VIP’s Mini-course on Social Movements with Case Studies

about Animal Advocacy

More on the relationship between social movements and their counter-movementsAn informal lecture and workshop

Jan 2014

In an activist society like ours, the only way to defeat a social movement is with another social movement (Ron Arnold, in Tokar 1995: 151)

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Klandermans (1990: 122-23)• social movement theory benefits if theorists look at how SMs mobilise resources, use

opportunities, and exert influence in the ‘multi-organisational field’ [MOF] of social movements

• In the MOF, there are alliance systems (supporters) and conflict system (opponents – counter-movements)

• Counter-movement “tactics”– criminalising SMs and their activities– undermining SMs’ organisational strength– repressing SMs - using threats, anti-propaganda, and litigation

• Klandermans, P.B. (1990) ‘Linking the “old” and the “new”: movement networks in the Netherlands’, in R. Dalton & M. Kuechler (eds.) Challenging the Political Order: New social and political movements in Western democracies. Cambridge: Polity

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The moral high ground

• Goode (1992) talks about how SMs strive to accumulate ‘moral capital’ or ‘moral resources’

– moral capital involves the building or creation of a ‘reservoir of goodwill’

• Groups can build moral capital by trying to establish a ‘respectable’ image

• Goode, E. (1992) Collective Behaviour, Florida: HBJ

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An apparent paradox

One way to gain respectability is to be moderate in terms of aspirations – For Goode, this can go some way to explain why

the public have come to oppose certain forms of animal cruelty - but not others

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WORKSHOP Q1

SHOULD WE “TACTICALLY” MODERATE OUR VIEW?

IS THAT THE REASON PEOPLE USE “VEGGIE” OR “VEG*N” INSTEAD OF VEGAN?

SHOULD BE JUST STATE OUR POSITION IN THE SENSE OF DONALD WATSON’S IDEA OF “RIPENING?”

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frames/frame alignment• an interpretative schemata that simplifies and condenses the ‘world out there’ by

selectively punctuating and encoding objects, situations, events, experiences, and sequences of action within one’s present and past environment (Snow and Benford 1992: 137)

Goffman (1974: 21) explains that ‘frames’ can allow people to – locate, – perceive, – recognise, – and label events and things in their world

Snow, D. & Benford. (1992) ‘Master Frames and Cycles of Protest’, in A. Morris & C. Mueller (eds.) Frontiers of Social Movement Theory, Haven: Yale University PressGoffman, E. (1974). Frame analysis: An easy on the organization of experience. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press

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master frames

• Social movement strategists make great efforts to align their so-called ‘master frames’ – their ‘politicised interpretations of events’ (Snow et al 1980) with the existing frames of potential recruits

• mutually understanding the world

Snow, D.A., Zurcher, L.A. Jr. & Ekland-Olson, S. (1980) ‘Social networks and social movements: a microstructural approach to differential recruitment’, American Sociological Review, 45, 787-801

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MOFpotential supporters

politicians

media representatives

‘celebrities’

businesses

consumers

• social movements and their counter-movements generally stand in direct opposition to each other

• ‘us-them’ dynamic

 • Mansbridge (1986: 179) says that one tactic often involves ‘demonising’ opponents as ‘evil

incarnate’• ‘irrationalities’

Manbridge, J.L. (1986) Why we Lost the ERA, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.In ‘animal rights’ discourse, spokespersons might, in fairly soft terms, evoke the frames ‘innocents’ and ‘non-innocents’ to differentiate between ‘animal victims’ and ‘animal abusers’. The militant animal liberation newsletter, SG, on the other hand, leaves little to the imagination and simply calls anyone involved in the exploitation of nonhuman animals ‘scum’ (Henshaw, 1989)

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• Gusfield (1989): groups try to gain the ‘ownership’ of the “problem” or issue

• a great advantage is gained if one group can become the/a “prime definer”

Gusfield, J.R. (1989) ‘Constructing the ownership of social problems: fun and profit in the welfare state’, Social Problems, 36, 431-441

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• protest groups or moral crusaders who make demands and complaints; the officials or agencies to whom the complaints are directed; members of the media who publicise and disseminate news about such activities (as well as participate in them); commission of inquiry; legislative bodies and executive or administrative agencies that respond to claims-making constituents...and sometimes, social scientists who contribute to the definition and development of social problems (Spector and Kitsuse, 1987: 79)

Spector, M. & Kitsuse, J.I. (1987) Constructing Social Problems, Chicago: Aldine

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WORKSHOP Q2

• HOW BEST TO COMPETE IN THE MULTI-ORGANISATIONAL FIELD

• HOW BEST TO GAIN “OWNERSHIP” OF THE ISSUE

• CAN THIS BE DONE ON A GRASSROOTS LEVEL?

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Backlash• ‘backlash movements’ in respect of movements to emancipate

people of colour & women

• The environmental movement (counter-movement: ‘eco-freaks’) prompts a backlash that ‘defends anthropo-centrism’ and ‘speciesism’

• backlash is often based on claims of human exceptionalism There is nothing greater on Earth than a human being. A turtle can’t build a

ship or read a blueprint, can he? (Harding, 1993, cited by Munro)

Munro, L. (1999) ‘Contesting Moral Capital in Campaigns Against Animal Liberation,’ Society & Animals, Vol 7(1)

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Munro• Counter-movements state that if they do not succeed, something very

dramatic and unwarranted will happen...

– communities will be destroyed– thousands [of humans] will lose their livelihood– commerce will suffer– entire industries may be destroyed– entire value systems will crumble– anarchy will prevail!– the human race may be damaged and/or ‘denigrated’ in some way

In terms of “animal rights” campaigning, the founder of Putting People First, Kathleen Marquardt, co-wrote a pamphlet warning of the “dangers” represented by the animal rights “fraud”: it was entitled Animal Scam: The Beastly Abuse of Human Rights - cited in Guither, H.D. (1998) Animal Rights: History and scope of a radical social movement, Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press

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Going to law

• McLibel. Morris & Steel ‘the animal rights vegetarian activists from Hell’ (Guardian) were issued with a

‘Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation’ (SLAPP). Munro: ‘secular fatwas’

• Beder (1997: 64): companies and organisations taking legal action are not doing so in order to win compensation, but rather their aim is to harass, intimidate, and distract their opponents

Beder, S. (1997) Global Spin: The corporate assault on environmentalism, Melbourne: Scribe

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• Oprah Winfrey and the Texas Cattleman’s Association.....

• 1996: Winfrey stated on TV that she was put off from eating hamburger due to BSE

• The Ecologist (1997) reported that the US food industry seriously

considered suing food safety activists for slander in 50 states. However, eventually they thought better of it, apparently due to concerns of negative publicity

Lilliston, B. & Cummings, R. (1997) ‘The food slander laws in the US: the criminalisation of dissent’, The Ecologist, 27(6): 216-20

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mockery

• Hans Ruesch, deliberately challenges the status of those who use animals in biomedical research

• Ruesch castigates vivisectors as ‘monkey head jugglers’ and labels Claude Bernard ‘the principle apostle of vivisection’, in answer to the Encyclopaedia Britannica calling him ‘a genius’ (Ruesch, 1979: 358)

• The Australian ‘Wise-Use’ movement bumper sticker:

– “Fertilize The Forest and Bury a Greenie!”

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We get homilies via the media, not least from adulterous politicians telling us to be kinder to our fellow creatures, diktats from distant bureaucrats, whose secure employment and overheated offices it is our privilege to underwrite, of how we should organize our lives, care for our livestock and make our livelihoods. We get hoodlums, of both sexes, informed, it seems, by hatred and ignorance in equal parts, trying to destroy our ancient pastimes (Times Magazine in 1995, Feb 25: 16-22)

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WORKSHOP Q3

• “DOING DOWN” OPPONENTS: MOCKERY? ANGRY FACEBOOK MESSAGES – GENERAL SLAGGING OFF? (why do people behave the way they do on FB – what utility do they think it brings?)

• “CONTROLLING” THE HEARTS & MINDS OF THE PUBLIC – CLAIMS-MAKING