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Abstract

On February 15, 2003, millions of people took to the streets in hundreds of cities in 60 countries throughout the world. In what was probably the largest collective action ever staged in human history, they protested against the imminent war in Iraq. Men and women of all ages expressed their aversion to the planned invasion. They were mobilized through the media, through organizations in which they were members, and by people who knew them. They came alone or with family and/or friends. They detested their government if it supported the war or applauded their government if it opposed the war. Obviously, these were not random samples of the population that walked the streets. The vast majority of the participants placed themselves at the left end of the political spectrum. They were predominantly white-collar workers or students who were highly educated. They were people who were interested in politics, and many had taken part in demonstrations previously. The antiwar demonstrations were examples of an increasingly common form of political behavior, namely, collective action. What is collective action, why do people participate in such action, and how are these people mobilized? This research paper addresses these questions. Although the concept of collective action has a broader use, the research paper restricts itself to collective political action.

Outline

What Is Collective Political Action?
Why Do People Participate in Collective Political Action?

1. What Is Collective Political Action?

Collective political actions are challenges by people with common purposes and solidarity in interaction with elites and authorities. This definition includes two key elements that deserve some elaboration. First, collective political actions are challenges. They concern disruptive direct action against elites, authorities, other groups, or cultural codes. There is an obvious reason why this is the case. Collective political action is typically staged by people who lack access to politics. If they had access, there would be no need for the action. However, disruption forces authorities to pay attention to the claims brought forward. Second, collective political actions concern people with a common purpose and solidarity. Participants rally behind common claims. They want authorities to do something—to change a state of affairs or to undo changes. Such common claims are rooted in feelings of collective identity and solidarity. If these challenges gain sustainability, they constitute a social movement.

Collective political action has become much more frequent over recent decades. For example, in 1975, 22% of people in Britain signed at least one petition; in 1990, the figure was 75%. In 1974, 9% of people in Britain participated in at least one demonstration; in 1990, the figure was 25%. Between 1979 and 1993, the number of protest events in the French city of Marseille more than doubled, from 183 to 395 events per annum. During that same period, considerable increases in protest events in Germany were reported, a result that was confirmed in 1995 by Kriesi and colleagues’ now classic study on new social movements in Europe. At the same time, diffusion to broader sectors of the population was witnessed. Across age groups and gender lines, from the left to the right, among workers and students, and in Western and non-Western societies alike, collective political action has become a common phenomenon.

2. Why Do People Participate In Collective Political Action?

The social psychology of protest suggests three fundamental motives for participation in collective political action in that people may want to (a) change their circumstances, (b) act as members of their group, and/ or (c) give meaning to their world and express their views and feelings. This research paper suggests that these three motives together account for most of the motivation to participate in collective political action in a society refers to these motives as instrumentality, identity, and ideology. Instrumentality refers to participation as an attempt to influence the social and political environment. Identity refers to participation as an expression of identification with a group. Ideology refers to participation as a search for meaning and an expression of one’s views. This research paper does not suggest that these are mutually exclusive motives or are competing views on collective action participation, although some parties in the debates in the literature seem to have taken that position. However, this research paper concurs with those who argue that approaches that neglect any of these three motives are fundamentally flawed. To be sure, individual participants may participate due to a single motive, but all three motives are needed to understand why people take part in collective political action. Of course, that raises the question of how the three motives interact in fostering participation. The research paper elaborates on this in the following discussion of the motivation to participate.

2.1. The Motivation to Participate in Collective Action

2.1.1. Instrumentality

Instrumentality begins with dissatisfaction, be it the experience of illegitimate inequality, feelings of relative deprivation, feelings of injustice, moral indignation about some state of affairs, or a so-called suddenly imposed grievance, that is, an event imposed on people (e.g., highway construction in the neighborhood). Social psychological grievance theories, such as relative deprivation theory and social justice theory, have tried to specify how and why grievances develop. Despite the fact that grievances are at the roots of collective political action, they have not featured prominently in social movement literature since the early 1970s. Resource mobilization theory and political process theory, the two approaches that have dominated the field since those days, have always taken as their point of departure that grievances are ubiquitous and that the key question in action participation research is not so much why people are aggrieved as it is why aggrieved people participate. The instrumentality paradigm holds that participants are people who believe that they can change their social and political environments at affordable costs.

The perceived costs and benefits of collective action can be distinguished in selective and collective incentives. Selective incentives relate to costs and benefits that differentiate between participants and nonparticipants. People are spending time and/or money only if they participate, people run the risk of being beaten up by the police only if they participate, people’s friends will blame them for not participating only if they stay home, and so on. Sometimes, movement organizations try to make participation more attractive by providing selective benefits (e.g., a popular music group, a train ticket to the city where the demonstration is held, a T-shirt). Authorities or opponents, for their part, can try to make participation less attractive by imposing costs on participants. Collective incentives are related to achievement of the movement’s goals and the extent to which participation in a specific activity contributes to goal achievement. Obviously, it is not enough for a goal to be important to a person. What is also needed is some likelihood of success. The problem with collective action is that it is difficult to know to what extent an activity will have any influence on authorities. In any event, chances are low that an activity will have any impact if only a few people participate. Therefore, the likelihood of success depends on the expected behavior of others. If too few people participate, it is unlikely that the activity will make any difference. As a consequence, expectations about the behavior of others play an important role in the decision to participate. If someone expects that only a few people will participate, that person’s motivation to participate will be low. In a way, the expectation about other people’s behavior functions as a self-fulfilling prophecy. If people believe that few people will participate, they will not be motivated to participate and, thus, will help make their own expectation come true.

Instrumentality presupposes an effective movement that is able to enforce some wanted changes or at least to mobilize substantial support. Making an objective assessment of a movement’s impact is not an easy task, but movement organizations will try to convey the image of an effective political force. They can do so by pointing to the impact they have had in the past or to the powerful allies they have. Of course, they may lack all of these, but they might be able to show other signs of movement strength. A movement may command a large constituency as witnessed by turnouts at demonstrations, by membership figures, or by large donations. It may be composed of strong organizations with strong charismatic leaders who have gained respect. Instrumentality also implies the provision of selective incentives. Movements may vary considerably in the selective incentives for participation they provide. Obviously, this is also a matter of the resources that a movement commands. Surprisingly little comparative information is available on the resources that movements have at their disposal. In a similar vein, systematic documentation is lacking on the ways in which the larger political system and the alliances and opponents of movement organizations influence movement participation. In 1978, Tilly coined the now classic terms ‘‘repression’’ and ‘‘facilitation’’ to distinguish between political systems that increase and decrease the costs of participation. Indeed, repressive political environments may increase the costs of participation considerably. People may lose friends, they may risk their jobs or otherwise jeopardize their sources of income, they may be jailed, and they may even lose their lives.

Viewed from an instrumental perspective, a solution to the dilemma of collective action must be found. It was through the work of Olson that students of movement participation became aware of the problem. In 1968, Olson published his The Logic of Collective Action. The core of the book was the argument that rational actors will not contribute to the production of a collective good unless selective incentives persuade them to do so. Collective goods are characterized by ‘‘jointness of supply.’’ That is, if they are made available to one person, they become available to everybody irrespective of whether people have contributed to the production of the collective good (e.g., a law against discrimination, measures against pollution). Therefore, according to Olson, a rational actor will choose to take a free ride unless selective incentives (i.e., costs or benefits that are made contingent on participation in the production of the collective good) prevent him or her from doing so. Olson’s argument was soon applied to social movement participation. It helped to explain why so often people do not participate in social movements despite their interest in the achievement of the movements’ goals. Movement scholars argued that movement goals typically are collective goods. If a goal is achieved, people will enjoy the benefits irrespective of whether they have participated in the effort. In view of a goal for which achievement is uncertain but for which benefits—if they materialize—can be reaped anyway, rational actors will take a free ride.

However, social movement scholars quickly discovered that reality is more complex than Olson’s simple model suggests. The problem with Olson’s logic of collective action is that it provides an explanation for why people do not participate but fares poorly in explaining why people do participate. Moreover, Olson’s solution that people participate for selective incentives is fundamentally flawed because it does not give a satisfactory answer to the question of where the resources needed to provide selective incentives come from. If these resources must be collected from individual citizens, the same collective action dilemma arises again. This is not to say that selective incentives are irrelevant; however, in the final instance, they cannot solve the collective action dilemma. In other words, if collective and selective incentives do not provide a sufficient explanation of movement participation, what else might make the difference? A recurring criticism was that Olson’s model assumes that individuals make their decisions in isolation, that is, as if there are no other people with whom they consult, with whom they feel solidarity, and by whom they are kept to their promises. This pointed to the significance of collective identity as a factor in movement participation.

2.1.2. Identity

It soon became clear that instrumentality, or movement participation to achieve some external goal (social or political change), was not the only reason to participate. After all, many external goals are reached only in the long run if at all. Similarly, when it comes to material benefits, costs frequently outweigh benefits. Apparently, there is more involved in being a movement participant than perceived costs and benefits. Indeed, one of those motives relates to belonging to a valued group.

Identity can be described succinctly as a place in society. People occupy many different places in society. They are students, housewives, soccer players, politicians, farmers, and so on. Some of those places are exclusive, that is, occupied by only a small number of people (e.g., the members of a soccer team). Others are inclusive and encompass large numbers of people (e.g., Europeans). Some places are mutually exclusive (e.g., male/female, employed/unemployed), some are nested (e.g., French/Dutch/German vs European), and some are crosscutting (e.g., female and student). All of these different roles and positions that a person occupies form his or her personal identity. At the same time, every place a person occupies is shared with other people. The author of this research paper is not the only professor of social psychology, nor is he the only Dutch or the only European. He shares these identities with other people, a fact that turns them into collective identities. Thus, a collective identity is a place that is shared with other people. This implies that personal identity is always collective identity at the same time. Personal identity is general, referring to a variety of places in society, whereas collective identity is always specific, referring to a specific place.

Most of the time, collective identities remain latent. Self-categorization theory hypothesizes that an individual may act as a unique person (i.e., display his or her personal identity) or as a member of a specific group (i.e., display one of the many collective identities he or she has depending on contextual circumstances). Contextual factors may bring personal or collective identity to the fore. Obviously, this is often not a matter of free choice. Circumstances may force a collective identity into awareness whether people like it or not. The Yugoslavian and South African histories have illustrated this dramatically, and there are other equally or even more dramatic examples throughout human history. But collective identities can also become significant in less extreme circumstances. For example, consider the possible effect of an announcement that a waste incinerator is planned next to a certain neighborhood. Chances are that within very little time, the collective identity of the people living in that neighborhood will become salient.

Self-categorization theory proposes that the more people identify with a category, the more they are prepared to employ a social category in their self-definition. Identification with a group makes people more prepared to act as a member of that group. This assertion refers, of course, to identity strength. Social identity literature tends to neglect that real-world identities vary in strength. But identifying more or less strongly with a group may make a real difference, especially in political contexts. Moreover, strong identities may be less affected by context. Following this reasoning, we may expect that strong identities make it more likely that people act on behalf of their group. The basic hypothesis regarding collective identity and movement participation is fairly straightforward. A strong identification with a group increases the likelihood of participation in collective political action on behalf of that group. The available empirical evidence supports this assumption overwhelmingly.

Movements offer the opportunity to act on behalf of one’s group. This is most attractive if people identify strongly with their group. The more farmers identify with other farmers, the more appealing it is to take part in farmers’ protests. The more women identify with other women, the more inviting it is to participate in the women’s movement. The more gay people identify with other gay people, the more they are attracted by the possibility of taking part in the gay movement. In addition to the opportunity to act on behalf of the group, collective political action participation offers the opportunity to identify with the movement’s cause, the people in the movement, the movement organization, the group in which one is participating, and/or the leader of the movement. Not all of these sources of identification are always equally appealing. Movement leaders can be more or less charismatic, and the people in the movement or in someone’s group can be more or less attractive. Moreover, movements and movement organizations may be, and in fact often are, controversial. Hence, becoming a participant in a movement organization does not mean taking a respected identity on oneself—quite the contrary. Within the movement’s framework, of course, this is completely different. There, the militant does have the status that society is denying him or her. And for the militant, of course, in-group/outgroup dynamics may turn the movement organization or group into a far more attractive group than any other group ‘‘out there’’ that is opposing the movement. Indeed, it is not uncommon for militants to refer to their movement organization as a second family, that is, as a substitute for the social and associative life that society is no longer offering them. Movement organizations not only supply sources of identification but also offer all kinds of opportunities to enjoy and celebrate the collective identity—marches, rituals, songs, meetings, signs, symbols, common codes, and so on.

2.1.3. Ideology

The third motive—wanting to express one’s views— refers at the same time to a long-standing theme in the social movement literature and to a recent development. In classic studies of social movements, the distinction was made between instrumental and expressive movements or protests. During those days, instrumental movements were seen as movements that aimed at some external goal (e.g., implementation of citizenship rights). Expressive movements, on the other hand, were movements that had no external goals and for which participation was a goal in itself (e.g., expression of anger in response to experienced injustice). Movement scholars felt increasingly uncomfortable with the distinction because it was thought that most movements had both instrumental and expressive aspects and that the emphasis on the two could change over time. Therefore, the distinction lost its use. Recently, however, the idea that people might participate in movements to express their views has received renewed attention. Attention arose this time from movement scholars who were unhappy with the overly structural approach of resource mobilization and political process theory. These scholars began to put an emphasis on the creative, cultural, and emotional aspects of social movements such as music, symbols, rituals, narratives, and moral indignation. People are angry, develop feelings of moral indignation about some state of affairs or some government decision, and wish to make these feelings known. They participate in social movements not only to enforce political change but also to gain dignity in their lives through struggle and moral expression.

Ideology has a significant affective component. Acting on one’s ideology is deemed to be one of the fundamental motives of action participation and is necessarily charged with emotion. Appraisal and action are socially constructed. That is, they are formed in interpersonal interaction, especially in the case of politically relevant emotions. Cultural and historical factors play an important role in the interpretation of the state of affairs by which politically relevant emotions are generated. Obviously, appraisal can be manipulated. Activists work hard to create moral outrage and anger and to provide a target against which these can be vented. They must weave together a moral, cognitive, and emotional package of attitudes. But emotions also play an important role in the ongoing activities of movements. The literature distinguishes two kinds of collective emotions—reciprocal emotions and shared emotions—that reinforce each other. Each measure of shared outrage against an injustice reinforces the reciprocal emotion of fondness for others precisely because they feel the same way. Conversely, mutual affection is a context in which newly shared emotions are easily created. Anger and indignation are emotions that are related to a specific appraisal of the situation. At the same time, people might be puzzled by some aspects of reality and may try to understand what is going on. They may look for others with similar experiences, and a social movement may provide an environment in which to exchange experiences, tell their stories, and express their ideologies.

Social movements play a significant role in the diffusion of ideas and values. In 1998, Rochon made the important distinction between ‘‘critical communities’’ (where new ideas and values are developed) and ‘‘social movements’’ (which are interested in winning social and political acceptance for those ideas and values). ‘‘In the hands of movement leaders, the ideas of critical communities become ideological frames,’’ stated Rochon, who continues to argue that social movements are not simply extensions of critical communities. After all, not all ideas developed in critical communities are equally suited to motivate collective action. Social movement organizations, then, are carriers of meaning. Through processes such as consensus mobilization and framing, they seek to propagate their definitions of the situations to the public at large. A study of flyers produced by the various groups and organizations involved in the protests against the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank in Berlin, Germany, is an excellent example in this respect. The study showed how links were constructed between the ideological frame of the organizers of the demonstration and those of the participating organizations so as to create a shared definition of the situation. In the social movement literature, such definitions of situations have been labeled ‘‘collective action frames.’’

Social movements do not invent ideas from scratch; rather, they borrow from the history of ideas. They build on an ideological heritage as they relate their claims to broader themes and values in society. In so doing, they relate to societal debates that have histories of their own, and those histories are usually much longer than those of the movements themselves. In 1992, Gamson referred to the ‘‘themes’’ and ‘‘counterthemes’’ that, in his view, exist in every society. One such pair of a theme and countertheme that Gamson mentioned is that of ‘‘self-reliance’’ versus ‘‘mutuality,’’ that is, the belief that individuals must take care of themselves versus the belief that society is responsible for its less fortunate members. Klandermans has demonstrated how, in The Netherlands, these two beliefs became the icons that galvanized debate and spurred protest over disability payments. Self-reliance became the theme of those who favored restrictions in disability payment, whereas mutuality was the theme of those who defended the existing system.

2.2. The Transformation of Potentiality into Action

People who are potentially prepared to take part in collective action do not automatically participate. Potential must be transformed into action. This is in fact what most mobilization campaigns are about— targeting potential participants and turning them into actual participants. Obviously, a campaign will never be 100% successful in that regard. In the course of a campaign, people may lose their sympathy for the movement. Klandermans has labeled this ‘‘erosion,’’ a phenomenon that is more likely to occur if countermovement’s and/or authorities are mounting countercampaigns. On the other hand, organizers might fail to convert sympathizers into participants because they fail to target or motivate them. Klandermans has called this ‘‘nonconversion.’’ The rest of this section focuses on targeting.

Targeting sympathizers involves finding answers to two strategic questions: ‘‘Who are the sympathizers?’’ and ‘‘How can they be reached?’’ Every attempt to persuade must find answers to these two questions. Indeed, sophisticated movement organizations such as Greenpeace have learned to employ many of the strategies that have been developed in advertising. Social networks are of crucial importance in this regard. Movement organizations have two options here in that they can (a) try to co-opt existing networks or (b) build new networks. Both strategies are mobilization efforts in themselves. Co-optation is the easier strategy of the two because it builds on existing commitments to organizations and networks that are part of the movement organization’s alliance system. However, there are risks. The co-opted organizations may use the campaigns for their own ends, or their leadership may—for whatever reason—decide not to collaborate. The latter makes it more difficult for the rank-and-file to cooperate. Yet co-opting existing networks, such as churches, unions, political parties, and youth organizations, is frequently applied, if only because doing so implies an answer to both strategic questions. On the one hand, it works from the assumption that most members of the movement organization sympathize with the movement. On the other hand, it assumes that these sympathizers can be reached through the organization’s networks.

Building new networks implies recruiting people who are willing to spend considerable amounts of time for a prolonged period as movement activists. Therefore, it will require more effort on the part of the organization than will co-opting existing networks. But once the new networks are established, they will be more reliable. The recruitment of movement activists is a process that is determined, on the one hand, by factors that influence who is being asked and, on the other, by factors that influence who agrees to serve as activists when asked. As for the first type of factors, a crucial determinant is someone’s position in networks linked to the movement organization or, more specifically, to the movement organizer who is undertaking the recruitment effort. Movement organizers tend to recruit first among the people they know, and this often suffices. After all, they do not need many activists. They need a few to maintain the networks, and once they have those few, the return on having additional activists diminishes rapidly. Indeed, it has been argued that long-term activism is one form of activism that must cope with free-rider behavior. The latter point is important when deciding whether to serve as an activist or not. Klandermans has maintained that the people who are asked to serve as activists understand perfectly well that they are giving a free ride to most of the sympathizers to the movement, but they are prepared to do so because they care. Only people who really care a lot are prepared to sacrifice for the others. They make the effort because they believe that ‘‘If [they] don’t do it, nobody else will.’’ Klandermans has asserted that only people who strongly support the movement’s ideology, and who feel responsible for maintaining and proselytising the movement and its ideology, are prepared to make the effort of serving as movement activists.

References:

Gamson, W. A. (1992). Talking politics. Cambridge, UK: University of Cambridge Press.
Klandermans, B. (1997). The social psychology of protest. Oxford, UK: Blackwell.
Klandermans, B., & Staggenborg, S. (Eds.). (2002). Methods of social movement research. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Kriesi, H., Koopmans, R., Duyvendak, J. W., & Guigni, M. (1995). New social movements in Western Europe: A comparative analysis. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
McAdam, D., Tarrow, S., & Tilly, C. (2001). Dynamics of contention. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Olson, M. (1968). The logic of collective action: Public goods and the theory of groups. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Rochon, T. R. (1998). Culture moves: Ideas, activism, and changing values. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Tarrow, S. (1998). Power in movement: Social movements, collective action, and mass politics in the modern state (2^nd). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Tilly, C. (1978). From mobilization to revolution. Reading, MA: Addison–Wesley.

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