MASS RESISTANCE AND POLITICAL STRATEGY

MASS RESISTANCE AND POLITICAL STRATEGY STPEC 491H: Focus Seminar I Fall 2017 Professor Kevin A. Young kayoung@umass.edu (413) 545-8726 Office Hours: TBA (Herter 624) Tuesdays 4:00-6:30 PM [Location] Politics is much more than just elections and voting: political action often employs other strategies, such as marches, sit-ins, boycotts, strikes, and divestment campaigns. Why do people engage in such forms of resistance? Why do social movements choose the strategies that they do? And what makes movements effective? Scholars and activists have offered many different answers to these questions. This seminar surveys these debates, drawing from a range of theoretical, historical, and contemporary perspectives on mass-based resistance. We focus particularly on the question of strategy, including everything from organizational design and recruitment strategies, to the diverse ways in which movements seek to wield influence in relation to governments, corporations, and other targets. Case studies will come particularly from the U.S. context, but also from Venezuela, Egypt, Germany, Syria, and elsewhere. The last third of the semester will be heavily structured around students own interests, with each student researching and presenting on a social movement of their choosing. COURSE GOALS 1. To define social movements and distinguish them from other types of resistance 2. To sharpen our understanding of political power, including its definition, sources, and how movements and their opponents wield it 3. To understand current and historical debates about social movement strategy, and to develop our own arguments in response to those debates 4. To hone our skills of critical analysis: appreciating the contributions and possible weaknesses of the arguments found in the readings, placing those arguments into dialogue with one another, and using those arguments to inform our own positions 5. To refine our research and writing skills, producing a well-structured research paper with a clear argument and robust evidence COURSE REQUIREMENTS Participation 25% Weekly responses 35% Synoptic essay 10% Final paper and presentation 30% 1

Participation. Your attendance and participation are crucial to the success of the course. You are expected to read all of the assigned readings prior to the start of class on the day for which they are assigned, and to come to class prepared to discuss them. I strongly encourage you to print out the readings and bring them to class. If you must miss a class for valid reasons (health, religious holidays, family emergencies, etc.), you should do the readings and obtain notes from a classmate, then come to see me if you have any questions. More than one unexcused absence or multiple instances of tardiness will hurt your participation grade. Weekly Responses. Each week you must submit a brief response (1-2 paragraphs in length) to that week s readings via Moodle, by 10:00 AM on Tuesday. Your responses may be analytical, argumentative, and/or inquisitive: for instance, you may choose to analyze the key contribution(s) and/or flaws of the readings, or to pose thoughtful questions about the arguments or their implications. You must submit these responses for 8 of the 9 weeks for which readings are scheduled (Sept. 12 through Nov. 14). No late responses will be accepted. Synoptic Essay. Each week during weeks 3 through 10, 1 or 2 students will present brief synopses (approximately 2 pages in length, double-spaced) summarizing the prior week s readings and discussion. They will submit the essays to me via email by Tuesday at 10:00 AM, and will also read their essays to the class. Students will sign up for specific dates in week 2. Final Paper. The final paper assignment asks you to delve into a topic of your choice that is related to the themes of the course. You may want to expand upon a topic we ve covered in class, or you may choose to explore one that we haven t directly covered. You will be required to cite at least 3 scholarly and/or primary sources not on the syllabus, in addition to any course materials that may be relevant to your project. We will discuss more guidelines and possible project ideas in class during the first half of the semester. As part of the grade for the final paper, you must submit a one-page proposal to me by November 10, and will also give a 10-15 minute oral presentation on your project during the last three weeks of the course. The final paper should be approximately 15 pages and will be due December 15. Late Policy. Assignments submitted late will lose points based on the following timeline: Submitted 1-12 hours late: 5 points Submitted 24-48 hours late: 15 points Submitted 12-24 hours late: 10 points Submitted 48+ hours late: 20 points The exception to this rule is late weekly responses, which will not be accepted. The final deadline for all late papers, after which partial credit will not be possible, is December 22. Academic honesty. Since the integrity of the academic enterprise of any institution of higher education requires honesty in scholarship and research, academic honesty is required of all students at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Academic dishonesty is prohibited in all programs of the University. Academic dishonesty includes but is not limited to: cheating, fabrication, plagiarism, and facilitating dishonesty. Appropriate sanctions may be imposed on any student who has committed an act of academic dishonesty. Instructors should take reasonable steps to address academic misconduct. Any person who has reason to believe that a 2

student has committed academic dishonesty should bring such information to the attention of the appropriate course instructor as soon as possible. Instances of academic dishonesty not related to a specific course should be brought to the attention of the appropriate department Head or Chair. Since students are expected to be familiar with this policy and the commonly accepted standards of academic integrity, ignorance of such standards is not normally sufficient evidence of lack of intent. Please see here for more information: http://ow.ly/ts7y30atgjw. Accommodations. The University of Massachusetts Amherst is committed to providing an equal educational opportunity for all students. If you have a documented physical, psychological, or learning disability on file with Disability Services, you may be eligible for reasonable academic accommodations to help you succeed in this course. If you have a documented disability that requires an accommodation, please notify Disability Services as soon as possible so that we may make appropriate arrangements. Please do not use laptops or other electronic devices (including phones) in the classroom, unless a special condition or circumstance warrants their use. READINGS There are 2 required books: 1. Michael Schwartz, Radical Protest and Social Structure: The Southern Farmers Alliance and Cotton Tenancy, 1880-1890 (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1988 [1976]) 2. Amy Sonnie and James Tracy, Hillbilly Nationalists, Urban Race Rebels, and Black Power: Community Organizing in Radical Times (Brooklyn, NY: Melville House, 2011) Both will be available for purchase at Amherst Books and at various online booksellers, and on reserve at DuBois library. All additional readings are available as.pdf files or URLs on Moodle. I may make minor modifications to the reading list or assignments during the semester, in which case I will notify you as far in advance as possible. CLASS SCHEDULE September 5 WHAT DIFFERENCE DOES A STRATEGY MAKE? Ø Richard Flacks, Knowledge for What? Thoughts on the State of Social Movement Studies, in Rethinking Social Movements: Structure, Meaning, and Emotion, ed. Jeff Goodwin and James M. Jasper (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2004), 135-154 3

September 12 MOVEMENT RECRUITMENT AND RETENTION How do movements recruit and retain members? Ø Mancur Olson, The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1965), 1-16 Ø Doug McAdam, Recruitment to High-Risk Activism: The Case of Freedom Summer, American Journal of Sociology 92, no. 1 (1986): 64-90 Ø Charles Payne, Ella Baker and Models of Social Change, Signs 14, no. 4 (1989): 885-899 Doug McAdam, Freedom Summer (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988) Elisabeth Jean Wood, Insurgent Collective Action and Civil War in El Salvador (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2003) Scott A. Hunt and Robert D. Benford, Collective Identity, Solidarity, and Commitment, The Blackwell Companion to Social Movements, ed. David A. Snow, Sarah A. Soule, and Hanspeter Kriesi (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2004), 433-457 Mario Diani, Bloc Recruitment, in The Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Social and Political Movements (Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2013) September 19 ORGANIZATION AND SPONTANEITY How should social movement organizations be structured? Ø Rosa Luxemburg, Organizational Questions of Russian Social Democracy (1904), in The Rosa Luxemburg Reader, ed. Peter Hudis and Kevin B. Anderson (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2004), 248-265 Ø Frances Fox Piven and Richard A. Cloward, Poor People s Movements: How They Succeed, Why They Fail (New York: Vintage, 1979 [1977]), ix-40 Ø Marina Sitrin, Horizontalism: Voices of Popular Power in Argentina (Oakland, CA: AK Press, 2006), 1-19, 87-105 Ø Judith Stepan-Norris and Maurice Zeitlin, Union Democracy, Radical Leadership, and the Hegemony of Capital, American Sociological Review 60, no. 6 (1995): 829-850 Vladimir Lenin, What Is to Be Done? (1902), http://ow.ly/nsiy30atgbe Robert Michels, Political Parties: A Sociological Study of the Oligarchical Tendencies of Modern Democracy, trans. Eden and Cedar Paul (Glencoe, IL: Free Press, 1966 [1911]), 27-65 4

September 26 LEADERSHIP What is leadership and what role(s) does it play in a movement? When is leadership compatible with internal democracy? Ø Schwartz, Radical Protest and Social Structure, 3-18, 91-126 Ø Belinda Robnett, African American Women in the Civil Rights Movement, 1954-1965: Gender, Leadership and Micromobilization, American Journal of Sociology 101, no. (1996): 1661-1693 Ø Steve Williams, Demand Everything: Lessons of the Transformative Organizing Model (New York: Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung, 2013), 1-22 Aldon D. Morris and Suzanne Staggenborg, Leadership in Social Movements, in The Blackwell Companion to Social Movements, ed. David A. Snow, Sarah A. Soule, and Hanspeter Kriesi (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2004), 171-196 Marshall Ganz, Why David Sometimes Wins: Leadership, Organization, and Strategy in the California Farm Worker Movement (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009) Steve Williams, Organizing Transformation: Best Practices of the Transformative Organization Model (New York: Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung, 2013), http://ow.ly/bzyw30atgyf October 3 SOURCES OF COLLECTIVE POWER How can movements utilize society s structures and institutions to wield political power? Ø Schwartz, Radical Protest and Social Structure, 129-198 Ø Doug McAdam, Tactical Innovation and the Pace of Insurgency, American Sociological Review 48, no. 6 (1983): 735-54 Luca Perrone, Positional Power, Strikes and Wages, American Sociological Review 49, no. 3 (1984): 412-426 Frances Fox Piven, Challenging Authority: How Ordinary People Change America (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2006) Stellan Vinthagen, A Theory of Nonviolent Action: How Civil Resistance Works (London: Zed, 2015) October 10 (No class: Monday schedule) 5

October 17 COUNTER- INSTITUTIONS AND DUAL POWER What are counter-institutions? What role can they play in social change? Ø Schwartz, Radical Protest and Social Structure, 201-265 Ø Michael Knapp, Anja Flach, and Ercan Ayboğa, Revolution in Rojava: Democratic Autonomy and Women s Liberation in Syrian Kurdistan, trans. Janet Biehl (London: Pluto, 2016), xxiii-xxvii, 84-121 Ø George Ciccariello-Maher, Venezuela: Comuna o nada! ROAR magazine no. 1 (2016) Karl Marx, The Civil War in France (1871), http://ow.ly/mtss30atgqe Leon Trotsky, Dual Power, in The History of the Russian Revolution, vol. 1, http://ow.ly/3fwu30atgrs Neil Harvey, Practicing Autonomy: Zapatismo and Decolonial Liberation, Latin American and Caribbean Ethnic Studies 11, no. 1 (2016): 1-24 Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN), Sixth Declaration of the Lacandón Jungle (excerpts) (2005) Leandro Vergara-Camus, Land and Freedom: The MST, the Zapatistas and Peasant Alternatives to Neoliberalism (London: Zed, 2014) October 24 THE ELECTORAL/NON- ELECTORAL DEBATE How much emphasis should social movements place on elections and legislative politics? Ø Schwartz, Radical Protest and Social Structure, 265-288 Ø Kevin Young and Michael Schwartz, A Neglected Mechanism of Social Movement Political Influence: The Role of Anticorporate and Anti-Institutional Protest in Changing Government Policy, Mobilization 19, no. 3 (2014): 239-260 Ø Michael Schwartz and Kevin Young, A Winning Strategy for the Left, Jacobin, May 18, 2015, http://ow.ly/zpmh30atgjl (first and last sections) Ø G. William Domhoff, Leftists, Liberals and Losers? How and Why Progressives Must Unite for Real Change, In These Times (January 2010): 16-23 Ø Paul Heideman, It s Their Party, Jacobin, February 4, 2016, http://ow.ly/iudw30atgm9 Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, The Jackson Plan: A Struggle for Self-Determination, Participatory Democracy, and Economic Justice (2012), http://ow.ly/abnq30atgor 6

October 31 RADICALISM AND MODERATION What is radicalism? Is it an asset or a liability? Ø Susanne Lohmann, A Signaling Model of Informative and Manipulative Political Action, American Political Science Review 87, no. 2 (1993): 319-333 Ø Howard Zinn, Abolitionists and the Tactics of Agitation, in The Politics of History (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1990 [1970]), 137-152 Ø Herbert H. Haines, Black Radicalization and the Funding of Civil Rights: 1957-1970, Social Problems 32, no. 1 (1984): 31-43 Ø Aldon Morris and Dan Clawson, Lessons of the Civil Rights Movement for Building a Worker Rights Movement, WorkingUSA 8 (2005): 683-704 Ø Jonathan Smucker, Radicals and the 99%, in We Are Many: Reflections on Movement Strategy from Occupation to Liberation, ed. Kate Khatib, Margaret Killjoy, and Mike McGuire (Oakland, CA: AK Press, 2012), 247-253 William A. Gamson, The Strategy of Social Protest, second ed. (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 1990 [1975]) Judith Stepan-Norris and Maurice Zeitlin, Left Out: Reds and America s Industrial Unions (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003) Mark Engler and Paul Engler, This Is an Uprising: How Nonviolent Revolt Is Shaping the Twenty-First Century (New York: Nation Books, 2016) November 7 COALITIONS, UNITY, AND DIFFERENCE How do movements construct coalitions? Are there any downsides to coalitions? Ø Sonnie and Tracy, Hillbilly Nationalists, Urban Race Rebels, and Black Power (all) Ø Video: Black Panthers and Young Patriots (9:33), http://ow.ly/sgka30atfvx Ø Video: Fred Hampton on Solidarity and Why the Black Panther Party Was Targeted (4:25), http://ow.ly/h4ws30atfrh Jeff Goodwin, The Struggle Made Me a Nonracialist : Why There Was So Little Terrorism in the Antiapartheid Struggle, Mobilization 12, no. 2 (2007): 193-203 Kevin Young, The Making of an Interethnic Coalition: Urban and Rural Anarchists in La Paz, Bolivia, 1946-1947, Latin American and Caribbean Ethnic Studies 11, no. 2 (2016): 163-188 Amanda Tattersall, Power in Coalition: Strategies for Strong Unions and Social Change (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2010) Dan Clawson, The Next Upsurge: Labor and the New Social Movements (Ithaca, NY: ILR Press, 2003) Rose Bookbinder and Michael Belt, OWS & Labor Attempting the Impossible: Building a Movement by Learning to Collaborate through Difference, in We Are Many: Reflections on Movement Strategy from Occupation to Liberation, ed. Kate Khatib, Margaret Killjoy, and Mike McGuire (Oakland, CA: AK Press, 2012), 263-273 7

Friday, November 10: Final paper proposals due November 14 MASS RESISTANCE AND REVOLUTION What is the relationship between mass resistance and revolutionary change? (And what is revolutionary change?) Ø Rosa Luxemburg, The Mass Strike, the Political Party, and the Trade Unions (1906), in The Rosa Luxemburg Reader, ed. Peter Hudis and Kevin B. Anderson (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2004), 168-199 Ø Michael Schwartz, The Egyptian Uprising: The Mass Strike in the Time of Neoliberal Globalization, New Labor Forum 20, no. 3 (2011): 32-43 Ø Robin Hahnel, Fighting for Reforms without Becoming Reformist, ZNet, March 25, 2005, http://ow.ly/rcw330atgfr November 21 Thanksgiving Break (no class) November 28 December 5 December 12 Student Research Presentations Student Research Presentations Student Research Presentations Friday, December 15: Final Papers due 8