Changing repertoires of collective action: tactics, political economy and digitalisation

While it is well documented that shifting contexts and opportunities change movement strategies, and vice versa, tactics themselves are seen as relatively stable or ‘modular’ blocks of action. Changes in movement direction tend to be attributed to groups picking up new tactics or employing different combinations of tactics. This paper is about documenting and theorising change in the ways that recognisable collective action tactics such as street demonstrations, petitions, black blocs, community organising, and consumer boycotts, work. What actors practise these tactics, what political themes are they waged around, and what impacts do they have? The paper argues that material shifts – in terms of political economy and technological developments, and cultural change – for example the corporate recuperation of movement aesthetics, tropes and narratives – have led to tactics, and their political meanings and effectiveness, also transforming. By analysing tactics over time, in part by drawing on the rich literature documenting movement practices in different contexts, we can learn about the relationship between social movement continuity and change.