The Effects of Political Participation and Social Movements

Abstract

Recently, there has been a growing interest in the outcomes of social movements. Arguably, one of the main motivations for studying social movements is to understand how collective action affects change. While early studies analyzed their impact mainly in terms of “success” or “failure”, more recent contributions have shown that this conceptualization falls short in considering many other possible effects. Collective actors might fail in achieving their publicly stated goals, but their activities can have important consequences for their lives and biographies. Social movements may have their largest impact through unintended effects, such as the co-optation of movement activists, the formation of new parties or cultural changes. Their actions might even have contradicting effects, creating counter movements or inducing political set-backs and backlashes, such as renewed repression. Moving beyond the debate of success and failure, research on the consequences of social movements today includes a broad range of effects, including biographical, cultural, social, or political outcomes. Different types of outcomes may mutually influence one another over time, requiring the adoption of an interrelated perspective that addresses the temporal dimension of movement effects. At the same time, research on the outcomes of social movements still has to answer important methodological questions, such as how to establish the link between a given movement activity and an observed change. The aim of this panel is twofold: It aims at discussing a broad range of social movement effects and calls for innovative methodological approaches. We warmly invite papers on the effects of social movements including research on personal and biographical, cultural, social, and political consequences of movement activity. We particularly welcome papers that reflect on methodological challenges and that explore and discuss solutions; papers about unintended consequences and interrelated effects of social movements.

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