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Course for Social Movements
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- Social Movements (POL344)
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- University Of Toronto (U Of T )
Course for Social Movements
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POL344Y1 Y Social MovementsWeek 1
US Supreme Court: Masterpiece Cake shop vs. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, 2018 (in 2012)
o Gay Couple wanted to have a cake to celebrate that they were just married; baker decided that
he was not going to make the cake for religious reasons (no same sex marriage in Colorado) but
they got married in Massachusetts
7 judges for Cake shop and 2 for Gay couple at the Court (At the supreme court):
Socially conservative interests: sees a powerful state that invades and controls the choice of
peoples personal rights
Alliance Defending Freedom: defends the Masterpiece Cake shop
o Canadian Supreme Court: Similar set of questions
o Trinity Western Law School: Open to students for that would obtain from sex outside of
heterosexual marriage
o 7-2 (deny creditation to Trinity for its law school because of this rule)
o Law society of BC v. Trinity Western University
o Trinity University vs. Law society of Upper Canada, 2018
What is a Social movement in Red
o What is a social movement? Collective group action to bring about change in the government
(external interest against the government for change is at the core of social movements)
o OCAP (Ontario, collation against, poverty) - an example against radical protest
o What starts a social movement? Contentious Collective; claim making – come on the behalf of a
group in society that is not in authority (sees themselves at the bottom of public power)
o Difference between interest groups, social movements and political party
Green Peace as a Interest group: people get paid, there is a specific organization of
Hierarchy
BLM: still a social movement because there isn't any large property being paid for or people
being paid (payroll) to engage in the work of the movement to the level of am interest
group
Non institutional methods to bring about change: social movements
Page 24: social movemets are political entites to brinvg about social change
Unauthorized, unoffical, antiinstitutional groups to bring about change -
o Theories help us to test Hypotheses to predict or look at patterns in political science
o Democratic Peace; countries that are democratic do not go to war with each other
o Theories have abstract and general thinking to test- social sciences need something testable
o Theories for social movements allow us to predict when they will emerge; under what conditions do
they come about?
o Theories Behind social movements (why and how first then old to new)
o A) A collective Behaviour Theory: try to answer when a social movement will emerge?
Grievences - has to be there or else there is not a claim to make (social stress or breakdown
to have social movement development) -ex. 1929 Great Depression
o B) Research mobalization/political process
o C) New social movement theory – difference between 1800's movements to 1960's
movements
Week 2
Themes of Social Movements
a. Collective behavior Theory: people coming together to change things
, i. People come together and make demonstrations (e.g. Music, marches, sit ins)
ii. Leaders are important because they are the people that relay the message of the movement
(Activists, songwriters) - they created group grievances into actions. The leadership
communicates it to the public, so politician could pay attention
iii. Most Leaders come from Privilege background
(Lenin: example of people that are leaders for movements that do not come from the time and
place that is unprivileged, but has privilege to be able to push the movements)
(Dr. Luther King – he came from a background of privilege = undergraduate training, advanced
education, Pastor)
Language of educated people is taken better that radical
iv. Social Movements don’t happen in the worst of times; they can arrive also when the society is
relatively peaceful
v. Social Movements need people that work with the government to be able to carry out
legislation in favor of the movement
b. Resource Mobilization Theory: People take on the established wisdom =, they Challenge the wisdom
(grievances) - Humans have always had grievances; only matter when there are organizations,
opportunities and resources that allow us to use these things to be able to act on the issues that
they have
This Theory creates "Cultural Frames"; Anita Hill 1991 – shows how movements use art, culture and
frame to change people thinking and eventually they can become mainstream
Week 3
i. Social movements need (Social Movement Entrepreneur and a Manager)
1. Entrepreneur : Dreams and constructs
2. Manager puts it into reality and organizes it practically
a. Audience engages with the manager because they allow for the work the entrepreneur
wants to be done to be seen and practiced
c. New Social Movement
i. Difference between movements (in the 1800's compared to 1960s and onward); different
because it was at time of material deprivation (e.x. peasant under csar compared to American
College students against Vietnam) - different because they are grounded in post-materialist
circumstances (post-industrial times)- less industrial labor
ii. Self-Fulfillment and Self-Expressions for Social movements after post-industrial times because
people want to identify from meaningful categories
a. There is a material difference between marginalized groups at this time (e.g. women,
aboriginals)
b. Consciousness – reasoning (getting people to talk about their own experience so others
can see how their own experience is in the foundation of others)
Cycles of Protest, Waves of Protest, Cycles of contestation
a. When do movements emerge?
i. "potential collective actors perceive conditions as favorable": we know this by costs/benefit
analysis (cost goes down and benefit has to go up)
ii. How do we know when to act? When we think that the government will be willing to change
(elections? Openings) to be able to act on their social movement - Democratic governments
allow for different ways for movements to get change (Legislative, Executive and Judicial
branches that are separate allow for this too happen)
b. Defining cycles of protest
i. Tarrow tries to define a cycle of protest; phase of heightened conflict in a cycle of protest and
then a diffusion of action (activist and public) from more mobilized to less mobilized (rapid pace
, to innovation – art to create cultural frame e.g. sexual harassment - feeling attached to that
movement, information between protestors and authority
ii. A number of results from a cycle of protest (The three R's) - the arrival of new actors is
developed through these cycles (Theme of Fragmentation – always be difference in the
movement)
1. Reform (institutional change) - changes the rules to adapt to the movements wants/ needs
2. Revolution
3. Repression
c. Main features of cycles (phrase)
i. Multiple movements coming at the same time to take advantage of the movement
1. Early risers – the people that did it first (e.g. Civil Rights Movements – model for
the frame work of others) inspired Vietnam movement, women's movement,
aboriginal movements, LGBTQ (the idea of human rights is constantly repeated)
- Master Frame to be able to create a organizing principle for subsequent social
movements
2. Latecomers (take on the repertoire of earlier movements to be able to prosper)
3. Peaks and valleys phenomena (starting, rise, fall, closure) - hope for it to
continue
a. How do we know what stage the movement is at in the cycle?
a. e.g. sit-in (a repertoire used by early risers used by late
commers)
b. Still violent consequences by the actions of Early risers by
people that oppose the movement and their action
c. Use by forceful repression could trigger huge sympathy and
push the movement forward
d. Characteristics of movement diffusion
Week 4
Historic Moments
i. Movement Diffusion characteristics
ii. Cycles of protest End
iii. Civil rights & master frameworks
i. Merge positive tradition of the past for the hope and contruction of the future is what the civil
rights movement used (created this framework) – used music as a vehicle to drive these ideas
ii. After Math of Slavery was Segregation e.g. washrooms, stores, resturants – this system of
continued to the bus (Rosa parks)
iii. Song 'We shall overcome'; shows the obsticles of African Americans that they have overcomes
and where they wanted to be
iv. Separate is not equal because Black students were given less funding and security to go to
school compared to White children
v. Music was a key force that changed the culture (politics) of America for the Civil rights
movement – strength of the community by trama of violence
iv. What was the civil rights movement of 1950s +
i. Fundamental, radical, massbassed, grassroots, women lead movement of thousands of black
people and white allies to force a deeply racist society to give all people in the society respect,
equal oppurtunity.
ii. The Framework; (sit in, non-violent protest –ideas from Gandhi's protest against British)
v. Did all African Americans support it?
i. No, not everybody with the same identity will be supportive to the social movement
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