Strategies and Tactics in Social Movements

Are Western direct action–based social movements strategic? This is a complicated issue, but a basic answer is: to an extent, but not particularly, and this is not their core function. One could argue that if social movements became very strategic, they would cease to be social movements. However, they certainly employ a range of tactics. Tactical repertoires vary between and within movements, and change or develop over time.

Social movements in the West in particular are leaderless disorganizations, comprising fluid, shifting, autonomous groups and networks who operate independently, and are not hierarchical/top-down, although action is usually catalyzed by prime movers, who are able to disseminate information and trigger the mobilization of multiple networks. In fact this deliberate focus on disorganization, an anti-strategy in a sense, could be seen as strategic in itself; namely a deliberate avoidance of hierarchical power relations and an emphasis on autonomy—an anarchist, or possibly more correctly an anarchic, approach.

The “American school” of social movement theory tends to conceptualize movements as highly strategic; it constructs the idea of the “rational” social movement actor who consciously chooses to mobilize in specific conditions. This interpretation is true to an extent, but overall this is too “instrumental” an interpretation of how movements come into being, what they are doing, and why they are doing it. Social movements can be seen as strategic in some senses, and they are certainly rational actors, but they are generally reactive, in that they tend to form, and mobilize, in response to specific events and issues that are perceived as grievances or threats (e.g., to the environment, or perceived as threats to their identity). For example, without the trigger of a specific issue, such as the growing of genetically modified crops in European field trials, there would be no mobilization (in this example, covert “crop trashing” by U.K. activists. Covert crop trashing is also an example of a tactic, as opposed to a strategy). However, established social movements and prime movers amongst these networks may start to develop strategies as they build up capacity over time. Previous mobilization predisposes actors and movements to identify other issues that they see as related grievances, and to mobilize again, often at an earlier stage—“early risers” in a protest cycle.

Hence the international anti-globalization social movement protests could be seen as an instance of more strategic action by multiple social movements, who have identified global institutions such as the World Trade Organization (WTO) and Group of 8 (G8) as common denominators triggering multiple linked grievances. However, the issue of capacity building within social movements, resulting in longer-term strategic planning by prime movers and early risers, has to be set against the fact that social movements are [Page 1339]predominantly “biodegradable” and that social capacity is also lost as activist generations come and go. For example, new generations of activists lose the bigger picture built up by previous activist generations, and engage in a large amount of wheel reinvention. The legacy of capacity building is also patchy and dependent on the amount of diffusion between groups and across time in different communities of activists. Further, the continued existence and (re)appearance of specific threats and grievances manifesting at micro through to macro levels, means that social movements tend to focus on—or emerge in response to—these immediate threats to their values, identity, community, and the like. Social movements are thus of necessity reactive, and issue-focused. This should not be held against them; stating that social movements are not particularly strategic is not a criticism.

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