Sewol Ferry Protests, Four Years Strong, and Youth Protests

I was at Gwanghwamun Square to do some sight-seeing with family. As a researcher, however, I was quickly distracted by the large display in remembrance of the Sewol Ferry victims. The structures looked temporary, so my first question was how long the memorial would be up on Gwanghwamun Square? Then I wondered how long the memorial had been up. Wasn't the Sewol Ferry incident more than 4 years ago?

I found out the memorial, referred to as Sewol Plaza, has been on display since at least 2016, if not longer  It sounds like the memorial may not be up that much longer though with the possible establishment of two permanent memorials: the 416 Life Safety Park in Ansan, the city where many student victims were from, and the actual Sewol Ferry sitting in Mokpo. A good article in Korea Expose describes the memorial and people's reaction here. 

A recurring theme about the Sewol Ferry protests, and also the candlelight protests in 2016 against President Park Geunhye is the awakening of political activism among Korean youth. Here's an insightful first person account exploring this awakening across campuses. Apparently, there was a big student movement at Seoul National University (where I'm teaching for the summer) a couple years ago against the administration's decision to establish a new campus without student input. 

Not having conducted field research on social movements in Korea for over a decade, I feel out of touch with the latest issues. I also saw peace (or anti-US) protests across the street from the US Embassy. I know Korea had its own "me too" movement that lit on fire this spring. Relatedly, there's been protests against the use of women's spycacm porn.

Smaller conservative counter-protests led by groups like the Taeguki Citizens’ Revolutionary Movement and the Association of Patriotic Culture have also emerged. 

A Century of Communism

It's been 100 years since Communism came into power. The Washington Post's Will Englund presented a cool graphic timeline or the "Red Century." Until I read this brief account, I had never considered the Communist Revolution as a social movement with major implications for world politics. But of course that's exactly what it is. It's not a single movement of course, even though there was an international organization (Comintern) set on expanding communism globally. But the Revolution has all the makings of a social movement if one considers mass mobilization, the challenge to authority, and the diffusion of ideas. The puzzle for me is why and how communist movements/parties/governments virtually everywhere turned to authoritarianism and repression, especially if communism in its pure form was an ideology which was to bring equality.

Anyway, this is a mental note to consider the Russian Revolution and the spread of communism as an example of social movements transforming world politics. I might also use the Red Century in my Intro to IR class next semester to educate students about Cold War history.

Nobel Peace Prize Goes to anti-nuclear group, ICAN

This year's Nobel Prize went to the International Campaign to Ban Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), a group made up of more than 450 civil society organizations in some 100 countries around the globe. To give some background on their campaign from their webpage:

"ICAN began in Australia and was officially launched in Vienna, Austria in 2007. Our campaign’s founders were inspired by the tremendous success of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL), which a decade earlier had played an instrumental role in the negotiation of the anti-personnel mine ban convention, or Ottawa treaty. Since our founding, we have worked to build a powerful global groundswell of public support for the abolition of nuclear weapons. By engaging a diverse range of groups and working alongside the Red Cross and like-minded governments, we have helped reshape the debate on nuclear weapons and generate momentum towards elimination."

Source: http://www.icanw.org/campaign/campaign-overview/

I was a bit surprised that a diffuse transnational umbrella organization like ICAN would receive this year's peace prize, which usually resonates more strongly (in my opinion) when its awarded to a single individual or organization, rather than a campaign. When the International Campaign to Ban Landmines was awarded the prize in 1997, it was jointly awarded with its founder, Jody Williams. Perhaps the Nobel Prize Committee felt the issue of nuclear disarmament was especially important this year given the North Korea crisis and the potential unravelling of the Iran nuclear deal. But other "political" reasons may include the trouble/controversy of giving the award to an individual who may not deliver, as noted by the growing criticism against Nobel winner Aung Sang Suu Kyi and her silence in the face of the Rohingya crisis. Or perhaps there was a lack of clear consensus or frontrunner for the peace prize this year. Finally, it may just be a nod to large scale transnational campaigns like ICBL which won the prize two decades ago, and to give an idealistic movement like ICAN extra credibility and symbolic leverage in the fight to bring about a nuclear free world.


If I were still doing research on transnational campaigns, I would explore how activists from ICAN learned from and emulated the experience of ICBL. For my current research on the politics of peace, I would probably want to interview a number of ICAN activists and study their profile to understand how and where their beliefs about nuclear disarmament come from and how they engage proponents of nuclear deterrence.

Amid Scandal, Protests Force South Korean President to Resign

Rarely does one find a case of social movement protest so effective that they bring down the democratically elected leader of a country in a matter of months. Yet that's exactly what happened in South Korea. Following a bizarre scandal of corruption and extortion involving South Korean president Park Geun-Hye exposed in March, President Park announced yesterday that she would resign.

Source: Kim Jong-hi/Reuters

For a blog titled Social Movements and World Politics, and a scholar who writes about South Korean civil society, I've ignored this case for far too long. Rather than wade into the complexities of the scandal and the rise of protests myself, however, I'll take the easy road and link some of the best analysis in English I've found to date.

Deep ties between Choi Soon-sil, the figure at the center of the scandal, and President Park are explained in the blog Ask a Korean!

Stephan Haggard on the Witness to Transformation blog has thus far a 4 part analysis on "Park Geun-hye Unravelling". Part I focuses on her approval rating and decline in popularity. Part II, perhaps the most useful, spells out the players and issues involved in the scandal. Part III focuses on political options for Park, and leading candidates of other political parties should Park step down. Part IV provides text of the prosecutor's statement specifically outlining Park's illegal transgressions including: abuse of authority and coercion against specific companies and individuals; divulgence of state secrets; and attempted fraud.

An Asan Institute brief published on Nov. 21, 2016 provided a list of allegations against Choi Soon-Sil, weekly protest numbers, and approval ratings of political parties and potential presidential political candidates.

Asan Institute: Original sources in footnotes of briefing

Eunjung Lim at SAIS-Johns Hopkins has a short analysis on Park's resignation in historical context. The New York Times' Choe Sang-Hun explains the steps of impeachment, although this is now a moot point. 

To be updated...

Here's a video of the protests last weekend to give you a sense of the size and scope of protest, although I cringe at the misleading analysis of how protests actually mobilize and operate.

 

Update 12/9/16

 

Park was impeached. Here's analysis by Scott Snyder from Forbes, and a piece by Darcie Draudt at JHU (and Scott's former research assistant). And of course, Steph Haggard's post and a video interview with Marcus on the Witness to Transformation blog.

 

Update 12/19/16

 

Some guidance on what happens next. Most importantly, power is transferred to the Prime Minister

 

Update 12/22/16

 

Here's an EAI opinion brief from SNU sociologist Seokho Kim that places the recent anti-Park protests within the broader context of (the failure of ) South Korean civil society the past decade. Basically, civil society had been defunct since the 2008 anti-U.S. beef protests, and only with the sinking of the Sewol did we begin to see its revival. As the EAI summary states:

Seokho Kim of Seoul National University explores whether popular opinion that led to the protests against Park Geun-hye is a sure sign that civic space is undergoing a revival in South Korea. Kim emphasizes that these protests are not spontaneous outburst of anger, but rather a culmination of the condensed anger and frustration of the citizens fuelled by social inequality, intensified polarization, and declining opportunities for social mobility. In order for the protests in 2016 to not end up as a one-time eruption, Kim urges that the civil society must expand its outreach to the citizens

 

 

March for Life: Catholics and Evangelicals

For years, Catholic University students have supported March for Life, the pro-life (or anti-abortion if you're on the other side of the debate) rally held annually in Washington DC. Several of my students informed me they would be participating on Fri. and thus absent from class. I decided to cancel class for Fri, although mother nature later took care of this.

One difference this year is the prominent participation of evangelical Christians in the March for Life. One would assume evangelicals would embrace the movement given their opposition to abortion, but Washington Post reporter Michelle Boorstein offers: "the reasons evangelicals haven’t been joining Catholics in public activism recently are theological, cultural and political." Pro-life advocate and Liberty University faculty Karen Swallow Prior probes deeper:

"Evangelical Protestants were deeply anti-Catholic . . .Some thought, whatever Roman Catholics were for, we should be . Evangelicals are more politically conservative and come at abortion opposition with a different language. Catholics have long spoken of abortion as a 'social justice' cause not unlike fighting poverty, while evangelicals saw the issue through an individual morality lens and were wary of Catholic language that to them sounded liberal."

The recent joining of Evangelicals and Catholics is a reminder that "religion" neither necessarily divides or unites potential activists. Mobilization strategy and political opportunity in this case outweigh religious identity/ideology.

Social Movements and World Politics: Ukraine and Venezuela

Ukraine and Venezuela are the two latest countries where massive protests have erupted. CFR compiled some background articles to the Ukraine protests as did Josh Busby at the Duck. I'm also posting a couple CNN and NY Times.

RIA Novosti/Andrey Stenin)

articles on Venezuela from

I'm less interested in examining how or why protests erupted in these two places than in understanding what implications the dyamics of protest in Ukraine, Venezuela, and other countries have on world politics. Thinking back to a paper I wrote outlining different mechanisms in which social movements, the protests in the Ukraine do suggest some relationship between social movements and international relations with the Ukrainian state playing an intermediary role. In particular, Ukrainian protests have clearly signalled to the outside world strong dissatification with President Yanukovych's earlier decision to break-off a potential deal with the EU. How else might social movements relate to world politics in this case? Movements may...

1. Signal to outsiders the level of domestic support for either the EU or Russia
2. Reify lines between East and West as the EU and Russia propose diverging policy positions to address the Ukrainian crisis.
3. Potentially force the Yanokovych government to reverse course on international policy.
4. Draw in outside powers to respond and intervene in a domestic crisis.
5. Produce demonstration effects in other countries

The above arguments indicate a signalling and bargaining effect generated by social movements. Domestic regimes must bargain with opposition movements to meet specific political demands (i.e. government transition, new international deals etc...). Meanwhile, protest movements signal to outsiders the size, power, and degree of resolve the opposition has in challenging the regime. This may help determine to what extent outside actors (states, NGOs, IGOs etc...) might intervene on behalf of either the opposition or incumbent regime.

Social Movements and the Politics of Markets

A compadre of mine in the social movements and IR field, Joshua Busby, has come out with a new book co-authored with Ethan Kapstein on social movements and the politics of markets.  Most of my work linking IR with social movements deals with security issues. But Josh's work reminds us that there's a host of social movement issues related to IPE as well: globalization, global financial institutions, labor markets, development, global inequality and so forth.  I've cross-posted Joshua's entry about his book from the Duck of Minerva blog here.

Mobile Phones, Collective Action, and Social Capital

In my last post, I mentioned ownership and use of cell phones as a means for examining social capital. According to the World Bank study I cited, the idea was that rural areas with high cell phone ownership would produce a type of social network facilitating communication. I thought of tagging a study in the APSR which also used mobile phone onto the previous post, but decided it was worth creating a new post.
In the May 2013 issue of APSR, Jan Pierskalla and Florian Hollenbach find that:

The availability of cell phones as a communication technology allows political groups to overcome collective action problems more easily and improve in-group cooperation, and coordination. Utilizing novel, spatially disaggregated data on cell phone coverage and the location of organized violent events in Africa, we are able to show that the availability of cell phone coverage significantly and substantially increases the probability of violent conflict.

The authors argue that cell phones helps facilitate in-group organization and the coordination of insurgent attacks. Hence cell phone coverage should be correlated with increased political violence. I haven't read the entire article, but their insights provide a counterpoint to many of the positive stories attached to technology, social media, and mobilization (i.e. Arab Spring, Occupy Movements, Candlelight Vigils in South Korea). It also takes us back to basic questions about social capital and what it's used for. Does social capital have to promote larger social (and not just private) benefits? The classic example are mafia groups and organized crime. Lots of social capital in those organizations. But towards what purpose?

Recent Protests in Turkey and Brazil

For a blog on social movements, I haven't done much tracking of the two recent major protests in Turkey and now Brazil. This AP article provides a basic comparison of the two protests. David Meyer has a better comparison here. In trying to understand protests, everyone looks for parallels: Student rebellions of 1968, Occupy Wall Street, Iranian Green Revolution of 2009, the Arab Spring?

Source: Reuters

Mass protests at the outset appear random and chaotic. The spark which triggers mobilization is rarely predictable. Yet, once a protests gets underway, for those well-versed in social movement theory, mobilization patterns and behavior all seem fairly predictable. At a broad level, there is nothing particularly unique about either protest. As Christian Davenport argues, however, the media would have you think otherwise.

Let's start with Turkey. Few people realize that the protests over Gezi Park had actually been ongoing for a couple of years on a very small scale by one main group (Taksim Solidarity). Only when the government began the process of razing the park did protests escalate, triggering mass protests. The police overreacted and cracked down on protesters. Images of violent clashes circulated in the media fueling more attention, resources, and warm bodies for the movement. At this point, the protests became less about saving Gezi Park, and more about grievances against the Erodgan government. This opened the door for a wide variety of groups to join the fray. It's unclear whether any formal coalition has organized. Soli Ozel believes that the protests are rooted in political dissatisfaction with Erdogan and his authoritarian handling of social and economic issues. This suggests that protests will continue to reemerge, even if this current protest cycle dies down. But on the other hand, without the right political timing or without additional resources and leadership, the movement risks losing momentum and becoming co-opted by the state.  Of course, the local-cultural nuances at the micro-level are always unique.But the broader dynamics of movement escalation and state-societal interaction spelled out here are almost identical to what I witnessed regarding anti-base movements on Jeju Island a couple years ago. They also follow patterns similar to protests during the Arab Spring or the Occupy movements.

Moving onto Brazil, we see a similar chain of events. Long standing grievances about poor public services relative to Brazil's high tax rate have irked Brazilians. But only with the announced fare hike did a political opportunity for larger scale protests exist. Civil societal pressure led to modest concessions from the government in hopes that part o the movement might seek asylum. What next? This excellent article in the Post raises that very question and highlights a key dilemma: "If protests focus too narrowly on single issues such as bus fares, they risk losing steam when the issue is addressed. And if they embrace too many issues, they risk spreading themselves too thin to achieve any of their goals."

Source: Tasso Marcelo - AFP/Getty Images

The concessions intended to ease and co-opt protests seems to have failed in the short-run. But where is this all heading? The motive and grievances of protesters go well beyond fare hikes at this point. Contrary to this interview on NPR where a young activist states, "We don't believe in organiz[ing] ourselves in leadership, and someone just following orders. And I think that leadership is not something that would help us. On the opposite, I think we should all be organizing as equals,"  Contrary to the preceding quote, I'm certain there is some form of organization and leadership being assembled as we speak. But still, protesters (as in Turkey) have yet to form a list of specific demands or form any clear leadership. In that sense, the comments of the young protester seem a little naive. But who am I to judge. It is after all their movement. For protesters in Turkey and Brazil, simply being able to vent and letting their government and the entire world know that they are fed up with government restrictions or poor government service may be the ultimate goal. Maybe politicians and policymakers will listen and make changes. Maybe they won't.

Going back to my original point, the recent protests in Turkey and Brazil follow broad patterns outlined by social scientists. This increases my confidence in academic theory and that theory can actually be useful.

Update: A similar sort of argument from Anne Applebaum looking at Brazil, Turkey, Egypt.

NRA and Right-Wing Social Movements

I'm the last person to get excited about constitutional rights, law, and the 2nd Amendment. But this was just hands-down one of the most fascinating articles I've read about the making (or re-making) of gun rights in America.

The 2nd Amendment states, "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." As with the Supreme Court 30 years ago, I take this to mean that individuals have the right to carry guns only to the extent that the state needs citizens to have guns to maintain a militia. Hence the right to bear arms is a collective right of the state rather than an individual right

Yet as this article states, the NRA started supporting research, scholarships, and seminars beginning in the 1970s. After a few years, the number of academic articles interpreting the 2nd Amendment in favor of individual rights began to increase. Over time, the number of publications favoring individual gun rights began outnumbering those interpreting the amendment as one about state needs to maintain a militia. In a 30 year span, then, the NRA helped reshape the interpretation of the 2nd Amendment, culminating in District of Columbia v. Heller in which the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in favor of individual having the right to bear arms (the case was directed against the DC ban on guns). Here's a CRS overview of gun ownership and the Supreme Court.

Clifford Bob may have already raised this issue in his book The Global Right and the Clash of World Politics, but this is a fascinating case study of framing and norms construction. How activists (or in this case a powerful lobby) quietly work to reinterpret laws which wind up having huge implications for politics. The irony in all this is that no one even cared about the 2nd Amendment prior to the NRA's advocacy.

An excellent counterpoint to this study is what is currently happening to the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). Here the shift is even more astounding. The figure below tracks attitudes towards gay marriage in a span of 20 years.


From Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Clint Eastwood, Robert Porter, to President Obama, Hillary Clinton, and a slew of other recent converts, it seems like support for gay marriage is spreading fast. Obama himself saw that the fight for gay marriage would take place at the state level producing a cascade-effect which would shore up a case for federal support for gay marriage in the future. Here's a PBS News Hour transcript outlining this trend. I am not a supporter of gay marriage (my reason is simple, but the rationale is complicated) but in thinking about other rights movements (civil rights in particular) we do seem to have reached some type of tipping point.

The Struggle for Power in Early Modern Europe

I finally had a chance to read Daniel Nexon’s The Struggle for Power in Early Modern Europe. It’s not a quick read (not the first half at least). But the book is refreshingly different from standard IR fare making it worth reading. Although not his main argument, Dan makes a compelling case why realism as an analytic paradigm doesn’t travel as well as we believe across space/time. He does this though in a manner which doesn’t completely dismiss or ignore the “states-under-anarchy” framework.  

Dan’s work provides fuel for not one, but two of my research agendas so my mind was in overdrive trying to figure out how to apply/incorporate his work with my own. I’m not going to review the book but instead I’ll glean a few useful insights from it for my own work on a) social movements and world politics and b) East Asian international relations.

Social Movements and World Politics

Yes, it’s the title of my blog.  As you recall, the blog was created as a space for me to write up thoughts about my research on said topic.  As I wrote in my research statement, “I attempt to craft a coherent theory synthesizing social movement approaches with international relations (IR) theory …To do this, I unpack various mechanisms which link social movements to systemic consequences (and vice-versa).”

Dan’s book falls squarely into this research agenda.  At the most obvious level, he shows how mobilization against dynastic rulers and the rise of religious movements (the Protestant Reformation) triggered a set of processes which exposed, exploited, and eroded the weak political structures inherent in “composite states” (or dynastic agglomerates) characteristic of early modern Europe. As Dan argues, transnational religious movements “altered the structural opportunities and constraints of power-competition” (4).  These movements played a significant (although by no means sufficient) role in the development of the modern nation-state system.

A broader contribution is his linking of collective action problems and mobilization at the domestic and international level through the concept of nested relational networks.  Dan writes, “Treating structure of international interaction in terms of nested relational configurations allows us to link variation in the structure of polities (i.e. states) – and other corporate actors (i.e. social movements) – to international structures. Not only does this analytic move capture the co-constituted relationship between agents and structures at different levels of analysis, but it provides a way to think about how transactional patterns give rise to opportunity structures for collective action in world politics” (51). In particular, the density of network relations and degree of identity cohesion between actors at the domestic and international level shapes the opportunity structure of actors for mobilization and cooperation. 

So Dan addresses two of my proposed research goals a) synthesizing social movement approaches with international relations and b) unpacking various mechanisms which link social movements to systemic consequences   

East Asian International Relations

The Struggle for Power in Early Modern Europe is as far as one can get from contemporary Asia. Yet I found Dan’s relational institutionalism applicable to the persistence of U.S. bilateral alliances and  the structure of post-Cold War Asia.  Although I take an ideational-institutional approach in explaining alliance resilience, the inertia of patron-client relations also helps explain the continuation of bilateralism in Asia.  Affective and material ties between the U.S. its Asian alliance partners (i.e. Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan) encourages cooperation.  Ikenberry (2011) describes the type of order produced by patron-client relations as “rule by relations.” Rule by relations may move from a strong to weak form of patronage (colonial rule à neocolonial ruleà client-state relationship à special relationship), but such shifts don’t necessarily reduce the affective and material ties present in bilateral alliances. “Clients” in special relationships may still act out of loyalty to the patron or out of material interests in the form of prestige, security, or wealth. 

Finally, Dan’s clarification of relational structures helps me think about my own relational approach to East Asian security. I’ve been working forever on a paper which criticizes traditional structural approaches (i.e. polarity) applied to Asian security and instead advocate a relational view of East Asian order. The ties generated by East Asian international relations suggests a bifurcated network with China and the U.S. centered as hubs. Reviewers have uniformly agreed that the first half reads much better than the second half so hopefully insights from Ch. 2 of The Struggle for Power in will help improve the second half of the paper. 

Garment Factory Ablaze in Bangladesh: The Conundrum of Improving Workers' Rights

This story on the garment factory fire in Bangladesh is just terrible and tragic. I’m usually ambivalent when it comes to labor activism and unions. But this story screams out the need for greater accountability and better protection for workers. The young man who desperately called his mother from a 5^th floor bathroom to tell her he was about to die as the building burned was particularly heart-wrenching. In many ways, it echoes the travesty in Chinese factories producing Apple ipads reported earlier this year.  

As in the Apple case though, improving labor standards is not so easy when existing economic structures and business pressures pose obstacles for reform. Consumers want lower prices. Suppliers must offer competitive bids. Factories must yield high output.  Laborers are desperate for work. Companies must meet consumer demand. 

Boycotting Sears and Wal-mart is probably not the way to go (see this link for reasons why). But like the case between Apple and Foxcon, exposing labor human rights violations in factories and linking them back to retailers may put pressure on firms, suppliers, and factories to address labor rights. Garment workers have also taken matters into their own hands and mobilized protests in Bangladesh 

The real challenge is altering the behavior incentives of consumers and producers. Many consumers in the developed world might be willing to pay a few dollars if they knew it translated into saved lives in Bangladesh, China, Pakistan, or Honduras. But the garment (electronics, toy...take your pick) industry would have to collude with one another and self-reinforce labor standards to prevent any one firm from producing goods at a significantly lower cost.  I’m not sure how many Americans are more likely to buy things labeled as “fair-trade” or “sweatshop-free” if they can find similar products at lower cost.

It’s easy to see why Karl Marx inspired generations of revolutionaries and activists. But it’s just as easy to see why he was wrong about overthrowing the structure we curse and embrace and call capitalism.

Update #1: Following the collapse of factory killing hundreds of workers, an activist from Bangladesh calls on Americans to press companies to improve standards, but does NOT endorse a boycott.

Update #2 (5/12/13): Looks like retailers like H&M (my wife's latest go to store) have decided to sign an accord which adheres to safety measures. As this article states," The move comes just days shy of a deadline imposed by workers’ rights groups that said they would hold street protests and otherwise increase pressure on clothing brands that did not sign the agreement by Wednesday." So were retailers pressured into signing? Is this a logic of consequence or appropriateness, or does that even matter?

Wal-Mart, however, has opted out of the safety plan and instead announced it would conduct their own set of inspections in factories. Perhaps Wal-Mart found the plan too restrictive??

Here's an op-ed from the Post's Harold Meyerson with more on this issue.

Update #3 (7/13/13): The spate of tragedies has led North American retailers to launch there own worker safety initiative in Bangladesh. Are such measures of corporate social responsibility really a sign of changing norms and practices, or is it a way to deflect outside criticism that American retailers are part of the problem and not the solution. As the Post points out, one weakness is the self-regulatory nature of this initiative. The Economist has a more skeptical take.

Update #4 (12/28/15): Two years after the Rana Plaza incident, slow progress on labor reforms and politics between European and N. American corporate alliances in establishing mechanisms for inspections and monitoring of factory conditions as reported by the Post.

Japan's Dilemma: Nuclear Energy

Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda has a problem. Noda faces stiff opposition not only from anti-nuclear activists and a Japanese public still grappling with the effects of the Fukushima disaster, but even leaders within his own Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ).

This Asahi Shimbun article captures the dilemma of adopting a nuclear zero policy. It's a tough call. Japan clearly needs energy which nuclear reactors have provided for decades. Anti-nuclear activists claim Japan can achieve these goals without nuclear power. But what are the costs (economic, environmental, and social) of using alternative energy sources? Who seeks to gain/lose from a nuclear zero policy - and I don't mean the obvious vested interests in the energy sector, but in terms of your everyday Japanese citizen.

Chick-Fil-A

Chick-Fil-A has been receiving a lot of attention after President Dan Cathy's public support of traditional marriage (or anti-gay marriage stance - the framing depends on which side of the debate you're on).  It's odd that big city mayors from Boston to Chicago to Washington DC got so worked up about Chick-Fil-A. It's not as if the franchise discriminates serving gay customers. Calls for boycotting/banning the franchise triggered a response from Chick-Fil-A fans (re: the conservative base) who believed local governments and same-sex marriage supporters were infringing on Mr. Cathy's right to express his own views.

Anyway, David Meyer had two excellent posts on this debating the efficacy of boycotting Chick-Fil-A and the large turnout of Chick-Fil-A supporters in response. As Meyer notes, large corporations may support a variety of causes which we may or may not support. Does that warrant a boycott? Should supporters of traditional marriage boycott Amazon because Jeff Bezos is campaigning for same-sex marriage in the state of Washington. Should progressive activists boycott Apple because they haven't pushed for improved labor standards in China?

Brad Hirschfield had an interesting comment about the whole Chick-Fil-A fiasco which he claims may actually be one of the finer moments of collective action and social movements.

Without wasting time on fights about who the “real” victims of intolerance are, we can simply point out the hysterical and instructive irony that this is where those who support Chick-fil-A and those who most oppose it are actually quite alike. In each case, a group of aggrieved people who feel their rights and dignity being infringed upon embrace the notion of political and collective social action.

Social Movement Outcomes

I just saw this blogpost discussing social movement outcomes and the impact of the Occupy Movements. I'm largely in agreement with the author that the impact will be more indirect, having some influence on culture, than direct.




Anyway, it's made me think about my chapter on Jeju anti-base protests I'm supposed to write for an edited volume. I'm not sure if protestors will actually prevent the construction of the ROK naval base. One potential huge political opportunity for activists is if the progressive Democratic United Party (DUP) win the National Assembly elections in April. The DUP has claimed it will review (if not halt) current base construction plans. Aside from the immediate effect of halting base construction, anti-base activists are forcing at least some segments of political society to rethink the purpose of the base and what it actually means for South Korean security.

Social Movements and North Korea

Not possible. End of post.

Well, yes...but that doesn't mean we can't think about possibilities. Occasionally when I mention to other North Korean watchers that I do research on social movements, I get asked about the (lack of) prospects for a social movement in NK.

Here was an email I sent in response to a comment about social capital and civil society in North Korea

As for social movements, yes, most people discount an Arab Spring for NK b/c it lacks civil society. But in the study of revolutions (not that i'm advocating a revolution in NK) there is something known as preference falsification where people convey their preference for social conformity in public while holding different thoughts privately. So N.Koreans praise the regime in public while holding genuine thoughts to themselves. A side effect of preference falsification is the dampening of knowledge and information and an inability to gauge true level of discontent. So no one complains despite hardship. Under certain conditions though, private thoughts may emerge in public which may embolden others to convey their true preferences and demand for change. One of those conditions is probably the existence of information networks (or social capital if you want to call it that) so underground churches could play that role. In places like E. Germany where this theory was applied (by an economist, Timur Kuran), a network of both underground activists and some associational life (workers unions) brought safety in numbers once grievances were expressed out into the open forced regimes to make concessions.

One research I'd be curious to explore is whether development projects or something like the Kaesong Industrial Complex foster trust networks and social capital among North Koreans. Likewise, I wonder if there are there trust networks built among migrants who cross borders between NK and China as the come into contact with one another.

Perhaps we need a network

Are Protests Contagious?

I stole the title from David Meyer's blog entry where he explores the spread of protests. With protests popping up all across the globe and in the U.S. the past year, I've been asking myself the very same questions about "contagion" and movements. I won't rehash all of David's remarks on how/why protests are contagious. But I'll try to summarize his points, mixing his layman's description with more precise SM jargon.

1) Initial protests create a bandwagon or cascading effect. More people join protests as the perceived "costs" of protesting are lowered. Costs are lowered since the initial collective action problem has already been solved by others and one only need to show up without investing in "organizing" - and b) individuals usually find safety in numbers. Others may join b/c a a protest may look "fun", "trendy", or get swept up in the euphoria (or rage).

2) The (positive) effects of protest movements begets what Meyers calls a demonstration effect. In SM, we refer to this as movement diffusion most likely through a process of "emulation." Protest tactics, or repertoires of contention are mimicked: i.e. tents in Zuccotti Park and tents in MacPherson Square.

3) Other smaller movements with similar grievances may learn from existing larger, more successful movements and follow suit. They may see a window of opportunity for protests and "adapt their demands and their tactics to their own situation." Here we may see processes of emulation and brokerage (linking two previously unrelated movements). We should also see the adoption/diffusion of movement frames - how activists pitch and sell their argument to the public. i.e. college campuses beginning their own Occupy movement aimed at tuition hikes.

4) As protests are met with success, money, attention, and more people, protests become more organized. This helps sustain and prolong movements. Of course, formalization of a movement may place movements at a cross-roads with some factions desiring to work through more formal political channels rather than protests.

5) The success of movements may trigger counter-movements. For instance, anti-Occupy protests, pro-regime protests etc...

Observing, learning, imitation, emulation occurs across movements. This is easy to trace in something like the Occupy type movements in the US or Iraq War protests globally when the issue or geographic span is narrow. Sarah Soule's article on the diffusion of Shantytown protests across college campuses is an example of good empirical work on diffusion. But it's much more difficult to empirically prove that one movement influenced another when the movements appear unrelated (i.e. different issues) or across borders. To what extent are the protests of 2011 coordinated or coincidental? Are we trying to draw lines where dots can't really be connected?

North Korea Subversion and Protests (or lack of)

Today I get to combine social movements with North Korea - two concepts rarely put together in the same sentence.

I attended Andrei Lankov's CFR presentation, "How to Make Subversive Engagement with North Korea Work." Examples of subversive engagement include the following: expose DPRK to the outside world, promote the flow of Western goods ideas, products, broadcast radio programs, support projects which enable interaction between North Koreans and outsiders), how do we enable outside forces to intersect with insiders who are trying to promote regime change. Access is difficult

My question for Andrei was how one translates discontent with the regime (which Andrei insists there is plenty of) into political action in the absence of any true civil society, associational life, or organizations such as independent labor unions. Subversive engagement succeeded in Eastern Europe during the Cold War thanks to the existence of civil society and mobilizing structures such as the Catholic Church. However, in the DPRK, we will not likely see an Arab Spring-like unrest because of1) closed political opportunities; 2) no mobilizing structures; 3) no apparent leadership

Since North Koreans can't be mobilized yet, the best hope is to continue flooding NK with information and perhaps take advantage of the expertise of defectors/refugees who may be able to help organize political protests inside the DPRK. The problem with this plan is that its more of a long term strategy. In the meantime, thousands more may die out of hunger or abuse.

Protests in India and America

India made headlines through Anna Hazare's high profile hunger-strike against government corruption. The movement is pushing the Indian government to implement greater transparency and accountability measures, such as the establishment of an ombudsman to investigate corruption charges over bureaucrats and the prime minister.

Such movements are a sign of participatory democracy. But do these protests undermine democratic institutions and processes? Can the people dictate Parliament's actions. Or, as the Post article above notes, is the brinkmanship of a hunger strike a form of blackmail that undermines democracy?

The second article is a good overview of contentious politics in American and abroad. Why don't we see more people taking it to the streets in the US? Of course, protests begin with anger and grievances. But these aren't sufficient conditions for protests. Meyer's puts a lot of weight on the role of organizers in channeling this anger. But I would also add that there has to be a psychological component. At the microlevel, individuals are either a) calculating the costs/risks of protesting based on the action of others and/or b) swept up in the moment. Either way, there's a cascading logic behind large street protests. At the macro-level, you also have to look at open political opportunities. There are key moments in history and politics - upcoming elections, the death of a leader, etc...which make moments ripe for protest.

So why aren't we seeing more protests in the US? As Meyers notes, the tea party is probably the closest thing to a social movement in our country. But b/c we live in a relatively open, democratic society, the tea party chooses to also work through formal political channels and institutions (i.e. vote or help get their preferred candidates elected) so it may not be necessary to take grievances to the public square 24-7. . Protesters in Syria or Egypt may have felt that they had no access to formal channels of politics, giving them no other choice but to take it to the streets. In London, many of the protesters were minorities on the fringe of society. Looters joining the foray probably sprung out of "mob mentality." It's more of a psychological rather than political argument. But hey, we should embrace multi-disciplinary accounts!

New Direction in Blog: Social Movements

After dwelling for days about the purpose and intent of my sporadic blogging, I've decided to narrow the focus of my blog to themes specific to my research. This blog is not intended for mass consumption. Rather, I intend to use it to help me think about research on social movements and perhaps occassionally reflect on issues related to East Asia, anti-base movements, or North Korea. But I'll try to stick mainly to the theme of social movements in IR.

Why social movements? These days we're being bombarded with news about social protets everywhere: the Arab Spring in the Middle East, London riots, in Europe in reaction to austerity measures, in India. Hardly a day goes by without a major protest. Are we seeing the diffusion of power from states to society? How does contentious politics affect international relations and the study of IR? These are some of the questions I'll try to address in future blog entries.