From crowd events to social movements

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From crowd events to social movements

• John Drury
• School of Psychology, University of Sussex
• EASP Medium Size Meeting on
• Collective Action and Social Change
• Toward Integration and Innovation
• July 3-6, 2009, Groningen, The Netherlands

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From crowd events to social movements

• Acknowledgements
• Steve Reicher, Charles Abraham, Dermot Barr,
  Joseph Beale, Chris Cocking, Angela Haddow,
  Charlotte Hanson, Karl Marx, Faye Rapley,
  Clifford Stott

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From antecedents.

• Perceptions of collective illegitimacy and
  disadvantage (Wright Tropp, 2002)
• Identification (Veenstra Haslam, 2000 Van
  Zomeren et al., 2008)
• Instrumental rewards (Simon Klandermans, 2001
  Sturmer Simon, 2004)
• Group efficacy (Kelly Breinlinger, 1995
  Klandermans 1992)
• Activist identity (Simon)
• Normative alignment (Thomas, 2009)

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to consequences.

• Only lately have psychologists taken an interest
• Human flourishing (Kasser Klar, 2006)
• Pride, policization, group relations (Fedi,
  Mannarini, Rovere, in press)
• Consolidating or eroding commitment to the group
  (Louis, in press)
• Emotion, empowerment, well-being, resilience (Van
  Zomeren)

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to consequences.

• But psychological consequences of CA have long
  been documented by sociologists, political
  scientists and historians
• Class consciousness (Mann, 1973)
• Continued activism and liberal values (McAdam,
  1989)
• Opposition to police, positive relations to other
  groups (Green, 1990)
• Pride (Britt Heise, 2000)

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to consequences.

• Seem to be subjectively and socially important!
• Paris, 1968
• the tumultuous development of the students'
  struggle ... transformed both the relation of
  forces in society and the image, in people's
  minds, of established institutions and of
  established leaders (Anon., 1968, p. 51).
• The occupants of Censier suddenly cease to be
  unconscious, passive objects shaped by particular
  combinations of social forces they become
  conscious, active subjects who begin to shape
  their own social activity (Gregoire Perlman,
  1969, pp. 37-41).

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From antecedents to consequences and back?

• Two-fold argument
• 1. Prima facie, theoretical, and practical
  reasons to seek conceptual integration of
  antecedents and consequences of CA.

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From antecedents to consequences and back?

• 2. Crowd research offers a way into such
  integration.
• Crowd events provide insights into psychological
  and social change
• We need the ESIM (or something like it) to grasp
  the relation between antecedents/ crowd events
  and social movements /consequences and back

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Overview

• Reasons for conceptual integration of the
  antecedents and consequences of CA
• A prima facie case
• The theoretical case The elaborated social
  identity model (ESIM) of the crowd and beyond
• Practical reasons for research of this kind

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1. A prima facie case

• Watts riot,
• Los Angeles, 1965
• Antecedents
• Grievance/relative deprivation
• Police racism
• New black identities developing
• Failure of non-violent movement
• Consequences
• Empowerment and black pride
• Black /working class social movements
• Legislation and social policy
• For the first time people in Watts feel a real
  pride in being black (cited in Milgram Toch,
  1969)

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2. The theoretical case

• Elaborated Social Identity Model (ESIM Reicher,
  Stott Drury)
• A historical, interactive account of identity
  (self) and context (social world) change through
  crowd dynamics.
• Hence a framework for showing links between
• Crowd events and social movements
• Antecedents and consequences of CA

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ESIM

• Based upon social identity and self cat
  principles
• To explain change in crowd events
• Dynamics and conditions
• Concepts
• Types of change

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ESIM (1) Dynamics and conditions

• Crowd may begin as divided
• Police perceive crowd homogeneity. Police
  practices impose a common fate on crowd members
• Crowd unites around opposition to the police.
• Conditions
• (i) asymmetry of categorical representations
  between crowd participants and the police
• (ii) asymmetry of power the police initially
  able to impose their definition of legitimate
  practice on the crowd.
• Where police action is seen as both
  indiscriminate and illegitimate ? more
  willingness to enter into conflict with the
  police.
• The emergence of a inclusive self-categorization
  (as oppositional) within the crowd leads to
  feelings of unity this empowers crowd members to
  take on the police.

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ESIM (2) Concepts

• Identity
• a representation of ones position in a set of
  categorical social relations, along with the
  possible and proper actions that flow from that
  position
• Context
• those social practices which enable or constrain
  our actions.
• Identity and context are different moments in
  time One groups identity forms context for
  other groups over time, and vice versa

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ESIM (3) Types of identity change

• Psych consequences of CA that help explain how
  crowd events become social movements
• Identity content becoming oppositional (Drury
  Reicher, 2000)
• Identity boundaries joining with others (Drury,
  Reicher, Stott, 2003)
• Empowerment (Drury, Cocking, Beale, Hanson,
  Rapley, 2005 Drury Reicher, 2005)
• Changed aims and purposes of future action
  (Drury, 1996 Drury Reicher, 2005, in press)

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Identity content becoming oppositional

• Longitudinal study of
• No M11 link-road campaign (1993-4)
• Many (inexperienced) protesters entered events
  considering themselves liberal individuals.
• But they were treated collectively as an
  illegitimate group.
• In being positioned as oppositional, they saw
  themselves as oppositional far from facilitating
  their democratic rights the police were
  perceived as obstructing them.
• Hence change in the content of the social
  identity who we are.

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Identity content becoming oppositional

• Int What in particular has radicalized you do
  you think?
• CP25 The police. Simple as that. You can't win
  sticking to the rules you can't win cos they
  don't. And you've got to do something like that,
  there's no other option left, I don't think. The
  day of the tree eviction made me realize
  there's no way you're gonna win by just sort of
  going quietly, you've got to make as much fuss as
  you can. Really did change me, I think, that day
  the day the tree came down. (Interview)

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Identity boundaries joining with others

• Police action grouped local protesters with
  national activists
• The changed identity content ? protesters defined
  themselves as one with other oppositional groups
• the Nigerian Ogoni tribe (protesting against
  Shell oil company)
• those who fought injustice in the past (e.g.,
  the British miners strike, 1984-5).
• Hence, identity boundaries became more inclusive
  in both space and time.
• Following the M11 campaign, many participants
  graduated from the local protest in London
• to the national anti-car Reclaim the Streets
  parties
• to the world-wide anti-capitalist/
  anti-globalization movement

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Empowerment

• Process (ESIM dynamics/conditions revisited)
• Indiscriminate police action
• ? from fragmentation to inclusive
  self-categorization
• ? Subjective unity/homogenization in the crowd
• ? Expectations and provision of support for
  ingroup normative action
• ? Ingroup normative action as collective
  self-objectification

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Empowerment

• Collective self-objectification (CSO)
• Action which serves to realize (objectify)
  participants social identity (their definition
  of legitimate practice) in the world, over
  against the power of dominant outgroups.
• Some features of CSO
• CSO can itself be empowering
• CSO, like empowerment itself, feels good!
• CSO can lead to further participation

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Empowerment Evidence for aspects of CSO
1. CSO is an outcome of the crowd dynamic
specified in the ESIM Cross-sectional,
longitudinal survey of London demo against
Israeli attack on Gaza, London, January 2009
(Haddow Drury, in prep) Identification ?
Subjective unity ? Expectations of support ?
Feelings of empowerment ? CSO measures (i.e.
campaign success, achievement, goals)
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Empowerment Evidence for aspects of CSO

• 2. CSO is collective action which transforms the
  social world
• M11 protesters transformed a construction site
  back into common land through direct action
• Their action (changed social world, in line with
  their collective identity) subjectively evidenced
  that their group was indeed an active and
  powerful subject. (Drury Reicher, 2005)

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Empowerment Evidence for aspects of CSO

• 3. CSO is not success per se but must be
  group-identity congruent
• Interview study of march against Labour Party
  conference (Drury et al., 2005) socialists felt
  empowered anarchists felt disempowered.
• Lab analogue study (Drury Cocking, in prep)
• Different identities induced in participants for
  which intellectual achievement was more or less
  central.
• They complete activities which were described as
  intelligence/ability tasks
• Bogus feedback on success or failure
• Then Ps completed empowerment measures
  subjective success, future expectations of
  success, desire for participation and positive
  feelings.
• Positive feedback increased the sense of
  subjective success for all participants
• BUT the effect of such feedback on feelings of
  empowerment was greater when tasks were
  identity-relevant and the effects of failure
  feedback on feelings of disempowerment was
  greater for those to whom the tasks were
  identity-relevant.

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Empowerment Evidence for aspects of CSO

• 4. CSO is empowering
• CSO is a result of having power, but empowerment
  is also an experiential outcome of CSO! (Drury et
  al., 2005 Drury Reicher, 2005 Reicher
  Haslam, 2006)
• It was almost as if that kind of sent a kind of
  wave ofa wave of kind of empowerment through a
  lot of people, including protesters. I think a
  lot of people suddenly realized that they
  could actuallythey could actually take some
  responsibility for what was going on and actually
  take control. A lot of people have just
  powered on since then, they really have. (M11
  protester)

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Empowerment Evidence for aspects of CSO

• 5. CSO is associated with positive emotions
• Existing research demonstrates that empowering
  actions are experienced as joyful.
• Interview study of activists accounts of
  empowering factors found CSO was statistically
  the best predictor of positive emotion (Drury et
  al., 2005)
• That felt really brilliant, cos it was just
  I dont know, theres something about overcoming
  opposition. Like if wed just walked out of the
  tube station and walked straight onto the road,
  it wouldnt have been as good, as having to have
  got round the police lines first. So it was that
  kind of, you know, makes you feel more like
  youve achieved something. If youre left
  completely free to do whatever you want, it
  doesnt feel as wa-hey! Exciting as, as the whole
  crowd pulling together against some opposition
  and then achieving what it wants (M41 Reclaim
  the Streets party)
• Cross-sectional survey of London demo against
  attack on Gaza (Haddow Drury, in prep) found
  CSO variables predicted happiness

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Empowerment Evidence for aspects of CSO

• 6. CSO is associated with well-being
• More speculative
• Pathway 1 Empowerment via CSO
• Perceived control reduces cardiovascular disease
  and associated risk factors (de Lange et al.,
  2003). Consequently, the sense of empowerment and
  control engendered by the realization of identity
  in collective action may enhance well-being.
• Pathway 2 Positive emotions via CSO
• Just as negative emotions predispose us to
  ill-health (Kiecolt-Glaser et al., 2002) so
  positive emotions can contribute to well-being
  (Moskowitz, Epel, Acree, 2008). Positive
  emotions such as joy reduce anxiety, which in
  turn lowers blood pressure levels and enhances
  immune functioning. Joy also broadens the range
  of healthy activities we engage in (Fredrickson,
  2004).
• Also follows the logic of ISIS (Haslam Reicher)
  linking social identification with stress
  reduction (via support in CA for ingroup
  normative action)

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Empowerment Evidence for aspects of CSO

• 7. CSO can lead to further collective action
• Positively
• CSO was associated with an upsurge in No M11
  campaign activity (Drury Reicher, 2005)
• Negatively
• Lack of CSO and police control were best
  predictors of reduced subsequent participation
  (Drury et al., 2005)

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A positive cycle of collective action, its
antecedents and consequences From Reicher
Haslam (2006, in press)
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Empowerment and CSO Some caveats

• Is collective action always healthy?
• Stress, injury, cold and lack of food all lower
  the immune system.
• No simple link from CA/CSO to well-being many
  intervening variables!
• Gaza survey study results (Haddow Drury, in
  prep) mixed
• CSO marginally predicted psychological health
• BUT enduring empowerment correlated negatively
  with physical health!
• 2. Is CSO always predictive of future
  collective action?
• Some of the best successes are also associated
  with burnout!
• E.g. the Reclaim the Streets events followed by
  police persecution and exhaustion.
• Hence no simple predictive relation between CSO
  and future action (Drury et al., 2005)

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Changed aims and purposes

• Changed aims link with change in identity
  content
• After being attacked by the authorities, M11
  Protesters moved from saving particular pieces of
  land to exposing the illegitimacy of the police
  (Drury Reicher, in press)
• Means can become ends fighting the police
  becomes an aim and achievement in itself rather
  than an occupational hazard
• Just giving the police such a run-around,
  you know, that was empowering, just like, um,
  seeing that the police were, like, quite pissed
  off, and just a chance to demoralise the
  police, I think, although we couldnt liberate
  any animals or anything like that, it was good to
  see the police demoralized. (P14, Shamrock).
• This can cut both ways, however!
• G8 activists elevated their protest camp (means)
  into an end in itself. They felt empowered. But
  promotion of activist culture served to create
  an activist ghetto that alienated political
  neophytes. (Barr Drury, in press).

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3. Practical reasons for research on CA

• Our interest lies in support for social change
• Protests often have a bad press
• Protesters are criminalized, pathologized
• Campaigns are put down by being described as
  single issue
• Or the message is that collective action is
  self-sacrifice, hassle
• By highlighting both rational causes and
  positive experiences we can contribute to the
  political project of promoting collective action
  participation.
• An example of the ideological battle as in
  the case when student protest at your university
  is criminalized by the authorities in order to
  discredit it. ?

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Conclusion and summary

• The argument
• The antecedents and consequences of CA need to be
  linked theoretically
• ESIM is a framework for such integration and
  hence explaining how crowd events can become part
  of social movements
• In particular the ESIM suggests
• (i) how change occurs (dynamics)
• (ii) how we need to think of identity in
  explaining change (concepts)
• (iii) a typology of changes in identity

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Conclusion and summary

• Why ESIM? Concepts common to related accounts
• BUT what we try to add is the historical
  interactive perspective showing how key
  concepts relate over time

SIT ESIM SIMCA
Identity Identity content and boundaries Identification
Stability Empower-ment Efficacy
Legitimacy, Aims, purposes Injustice
Cognitive alternatives Aims, purposes
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Conclusion and summary

• We can learn much from the crowd but ESIM is
  not just a crowd theory.
• The examples show how particular events are
  interpreted in a wider context
• Crowd events can become social movements because
• The types of change described may be enduring
  changes for individuals and groups
• Consequences can translate into antecedents
  motivations, rationales, confidence for future
  action