Title reads 'Exploring social movement frameworks'. Graphic of a cog with two arrows circling it.

Exploring Social Movement Frameworks

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Introduction

Would you like to understand social movements better? Frameworks and models can help us analyse changing situations, and match the right tactics to those situations. It can also help us understand the role and strategic importance of different players at different points in time.

Explore this list curated by the Commons librarians, offering snapshots of key social movement frameworks and models, each with links for deeper exploration. It complements Holly Hammond’s article, Frameworks for Winning Change.

Social Movement Frameworks 

Frameworks can assist us in thinking about “what’s next” for us and contextualising our day-to-day work. – Training for Change

Movement Action Plan MAP – Bill Moyer

A diagram of the eight stages of social movements

Bill Moyer’s framework relates to change in liberal democratic societies, and is based on experience and research of many social movements. A number of case studies are included in Doing Democracy and online. Moyer’s ‘four roles of activists’ is also a valuable contribution, and the Movement Action Plan MAP shows how different roles are key at different stages. The stages are:

  • 1. Normal times
  • 2. Prove the failure of institutions
  • 3. Ripening conditions
  • 4. Social movement take-off
  • 5. Identity crisis of powerlessness
  • 6. Majority public support
  • 7. Success
  • 8. Continuing the struggle

Reference:

For more:

Adaptations of Moyer’s Movement Action Plan:

A graph 'The Movement Cycle'.

Strategizing for a Living Revolution – George Lakey

Book cover - Title reads "Strategy for a Living Revolution". Author 'George Lakey'. Graphic of 9 cubes in a 3 x 3 layout. The cube on top left is sitting apart from the others.

The five stages are presented in sequence which shows how each preceding stage builds capacity for the next stage – but in reality the stages overlap and are cyclical.

The five stages are:

  1. Cultural preparation;
  2. Organization-building;
  3. Confrontation;
  4. Mass noncooperation;
  5. Parallel institutions which can carry out the legitimate functions formerly carried out by the Old Order (economic, maintaining infrastructure, decision-making, etc.)

Reference:

For more:

Counterpower – Tim Gee

Cover of Tim Gee's book 'Counter Power: Making Change Happen'

“The power of any regime rests on three main things: 

  • ideas (the ability to persuade us of their right to rule), 
  • economics (the ability to extract land, labour and capital from us) and 
  • physical coercion (the ability to punish us if we do not obey).”

If a movement can seriously challenge those facets of power, then elites will give away whatever concessions that they have to in order to maintain their rule – and so campaigns are won. If the movement is strong enough it can topple regimes altogether – hence the argument that a successful campaign is an unfinished revolution. The ability to remove the power of elites is our Counterpower. – Tim Gee, Source

The four stages:

  1. Consciousness is the stage of realizing that there is a problem and creating the conditions for Counterpower.
  2. Coordination is the stage of building Counterpower through a movement to challenge the problem.
  3. Confrontation is the stage when Counterpower is used most intensely, as the movement challenges the target’s power outright.
  4. Consolidation is about maintaining Counterpower, adjusting to the new balance of power following the Confrontation Stage, and ensuring that it turns into real-life change.

Reference:

For more: 

Political Process Theory – Doug McAdam

Boo cover - Title reads 'Comparative Perspectives on Social Movements Political Opportunities, Mobilizing Structures, and Cultural Framings'. Graphic of a group of silhoueeted people standing on a red and black chess board.

  1. Political Opportunities
  2. Mobilizing Structures
  3. Framing Processes
  4. Protest Cycles
  5. Contentious Repertoires

“Political opportunities are the most important aspect of PPT, because according to the theory, without them, success for a social movement is impossible. Political opportunities–or opportunities for intervention and change within the existing political system–exist when the system experiences vulnerabilities. Vulnerabilities in the system can arise for a variety of reasons but hinge on a crisis of legitimacy wherein the populace no longer supports the social and economic conditions fostered or maintained by the system. Opportunities might be driven by the broadening of political enfranchisement to those previously excluded (like women and people of color, historically speaking), divisions among leaders, increasing diversity within political bodies and the electorate, and a loosening of repressive structures that previously kept people from demanding change.

Mobilizing structures refer to the already existing organizations (political or otherwise) that are present among the community that wants change. These organizations serve as mobilizing structures for a social movement by providing membership, leadership, and communication and social networks to the budding movement. Examples include churches, community and nonprofit organizations, and student groups and schools, to name a few.

Framing processes are carried out by leaders of an organization in order to allow the group or movement to clearly and persuasively describe the existing problems, articulate why change is necessary, what changes are desired, and how one can go about achieving them. Framing processes foster the ideological buy-in among movement members, members of the political establishment, and the public at large that is necessary for a social movement to seize political opportunities and make change. McAdam and colleagues describe framing as “conscious strategic efforts by groups of people to fashion shared understandings of the world and of themselves that legitimate and motivate collective action” (see Comparative Perspectives on Social Movements: Political Opportunities, Mobilizing Structures, and Cultural Framing [1996]).

Protest cycles are another important aspect of social movement success according to PPT. A protest cycle is a prolonged period of time when opposition to the political system and acts of protest are in a heightened state. Within this theoretical perspective, protests are important expressions of the views and demands of the mobilizing structures connected to the movement and are vehicles to express the ideological frames connected to the framing process. As such, protests serve to strengthen solidarity within the movement, to raise awareness among the general public about the issues targeted by the movement, and also serve to help recruit new members.

The fifth and final aspect of PPT is contentious repertoires, which refers to the set of means through which the movement makes its claims. These typically include strikes, demonstrations (protests), and petitions.” Source

According to PPT, when all of these elements are present, it is possible that a social movement will be able to make changes within the existing political system that will reflect the desired outcome.

References:

For more:

Climate Insurgency Model – Jeremy Brecher

Book cover - Title reads 'Against Doom: A climate insurgenc manual. Author at bottom reads "Jeremy Brecher'. Photo of a large mining machine.

Climate Insurgency Components:

  • 1: An Insurgency of Civil Resistance
  • 2: Self-Organization and De-isolation
  • 3: Legal Arguments and Litigation

“To realize their objectives, the climate protection movement needs to weld the people of the world into an effective force capable of compelling corporations, governments, and institutions to shift from fossil fuels to clean energy. That requires creating understanding and determination in every community, geographical and virtual. It requires breaking down the invisible rules that currently discourage people from thinking and talking about the one thing that will most determine their future and that of their posterity. It means self-organization through which people move out of isolation and become part of a movement. It means creating ways for people to reach out and join with others. Conversely, it also means creating ways that those who are already organized can reach out and draw in those who are not. This underlying process of de-isolation and movement construction is the necessary condition for the ultimate success of the climate insurgency.” p 29, Against Doom

‘The climate insurgency will develop the power to impose these changes by:

  • Taking actions that change millions of people.
  • Undermining fossil fuel’s “pillars of support.”
  • Reducing dependence on fossil fuels by implementing alternatives.
  • Discrediting the legitimacy of the climate destroyers.
  • Increasing the negative consequences of continuing fossil fuel extraction and burning.
  • Developing a “dual power”.
  • Integrating a wide range of other popular needs and concerns into plans for climate protection.
  • Creating a global climate protection race.’

pgs 30-32, Against Doom

Developing a “dual power”: “people withdraw their support and cooperation from the established authorities and form their own tribunals and popular assemblies to authorize the fossil freeze and impose Climate Action Plans. The threat to established authority posed by the development of dual sovereignty and parallel government will provide the ultimate sanction against those governments that continue to authorize climate destruction.” p 31

Creating a global climate protection race: “The insurgency will instigate a competitive bidding war among nations, businesses, and institutions to demonstrate their commitment to climate protection.” p 32

“Criteria for deciding on infrastructure and project targets: 

  • Threat to climate, 
  • Threat to local people and environment, 
  • Local support, 
  • Allies, 
  • Cost, 
  • Availability of alternatives, 
  • Injustice, 
  • Vulnerability of identifiable decision-makers to pressure, 
  • Moral responsibilities, 
  • Democratic accountability, 
  • Public disapprobation, 
  • Vulnerability to exposure, 
  • Hypocrisy, 
  • Vulnerability to mass nonviolent direct action.“

pgs 35-39 

References:

For more:

Strategic Interaction Framework – James Jasper

Book cover - Title reads 'Players and Arenas: The Interactive Dynamics of Protest'. Photo of people in suits holding masks over their faces. They are Polish legislators protesting the passage of anti-piracy legislation. They are seated in wooden bench seats. On the masks is a drawing of a smiling man in black texta with thick eyebrows with a moustache.

Formulated by social movement theorist James Jasper this is more a framework for mapping and analysis of situations than one predicated on a particular theory of change. His various works, and those which utilise the framework, provide insights into typical strategic dilemmas, how alliances can be formed, external conditions that help movements win, etc. 

The neatest summary of the framework is in the introduction to ‘Players and Arenas’, which is available as a free download.

It proposes a model of analysis which considers the degree to which “the main constraints on what protestors can accomplish are not determined directly by economic and political structures so much as they are imposed by other players with different goals and interests… To understand how protest arises, unfolds, and affects (or does not affect) the world around it, research needs to begin with catalogs of the players involved on all sides. These lists often need to be quite extensive, and include the multiple goals and many capabilities a player has at its disposal. The goals and the means, furthermore, change over time, as do the players themselves. Because today we tend to see culture as contested, constructed, and ever-shifting, rather than unitary and static, we must admit that players and arenas are always emerging, changing, and recombining… An arena is a bundle of rules and resources that allow or encourage certain kinds of interactions to proceed, with something at stake. Players within an arena monitor each others’ actions, although that capacity is not always equally distributed.”  

Reference:

For more:

How We Win – George Lakey 

Book cover - Title reads 'How We Win: A Guide to Nonviolent Direct Action Campaigning'. Author text 'George Lakey'. Illustration of a hand holding two fingers up doing the peace sign against background of yellow and white stripes.

“How This Guide Helps Build a Movement of Movements 

Summary of themes/lessons in How We Win: 

  • Practices for unity and inclusion. 
  • Support for innovation. 
  • Words into action/walking the talk. 
  • Sustainability and positivity. 
  • Leadership development in context of team, collective effort. 
  • Credibility provided by nonviolent discipline. 
  • A learning curve with vision-led goal setting.”

Pgs 184-185 includes explanation of each of these with the themes explored in depth throughout the book. 

Reference:

For more:

When to Talk and When to Fight – Rebecca Subar

Book cover - Text reads 'When to talk and when to fight: The strategic choice between dialogue and resistance'. Author text 'Rebecca Subar'. Text is in green writing over a grey filter over an illustration of a large group of protestors in a city context.

Provides a strategic framework with decisions based on considering 4 factors:

  1. “power dynamics,
  2. structural barriers that limit your choice of action,
  3. principles, and 
  4. biases that groups have about whether to appease or to antagonize.” 

The book provides “an easy-to-learn model for talking across the modalities of negotiation and resistance. The model will help groups that prefer one or the other approach and communities that study and teach one or the other approach to have useful and coherent conversations with each other. This model is as simple as A, B, C, with all conflict activity divided into three buckets: talking, fighting for power, and fighting to vanquish an opponent.” 

Discusses currencies of power- structural power, resources on hand, and potential power and breaks them into numerous sub-categories. Includes various diagrams and discussion about personal/organisational persuasions, dilemmas, approaches associated with the ‘3 buckets’, factors in making decisions related to the 4 factors, types of ‘biased characters’ within social movements. Provides a case study example of how to look at a situation and decide which strategy is best to use.

Reference:

Subar R (2021) When to Talk and When to Fight: The Strategic Choice between Dialogue and Resistance. PM Press.

For more:

Campaign Planning Framework – Martin Luther King, Jr.

Screenshot of website. Text reads 'Principles of Nonviolent Direct Action: from the American Peace Test Nonviolence Trainer's Manual. Four basic principles: 1) Define your objectives. Injustice and violence are everywhere around us. A single campaign or action will not remove it all. One must begin by focusing on a specific injustice; it should be possible to discuss it in fairly simple and clear-cut terms. Decision-making and negotiations during a campaign will be helped immensely if you have defined clearly your short-range objective and your long-range goal. 2) Be honest and listen well. Part of your goal is to win your opponent's respect. Conduct yourself in a way which encourages that respect by showing your scrupulous care for truth and justice. A crucial part of nonviolent direct action is the understanding that no one knows the complete truth about the issues at hand. Listening with openness to what your opponents have to say about your campaign is very important in your pursuit of the whole truth. Similarly, listening carefully to those who are struggling at your side helps ensure that the oppression which you are fighting is not replaced by another oppression. 3) Love your enemies. No matter how deeply involved in unjust and violent systems some people are, your goal is to break down those systems, not to punish others for wrong-doing. Real justice is established when people refuse to maintain oppressive systems, not when the people in those systems are destroyed. Nonviolence requires a steadfast and conscious willingness to mentally separate respect for all people from disrespect for what some people are doing in a given situation. 4) Give your opponents a way out. By using nonviolence, you are showing a kind of strength that overcomes injustice. Avoid self-righteousness with opponents. Recognize their weaknesses, embarrassments and fears. In specific confrontations, as well as in the larger campaign, find a way to let them participate in finding a solution. Give them options to respond to, not non-negotiable demands. Six strategic steps: 1) Investigate. Get the facts. Clear up any possible misunderstanding right at the start. If an injustice clearly has been done, be equally certain exactly who or what is to blame for it. The complexity of society today requires patient investigation to accurately determine responsibility for a particular injustice. The ability to explain facts rather than just relying on rhetoric will win support and prevent misunderstandings. 2) Negotiate. Meet with opponents and put the case to them. A solution may be worked out at this point. It is possible that your opponents have a grievance which you didn't know about. Now is the time to find out. If no solution is possible, let your opponenets know that you intend to stand firm to establish justice. Let them know, however, that you are always ready to negotiate further...'

This framework assists groups to think ahead and plan as the campaign builds. The starting point is framing the group’s issue, then the following stages:

1. Gather information;

2. Do education and leadership development;

3. Negotiate with target;

4. Increase motivation and commitment for the struggle ahead;

5. Direct action;

6. Create new relationship with opponent which reflects the new power reality.

Reference: 

Principles of Nonviolent Direct Action
These principles were first developed in the context of the struggle for civil rights in the U.S. for which it was written and published by the American FOR at the request of Dr. Martin Luther King. The present version has been slightly revised for international use by the International FOR. Based on Martin Luther King-related campaigns in the Deep South of the U.S. Read more from the American Peace Test Nonviolence Trainer’s Manual.

For more:

The Great Turning – Joanna Macy 

Book cover - World as Lover, World as Self, Joanna Macy'. Photo of coloured pebbles under ripples of clear water.

Grace happens when we act with others on behalf of our world. – Joanna Macy, p 106

Joanna Macy’s three components of The Great Turning:  

1. Holding Actions/Resisting

  • Campaigns
  • Protest marches
  • Legal and regulatory approaches
  • Engaging in nonviolent action

2. Shift in Consciousness/Values

  • Scientific and spiritual revolution
  • Seeing the sacred
  • Learning from new science

3. Creating Alternative Structures

  • New patterns of organising 
  • New structures and systems

Reference:

​​Macy, Joanna. World as Self, World as Lover: Courage for Global Justice and Ecological Renewal. Berkeley: Parallax Press, 2007.

For more:

Four Strategies for Large System Change – Steve Waddell

The matrix serves as a device to raise valuable questions and spark insights for understanding change strategies or initiatives holistically. All change initiatives reflect some mix of the two dimensions. – Waddell, pg. 41

Two dimensions: 

  • destruction to creation
  • confrontation to collaboration

Four Strategies for Large Systems Change:

  1. Doing Change: The Entrepreneurs
  2. Forcing Change: The Warriors
  3. Directing Change: The Missionaries
  4. Co-creating Change: The Lovers

Six Lessons of Societal Change:

  1. Each of the four strategies can contribute critically to one transformation.
  2. Particular transformations emphasize a particular strategy.
  3. As a transformation progresses, the comparative importance of each strategy changes.
  4. The particular circumstances and environment that a transformation confronts determine the order of the strategies and their interaction. 
  5. Enabling environments support experimentation and the creation of networks. 
  6. Each strategy requires distinct competencies. 

Reference:

Waddell, S (2018) Four Strategies for Large Systems Change, Stanford Social Innovation Review Spring 2018.

For more:

Momentum Model 

Graphic - title reads 'The Cycle of Momentum'. There are 3 squares in a triangular shape with arrows between them. The first box reads Escalation: Non violent action', the 2nd box reads 'Active Popular Support: Popular demand that targets the public'. The third box reads 'Absorption: Strong movment organization'.

Cycle of Momentum: Escalation > Active Popular Support > Absorption 

The Momentum model fuses the strengths of the structure-based organizing and mass protest to seed a new tradition of organizing in the United States. Built on the foundation of nonviolent civil resistance developed by Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Momentum synthesizes the lessons of various 20th century movements, including the Color Revolutions of Eastern Europe and the Arab Spring in North Africa.

Ayni Institute developed the foundational teaching and This is an Uprising is a key text. ‘Frontloading’ is a central concept which came from Otpor (Serbia). 

Reference:

For more: 

Four Stages – New World Foundation 

As quoted in Masters & Osborn (2010):

Social movements are not built overnight, but in stages.

“The New World Foundation (2003) identifies four different stages, although it is a fluid process:

  • Stage 1: Building Movement Infrastructure – Organizing centers, anchor institutions, and networks mobilize new constituencies or a broad base of activists with the most at stake.
  • Stage 2: Building Identity and Intention – The vision is developed, which gives urgency and guides and deepens participation. This is not a laundry list of demands, but an aspirational social agenda.
  • Stage 3: Social Combustion: The “Movement Moment” – Transformative and collective, this highly visible time produces a profound shift in moral legitimacy and expands democratic terrain.
  • Stage 4: Consolidation or Dissipation – Movements flow and ebb, and the fruits of change become incorporated into society as policies and new attitudes, or the movement dissipates.” – pg. 15

Reference:

  • Masters, B., & Osborn, T. (2010). Social Movements and Philanthropy: How Foundations Can Support Movement Building. The Foundation Review, 2(2).

Other Frameworks, Models and Tools

Books 

The Commons has short summaries of many of these books and can dig deeper if you have particular interest in any of them. 

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