History of Peace Movements

1
History of Peace Movements

• Peace movements in Europe started in 1981 and
  re-emerged in 1991and with the Ex-Yugoslavia
  conflict. Movements sought institutional
  alliances and extra institutional coalitions.
  Events differently affected institutionalized and
  non-institutionalized branches of the movement.
  The two sectors varied in different countries.

2
POS and Demobilization

• Gorbachev began new trend in 1985.
• The consequences were immediate diminished
  threat kept support high but low activism.
• This helped institutionalized sectors of peace
  movements.

3
Ideology

• Roots of mobilization
• Perception of global danger
• Vacuum for left movements cultural roots
• Moral utopianism
• Reaction to social control
• Antimodernism (anti-tech small world)
• Anti-Americanism and Europeanism

4
Italy and the Peace Movement

• Considering 10 years of Italian Peace Movement
  history it is possible to distinguish four
  periods as marking different phases in the
  institutionalization of left-libertarian social
  movements. In this context it is necessary to
  categorize Organizational Behavior, Action
  Repertoires, and Ideologies.

5
Organizations

• Over the 4 periods the movement has become more
  organised and institutionalised.
  Institutionalization can be very productive in
  terms of movement objectives. In Italy
  institutions such as the Pci and the church have
  contributed to laws favorable to arms sales and
  production objection, peace education, draft
  objection, municipal initiatives, etc.

6
Two Sectors

• The boundaries between institutionalized and
  non-institutionalized sectors are flexible and
  reversible, that institutionalization occurs
  mainly through differential attrition and not
  organizational transformation
• The nature of the receiving institution shapes
  the process of institutionalization

7
Action Forms

• Over time "action forms" adopted by the Italian
  peace movement changed.
• To explain innovation, one can point to mimetic
  behaviour between different organizations
  (movements, churches and state) and to public
  discourse and institutional decision making.
• Repertoires are also related to the identity and
  ideology implications of adopting different
  action forms.

8
Action Forms and Time

• Some action forms change meaning over time. With
  the anti-cruise movement a new repertoire of
  theatrical forms was adopted It included peace
  dances, human chains, shake-ins, die-ins. Over
  time, it became institutionalized.

9
Diversity, Collaboration and Competition in the
Peace Movement
Non-Institutionalized Institutionalized
Cruise Movement Catholic Movement (Catholicism)
Persian-Gulf movement Peace Association (Left)
10
Institutionalization and OB

• Institutionalization happens primarily by
  attrition
• The Weber-Michaels model predicted steady
  organizational transformation. However if we look
  at what happened in the Italian movement we see
  that the institutionalized and non-institutionaliz
  ed sectors react differently after deployment
  only institutional activist included peace action
  in a broader activist context

11
Institutionalization and Psychological Processes

• With defeat, psychological processes alienate non
  institutional militants. The disappearance of the
  sense of immediate danger, which was
  understandable to everybody and had sustained the
  anti-missiles movement, engendered a motivation
  crisis.
• This fact led to a selection in the movement.
  People with a history of political involvement
  remained Conversely many unaffiliated people
  left.

12
Goals Definition and Re-definition

• The lack of a unified goal caused a fragmentation
  of initiatives. This fragmentation further
  reduced media coverage and international
  solidarity, increasing the specialized character
  that pacifism was acquiring.
• Without a clear goal those that remained
  interested in peace and did not belong to a
  multi-purpose organization, did so out of a
  strong sense of ethical commitment.

13
De-mobilization and Competition

• As peace lost centrality and other issues
  surfaced on the social movement scene, such as
  ecologist concerns, peace became one among many
  other issues for busy institutional activists
  (but no longer an issue about which it was easy
  to mobilize simple militants), while it was
  downplayed by non institutional ones. Thus peace
  was more likely to be pursued in the context of a
  multi-purpose organization, such as a party or a
  catholic association.

14
Polarization

• Institutionalization brought polarization of the
  movement a large component of institutional
  activists and a small group of devoted pacifists.
  Institutions can survive after the decline of
  mobilization because they have resources,
  sustainers have commitment.

15
Institutionalization and the Weber-Michels
Hypothesis

• Why is the Michels model wrong? Organizations
  don't change easily
• There are blocks to changes in taken-for-granted
  procedures
• Activists' identitiespeace groups who refused to
  bureaucratize
• Leaders' stake nonviolent leader refused to join
  larger organization
• Established division of labor in organizational
  field attempts to bureaucratize the peace
  committees failed

16
Dynamics of Institutional Selection

• Surviving institutions orient the process of
  institutionalization
• A) the institutional areas that have an interest
  in the movement determines the characteristic of
  the surviving movement
• B) the moral or instrumental character of the
  institution
• C) the amount of institutional ambiguity which
  may be intentionally used, or be the result of
  internal dynamics

17
Institutions and Resources

• Within institutions the flow of resources is
  oriented by
• The amount of freedom an institution grants to
  its functionaries, and their loyalty
• The importance of the issue at stake to the
  institution
• Whether action takes place within or without
  institutional boundaries and whether support is
  embarrassing
• Traditional procedures. How involvement is risky.
  How institution control the definition of the
  situation

18
Action Forms

• Why innovation? There is a RM/NSM controversy on
  whether innovation is identity or strategy
  driven. It can be answered by observing who
  innovates
• Innovation takes place for identity reasons
• To be congruent with other institutional
  repertoires
• To respond to the changing strategies of
  authorities

19
Changes in Action Forms

• Considering variations of repertoires
  effectiveness and meaning, when do they change?
  Tilly provided an answer. He notes that
  innovation is rare, and points to
• 1 the standards of right and justice prevailing
  in the population
• 2 the daily routines of the population
• 3 the population internal organization
• 4 its accumulated experience with prior
  collective action
• 5 the patterns of repression in the world of the
  population