To explain the occurrence of protest events, social movement research has focused on external ‘structural’ factors such as resource mobilization or political opportunities. However, protest events do not appear out of the blue. Some people have to take the initiative to start organizing and mobilizing an event to offer a ‘supply’ of protest (Klandermans 2004).For protest to occur a ‘critical mass’ is needed, which is especially motivated, resourceful and willing to put in their time, energy and resources (Oliver, Marwell, and Teixeira 1985). Not many studies focus on these organizers of protest and how their mobilization efforts influence the dynamics of protest (Goodwin and Jasper 1999; but see Boekkooi, Klandermans, and van Stekelenburg 2011 for an exception).But to understand what happens at the macro-level of movements we need to know what happens at the micro-level of organizers (Lichbach 1998; Jasper 2004).
It is this understudied role of the organizers of protest that this chapter focuses on. The mobilization of an event is a two-step process comprising of initiators mobilizing other organizers and organizers mobilizing participants (Boekkooi 2011). By initiators we mean those people who mobilize other activists to help them organizing; by organizers we refer to those people that are involved in the decision-making about the organization of the event and the mobilization of the participants.
This contribution focuses on how organizers build a mobilizing structure (with an emphasis on networks) whereby special attention is paid to how ‘new’ developments such as the transformation from solid to liquid society (Bauman 2000), ‘personalism’ (Lichterman 1996), and ICTs shape ‘new’ types of mobilizing structures, thereby changing mobilizing strategies and the form protests take. We hold that who starts organizing and mobilizing and how they do so, shapes the mobilizing structure, whichhas important implications for the mobilization campaign and the dynamics of protest. A continuum of types of mobilizing structures is developed and illustrative evidence is provided that shows how different types of mobilizing structures generate different dynamics of protest.
Individualization
Late modern societies are changing. Solid societal patterns are eroding and we are moving towards a liquid society (Bauman 2000) or a network society (Castells 1996), in which bonds between people are looser and more flexible. Individuals in late modern societies prefer less binding and more flexible relationships with organizations over traditional rigid and hierarchical ones (Bennett, Breunig, and Givens 2008). In late modern societies people become increasingly connected as individuals rather than as members of a community or group, they operate their own personal community network. Traditional ‘greedy’ institutions such as trade unions and churches which made significant demands on members’ time, loyalty and energy (Coser, 1974) are replaced by ‘light’ groups and associations that are loose, easy to join and easy to leave (Roggeband and Duyvendak 2012). Society is thus becoming organized around networked individuals (Wellman et al. 2003) rather than groups or local solidarities and connections are loose and flexible rather than fixed.
Despite this process of individualization people in late modern societies are still committed to collective causes (Norris 2002). Underlying this, is what Lichterman (1996) calls ‘personalism’: people are politically active because they feel a personal sense of political responsibility rather than that they feel obliged to a community or group. Personalism thus impacts on the ‘greediness’ of organizations and groups, because organizations and groups can only act greedy when the individual feels a strong attachment to the group. Hence, concepts such as ‘traditional’ vs. ‘new’, ‘formal’ vs. ‘informal’ and ‘offline’ vs. ‘online’ do not automatically align with organizations or networks being either light or greedy. In fact, some informal groups such as anarchist subcultures can be greedy, while membership of some formal traditional groups such as ‘checkbook membership’ of a political party can be light. Some new online groups such as Facebook friends can be greedy, while other traditional offline groups such as sports associations can be light. So, what matters is not whether a group is traditional or ‘new’, formal or informal, or online or offline, but how strong the bond is; how much one identifies with it, how much time is invested, the emotional intensity, intimacy and mutual trust (cf. Granovetter 1973). It is thus not the organization or network per sé that determines the ‘greediness’, but an interaction between an individual and the organization or network.
ICTs
Although the process of individualization has evolved since the late ‘50s and ‘60s, it accelerated and moved to a new level, by the rise of new communication technologies and especially the Internet. Without ICTs the network society as we know it now, would not have been possible.
ICTs progress fast, fast enough to distinguish between the older generation—Web 1.0—and the newer generation—Web 2.0 (Bekkers et al. 2008). Whereas Web 1.0—e.g. classical websites―was about one sender attempting to reach many receivers via one medium, receivers read, viewed and consumed information, Web 2.0—e.g. Twitter, wiki’s, blogs, social media―is about many senders attempting to exchange information with many receivers via multiple media, people write, produce, and influence the information.Whereas Web 1.0 was—like classical media—still based on a top-down approach by institutionalized organizations, Web 2.0 offers people the possibility to co-produce relevant content. Every citizen is able to start a blog in order to communicate specific political ideas. Web 2.0 applications also changed communication from one-to-one to many-to-many (Boulos and Wheeler 2007). Instant messaging via Twitter but also blogs and wiki’s facilitate fast and inexpensive many-to-many communication. Moreover, Web 2.0 applications let people form groups effortlessly. Obviously, social connections existed under Web 1.0 as well, but mainly in the form of one-to-one e-mail communication. Various social media such as LinkedIn, MySpace and FaceBookmake it easy to be linked in a virtual network, while previously, this was time-consuming and effortful and thus costly. Whether people find online networks as beneficial as offline networks is a question to be answered, but Web 2.0 applications have given people a set of tools that allow them to create and find groups with ease.
Obviously, the distinction between classical media, Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 is blurred since organizers almost never use just one single mobilization channel, but instead draw on a myriad of channels both offline and online. Likewise for activism, internet activism is seldom exclusively Internet-centred (Meikle 2002), and contemporary offline actions are almost always accompanied by online tactics.
Consequences for organizers
These developments―individualization processes amplified by ICTs―are, of course, not without consequences for organizers. How important are ICTs for contentious politics? Political leaders seem to be convinced by their effectiveness, Egypt’s president Mubarak decided to cut of the internet and mobile phone providers when the Jasmine revolution set off, while Chinese leaders chose to ban searches for ‘Egypt’ on the internet. However, ICTs influence on contentious performances is subject to much scholarly controversy. On the one hand it is argued that they change the ways in which activists communicate and collaborate, and perform their contentious acts. Several authors have shown thatsocial movements―being networks of diverse groups and activists―are especially keen on using the Internet because of its fluid, non-hierarchical structure, which ‘fits’ their ideological and organisational needs (Bennett 2003; van de Donk, Loader, Nixon, and Rucht 2004)and because of the low costs of organizing and communicating (Earl and Kimport 2010). Bimber(1998), however, is critical about the assertion that increasing communication capacity heightens political participation. He observes that political participation among U.S. citizens has not changed significantly since the 1950s despite the increase in opportunities to communicate resulting from the expansion of television (Bimber 1998) or the Internet (Bimber 2001). The effects of Web 1.0 indeed were limited to reinforcing existing mobilization processes, routines and the positions of already well-established actors (Norris 2001; Boekkooi, Klandermans, and Stekelenburg 2011). Rather than a qualitatively different way of mobilizing, Web 1.0 brought quantitative changes in the form of ‘supersizing effects’ on the proliferation of information, reach and speed (see e.g. Norris 2001; Earl and Schussman 2003). Web 2.0 however, does change the dynamics of contention fundamentally. The literature describes four ways in which ICTs―especially Web 2.0―change the dynamics of mobilization: reduction of mobilization and participation costs, expansion of organizers’ tactical repertoire, promotion of collective identity, and the creation of networks.
Reduction of costs. By lowering communication and coordination costs, ICTs facilitate group formation, recruitment, and retention, all of which facilitates the formation of mobilizing structures, reduces the cost of conventional forms of mobilization and participation, and creates new low-cost forms of participation. ICTs make organizing without organizations feasible (cf. Earl and Kimport 2010).
Expansion of tactical repertoire. The tactical repertoire available to organizers ranges from ‘real’ actions that are supported and facilitated by the Internet, to ‘virtual’ actions that are Internet-based (Van Laer and Van Aelst 2008). Internet-supported actions involve the Internet as a device that reinforces the traditional tools of organisers by making it easier to organise and coordinate. Smartphones, for instance, make it possible to continuously document activists ‘on the spot’ about actions and interaction with the police and thereby change the tactics of groups like the ‘Black Bloc’ (McPhail and McCarthy 2005). Internet-based action involve the Internet’s function of creating new and modified tactics as for instance online petitions, email bombings and hacktivism expanding the action toolkit of social movements.
Promotion of collective identity. ICTs can foster collective identity across a dispersed population, as ICTs can encourage the perception among individuals that they are members of a larger community by virtue of the emotions, grievances, and the feelings of efficacy they share (Brainard and Siplon 2000; Arquilla and Ronfeldt 2001). Social media sites offer several opportunities to display an identity, for instance, by adopting or donating a site or by placing a so-called twibbon―a logo specifically designed to place on social media sites. Such twibbons offer people the chance to visibly display these cases to their virtual network they identify with (see also Polletta et al. 2012).
Creation of networks. ICTs’ capability to create networks has arguably the biggest effects for organizers, because it impacts on social embeddedness; a key factor for mobilization (Klandermans, van der Toorn, and van Stekelenburg 2008; Van Stekelenburg and Klandermans 2010). Social media sites such as Facebook and MySpace―which have attracted millions of users worldwide since their introduction―make it possible to be connected with hundreds of people who share interests and activities across political and geographic borders. Furthermore, social media sitesnot only allow individuals to meet and connect to strangers, virtually or in reality, they also enable users to publicly display their connections (boyd and Ellison 2007). This public display of connections is a crucial component of social networks sites which can result in connections between individuals that would not otherwise be made. As such, the internet created an additional public sphere; people are nowadays embedded in virtual networksin addition to (in)formal physical networks. This is important and relevant in the context of mobilization, because the more people are socially embedded―formal, informal and virtual―the higher the chances that they will be targeted with a mobilizing message and kept to their promises to participate (Klandermans and Oegema 1987) and the more they participate in protest (Klandermans, van der Toorn, and van Stekelenburg 2008). As such individualization processes amplified by ICTsmade virtualembeddedness―in addition to formal and informal embeddedness―a key factor for mobilization (Van Stekelenburg and Klandermans, forthcoming).
Mobilizing Structures
The mobilizing structure is the connecting tissue between organizers and participants. Despite their name mobilizing structures are not static nor pre-existing. It is the organizers’ task to combine, rearrange and activate these above described relational configurations and form ‘mobilizing structures’ through which to mobilize participants. Organizers thus need to build a ‘network of networks’ which may be formal or informal, virtual or physical and part of the movement or not. Organizers may use any relationship they have at their disposal. They may build a mobilizing structure entirely from formal organizations, or entirely from informal social relationships or any combination thereof, depending on their choice and existing relationships. There is no preset recipe, organizers may assemble and combine anything they are able to, be it formal, informal, broad or narrow. We will use the term mobilizing structure to refer to all of the organizers’ different assemblages of relational structures.
Many studies have shown that networks are important in explaining differential recruitment and mobilization (e.g. Snow, Zurcher, and Ekland-Olson 1980; Klandermans and Oegema 1987;Tarrow 1994; Diani 2004) and which organizations join the mobilizing coalition is an important predictor of who will participate in the protest (e.g. McAdam and Paulsen 1993; Kitts 2000; Fisher et al. 2005). Most studies are based on organizational affiliations, showing that organizations predominantly mobilize their own members to take to the streets. Some scholars have also looked at membership in civil society organizations (Baldassarri and Diani 2007; Klandermans, van der Toorn, and van Stekelenburg 2008) or embeddedness in a community (Gould 2003). Other studies have shown that it is not only organizations mobilizing their members, but that members themselves are important vehicles to bring new people to the streets and into the organization since they often ask people in their environment to join too (Gould 2003; Snow et al. 1980).
But even networks which primary goal is movement mobilization (e.g. SMOs) might need hard work to be activated to participate in a particular campaign. Many times social movement organizations decline to participate in a campaign, and thus to become part of the mobilizing structure. In fact, no network automatically functions as mobilizing structure; organizers need to adapt, appropriate (McAdam, McCarthy, and Zald 1996), assemble and activate networks in order for it to function as mobilizing structures. A process of meso-mobilization (Gerhards and Rucht 1992) is necessary to build the mobilizing structure. Groups must make a strategic decision to join (van Dyke 2003). Joining a mobilizing structure may be costly, one needs to put in time, energy and resources which are also needed for the maintenance of their own group and attainment of their own goals (Staggenborg 1986). Furthermore, participation in a joint campaign may obscure the own identity and visibility (Gerhards and Rucht 1992; Meyer and Corrigall-Brown 2005) and groups may lose some of their autonomy (Levi and Murphy 2006). But cooperation also enables (especially small) groups to achieve matters they cannot do on their own (Staggenborg 1989), it increases the visibility and—importantly―increases the range of people that can be reached (Meyer and Corrigall-Brown 2005; see also Heaney and Rojas 2008).
A Continuum of Mobilizing Structures: from formal organizational to informal social networks
The existence of different types of networks in society―from formal to informal and in- and outside a social movement―and the possibility for organizers to include any and all of these types into their mobilizing structure, makes that mobilizing structures can take diverse forms. We propose a continuum of mobilizing structures ranging from consisting of only formal networks to only informal networks and any combination thereof in between (as developed in the dissertation of Boekkooi 2011).
On the formal end of the continuum Boekkooi (ibid) places formal coalitions (see Box 1 in Figure 1): organizers try to mobilize the combined membership bases of organizations, often ones specifically designed for protest activity. Formal coalitions mostly present themselves as a single collective that speaks and acts uniformly. On the other end of the continuum, we find the most informal type of mobilizing structure consisting of only informal social networks, not necessarily designed for protest activity (see Box 3 in Figure 1). The use of informal social networks was common in ‘old fashioned’ bread and butter uprisings where people went from door to door to call on their neighbors to participate. More recently, the development of web 2.0 applications has expanded the range of available informal social networks. Nowadays, extensive informal social networks exist online and in the past years we have seen several examples where organizers haveused such virtual social networks to mobilize participants. These cases are typical examples of organizing without organizations (see Earl and Kimport 2011). There is no uniform actor and not necessarily one uniform message or tactic.
Between these two extremes we find mobilizing structures that combine formal and informal networks. One common type of such a combined mobilizing structure is the ‘coordination structure’ (see Box 2 in Figure 1): in such structures a combination exists of movement organizations, groups and networks and individuals and informal social networks. These structures act together for a common goal, but there is space for diversity and disagreement. This is used for example to coordinate (inter)national days of action where initiators ask everyone to locally organize something (anything) in support of the common goal.
The role of the organizers and their goals are different in the different types of mobilizing structures. Using formal structures may be advantageous because through organizations many members may be recruited ‘en bloc’ (Oberschall 1973); by engaging ‘the leadership’ other members are pulled in. Moreover, having a (large) organization on board, may give credibility to the cause, signal the importance of the issue and raise expectations about turn-out and effectiveness of the event. In this respect building a coalition may thus be more effective than building a coordination structure or using informal networks. However, especially young people are increasingly not members of formal organizations anymore (see e.g. Visser 2006; Scarrow and Gezgor 2010)and consequently, often cannot be reached through such formal bonds. Informal and virtual networks may be more suited to reach these unorganized groups of people. In addition, cooperation between formal structures is often difficult and sometimes impossible, due to the formality and need for uniform agreement as the groups involved may be reluctant to give up on their own principles or identities. Generally, research shows that the more formal and enduring the desired cooperation (Staggenborg 1986), the more commitment and resources are asked (Meyer and Corrigall-Brown 2005) and the greater the pressure for ideological conformity (Gerhards and Rucht 1992), the more difficult it is to mobilize organizers to participate in the mobilizing structure and to maintain the cooperation. Looser forms of cooperation, that focus on a narrower goal and for a shorter amount of time (Staggenborg 1986), are easier to achieve. Thus, building a formal enduring coalition will be most difficult to achieve and maintain, building a coordination structure will be easier and using informal social networks without any form of formalized cooperation, obligation or commitment will be easiest.