Being costly, seeming worthy: Does authenticity matter for social movement success?

抗议重要吗？这仍然是社会运动学术界的一个长期问题;我们仍然在争论社会运动是否以及如何引起社会和政治变革。我的研究有助于这场辩论，扩大社会运动理论的三大巨头，即资源动员，政治机会结构和框架过程理论的应用最少的方法。后者调查社会运动的文化和“意义创造”工作，只是偶尔被用来解释抗议的后果，而且当使用时，可以说没有得出令人信服的结论。然而，框架理论所做的，尽管并不总是明确的，是提醒我们，我们需要考虑社会运动要求什么（主张），以及他们如何要求它（框架），而不仅仅是他们是否有资源可以动员或政治机会可以利用。我以此为基础，表明社会运动的主张和框架战略确实有助于解释其结果，即使在不利的政治环境下，也可以直接导致积极的结果。正如我的哲学博士论文所表明的，这在很大程度上取决于社会运动所能施加的物质和象征性成本，与满足他们的要求对他们的目标所带来的成本相权衡。因此，例如，我能够解释秘鲁的土著抗议者如何能够在2009年推翻向采掘业开放其土地的法令，尽管当权的总统称他们为“野蛮人”。他们之所以能够做到这一点，是因为他们付出了巨大的破坏代价，并通过他们的主张（保护我们的“祖先”土地）、制定战略（为亚马逊的守护者争取祖先的权利，并展示看似真实的印第安人）以及沉重的镇压使公众舆论对他们有利的事实，施加了足够高的象征性代价。在上述轨迹中需要进一步研究的是感知真实性对社会运动的作用。我们从拉丁美洲了解到，土著领导人和活动家总是沉浸在真实性之争中，因为他们需要说服支持者、选民、反对者和一般公众，他们是所谓选民的真正代表，他们有合法的目标，他们使用可接受的手段试图实现这些目标。这并不局限于土著人的斗争;然而，在北方关于社会运动的学术研究中，还没有研究过真实性斗争的动态。我的博士论文能够表明，土著运动的主张和框架的外部共鸣对他们的结果很重要。由于缺乏可比较的跨国和长期民意数据，它无法充分评估运动战略与民意之间关系的性质。特别是，它不能测试是否框架的连贯性-索赔和框架之间的连贯性-运动的结果很重要。我们从政治理论和哲学中了解到，认同与行动之间、宣言与政策之间等感知到的一致性影响一个人或一个政治家是否被认为是真实的，从而也是值得信赖和合法的。我认为，这对社会运动及其后果也很重要;但这需要进一步研究。社会运动如何试图传递真实性？什么样的主张、框架和策略的组合被认为是真实的？被认为是真实的保证积极的结果吗？为了寻求这些问题的答案，我建议巩固我目前的研究，开展有限的新研究，并为下一个关于英国社会运动和真实性的重大研究项目做准备，如上文和下文以及所附的支持文件所述。

Does protest matter? This remains a perennial question of social movement scholarship; we still debate whether and how social movements cause social and political change. My research contributes to this debate by expanding on the least applied approaches of the three giants of social movement theory, namely resource mobilisation, political opportunity structure, and framing processes theories. The latter, which investigates the cultural and 'meaning-making' work of social movements, has been used only sporadically to explain the consequences of protest, and when used, has arguably not reached convincing conclusions. Yet what framing theory does, although not always explicitly, is remind us that we need to take into what social movements are asking for (claims), and how they are asking for it (frames), not just whether they have resources they can mobilise or political opportunities they can take advantage of. I build on this to show that the claiming and framing strategies of social movements do help explain their outcomes, and can directly lead to positive outcomes even under unfavourable political circumstances. As my DPhil thesis shows, this depends very much on both the material and symbolic costs that social movements can impose, weighed against the cost that meeting their demands would present for their targets. Thus, for example, I was able to explain how indigenous protesters in Peru we able to get decrees opening up their land to extractive industry overturned in 2009, despite a President in power that described them as 'savages'. They were able to do so through materially costly disruption, and by imposing high enough symbolic costs through the combination of their claiming (protecting our 'ancestral' land), framing strategies (arguing for ancestral rights as guardians of the Amazon and displaying seemingly authentic indigeneity), and the fact that heavy repression turned public opinion to their advantage. What needs further research in the above trajectory is the role of perceived authenticity for social movements. We know from Latin America that indigenous leaders and activists are always immersed in authenticity battles as they need to convince supporters, constituents, opponents, and the public in general that they are genuine representatives of their purported constituents, that they have legitimate goals, and that they use acceptable means to try and achieve them. This is not confined to indigenous struggles; yet the dynamics of authenticity battles have not been researched in Northern scholarship on social movements in general. My DPhil thesis was able to show that the external resonance of indigenous movements' claims and frames matters for their outcomes. It was not able to, due to lack of comparable cross-national and over-time data on public opinion, fully evaluate the nature of the relationship between movement strategies and public opinion. In particular, it could not test whether frame coherence-the coherence between claims and frames-mattered for movement outcomes. We know from political theory and philosophy that perceived coherence-between identity and actions, between manifestos and policies, etc.-influences whether an individual or a politician are seen as authentic, and thus also trustworthy and legitimate. I argue that this also matters for social movements and their consequences; yet this needs further research. How do social movements try to signal authenticity? What combinations of claims, frames and tactics are perceived as authentic? Does being perceived as authentic guarantee positive outcomes? In order to seek answers to these questions, I propose to consolidate my current research, carry out a limited amount of new research, and prepare for the next major research project on social movements and authenticity in the UK, as detailed above and below, and in the attached supporting documents.