GLCb1014 Social Movements: Multidisciplinary Approach
Lecture 4: Participation in social movements


Political participation (Van Deth)



Political participation
•Having necessary resources: time, money, and civic skills (Brady et al. 1995)
•Developing civic skills (communication and organization skills that facilitate effective
participation)

Obstacles of participation
•Citizens cannot participate
•Citizens don´t want to participate
•Nobody asked them

Recruitment
•Why some people engage and others not?
-Social networks/organizations
-Biographies/identities
-Collectiver identity + sense of efficacy
-Motivation

Participation in social movements
•The role of social networks (embeddedness) and groups
•Outside the networks recruit mostly very closed groups (sects)
•Weaker role of attitudes!
•Important: membership in organisations, previous experience of collective action, relationships
with other people in the social movement
•Networks: create predispositions to collective action (collective identity), create opportunities,
influence decisions (move from predispositions and opportunities to action)

Organization membership – CR (EVS 2017)
Member: Belong to sports or recreation
35,3
Member: Belong to education, arts, music or cultural activities
18,8
Member: Belong to none
13,7
Member: Belong to conservation, the environment, ecology, animal rights
12,5
Member: Belong to religious organization
11,9
Member: Belong to humanitarian or charitable organization
10,2
Member: Belong to professional associations
9,8
Member: Belong to labour unions
7,7
Member:  Belong to self-help group, mutual aid group
7,1
Member: Belong to political parties
4,7
Member: Belong to consumer groups
4,4

Multiple membership
•Contributes to increased confidence
•Facilitates the flow of information
•Facilitates collaboration between organisations
The social network of the Ecopark movement consists of 62 organizations perceived as active in the
protection of the National Urban Park by at least two respondents. They are divided in a Main
Component (47 nodes), Gardening Component (4), and several unconnected Isolates (11). Also
indicated is the Boating Cluster. The network is generally sparse and of low density; of the 2162
possible links, only 190 were realized in the valued network, whereas 119 were in the symmetrical
network. Distances were nonetheless short, with an average of 2.33, and a maximum distance of 5 in
the symmetrical network (of the Main Component).

Maintaining commitment: Collective identity