Collective Behaviour and Social Movements

OUTLINE:

Social Movements and Collective Behaviour

• The APEC Protest

• Some Definitions

• Classical Approaches to Collective Behaviour– Social Contagion– Emergent Norm Theory– Mass Society Theory

• Relative Deprivation

• Resource Mobilization

THE APEC PROTEST AT UBC

• Were you there?

• Did you see it on t.v.?

• What was going on?

• What was the purpose of the protest?

• Was it successful?

Collective Behaviour:

Collective behaviour refers to a wide variety of collective phenomena, and includes: "collective excitement, social unrest, crowd behaviour, riots, manias, crazes, fads, mass alarms, mass hysteria, public revolts, protest movements, rebellions, reform movements and revolutionary movements".

Collective Action:

Collective action is a more specific form of collective behaviour that refers to the pursuit of goals by more than one person.

Sometimes the term "collective action" is used as a synonym for a particular theoretical perspective on social movements -- resource mobilization. In short, this perspective looks at integration and cleavage factors and seeks to explain what is dissimilar about collective action at different times and in different places.

Social Movement:

A social movement is a subtype of the broader category of collective action. A social movement is a large collectivity of people or group trying to bring about or resist social change.

The latter are often referred to as counter-movements.

Why do people participate in collective behaviour?

Classical Approaches to the Study of Collective Behaviour

Oberschall (1973:12) depicts Le Bon's view as follows:

In a crowd, the rational faculties of the individual, his moral judgment and conscious personality come under the sway of contagion and suggestion frequently originating with a leader. These produce a "mental unity" or uniformity. The characteristic mark of crowds is credulity, mobility, exaggeration of both noble and base sentiments, and suggestibility. The law of the mental unity of crowds applies not only to the "criminal" crowd, e.g., the type of crowd that stormed the Bastille, but to crowds that possess a sense of responsibility, e.g., juries, the electorate, and parliamentary assemblies.

Juries have a weak aptitude for rational judgment, they are swayed by suggestion, orators, and unconscious sentiments ... Revolutionary crowds are drawn from the rootless, disorganized, mentally disturbed, criminal classes of big cities. ...

Social Contagion Blumer argued that contagion occurred through "circular reaction". Circular reaction refers to: a type of interstimulation wherein the response of one individual reproduces the stimulation that has come from another individual and in being reflected back to this individual reinforces the stimulation. Thus the interstimulation assumes a circular form in which individuals reflect one another's states of feeling and in so doing intensify this feeling. It is well evidenced in the transmission of feelings and moods among people who are in a state of excitement. (Blumer, 1969:70)

In contrast to Blumer, Turner and Killian argued that there is substantial diversity amongst the participants in collective behaviour.

An emergent norm approach reflects the empirical observation that the crowd is characterized not by unanimity but by differential expression, with different individuals in the crowd feeling differently, participating because of diverse motives, and even acting differently. The illusion of unanimity arises because the behaviour of part of the crowd is perceived both by observers and by crowd members as being the sentiment of the whole crowd.

Variant views and divergent forms of behaviour go unrecognized or are dismissed as unimportant. If, however, a complete similarity of the crowd members is regarded as an illusion, another key problem arises. This is explaining the development and imposition of a pattern of differential expression that is perceived as unanimity.

Such a shared understanding encourages behaviour consistent with the norm, inhibits behaviour contrary to it, and justifies restraining action against individuals who dissent. Since the norm is to some degree specific to the situation, differing in degree or in kind from the norms governing noncrowd situations it is an emergent norm.

Mass Society Theory

An Introduction to Social Movements:

Aboriginal Self-Determination As A Social Movement

ABORIGINAL SELF-DETERMINATION AS A SOCIAL MOVEMENT

What is a social movement?

• Relative Deprivation Explanations.

• Resource Mobilization Explanations.

• What are some of the key social changes that have facilitated the prospects for mobilization?

Some Study Questions/Problems.

What is a social movement?

What is “relative deprivation”?

What do resource mobilization theorists focus upon in trying to understand the success of social movements.

Identify and describe two factors that have facilitated the mobilization of aboriginals in British Columbia for self-determination.

Collective Action:

Collective action refers to a group of people working toward achieving a common goal.

Collective action varies widely in its character and form.

Social movements are a special form of collective action where the goal is social change.

RELATIVE DEPRIVATION

Relative deprivation is an explanation for the rise of social protest as illustrated through rebellions, the formation of new social movements, the rise of new political parties, or revolution.

RELATIVE DEPRIVATION

Relative deprivation refers to a difference or gap between what people believe they have a right to receive (their expectations) and what they actually receive (their achievements).

Expectations and achievements may diverge for a number of reasons.

1. Both achievements and expectations may rise, but expectations may rise faster than achievements.

2. Expectations may remain constant while achievements decline.

3.A third possible scenario, is when there is a period of rising expectations and rising achievements which is followed by a decline in achievements, while expectations continue to rise.

RESOURCE MOBILIZATION THEORY

Resource mobilization is a theoretical perspective that sets out to explain the rise of social movements (and other forms of collective action) by focusing on the structural factors that facilitate or constrain mobilization.

As the name implies, resource mobilization focuses on a variety of different types of resources that enable groups to achieve their collective goals.

Two factors that resource mobilization theorists consider to be important for understanding the rise of social movements are the following:

1.Cleavage factors, which tend to separate people from one another or set them at odds.

2.Integrating factors, which pull people together in social groups (whether or not collective action usually occurs).

A Summary of Resource Mobilization Theory.Below is a summary of the main principles of resource

mobilization theory:

Collective action is more likely to occur, and to be successful, to the extent that the members of a contending group:

1. are bound together in dense social networks;

2. are highly socially polarized from advantaged groups;

3. are relatively unrepresented by existing groups (or parties);

4. have relatively high levels of shared social identity;

5. (compared with dominant/contending groups) have relatively high access to material resources (property, money, jobs), normative resources (communications media, educational institutions), and/or coercive resources (police, armed forces);

6. are relatively large in number, and have a large number of support bases. (Adapted from Brym with Fox 1989.)