Zoé Hamstead
The Occupy Movement is an international movement that arguable began when Wikileaks released Army helicopter footage from Iraq, (Dorling, 2011) but its first protest was held in Zuccotti Park in September of 2011, anniversary of Wall Street re-opening after Sept 11 attacks. Since then, there have been global protests in numerous parts of the world, including Australia, China, France, Spain, and Germany. Although critics argue that the Occupy Movement does not have specific goals, or demands that can be implemented in some way, it does have several centralizing principles. One, it advocates against social and income inequality, initially protesting against the role of banking in the economy. The primary mantra of the group is “we are the 99%,” referring to the large income gap between the wealthiest Americans and the rest of Americans. And two, it is committed to participatory democracy. Mechanistically, the broader organization is divided into working groups that are small enough for everyone to have their say and uses strategies to lift voices of volunteers from typically underrepresented social strata. Since the Occupy Movement began with the Wikileaks release and Occupy Wall Street, other Occupy spinoffs have arisen, such as Occupy Sandy, which organizes volunteers using themes of power and inequality in natural disaster recovery and frames a dialogue about capitalism and the climate. Occupy the Pipeline is another spinoff movement aimed at halting development of a natural gas pipeline that will run from New Jersey under the Hudson River and into the Meatpacking District by a company known for safety violations. Though difficult to demonstrate, proponents argue that the Occupy Movement has shifted the national dialogue from deficit reduction to economic problems of “ordinary” Americans and that it has encouraged nation such as Spain to adopt new standards toward the banking industry. The Occupy Movement is an interesting case study of social movements because the juxtaposition of its large membership against social equity goals and a commitment to participatory democracy necessitates that it functions in a decentralized way, opening questions about how social movements can explain the structure and functioning of such a group.
Mancur Olson (1965), in his discussion of Collective Action begins with the premise that individuals would prefer to contribute as few resources as possible in order to acquire the benefits of group action. This follows from an assumption of individual self-interest. He argues that group size greatly affects the provisioning of goods that results from collective action in that individuals in large groups tend to lack enough incentive to contribute, and groups which are too small have a tendency to exploit those willing to contribute the most. Larger groups require coercion or an incentive structure to extract enough resources in order to provide the good. In applying this theory to the Occupy Movement, two questions arise – one of scale and one of the good itself. At one level, the Occupy Movement is very large and this larger movement utilizes social media to spread information, collect donations and generate other resources. However, at another level, it is comprised of working groups small enough in size that all members could potentially share an equal voice. Therefore, the movement represents some mixture of Olson’s group types, perhaps able to harness large amount of resources while not requiring coercion of its members (or vice-versa). However, the collective “good” that the Occupy Movement is trying to obtain, may vary widely from country to county or community to community. In general, its goals appear to be the acquisition of a political voice and power for underrepresented or disadvantaged in specific policy arenas. Functionally then, Olson’s model is likely to predict different outcomes at different levels of structural organization.
Keck and Sikkink (1999) claim that transnational advocacy networks are communicative structures which engage primarily in information exchange, and are most prevalent in issue areas where there is informational uncertainty. This claim is supported by the Occupy Movement’s origin in Wikileak’s video footage release, which brought to light otherwise unknown activities of the U.S. military in Iraq, as well as its use of social media to communicate information and organize activities. Much of the movement is focused on changing national-level policy by drawing the attention of a global network that recognizes and relates to similar issues of injustice and inequality in different forms. Though not exactly akin to the boomerang pattern, it does orient strategy around a highly distributed, but global network. Although this theory to some extent describes how the Occupy Movement arose, it is likely to predict that the movement will not be successful, as it does not address generally address bodily harm or legal opportunity per se. According to Keck and Sikkink, the extent to which policy diffusion and mutual transformation occurs through the movement will be the test of whether it is successful.
While both theories may explain aspects of the Occupy Movement (e.g., group size, information exchange), neither addresses the unique decentralized structural type of this particular group or network. How might goals, demands and outcomes be articulated differently at different levels of organization, such that the movement might at once have the strengths and weaknesses of both a large and small group? And how might the different levels of organization embodied in one advocacy network generate mutual transformation?
References
Dorling, P. (2011, October 29). Assange can still Occupy centre stage. The Sydney Morning Herald. Sydney, Australia. Retrieved from http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/assange-can-still-occupy-centre-stage-20111028-1mo8x.html
Keck, M. E., & Sikkink, K. (1999). Transnational advocacy networks in international and regional politics. International Social Science Journal, 51(159), 89–101. doi:10.1111/1468-2451.00179
Olson, M. (1965). Public Goods and the Theory of Groups. The Logic of Collective Action (pp. 6–52). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
This is a very interesting application on Olson's theoretical underpinnings on collective action but also one that raises a lot of questions; for instance, on the role of social movements and collective action. By definition a social movement gains its strength from its mass mobilization. Understandably though, the bigger the movement the more difficult it is to avoid free riding. Perhaps the difference is between active and passive participants within the movement. One could argue that the small committees, where participation is active provide an arena for a different type of collective good or even personal benefits (perhaps for leading decision makers within the movement). In that sense responsibilities and free riding behavior can be affected by the existing role of someone in the movement, peer pressure etc. On the other hand, the fact that there are passive participants, not necessarily engaged in committees etc might reveal signs of free riding (since these people are engaged they can fight for my beliefs too). So once again, this is a great application that raises many interesting questions.
Achilles
I agree a very interesting application of Olson's theory but I am concerned with the effectiveness of a movement to influence public policy. One might argue that the very structure of the OWS movement limited its ability to directly influence policy decisions in the US. If its intention was simply to bring awareness of the plight of the working class then this seemed a bit frivolous to me. The international versions of OWS seemed to result in some change I wonder if internationally the movement maintained its same structure or did it adapt? Or if the organization did not change its structure internationally what conditions resulted in different results?........Deon
The Occupy Movement is an international movement that arguable began when Wikileaks released Army helicopter footage from Iraq, (Dorling, 2011) but its first protest was held in Zuccotti Park in September of 2011, anniversary of Wall Street re-opening after Sept 11 attacks. Since then, there have been global protests in numerous parts of the world, including Australia, China, France, Spain, and Germany. Although critics argue that the Occupy Movement does not have specific goals, or demands that can be implemented in some way, it does have several centralizing principles. One, it advocates against social and income inequality, initially protesting against the role of banking in the economy. The primary mantra of the group is “we are the 99%,” referring to the large income gap between the wealthiest Americans and the rest of Americans. And two, it is committed to participatory democracy. Mechanistically, the broader organization is divided into working groups that are small enough for everyone to have their say and uses strategies to lift voices of volunteers from typically underrepresented social strata. Since the Occupy Movement began with the Wikileaks release and Occupy Wall Street, other Occupy spinoffs have arisen, such as Occupy Sandy, which organizes volunteers using themes of power and inequality in natural disaster recovery and frames a dialogue about capitalism and the climate. Occupy the Pipeline is another spinoff movement aimed at halting development of a natural gas pipeline that will run from New Jersey under the Hudson River and into the Meatpacking District by a company known for safety violations. Though difficult to demonstrate, proponents argue that the Occupy Movement has shifted the national dialogue from deficit reduction to economic problems of “ordinary” Americans and that it has encouraged nation such as Spain to adopt new standards toward the banking industry. The Occupy Movement is an interesting case study of social movements because the juxtaposition of its large membership against social equity goals and a commitment to participatory democracy necessitates that it functions in a decentralized way, opening questions about how social movements can explain the structure and functioning of such a group.
Mancur Olson (1965), in his discussion of Collective Action begins with the premise that individuals would prefer to contribute as few resources as possible in order to acquire the benefits of group action. This follows from an assumption of individual self-interest. He argues that group size greatly affects the provisioning of goods that results from collective action in that individuals in large groups tend to lack enough incentive to contribute, and groups which are too small have a tendency to exploit those willing to contribute the most. Larger groups require coercion or an incentive structure to extract enough resources in order to provide the good. In applying this theory to the Occupy Movement, two questions arise – one of scale and one of the good itself. At one level, the Occupy Movement is very large and this larger movement utilizes social media to spread information, collect donations and generate other resources. However, at another level, it is comprised of working groups small enough in size that all members could potentially share an equal voice. Therefore, the movement represents some mixture of Olson’s group types, perhaps able to harness large amount of resources while not requiring coercion of its members (or vice-versa). However, the collective “good” that the Occupy Movement is trying to obtain, may vary widely from country to county or community to community. In general, its goals appear to be the acquisition of a political voice and power for underrepresented or disadvantaged in specific policy arenas. Functionally then, Olson’s model is likely to predict different outcomes at different levels of structural organization.
Keck and Sikkink (1999) claim that transnational advocacy networks are communicative structures which engage primarily in information exchange, and are most prevalent in issue areas where there is informational uncertainty. This claim is supported by the Occupy Movement’s origin in Wikileak’s video footage release, which brought to light otherwise unknown activities of the U.S. military in Iraq, as well as its use of social media to communicate information and organize activities. Much of the movement is focused on changing national-level policy by drawing the attention of a global network that recognizes and relates to similar issues of injustice and inequality in different forms. Though not exactly akin to the boomerang pattern, it does orient strategy around a highly distributed, but global network. Although this theory to some extent describes how the Occupy Movement arose, it is likely to predict that the movement will not be successful, as it does not address generally address bodily harm or legal opportunity per se. According to Keck and Sikkink, the extent to which policy diffusion and mutual transformation occurs through the movement will be the test of whether it is successful.
While both theories may explain aspects of the Occupy Movement (e.g., group size, information exchange), neither addresses the unique decentralized structural type of this particular group or network. How might goals, demands and outcomes be articulated differently at different levels of organization, such that the movement might at once have the strengths and weaknesses of both a large and small group? And how might the different levels of organization embodied in one advocacy network generate mutual transformation?
References
Dorling, P. (2011, October 29). Assange can still Occupy centre stage. The Sydney Morning Herald. Sydney, Australia. Retrieved from http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/assange-can-still-occupy-centre-stage-20111028-1mo8x.html
Keck, M. E., & Sikkink, K. (1999). Transnational advocacy networks in international and regional politics. International Social Science Journal, 51(159), 89–101. doi:10.1111/1468-2451.00179
Olson, M. (1965). Public Goods and the Theory of Groups. The Logic of Collective Action (pp. 6–52). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
This is a very interesting application on Olson's theoretical underpinnings on collective action but also one that raises a lot of questions; for instance, on the role of social movements and collective action. By definition a social movement gains its strength from its mass mobilization. Understandably though, the bigger the movement the more difficult it is to avoid free riding. Perhaps the difference is between active and passive participants within the movement. One could argue that the small committees, where participation is active provide an arena for a different type of collective good or even personal benefits (perhaps for leading decision makers within the movement). In that sense responsibilities and free riding behavior can be affected by the existing role of someone in the movement, peer pressure etc. On the other hand, the fact that there are passive participants, not necessarily engaged in committees etc might reveal signs of free riding (since these people are engaged they can fight for my beliefs too). So once again, this is a great application that raises many interesting questions.
Achilles
I agree a very interesting application of Olson's theory but I am concerned with the effectiveness of a movement to influence public policy. One might argue that the very structure of the OWS movement limited its ability to directly influence policy decisions in the US. If its intention was simply to bring awareness of the plight of the working class then this seemed a bit frivolous to me. The international versions of OWS seemed to result in some change I wonder if internationally the movement maintained its same structure or did it adapt? Or if the organization did not change its structure internationally what conditions resulted in different results?........Deon
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