Brazilian military under the leadership of President (General) Castello Branco immediately launched a campaign to exploit the vast natural resources of the Amazon. Both internal and external elites united around the goal of ‘developing’ the Amazon. By the mid-1980s, however, things shifted dramatically in favor of the Yanomami rights networks. The democracy movement in Brazil took advantage of deep splits among elites produced by the debt crisis and structural adjustment (O’Donnell & Schmitter, 1986). By opening up the political system, the movement created new allies and opportunities for indigenous rights networks.20 In large part because of lobbying by these networks, the new constitution enacted in 1988 contained clauses such as Article 231, providing indigenous peoples with exclusive control over traditionally inhabited lands. Yanomami supporters used this provision to secure a Federal Court order to evacuate garimpeiros from Yanomami territory. The first direct elections since the coup scheduled for 1990 stimulated competition among elites for the votes of those supporting environmental and indigenous protection. With the election to President of a candidate who had courted the environmentalist vote (Fernando Collor), the network gained powerful allies in the state. Shortly after Collor’s inauguration, police removed over forty thousand garimpeiros from Yanomami lands (Ramos, 1995).21 Thus electoral competition enabled indigenous rights networks to use their potential support at the polls to secure pledges to recognize and protect indigenous lands. In addition to creating more powerful allies in the state such as the Secretariat for the Environment and the Attorney General’s Office, the opening of the


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political system also stimulated considerable growth in the numbers and activities of indigenous rights NGOs in Brazil (Conklin & Graham, 1995). In this way, one source of pressure (political opportunities) augmented another source of pressure (resources and organizational capacities). Nonetheless, further political changes have jeopardized the fate of the Yanomami. The 1993 impeachment of President Collor, his replacement by Itamar Franco and the subsequent election of Fernando Henrique Cardoso have shifted political opportunities back towards the developmental network. In the face of deepening economic crisis and mobilization by the developmental network, Cardoso and his ministers have increasingly made statements supportive of mining, logging and agribusiness. In 1996 Cardoso signed decree 1775, permitting legal challenge to FUNAI demarcations of indigenous territories (Turner, 1996). The next year, Cardoso announced a seven-million acre settlement program in Roraima (Bellos, 1998). Not surprisingly, garimpeiros and settlers have returned to Yanomami lands en masse. In 1999, bowing to pressure from the developmental network, Cardoso substantially reduced the area of the Makuxi reserve that borders the Yanomami Reserve (Rocha, 1999). In this way, shifts in the structure of political opportunity favorable to the developmental network have contributed to significant changes in the status of indigenous rights. In addition to these national-level political opportunities, transnational dependencies have had important policy consequences in both cases. Intersecting Dependencies The manipulation of intersecting dependencies by both indigenous rights networks resulted in the targeted states granting their primary demands (albeit more precariously and at a far later stage of contention in the case of the Yanomami). While their contributions have varied, without the help of external NGOs, it is unlikely that either the Brazilian or Panamanian state would have recognized and protected indigenous lands. In the early 1980s, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) provided the majority of funding for the building of the El Lano-Carti road. The road threatened to bring a wave of peasants and small merchants to Kuna territory. The Kuna had failed in acting alone to try and thwart land encroachments.22 The identification of the Panamanian state’s dependence on USAID funding, however, enabled the Kuna rights network to apply pressure on the military regime to not only recognize a Udirbi National Park, but to financially support its creation (see Fig. 3). Through intense scrutiny and negative publicity generated mainly by North American and Western European environmental and indigenous rights activists, the agency began in the late 1970s to take steps to reduce the devastation wrought by its projects. 125

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Fig. 3.

Intersecting Dependencies: The Kuna Case.

A study on the effects of the El Lano-Carti road brought the Kuna’s concerns to the agency’s attention. After being told of the Kuna’s attempt to create an agricultural colony, the agency introduced Kuna representatives to CATIE. Soon afterwards, USAID as well as the Inter-American Foundation endorsed and agreed to help fund the Park. In this way, pressure by the Kuna’s external allies resulted in USAID’s defection from the developmental network. From its inception, the Panamanian state had a high degree of economic and political dependence upon the U.S. government. With a specific dependency exposed, the developmental forces within the state faced a hard choice. On the one hand, legal recognition of an Udirbi National Park would forfeit a large tract of virgin rainforest that could generate export revenue for the state and economy. On the other hand, refusal to support the park would result in the suspension of both USAID loans and road construction, undermining development projects throughout the eastern region. High levels of international debt precluded alternative sources of funding. With a highly valued road project jeopardized, the military regime agreed to the main demand of the Kuna rights network. Similarly, intersecting dependencies enabled the Yanomami rights network to score an important policy victory (see Fig. 4). Seizing upon international press build-up to the United Nations Conference on the Environment and Development in 1992, NGOs both within and outside of Brazil highlighted the plight of the Yanomami. The resulting negative international publicity increased the pressure upon foreign states to withhold assistance from the Brazilian state.


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Fig. 4.

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Intersecting dependencies: the Yanomami Case.

With high levels of foreign debt and an export-oriented economy, the withholding of trade, investment, or loans would stall the military’s development initiatives, jeopardize loan payment schedules and undermine political stability. Faced with these potential costs, developmental forces within the state temporarily lost the policy battle. In May of 1992, President Collor decreed the Yanomami Territorial Reserve that NGOs had demanded for well over a decade. Collective Identities and Collective Action Frames The Kuna possess a more salient collective identity than the Yanomami. In the face of centuries of attempted enslavement, forced labor and assimilation, rigid identity boundaries have formed, generating an acute sense of distinctiveness. Wali (1984, 258) states that “from Ministry officials on down, they constantly remarked on the Kunas’ refusal to assimilate into the larger society and their determination to stick to the old way of life . . .” The salience of the Kuna’s collective identity convinced the Panamanian state that efforts to incorporate the Kuna and their lands into Panamanian society would encounter substantial resistance. In contrast, a pan-Yanomami identity has only recently begun to surface. Intervillage warfare among the Yanomami is not unknown. According to Henley (1995, 14), among the Yanomam in Brazil, “more than one in four men may die in inter-community raids.”23 Deaths due to illness are attributed to spells cast by shamans from other villages. The souls of the departed cannot leave this world 127

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until their deaths are revenged either by casting an evil spell on the alleged culprits or by an inter-village raid. Such activities have not promoted a sense of oneness. On the brink of extinction, however, the Yanomami have started to unite against outsiders bringing disease, pollution and famine.24 On the whole, the collective action frames used by the Kuna rights network resonated more widely and deeply with both their targets and public opinion than the frames used by the Yanomami rights network. From the beginning of their campaign for a National Park, the Kuna framed their policy demands in terms appealing to the military regime in Panama. During a meeting with General Torrijos, Kuna leader Rafael Harris explained why the Kuna needed rainforest areas protected from mining or clearing: If I go to Panama City and stand in front of a pharmacy and because I need medicine, pick up a rock and break a window, you would take me away and put me in jail. For me, the forest is my pharmacy . . . (Breslin & Chapin, 1988, 77).

Torrijos responded to this comment by embracing Harris. The military regime frequently spoke of respect for property, lawfulness and national healing. By aligning ecological conservation and indigenous rights with these concerns, Harris made a strong impression on those who most threatened Kuna sovereignty. Because of their relative isolation from the outside world, most Yanomami have lacked the ability to argue persuasively using the terminology of their opponents.25 Moreover, until the mid-1980s, allies of the Yanomami spoke mostly about indigenous rights exclusive of environmental concerns. By switching to an indigenous ecology frame, the network increased the participation of environmental organizations. As such, the network put itself in a better position to manipulate intersecting dependencies during the Earth Summit in Rio in 1992. In addition, the Yanomami faced a more cunning rival than did the Kuna. By appropriating the indigenous ecology frame, pro-developmental Brazilian state agencies have managed to deflect challenges to their legitimacy without substantively changing their policies. Albert (1992, 46) notes a switch in the late 1980s: Indeed it was with the intention of ‘greening’ the expropriation of most Yanomami lands that Directive 250 dressed its rhetoric with such environmental concerns as the need to preserve the head-water ecosystems of west Roraima and the need for ecological buffer zones (‘green belts’) to protect the habitat of the Indians.

While appeasing international opinion, the Secretariat for National Defense (SADEN) proceeded with the Calha Norte (North Channels) Project – a secret plan to establish infrastructure, mining, military bases and settlements in areas of the Amazon bordering neighbor states (Allen, 1992).


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Forms of Contention The tactics deployed by the Kuna rights network helped ensure fairly rapid policy success while the savvy of the Brazilian developmental network continues to place the rights of the Yanomami in jeopardy. Differences in the historical experiences of the Kuna and the Yanomami enabled the Kuna to more readily take advantage of the opportunities that presented themselves. Although facing an authoritarian military government determined to conquer their lands, the Kuna managed to avoid repression. The General Congress kept lines of communication open with the military regime. Furthermore, while the junta had increased the state’s repressive capacity, the historically credible threat of violent reprisals gave the Kuna the space to openly protest government policies. Kuna history offers lessons on recognizing and seizing political opportunities. From the seventeenth through the eighteenth century, the Kuna formed alliances with weaker colonial powers (Scotland, France and England successively) to successfully prevent full Spanish conquest of their territory (Langebaek, 1991). With the help of an American by the name of Richard Marsh, in 1925, the Kuna tried to play the U.S. government off the Panamanian regime by conducting an armed rebellion, issuing a declaration of independence and requesting U.S. protectorate status (Chardkoff, 1970). A U.S. government brokered agreement between the Panamanian state and the Kuna resulted in substantial political autonomy, the legal prohibition against the owning of Kunan land by non-Kunans and the legal recognition of the Kunas’ unique culture and institutions. Such experiences have taught the Kuna that foreign actors can be used as a counterbalance against the most threatening foreign actor whether it be Spanish conquistadors or the Panamanian government. Not surprisingly, when their land was threatened by approaching peasants, cattle ranchers and government development schemes, the Kuna General Congress readily worked with foreign scientists, recognizing a mutual interest in forest conservation and the protection of Kuna territory. On the other hand, with limited contact with outsiders prior to the 1950s, the Yanomami were initially ill-prepared to take advantage of political opportunities presenting themselves. Consequently, allied NGOs were primarily relied upon to identify and mobilize to exploit emerging advantages. Participation in the Union of Indigenous Nation’s (UNI) regional conference in Roraima since 1984 has encouraged more of a strategic disposition through the example of other more experienced delegates (Fuerst, 1985). For the time being, what could become tactical assets remains liabilities for the Yanomami. For instance, with the assistance of a U.S. anthropologist, the Kayapo in Brazil have cultivated and appropriated their reputation of fierceness to win concessions – often dressing up in war paint and regalia to pressure 129

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government officials through well organized, highly publicized largely symbolic confrontations (Posey, 1989). With the Yanomami lacking the savvy and organizational capacities of the Kayapo, the warrior stereotype has been used primarily by the opposing network to diminish public sympathy (Henley, 1995). Brazilian media accounts of the conflict frequently portray the Yanomami as a bloodthirsty people (Salamone, 1997). As a result, massacres of villagers have failed to produce a groundswell of domestic support for the Yanomami. While garimpeiros violence has provoked an international outcry, military agencies and the media have often interpreted and dismissed this criticism as the malevolent interloping of foreigners (Albert, 1992; Ramos, 1995). With sporadic and half-hearted government efforts to remove garimpeiros from indigenous lands, mining, massacres and diseases continue to significantly drain the already weak resources and organizational capacities of the Yanomami. When pressure generated by the Yanomami rights network has forced the state to make policy changes, state agencies belonging to the developmental network have ensured that the “concessions” actually further erode indigenous sovereignty. For instance, in 1988 the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) planned to supply the Brazilian government with a $146.7 million loan to build a highway from Vieho to Rio Branco. The road would cut through a substantial portion of Yanomami territory (see Appendix B). Similar efforts in the past had resulted in rapid Yanomami depopulation, with construction workers spreading diseases and disrupting traditional modes of sustenance (Ramos, 1995). Under pressure from NGOs, the IDB suspended the loan until the Brazilian government took concrete steps to protect the environment and the rights of indigenous peoples. The state responded in the Fall of 1988 with two SADEN-inspired directives disguising commercial expropriation of Yanomami lands as reform.26 The directives created two national forests, a wildlife refuge and ‘indigenous’ areas. The nineteen indigenous areas were to be small, discontinuous parcels of land sandwiched by non-indigenous settlements (Ramos, 1995). Moreover, the national forests were to be open to mining, logging and ranching while “mining reserves” were to be created within indigenous areas (Albert, 1992; Allen, 1992). While CCPY and other activists tried to point out the negative ramifications, the IDB renewed the loan. In this way, the sophisticated tactics of Brazilian state agencies advanced the agenda of the developmental network in the face of considerable opposition.

CONCLUSION The two cases examined here suggest that the process of political change can be fruitfully conceptualized as the unfolding product of contention between rival


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transnational issue networks. The San Blas Kuna swiftly and effectively defended their lands because the transnational network supporting their cause possessed attributes conducive to placing high levels of pressure upon the Panamanian state. Both indigenous and non-indigenous members had ample resources and organizational capacities to facilitate mobilization. As a result, the strength of the network compared favorably to that of a developmental network lacking significant corporate or prospector involvement. Frequent interorganizational contact and an equitable distribution of power between indigenous and non-indigenous organizations resulted in a well-coordinated campaign to protect Kunan lands from further encroachment. The campaign received a boost by splits emerging within the military regime as well as the identification of the regime’s financial dependence upon USAID. With a strong collective identity and a history of strategically using foreign states as counterbalances against impending aggression, the Kuna readily seized the opportunity and, together with supportive INGOs, manipulated this dependency to ensure Panamanian state capitulation. By using a collective action frame that resonated with military ideology as well as deploying historically credible threats of force, the Kuna placed further pressure upon the state to abandon its plans to “conquer” the rainforests of the Atlantic coast. In contrast, the resources and organizational capacities available to the Yanomami paled in comparison to those possessed by its developmental rival. The discovery of sizeable mineral deposits led to substantial corporate and prospector presence in the developmental network. Security concerns also led to more strident intervention by military agencies. Frequent interaction and common interests promoted high levels of cooperation within the developmental network. Limited resources, weak organizational capacities, paternalistic dynamics, the absence of a pan-ethnic identity, a narrowly constructed and highly contentious collective action frame and retaliatory violence by the Yanomami hampered the efforts of the indigenous rights network. The balance of political opportunities did not shift in favor of the Yanomami until nearly two decades into the contention process. The Earth Summit in Rio in 1992 enabled the network to take advantage of the Brazilian state’s international political and economic dependency. Prior attempts to manipulate intersecting dependencies largely failed because of the deflective tactics of state agencies with developmentalist agendas. Shifts in the structure of political opportunities since the Rio Summit have jeopardized the substantive policy gains made by the Yanomami rights network. The findings suggest that the rival transnational network framework holds three advantages over existing approaches in social movements research. First, 131

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the concept of contention between rival transnational issue networks acknowledges the importance of organizations opposing demands for policy changes. Focusing solely upon a challenger movement – its attributes and structure of political opportunity – is a bit like predicting an outcome of a fight between two boxers when only the capabilities and circumstances surrounding one fighter are known. Subsequent efforts to explain policy changes should analytically decenter social movements by giving equal attention to other actors participating in issue contention. Second, by examining both transnational and national processes, the analysis recognizes the relevance of factors that studies confined to either level would ignore. While external organizations played critical roles in taking advantage of transnational dependencies, the strength of indigenous organization also factored considerably into the contrasting outcomes of the two cases. Coinciding shifts in structures of political opportunity at the national and transnational levels were crucial to the policy successes achieved by both indigenous rights networks. Any account omitting either internal or external factors would fail to unearth such linkages. Third, by emphasizing that networks of organizations consciously promote explicit political objectives, the approach injects agency back into explanations of social change. Undoubtedly, patterns of economic and political relations significantly shaped structures of political opportunity. But to these structural effects must be added the role of deliberate action not mandated by structure. The different responses of the Panamanian and Brazilian states to the manipulation of their international dependencies by indigenous rights networks help to explain the contrasting statuses of the Kuna and the Yanomami today. The findings also offer insights for indigenous rights campaigns. First, transnational dependencies provide opportunities to pressure those threatening indigenous rights. Second, indigenous populations with long histories of constructively interacting with outsiders are better able to take advantage of these dependencies than their more isolated counterparts. Proactive, non-destructive exposure to other societies facilitates the defense of indigenous lands, identities and traditions. Third, non-indigenous allies serve a more useful role by building indigenous capacities rather than acting as their guardians. Fourth, by appropriating indigenous ecology frames as well as by making concessions that, in reality, concede little, state agencies targeted by activists can diffuse international pressure to end ‘development’ projects that threaten indigenous peoples. To counteract such tactics, indigenous rights activists must educate reference publics about gaps between rhetoric and reality. Since this article constitutes an initial foray into the macro-social consequences of political mobilization, further exploration and refinements are


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needed. But if the struggles over Yanomami and Kuna lands are any indication, the explanatory power of the concepts developed here hold significant promise.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS An earlier draft was presented at the 2000 American Sociological Association Annual Meeting in Washington D.C. Thanks to Jody Cardinal, Gerald Marwell, Russell Middleton, Pamela Oliver, Frank Rothman and the reviewers at RSMCC for their helpful comments.

NOTES 1. The Yanomami consist of the Sanuma, the Yanomam, the Yanomamo and the Yanam. The four sub-groups reside in a contiguous area of the Amazon in Brazil and Venezuela. While differing in language and custom, enough similarities exist for anthropologists to generally categorize them as one ethnic group (Ramos, 1995). Because of the complex interaction between local, national and international structures of opportunity, I have chosen to focus upon the Yanomami located in the Brazilian part of the Amazon. 2. I use the concept of issue networks instead of social movements. As generally defined, social movements are limited to NGOs. Yet often contention over issues involves alliances of public and private organizations (Fisher, 1993; Sikkink, 1993; Smith, 1995). Moreover, social movements often include organizations active on related but different issues. Consequently, the term is too broad for an analysis of relationships among organizations pursuing policy objectives on a single issue. 3. Some might argue that a resource-deprived issue network surmounting a hostile political environment to affect small policy changes is more successful than a well-endowed issue network that in fortuitous circumstances scores major policy victories. Such an argument, however, defines success in terms of factors affecting efficacy (e.g. resource levels and structures of political opportunity). In the process, independent and dependent variables are conflated, making concise analysis of the sources of success difficult. 4. As used here, a target or a targeted actor refers to an individual, organization, or set of organizations perceived by a network as having the ability to meet its demands. A targeted actor may or may not be opposed to the objectives of the network pressuring it and, therefore, may or may not be a member of the rival issue network. 5. As the phrase “effectively allocates” indicates, the composition of resources possessed by organizations comprising the network facilitates the ability to conduct certain kinds of actions while constraining others (Oliver & Marwell, 1992). If the tactics chosen by organizations do not fit with their resource bases, success is unlikely. 6. Given the limitations of definitions of dependency offered by dependency theorists (e.g. Dos Santos, 1971; Cardoso quoted in Palma, 1978), I chose to draw upon Blau’s (1964) conception of the term. The definition is consistent with but more exacting than those offered by dependency theorists. 133

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7. Other states, such as in Peru, however, responded to the debt crisis by closing the polity and increasing repression. The effects of shifts in transnational processes upon structures of political opportunity depend upon the articulation of these processes with national-level factors that vary across countries. 8. Keck and Sikkink (1998, 12–13) use the term “the boomerang pattern” to describe this process. By specifying relationships of dependency and power, the concept of manipulating intersecting dependencies describes more precisely how issue networks secure external interventions and why these interventions sometimes produce sought-after policy changes. 9. Taylor and Whittier (1992, 105) define collective identity as “the shared definition of a group that derives from members’ common interests, experiences and solidarity.” 10. Collective identities that promote broad public support of policy demands may also decrease participation in collective action on behalf of these demands (Friedman & McAdam, 1992). To increase resources and organizational capacities while mounting symbolic pressure upon targets, issue networks, therefore, may need to hold internal collective identities that differ from their cultivated public personas (Coy & Woehrle, 1996). 11. Snow, Rochford, Jr., Worden and Benford (1986, 464) define frames as “schemata of interpretation that enable individuals to locate, perceive, identify and label occurrences within their life space and the world at large.” 12. Indigenous ecology frames assert that indigenous peoples co-exist harmoniously with fragile ecosystems. Non-indigenous states and multinational corporations, on the other hand, destroy these ecosystems. Rainforests must be preserved because of their ability to absorb air pollutants while generating oxygen, the intrinsic worth of their biological and cultural diversity and the medicinal benefits of their bio-diversity. The preservation of rainforests, therefore, depends upon the protection of indigenous peoples and their ways of life. See Conklin and Graham (1995). 13. National development frames assert that rainforests constitute parts of the territories of larger nation-states. Given that these areas are often geographically remote, establishing a military presence is critical to protecting a state’s sovereignty. Establishing a nonindigenous civilian presence strengthens the nation by promoting a common culture and civilization among all of its inhabitants. Extracting resources from rainforests promotes industrialization and prosperity. Limiting non-indigenous access to and use of rainforests, therefore, constitutes a threat to national security and an impediment to progress. See Allen (1992). 14. To avoid difficulties in defining and operationalizing “successful outcomes” of social movements (see Earl, 2000), I have confined my examination of political change to the explicit policy objectives of indigenous rights campaigns. 15. Because of their high population density relative to other indigenous peoples, the Kuna also have strong personal networks across villages. As of 1988, 30,000 Kuna lived in 60 villages within an area of 4,000 sq. km (Breslin & Chapin, 1988). In contrast, during roughly the same period, 9,000 Yanomami in Brazil resided in 150 villages covering an area of about 96,000 square miles (Albert, 1992). 16. Rapidly declining fertility of the fragile Amazonian topsoil leads to the resettlement of Yanomami communities every seven to ten years. While this frequency of migration prevents ecological damage, high levels of transience create problems for networking not experienced with more stable agricultural systems. 17. Beauclerk, Narby and Townsend (1988, 39) relate the following reaction to the suggestion that Peace Corps volunteers introduced sewing machines and taught Kunas


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how to make molas – a traditional women’s dress and a powerful symbol of ethnic distinction and independence: “At first they thought it amusing, because they had sewing machines long before they had Peace Corps volunteers; later, they became angry at the idea that they would do as they were told in such a field and wrote to the New York Times, one source of the original rumor.” 18. Anthropologist Napoleon Chagnon stated his belief that it would be “a very long time . . . before the Yanomami can, in fact, democratically speak for themselves” (quoted in Salamone, 1996, 35). 19. The Brazilian state responded to the massacre by creating the Ministry of Amazonia and the Environment and by firing the President of FUNAI for overestimating the number of Yanomami murdered. The former decision continues a strategy of cosmetic reform to appease international opinion while the latter decision indicates ongoing splits among state agencies over questions of indigenous rights. Over the years, FUNAI has vascillated between supporting and opposing commercial activities, military bases and settlements on indigenous lands. 20. By encouraging political liberalization, pro-democracy movements also contributed, in multiple and contradictory ways, to indigenous mobilization in several other Latin American countries during the 1980s (Yashar, 1997). The Yanomami case and similar findings regarding Columbia (Van Cott, 1996) suggest that indigenous rights movements mobilizing during a cycle of protest are more likely to secure their objectives than during “the doldrums” (Rupp & Taylor, 1987). Nonetheless, the Kuna achieved their goals in the absence of heightened levels of protest in Panama as a whole. 21. The civilian administration still had to contend with SADEN’s ongoing opposition to giving the Yanomami full control over their land in its entirety. 22. In 1975 the Kuna attempted to establish an agricultural colony at Udirbi where a new extension of the Pan-American Highway entered their territory. The buffer colony collapsed in 1981 because of its inability to grow crops or raise livestock in the area. 23. Considerable debate has taken place over the extent of warfare among the Yanomamo. For a fairly blood-thirsty portrait see Chagnon (1988). For an opposing view, see Ferguson (1995a). 24. As the following quote makes clear, the violence and degradation experienced at the hands of garimpeiros have generated the us/them distinction that serves as the foundation for a strong collective identity: “We don’t have poor people. Every one of us can use the land, can clear a garden, can hunt, fish. An Indian, when he needs to eat, kills just one or two tapirs. He only cuts down a few trees to make his garden. He doesn’t annihilate the animals and the forest. The whites do this . . .” Davi Kopenawa, Yanomami spokesperson quoted in Henley (1995, 56). 25. Ferguson (1995b) asserts that the Yanomami have interacted with outsiders since the 17th century. Nonetheless, historically, levels of contact with outsiders have been low when compared with the Kuna. Most of the interaction that has occurred has taken place within rather than outside of Yanomami territory. Rather than expanding or even preserving indigenous resources and organizational capacities, external contact has weakened the Yanomami. 26. In addition, to comply with IDB requirements, SADEN set forth a broader set of policies known as the Project to Protect the Environment and Indigenous Communities (PMACI). Like Directives 160 and 250, the policies advanced the commercial expropriation of indigenous lands under the guise of protecting the environment and indigenous rights. See Albert (1992). 135

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REFERENCES Albert, B. (1992). Indian Lands, Environmental Policy and Military Geopolitics in the Development of the Brazilian Amazon: The Case of the Yanomami. Development and Change, 23, 35–70. Allen, E. (1992). Calha Norte: Military Development in Brazilian Amazonia. Development and Change, 23, 71–99. Aparicio, T. (1992). The Struggle of the Yanomami for Their Territory: Interview with Claudia Andujar, Coordinator of the CCPY. IWGIA Newsletter, Jan/Feb/March, 24–30. Beauclerk, J., Narby, J., & Townsend J. (1988). Indigenous Peoples: A Fieldguide for Development. Oxford: Oxfam. Bellos, A. (1998). Help Slow to Arrive as Fires Devastate Brazilian Rain Forest. Houston Chronicle, March 28, 23. Blau, P. (1964). Exchange and Power in Social Life. New York: J. Wiley. Boswell, T., & Dixon, W. J. (1990). Dependency and Rebellion: A Cross-National Analysis. American Sociological Review, 55, 540–559. Breslin, P., & Chapin, M. (1988). Conservation Kuna-Style. In: S. Annis & P. Hakim (Eds), Direct to the Poor: Grassroots Development in Latin America (pp.73–82). Boulder CO: Lynne Rienner. Brosius, P. J. (1997). Endangered Forest, Endangered People: Environmentalist Representations of Indigenous Knowledge. Human Ecology, 25, 47–69. Brysk, A. (1996). Turning Weakness into Strength: The Internationalization of Indian Rights. Latin American Perspectives, 23, 38–57. Brysk, A., & Wise, C. (1997). Liberalization and Ethnic Conflict in Latin America. Studies in Comparative International Development, 32, 76–104. Carley, K. (1992). A Theory of Group Stability. American Sociological Review, 56, 331–354 Chagnon, N. A. (1988). Life Histories, Blood Revenge and Warfare in a Tribal Population. Science, 239, 985–992. Chapin, M. (1985). Udirbi: An Indigenous Project in Environmental Conservation. In: T. Macdonald, Jr. (Ed.), Native Peoples and Economic Development: Six Case Studies from Latin America. Cambridge MA: Cultural Survival. Chi, C. (1998). Community Responses to Cultural–Ecological Colonization, with Case Studies of Indigenous People in Taiwan. Paper presented at the International Sociological Association. Conklin, B. A., & Graham, L. R. (1995). The Shifting Middle Ground: Amazonian Indians and Eco-Politics. American Anthropologist, 97, 695–710. Coy, P. (1997). Cooperative Accompaniment and Peace Brigades International in Sri Lanka. In: J. Smith, C. Chatfield, & R. Pagnucco (Eds), Transnational Social Movements and Global Politics: Solidarity Beyond the State (pp. 81–100). Syracuse NY: Syracuse University Press. Coy, P., & Woehrle, L. M. (1996). Constructing Identity and Oppositional Knowledge: The Framing Practices of Peace Movement Organizations During the Persian Gulf War. Sociological Spectrum, 16, 287–327. Davis, S. H. (1977). Victims of the Miracle: Development and the Indians of Brazil. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Earl, J. (2000). Methods, Movements and Outcomes: Methodological Difficulties in the Study of Extra-Movement Outcomes. Research in Social Movements, Conflict and Change, 22, 3–25. Eisinger, P. K. (1973). The Conditions of Protest Behavior in American Cities. American Political Science Review, 67, 11–28.


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Melucci, A. (1989). Nomads of the Present: Social Movements and Individual Needs in Contemporary Society. Philadelphia PA: Temple University Press. Meyer, D. S., & Marullo, S. (1992). International Change from Below: Activism and the End of the Cold War. Sociological Practice Review, 3, 189–202. Meyer, D. S., & Staggenborg, S. (1996). Movements, Countermovements and the Structure of Political Opportunity. American Journal of Sociology, 101, 1628–1660. Morris, A. (1984). The Origins of the Civil Rights Movement: Black Communities Organizing for Change. New York: Free Press. Nash, J. (1997). Press Reports on the Chiapas Uprising: Towards a Transnationalized Communication. Journal of Latin American Anthropology, 2, 42–75. Navarro, M. (1989). The Personal is Political: Las Madres de Plaza de Mayo. In: S. Eckstein (Ed.), Power and Popular Protest: Latin American Social Movements (pp. 241–259) Berkeley: University of California Press. Oberschall, A. (1973). Social Conflict and Social Movements. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall. O’Donnell, G. A., & Schmitter, P. (1986). Transition from Authoritarian Rule: Tentative Conclusions About Uncertain Democracies. Baltimore MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Oliver, P. E., & Marwell, G. (1992). Mobilizing Technologies for Collective Action. In: A. D. Morris & C. McClurg-Mueller (Eds), Frontiers in Social Movement Theory (pp. 251–272). New Haven CT: Yale University Press. Pagnucco, R., & Atwood, D. (1994). Global Strategies for Justice and Peace. Peace Review, 6, 411–418. Posey, D. (1989). From Warclubs to Words. NACLA Report on the Americas, May, 13–18. Powell, W. W. (1990). Neither Market nor Hierarchy: Network Forms of Organization. In: B. M. Staw & L. L. Cummings (Eds), Research in Organizational Behavior (pp. 295–336). Greenwich CT: JAI Press. Rafferty, N. (1999). Tribal Leader Asks Greens for Help. The Scotsman, June 19, 8. Ramos, A. R. (1991). Yanomami: A Homeland Undermined. IWGIA Newsletter, July/August, 13–20. Ramos, A. R. (1995). Sanuma Memories: Yanomami Ethnography in Times of Crisis. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Risse–Kappen, T. (1995). Bringing Transnational Relations Back In: Non-State Actors, Domestic Structures and International Institutions. New York: Cambridge University Press. Rocha, J. (1999). Land Rights: Bill of Wrongs. The Guardian, June 23, 4. Rothman, F. D., & Oliver, P. E. (1999). From Local to Global: The Anti-Dam Movement in Southern Brazil, 1979–1992. Mobilization, 4, 41–58. Rupp, L. J., & Taylor, V. (1987). Survival in the Doldrums: The American Women’s Rights Movement, 1945 to the 1960s. New York: Oxford University Press. Salamone, F. A. (1996). Transcript of Remarks at AAA Session on Anthropology and Theology: The Condition of Venezuela Indians. Studies in Third World Societies, 57, 33–70. Salamone, F. A. (1997). The Yanomami and Their Interpreters: Fierce People or Fierce Interpreters? Lanham MD: University Press of America. Schulz, M. S. (1998). Collective Action across Borders: Opportunity Structures, Network Capacities and Communicative Praxis in the Age of Advanced Globalization. Sociological Perspectives, 41, 587–616. Sikkink, K. (1993). Human Rights, Principled Issue-Networks and Sovereignty in Latin America. International Organization, 47, 411–441. Smith, J. (1995). Transnational Political Processes and the Human Rights Movement. Research in Social Movements, Conflict and Change, 18, 185–219.


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Smith, J., Pagnucco, R., & Chatfield, C. (1997). Social Movements and World Politics: A Theoretical Framework. In: J. Smith, C. Chatfield & R. Pagnucco (Eds), Transnational Social Movements and Global Politics: Solidarity Beyond the State (pp. 59–77). Syracuse NY: Syracuse University Press. Snow, D. A., Rochford, E. B. Jr., Worden, S. K., & Benford, R. D. (1986). Frame Alignment Processes, Micromobilization and Movement Participation. American Sociological Review, 51, 464–481. Snow, D. A., & Benford, R. (1992). Master Frames and Cycles of Protest. In A. D. Morris & C. McClurg-Mueller (Eds), Frontiers in Social Movement Theory (pp. 133–155). New Haven CT: Yale University Press. Stepan, A. (1985). State Power and the Strength of Civil Society in the Southern Cone of Latin America. In: P. Evans, D. Rueschemeyer, & T. Skocpol (Eds), Bringing the State Back In. New York: Cambridge University Press. Tarrow, S. (1994). Power in Movement: Social Movements and Contentious Politics. New York: Cambridge University Press. Taylor, V., & Whittier, N. (1992). Collective Identity in Social Movement Communities: Lesbian Feminist Mobilization. In: A. D. Morris & C. McClurg-Mueller (Eds), Frontiers in Social Movement Theory (pp. 104–129). New Haven CT: Yale University Press. Tilly, C. (1978). From Mobilization to Revolution. Reading: Addison-Wesley. Turner, T. (1992). Defiant Images: The Kayapo Appropriation of Video. Anthropology Today, 8, 5–16. Turner, T. (1996). Indigenous Rights vs Neoliberalism. Dissent, 43, 67–69. Van Cott, D. L. (1996). Unity through Diversity: Ethnic Politics and Democratic Deepening in Columbia. Nationalism and Ethnic Politics, 2, 523–549. Van Cott, D. L. (2000). A Political Analysis of Legal Pluralism in Bolivia and Colombia. Journal of Latin American Studies, 32, 207–234. Wali, A. (1984). Kilowatts and Crisis Among the Kuna, Choco and Colonos: National and Regional Consequences of the Bayano Hydroelectric Complex in Eastern Panama. Unpublished Dissertation. Columbia University, New York. Yashar, D. J. (1997). Indigenous Politics and Democracy: Contesting Citizenship in Latin America. Working Paper No.238. Notre Dame IN: Kellogg Institute.

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APPENDIX A Organizations Contending Issue of San Blas Kuna Land Rights International NGOs CATIE Center for the Investigation & Teaching of Tropical Agriculture (Costa Rica) CHE Center for Human Ecology (U.S.) TSC Tropical Science Center (Costa Rica) WWF World Wildlife Federation (U.S.) Panamanian NGOs STRI Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (Panama City) Indigenous NGOs AIP Association of Panamanian Indians KGC San Blas Kunan General Congress UTK Union of Kunan Workers (Panama City) International GOs UNWGIP United Nations Working Group for Indigenous Peoples Foreign State Agencies IAF Inter-American Foundation (U.S.) U.S.AF United States Armed Forces U.S.AID United States Agency for International Development Panamanian State Agencies MP Panamanian Armed Forces PAT Panamanian Tourist Institute OIA Office of Indian Affairs RENARE Panamanian Agency of Renewable Natural Resources Panamanian National Assembly National Capital Agribusiness (cattle ranches and plantations near Kuna reserve) and timber companies. Settlers Colonos

Migrating peasants


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APPENDIX B Organizations Contending Issue of Yanomami Land Rights International NGOs APS Aborigines Protection Society – London, England ARC Anthropology Resource Center – Boston, MA, USA CAPTE Coalition for Amazonian Peoples and Their Environment – Washington D.C. USA CS Cultural Survival – Cambridge MA, USA DICIAAR Documentation & Information Center for Indigenous Affairs in the Amazon Region – Geneva, Switzerland EDF Environmental Defense Fund – Washington D.C. USA IFRSDC French Scientific Research Institute for Cooperative Development – Paris, France ILRC Indian Law Resource Center – Washington D.C. USA IWGIA International Working Group for Indigenous Affairs – Copenhagen, Denmark MDM World Doctors – Paris, France OXFAM-U.K. Oxfam – Oxford, England SI Survival International – London, England Brazilian NGOs AAB Brazilian Anthropological Association ANAI National Association of Indian Supporters CCPY Commission for the Creation of the Yanomami Park CEDI Ecumenical Center for Documentation and Information CIR Roraima Indigenous Council CIMI Indigenous Missionary Council (Catholic Church) CPI Pro-Indigenous Committee MEVA Evangelical Mission Society of Amazonia Indigenous NGOs APIR Association of Indigenous Peoples of Roraima COAIB Coordination of Indigenous Organizations of the Brazilian Amazon UNI Union of Indigenous Nations International GOs EU European Union OAS Organization of American States UNCHR United Nations Commission for Human Rights UNEP United Nations Environment Program UNWGIP United Nations Working Group on Indigenous Peoples Foreign State Agencies IDB Inter-American Development Bank (U.S.) ODB Overseas Development Agency (U.K.) U.S.AID United States Agency for International Development

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U.S.GS

GREGORY M. MANEY United States Geological Survey

Brazilian State Agencies CDN National Defense Council (formerly CSN) CMA High Command of the Military Area of Amazonia COMARA Airport Commission for the Amazon Region CONAMA National Council of the Environment CPRM Mineral Resources Research Company CSN National Security Council DNPM National Department of Mineral Production ESG High War College FNS National Health Foundation FUNAI National Indian Foundation IBAMA Brazilian Institute for Environmental Affairs (formerly IBDF) IBDF Brazilian Institute of Forestry Development INCRA National Institute for Colonization and Agrarian Reform ITAMARTY Ministry of Foreign Affairs MEAF Ministry of Land Affairs (formerly INCRA) MEC Ministry of Education and Culture MINTER Ministry of Home Affairs MIRAD Ministry of Agrarian Reform and Development (formerly MEAF) MJ Ministry of Justice MSP Ministry of Public Health Nuclebrás State-owned company promoting nuclear research PF Federal Police PGR Attorney General’s Office SADEN Secretariat for National Defense (formerly Secretariat0-General of CSN) SAE Secretariat for Strategic Affairs (formerly SADEN) SEPLAN Secretariat for the Planning of the Presidency of the Republic SMA Secretariat for the Environment SOEs State owned mining companies such as Companahia Vale do Rio Doce and Mineraçao Rio do Norte SUDAM Secretariat for Amazonian Development and Planning TF Federal Courts State Governors, Members of Federal Congress and political parties Foreign Capital MNCs

Multinational Corporations with investments in or near Yanomami territory.

National Capital National privately owned mining companies such as the Brazilian Paranapanema, agribusiness (cattle ranches, plantations) and timber companies with investments in or near Yanomami territory Garimpeiros USAGAL

Prospector’s Union of Legal Amazonia


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APPENDIX C

Map of Panama and San Blas Kuna Territory. Source: Chapin (1985).

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APPENDIX D

Map of Brazil and Yanomami Territory. Source: Ramos (1995).

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THE ORIGINS OF THE PROTEST MOVEMENT AGAINST NUCLEAR POWER Stephen Adair

ABSTRACT The protest movement against nuclear power in the U.S. emerged as a consequence of the initial decline of the nuclear-power industry. Changes in financial and energy markets in the early 1970s threatened the industry, and in response, nuclear proponents and political elites initiated a political defense of the nuclear industry that exposed institutionalized relations of power, defined a visible target, and generated a simultaneous, collective perception of injustice, which led to the protest movement against nuclear power. The opposition to the Seabrook plant and the formation of the Clamshell Alliance represent a paradigmatic case, because at Seabrook the defense of the industry took its most visible form and because the Clamshell initiated the protest movement. This analysis presents a modified version of political-process theory by advancing a critical theory of power and developing the concept of a political condensation in contrast to political opportunity to explain the origins of the protest movement against nuclear power.

Political Opportunities, Social Movements, and Democratization, Volume 23, pages 145–178. Copyright © 2001 by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved. ISBN: 0-7623-0786-2

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INTRODUCTION In the immediate aftermath of World War II in the United States, the military and the state promoted the “peaceful uses of the atom” in an ideological effort to prepare the citizenry for the atomic age (Boyer, 1985; Clarke, 1985). For a time, the nexus of nuclear weapons and nuclear energy constituted the foundation of state power, while embodying both the hopes and dangers of the new technocratic world. The atom provided the “big stick” in international relations and served as a primary medium through which the state monitored the relations between capital, the military, and the scientific community. At the same time, carefully crafted images of nuclear-powered automobiles and promises of “electricity too cheap to meter” offered a “bright hope” and an “emotional counterweight to . . . nuclear destruction” (Wohlstetter, 1968). This has now changed. The nuclear-power industry has completely collapsed and the end to the Cold War has diminished our preoccupation with the bomb. The decline in the American nuclear state had to be realized and publicly identified, but the enormous institutional resources employed to control the atom made it unlikely that the “announcement” would develop from inside the state. In the late 1970s, the protest movement against nuclear energy emerged to generate the necessary critique and to document the problems that became visible over the course of the decline. The argument that the decline in the nuclear industry led to the protest movement seemingly reverses the conventional wisdom that the antinuclear movement brought down the industry. Both nuclear supporters and opponents have fostered this “wisdom” – supporters to blame an irrational, meddling public for their problems (cf. Barrett, 1980; Cohen, 1983; Inglehart, 1984), and opponents to claim the effectiveness of collective action. Wasserman (1996, 3), a leading activist and long-standing critic of nuclear power, has even claimed that the “no nukes movement” was the “most successful social movement in modern times”. Measuring this success, however, is difficult because the industry was significantly troubled before the protest movement emerged and because we are unable to determine if the industry’s problems would have resulted in a total collapse without the protest movement. Others have certainly argued that the collapse of the nuclear industry was not primarily a consequence of the movement (Nichols, 1987; Campbell, 1988; Jasper, 1990; Joppke, 1993), but this paper reverses the causal argument and describes how the initial difficulties within the industry led, in a complex and mediated way, to the practical, local emergence of the protest movement. It links an institutional decline with the formation of social protest.

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The explanation for the rise of the antinuclear movement that is most consistent with current social movement theory is that the emergent weaknesses within the industry opened new political opportunities that were then exploited by movement activists. Indeed, legal challenges to the nuclear industry at both the local and the national level intensified in the early 1970s when the structural weaknesses were becoming evident. Antinuclear protests, civil disobedience and extra-legal challenges, however, did not occur around the nuclear plant sites where the industry was most vulnerable or where opponents had the greatest opportunities for success. Rather protests originated at those sites were the alliance between the state and the nuclear industry became most visible, and where the greatest volume of institutionalized forces were deployed to save nuclear projects.1 At these locations, the joint mobilization by the state and industry exposed institutionalized relations of power, which created a simultaneous, collective perception of injustice among potential activists. These conditions, which I describe as a political condensation, established a social context where the protest movement formed and mobilized. In short, the political defense of the declining industry produced its own gravediggers. This argument challenges the utilitarian assumptions embedded in the concept of political opportunity, and which lie at the core of resource mobilization and political-process theories. In place of these assumptions, I modify politicalprocess theory by grounding it in a critical theory of power. Following a theoretical discussion, the analysis proceeds in two parts. In the first, the structural conditions that weakened the nuclear industry are outlined to demonstrate that the initial decline of the industry preceded the rise of the protest movement. The second describes how this structural weakness and the corresponding elite intransigence led to the practical and local emergence of the protest movement by considering, as a paradigmatic case, the rise of the Clamshell Alliance and the opposition to the Seabrook nuclear plant in New Hampshire. The emergence of the Clamshell is important because, by all accounts, it initiated the wave of civil disobedience and direct action against nuclear power plants in the U.S. (Gyorgy, 1979; Barkan, 1979; Wasserman, 1979; Mitchell, 1981; Downey, 1986; Price, 1990; Epstein, 1991; Joppke, 1993; Adair, 1996). It has also served as a type of “touchstone” both within social movement literature and among social activists. The group’s emphasis on direct action and its technique of consensus decision making established a new radical and egalitarian vision that inspired subsequent social movements (Epstein, 1991; Sturgeon, 1995; Wasserman, 1996; Wolff, 1996). In rethinking the origins of the protest movement against nuclear power, my intention is not to rob activists of their agency, but to identify the structural contributions to the localized social energy and vigor that made the protest movement possible. 147

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SOCIAL MOVEMENT THEORY Recent research from the resource mobilization and political process perspectives has emphasized the importance of the political opportunity structure, and argued that movements are more likely to emerge when discontented groups gain political resources or have improved chances for success. In defining the perspective, McCarthy and Zald (1997, 151) assumed “that there is always enough discontent in any society to supply the grass-roots support for a movement if the movement is effectively organized and has at its disposal the power and resources of some established elite group”. This utilitarian assumption results in a tendency within resource mobilization and political process theories to gloss issues associated with injustice, structural inequities, and activist’s efforts to develop and articulate an oppositional consciousness. Indeed, these theories have been more or less nettled by such criticisms, and, at least in part, the development of new social movement theory and work on the framing practices of movements have emerged through efforts to address these shortcomings (see Snow, Rochford, Worden & Benford, 1986; Melucci, 1989; Gamson, 1992; Laraña, Johnston & Gusfield, 1994). Here, I take a different track, and modify political-process theory by shifting the theoretical grounds from rational-choice theory to a critical theory of power. Political Opportunity Structures According to McAdam (1995, 221) “expanding political opportunities” are “clearly the analytic key to understanding movement formation” (see also Tilly, 1978; McAdam, 1982; Tarrow, 1994; McAdam, McCarthy & Zald, 1996). New political opportunities have been associated with a number of differing factors including electoral realignments, divisions among elites, new openings into the polity for a disaffected group, and the emergence of influential allies (Tarrow, 1994, 85–89). The fluidity in the concept is both its strength and its weakness because after a movement has emerged researchers can take a retrospective view, identify a conducive social condition, and label it a new opportunity.2 Moreover, identifying new political opportunities likely depends on movement activity itself because without mobilizing activity, the “new opportunities” could not be identified (Goodwin & Jasper, 1999). Researchers may therefore risk mistaking the consequence of a movement for its cause, because a movement may generate what appear to be its own opportunities by trying new tactics, establishing new alliances, or altering political and cultural sensibilities. As Gamson and Meyer (1996, 275) argue, the concept of political opportunity

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structure “threatens to become an all-encompassing fudge factory for all the conditions and circumstances that form the context for collective action. Used to explain so much, it may ultimately explain nothing at all”. Despite this shortcoming, the concept of political opportunity remains compelling because it builds on the strengths of resource mobilization (RM) theory. RM theorists view social movements as the rational and strategic outcomes of pre-existing social networks that become organized when a discontented group gains resources (McCarthy & Zald, 1977; Jenkins, 1983). The perspective is informed by rational-choice theory, and analyzes why actors participate in collective action and how networks promote involvement (Olson, 1965; Tilly, 1985; Klandermans, 1988; Friedman & McAdam, 1992). Zald (1992, 334) claims that it is in understanding micromobilization that RM theory has “made the most progress”, and this has been accomplished by “detailing free-rider effects and arguing about the role of solidarity and selective incentives offered by entrepreneurs in overcoming any free-rider problems”. Political-process theory was explicitly intended to counter this micro-tendency in RM theory by situating social movements in the interaction between society and the state (Tilly, 1978; McAdam, 1982). It views the scale of mobilization, movement tactics, and organizational structures as contingent on broad shifts in state power structures. Much of the work done from this perspective, however, continues to draw from the assumptions of RM theory, and associates political opportunities with a decrease in the cost of mobilizing, an increase in the likelihood of success, and a greater volume of selective incentives for activists. These utilitarian assumptions, however, lead to an analytic problem: if movements develop in conjunction with new opportunities, then social movements should develop as state repression declines, and conversely, states should be able to increase repressive forces with impunity. Although support can arguably be found for the former, the latter is clearly not so. State repression at least risks a radicalization of an opposition and the delegitimation of institutional structures. Skocpol (1979) demonstrates that in the face of state crises, elite intransigence precipitated political revolutions by radicalizing peasant revolts. One might argue that repression provides “opportunities” for mobilization, but this requires abandoning utilitarian assumptions and seriously stretches the meaning of “opportunity”. Some have argued that closing political opportunity structures increases the use of confrontational and illegal tactics by movement activists (Kitschelt, 1986; della Porta, 1995), but in this usage, the concept of political opportunity explains the tactical expression of a movement while leaving unexamined the process of movement formation. 149

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Political Opportunities And The Antinuclear Movement Due to the inconsistent use of the concept of political opportunity, researchers have had difficulty explaining the origins of the antinuclear protest movement in the United States. In an influential article that compared the antinuclear movements in France, West Germany, Sweden and the United States, Kitschelt (1986) argued that the form of the political opportunity structure shaped movements’ strategies. Since the U.S. represented a relatively weak state with open “political input structures”, Kitschelt maintained that the antinuclear movement adopted “assimilative strategies”, that relied on legal means to thwart the implementation of a state nuclear policy. In contrast, the movements in France and Germany used “confrontational strategies” because the political input structures were closed (cf. Rucht, 1990). Whether or not the U.S. antinuclear movement was less confrontational than the French or German case is actually far from clear. The U.S. antinuclear movement included the use of civil disobedience, protest and violent confrontations between activists and state police. To account for these, Kitschelt (1986, 72) maintained that “the American antinuclear movement staged its first large-scale demonstration only in 1978”, and that such demonstrations “must be viewed as temporary aberrations”, which were “. . . ‘imported’ from Western Europe”. In this dismissal of contrary evidence, Kitschelt ignored perhaps as many as 120 demonstrations, rallies and other forms of protest activity that had occurred by the fall of 1977 (Mitchell, 1981, 82). Recognizing Kitschelt’s oversights, Joppke (1993, 78) wrote “according to an overly state-centered political process theory, direct action should not have appeared at all in the relatively ‘open’ American polity”. Joppke (1993, 78) developed a “multifactorial” approach that combined the emphasis on political opportunities with a more “actor-centered” explanation, based on the “particular traits of the underlying activist subculture”. He (1993, 77–82) argued that for groups associated with the New Left, nuclear power became a substitute rallying point after the withdrawal of troops from Vietnam. The activist subculture was important, but Joppke (1993, 78) privileged the concept of political opportunity structure and resorted to the actor-centered explanation only because the direct-action movement “defies any rationalistic explanation in terms of interests and opportunities [and] . . . does not fit the economic model of means-end rationality as postulated by resource mobilization theory”. Like Kitschelt, Joppke (1993, 93) contrasted the American case with West Germany, where “[b]y lightly dismissing the legitimacy of opposing the nuclear project, even through legal means, the state ensured that the resort to direct action was the only possible response left”. In West Germany, he argued, the “intransigent state produced its own opposition”. Joppke specifically discounted this as an

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explanation for the American antinuclear movement because he retained the open characterization of the U.S. political structure. Joppke, thus, adopts his “action-centered” approach because he presumes a rational-actor explanation for movement formation in the context of an open political structure, even though he provides no explanation for how movements form within a closed political opportunity structure. A Critical Theory Of Power To develop a political-process theory of social movements that adequately conceptualizes the interaction between the society and the state, the complex political issues of legitimacy, power and social control cannot be simply reduced to the utilitarian assumptions implied by the concept of political opportunity. Much of this work has already been done and simply needs to be viewed in conjunction with movement mobilization. For more than a century, critical social theorists have maintained that dissent is constrained or precluded by the capacity of dominant groups to exercise control over consciousness and public discourse. This fundamental assumption, however, has only been occasionally addressed in sociological analysis of protest movements (e.g. Piven & Cloward, 1977; Gaventa, 1980; Morris, 1992). Block (1987, 23) once argued that both the form and effectiveness of power is determined by people’s relative awareness of it, such that due to the strength of justifying ideologies prevailing “institutionalized relations of power tend to become visible only when they weaken”. This argument implies a hierarchy in the effectiveness of power that is reminiscent of the three-dimensional view of power offered by Lukes (1974) and Gaventa (1980). Briefly, the first dimension involves an open and observable struggle between competing parties who mobilize resources to realize their interests. The second dimension is associated with a mobilization of bias, where a dominant party controls access to public arenas to mute the challenge of contending groups. The third dimension involves control over consciousness such that subordinates either accept the status quo or cannot recognize any realistic possibility for change. In the third dimension, power is fully hegemonic and reproduced through the maintenance of routine. This typology in the form of power can be made more dynamic by considering the three dimensions as points on a continuum that are contingent on a political process, in which struggles over legitimacy are privileged. The third dimension of power can only be fully identified in retrospect (by researchers and the public); after people have effectively named, challenged, and exposed a previously concealed condition.3 For example, in the Civil Rights Movement, the explicit intent of the freedom rides and the sit-ins was to expose the injustices 151

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STEPHEN ADAIR

of segregation, and thereby challenge the legitimacy of the Southern caste system. In recent years, the women’s movement, the gay rights movement, and the environmental movement have had at least moderate success in identifying previously concealed institutionalized relations. Much of the effectiveness of contemporary social movements depends on the relative ability of activists to open for public review those interests that lay behind institutionalized practices (cf. Melucci, 1989, 76). Regardless of whether this new uncovering is considered to be delusional or the foundation for a vanguard (this might only depend on who gets to write the history), a movement’s justification depends on identifying the particular institutionalized injustices that generate a “mobilization of bias”. When challenged, either by an externally induced crisis or by some initial movement activity, those who occupy institutionalized positions of power can be expected to try to reassert their control. Some movement success is likely to disrupt elite complacency, such that they summon political and economic resources and engage in more self-conscious political acts to make their particular interest appear as a general interest. These efforts may convince some, whereas for others, it may lend greater credence to a movement’s claims. That is, in the face of a countermovement, movement participants may gain a greater strength and urgency by being able to identify specific targets and practices that are intended to thwart its aims. Such tactics constitute the political process. A dynamic shift in the form of power occurs when there is a joint mobilization between a movement and a countermovement such that competing political actors and organizations become more conscious of institutionalized relations. This shift can be described as a political condensation. The term condensation is used because it refers not simply to a concentration of activity, but a quantitative accumulation of latent elements that produces a qualitative change that renders the elements manifest.4 The opposing process, in which a movement is demobilized and institutionalized practices (either the same ones or in an altered form) are secured, can be described as a process of political dissipation. Movement along the continuum is represented by the two key political skills: making a particular interest appear as a general interest so as to reduce conflict and mobilizations (dissipation); and building coalitions to challenge institutionalized forms of power (condensation). In a large number of cases, the items usually associated with the opening of new political opportunities – electoral realignments, divisions among elites, the emergence of influential allies – will also be associated with the greater visibility of previously hegemonic conditions, and a movement along the continuum toward the first dimension. Nevertheless, the conceptual change from political opportunity to political condensation involves more than just a new label for the same class of phenomena because it alters the underlying theoretical logic.

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political condensation ---------->----------->----------->----------->----------->----------->-----------> Third Dimension Second Dimension First Dimension Hegemonic Control Mobilization of Bias Open conflict No Mobilization Social Movements present The revolutionary movement

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