Social movement organization

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A social movement organization (SMO) is an organized component of a social movement.

Contents

SMOs are generally seen as the components of a social movement. The movement's goals can be much more narrow, or much broader, than the SMOs' goals.

Description

The term SMO entered literature through the work of Mayer N. Zald and Roberta Ash (Zald, Mayer N. and Roberta Ash, Social Movement Organizations: Growth, Decay and Change. Social Forces 44:327-341, 1966). [1] In social movement theory, a social movement organization is an organized component of a social movement (SM). An SMO is usually only a part of a particular social movement; in other words, a specific social movement is usually composed of many social movement organizations – formal organizations that share the movement's goals. [2] Social movement organizations usually have coordinating roles in social movements, but do not actually employ or direct most of the participants, who are part of a wider social movement community. Social movement organizations carry out the tasks that are necessary for any social movement to survive and to be successful.

Examples

The civil rights movement was a social movement composed of specific social movement organizations such as the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). [2] These are just three SMOs amongst the hundreds of organizations that helped shape the civil rights movement.

Similarly we can consider Veganism, where organizations such as People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) advocate for vegan lifestyles along with its other aims. But PETA is not the only group to advocate for vegan diets and lifestyles; there are numerous other groups actively engaged toward this end. [3] Thus, the social movement is the general push toward veganism (an effort with numerous motivations) and PETA is only a single SMO working within the broader social movement. [3]

The peace movement is composed of many groups that want peace – groups that classify as SMOs such as Peace Action (SANE/FREEZE), Fellowship of Reconciliation and others. [4] The Ku Klux Klan is yet another SMO – part of the white supremacist movement. [5] Al-Qaeda, acting as a coordinating body for a large number of loosely connected anti-American organizations and individuals, is another example of a social movement organization.

Social Movement Industry (SMI)

An organizational equivalent of a particular social movement – a collection of all SMOs focused on a given field – is known as a Social Movement Industry (SMI). [2] Social Movement Industries are similar to social movements in scope but are seen as having more structure. [6] Social movement industries can be combined into one Social Movement Sector in the society. [7]

See also

Related Research Articles

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A social movement is a loosely organized effort by a large group of people to achieve a particular goal, typically a social or political one. This may be to carry out a social change, or to resist or undo one. It is a type of group action and may involve individuals, organizations, or both. Social movements have been described as "organizational structures and strategies that may empower oppressed populations to mount effective challenges and resist the more powerful and advantaged elites". They represent a method of social change from the bottom within nations. On the other hand, some social movements do not aim to make society more egalitarian, but to maintain or amplify existing power relationships. For example, scholars have described fascism as a social movement.

The term new social movements (NSMs) is a theory of social movements that attempts to explain the plethora of new movements that have come up in various western societies roughly since the mid-1960s which are claimed to depart significantly from the conventional social movement paradigm.

Cult is a term often applied to new religious movements and other social groups which have unusual, and often extreme, religious, spiritual, or philosophical beliefs and rituals. Extreme devotion to a particular person, object, or goal is another characteristic often ascribed to cults. The term has different, and sometimes divergent or pejorative, definitions both in popular culture and academia and has been an ongoing source of contention among scholars across several fields of study.

Relative deprivation is the lack of resources to sustain the diet, lifestyle, activities and amenities that an individual or group are accustomed to or that are widely encouraged or approved in the society to which they belong. Measuring relative deprivation allows an objective comparison between the situation of the individual or group compared to the rest of society. Relative deprivation may also emphasise the individual experience of discontent when being deprived of something to which one believes oneself to be entitled, however emphasizing the perspective of the individual makes objective measurement problematic.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Animal rights movement</span> Social movement for animal consideration

The animal rightsmovement, sometimes called the animal liberation, animal personhood, or animal advocacy movement, is a social movement that advocates an end to the rigid moral and legal distinction drawn between human and non-human animals, an end to the status of animals as property, and an end to their use in the research, food, clothing, and entertainment industries. The argument from marginal cases is often used in animal rights advocacy which asserts that if certain humans with limited cognitive capacities are granted moral consideration, then non-human animals, who may possess different forms of intelligence or sentience, should also be afforded similar negative rights and moral consideration.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Social movement theory</span> Interdisciplinary social study

Social movement theory is an interdisciplinary study within the social sciences that generally seeks to explain why social mobilization occurs, the forms under which it manifests, as well as potential social, cultural, political, and economic consequences, such as the creation and functioning of social movements.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Resource mobilization</span> Sociological theory in social movements

Resource mobilization is the process of getting resources from the resource provider, using different mechanisms, to implement an organization's predetermined goals. It is a theory that is used in the study of social movements and argues that the success of social movements depends on resources and the ability to use them.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Value-added theory</span> Sociological theory

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Mayer Nathan Zald was an American sociologist. He was a professor of sociology, social work and business administration at the University of Michigan, noted for contributions to the sociology of organizations and social movements.

Opportunity structures, in sociology and related social science disciplines, are exogenous factors which limit or empower collective actors. In explaining the evolution of social movements, the structuralist approach emphasizes that factors external to the movements themselves, such as the level and type of state repression, or the group's access to political institutions, shape the development of the movement; such factors are called opportunity structures.

William Anthony Gamson was a professor of Sociology at Boston College, where he was also the co-director of the Media Research and Action Project (MRAP). He is the author of numerous books and articles on political discourse, the mass-media and social movements from as early as the 1960s. His influential works include Power and Discontent (1968), The Strategy of Social Protest (1975), Encounters with Unjust Authority (1982) and Talking Politics (2002), as well as numerous editions of SIMSOC.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Doug McAdam</span> American sociologist (born 1951)

Doug McAdam is Professor of Sociology at Stanford University. He did early work on the political process model in social movement analysis. He wrote a book on the theory in 1982 when analyzing the U.S. Civil Rights Movement: Political Process and the Development of the Black Insurgency 1930-1970. His other book Freedom Summer won the C. Wright Mills Award in 1990. He was the director of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences between 2001 and 2005. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2003.

Political opportunity theory, also known as the political process theory or political opportunity structure, is an approach of social movements that is heavily influenced by political sociology. It argues that success or failure of social movements is affected primarily by political opportunities. Social theorists Peter Eisinger, Sidney Tarrow, David S. Meyer and Doug McAdam are considered among the most prominent supporters of the theory.

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John David McCarthy is an American sociologist. He earned his Ph.D degree in Sociology at University of Oregon in 1968. He is currently a Professor of Sociology at Pennsylvania State University.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Activism</span> Efforts to make change in society toward a perceived greater good

Activism consists of efforts to promote, impede, direct or intervene in social, political, economic or environmental reform with the desire to make changes in society toward a perceived common good. Forms of activism range from mandate building in a community, petitioning elected officials, running or contributing to a political campaign, preferential patronage of businesses, and demonstrative forms of activism like rallies, street marches, strikes, sit-ins, or hunger strikes.

Edwin Amenta is an American sociologist best known for his study of social policy, social movements and the New Deal.

Hayagreeva "Huggy" Rao is an American academic. He is the Atholl McBean Professor of Organizational Behavior and Human Resources at the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Black veganism</span> Socio-political philosophy in the United States

Black veganism in the United States is a social and political philosophy that connects the use of non-human animals with other social justice concerns such as racism and with the lasting effects of slavery, such as the subsistence diets of enslaved people enduring as familial and cultural food traditions. Sisters Syl Ko and Aph Ko first proposed the intersectional framework for and coined the term Black veganism. The Institute for Critical Animal Studies called Black veganism an "emerging discipline".

References

Citations

  1. ↑ Morris Rosenberg; Ralph H. Turner; American Sociological Association. Section on Social Psychology (1981). Social psychology: sociological perspectives. Basic Books, Inc. p. 464. ISBN   978-0-465-07904-9 . Retrieved 21 August 2012.
  2. 1 2 3 Mayer N. Zald, John D. McCarthy, Social Movements in an Organizational Society: Collected Essays, Transaction Publishers, 1997, ISBN   0-88738-802-7, Google Print, p. 21
  3. 1 2 Maurer, Donna. 2002. Vegetarianism: Movement or Moment? Philadelphia: Temple University Press. ISBN   1-56639-936-X
  4. ↑ Melvin F. Hall, Poor People's Social Movement Organizations: The Goal is to Win, Greenwood Publishing Group, 1995, ISBN   0-275-94704-1, Google Print, p.6
  5. ↑ John Lofland, Social Movement Organizations: Guide to Research on Insurgent Realities, Aldine Transaction, 1996, ISBN   0-202-30553-8, Google Print, p.1
  6. ↑ Kevin Michael DeLuca, Image Politics: The New Rhetoric of Environmental Activism, Routledge, 2005, ISBN   0-8058-5848-2, Google Print, p.30
  7. ↑ Suzanne Staggenborg, The Pro-choice Movement: Organization and Activism in the Abortion Conflict, Oxford University Press US, 1994 ISBN   0-19-508925-1, Google Print, p. 189

Bibliography

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