Abstract
Social movement theory assumes that by and large rational movement actors weigh their chances and adjust their strategies to opportunities. This is in sharp contrast to the difficulty of assessing whether social movements make an impact and the self-assessment of movement actors who see only negligible chances of success. Organizational neo-institutionalism offers an alternative explanation. It argues that organizations act according to institutionalized rules and scripts of adequate behavior that are spread among movement activists due to similar learning processes and network linkages. Neo-institutionalism provides a new understanding of social movement action and bridges the gap between assumed rationality and the stable activity repertoires. Furthermore, it redirects attention to the process of diffusion among movement organizations.
This paper has profited much more than usual from a thorough discussion in the research group and from the comments of the two fellow editors. I am very grateful for these improvements.
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Notes
- 1.
As often, there are exceptions to this general rule. Some ideas of organization research have been integrated into studies of movement organizations (e.g., Roose 2003). A broader review of the opportunities for social movement research and organization research to inform each other was made by Davis et al. (2005).
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The Foucauldian tradition analyzes the latter aspect in more detail (see Baumgarten and Ullrich in this volume).
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In fact, in their initial article Meyer and Rowan (1977) were not sufficiently clear in specifying this range of empirical application. Later work by Meyer on world society is also not explicit on these limitations. However, the choice of his empirical object, the isomorphism among nation states, fulfills these criteria. In international relations the force of law is not strong enough to guarantee this homogeneity, and change always implies that there was an alternative that was implemented before the change. Therefore neither the explanation by force of law nor by the argument that alternatives are unthinkable is convincing.
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There are two traditions that cover this argument at least to some extent. Firstly, there is the long debate about Michel’s argument of an iron law of oligarchy, stating that after some time the organization’s elite shifts its aims towards securing their positions only and the outcome goals are lost (Michels 1987, original 1908). References to this argument are mostly critical in a normative as well as an empirical sense (for example, Clemens and Minkoff 2007; Rucht 1999), and an elaboration of such processes is missing because the cause is solely attributed to the individuals in leading positions. Secondly, Schmitter and Streeck (1981) proposed a distinction between the logic of influence and logic of membership. They argue that organizations have to strategically follow the opportunities to influence their addressee (logic of influence) but also need to satisfy the expectations of their members (logic of membership) and both can be contradictory. The logic of membership resembles the longing for legitimacy proposed as a core goal of organizations by neo-institutionalism. However, Schmitter and Streeck simply state membership expectations as a factor while neo-institutionalism broadens the scope of potentially relevant reference groups and elaborates the processes of how such expectations develop, diffuse, and are incorporated in organizational practices.
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A directly linked question would be which kind of movement organization is more prone to follow institutionalized rules. However, two contradictory thoughts are possible. Either formal organizations may be strongly committed to their own survival and the permanency of paid posts while informal organizations may be more flexible, or informal organizations are more fragile and therefore are more dependent on legitimacy, and tend to comply with institutionalized rules in an even stricter manner.
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Research on protest waves might be a good starting point, as part of the diffusion process seems to be a socio-cultural institutionalization of protest as a means of action in itself, often in particular contexts. For example, during the protest wave in North Africa in 2011 the “Day of Rage” was copied in several countries (Roose 2011). Similar processes of copying could be witnessed for the use of sit-ins as a form of protest (Andrews and Biggs 2006).
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Roose, J. (2016). Social Movements and Neo-Institutionalism: A Fruitful Merger?. In: Roose, J., Dietz, H. (eds) Social Theory and Social Movements. Springer VS, Wiesbaden. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-13381-8_7
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