Cultural Dilemmas of Progressive Politics: Styles of Engagement among Grassroots Activists (review)

Cultural Dilemmas of Progressive Politics: Styles of Engagement among Grassroots Activists. By Stephen Hart. University of Chicago Press, 2001. 292 pp. Cloth, $42.00; paper, $17.00.

In Cultural Dilemmas of Progressive Politics, Stephen Hart compares, through participant observation, the extent to which the discourse of two politically progressive movements — congregation-based community organizing (hereafter, CBCO) and Amnesty International (hereafter, AI) — is culturally expansive or constrained. Hart argues that discourse can be expansive or constrained on three dimensions: temperature, issue links, and civil-societal links. Discourse is expansive on the first dimension when it is hot, passionate, and morally couched, and constrained when it is cool, dispassionate, and instrumentally focused. If issues are linked to each other and a broader social vision, then discourse is culturally expansive in terms of issue links. Regarding the third dimension, discourse is culturally expansive when a connection is made between traditions of civil society and politics. Discourse is constrained on the second and third dimensions when these connections are absent.

Unlike many religiously based social movements in the U.S., CBCO neither takes up causes of the right nor is theologically, racially, and ethnically homogeneous. CBCO mobilizes Americans from — with the notable exception of white evangelical Protestants — a broad range of theological, racial, and ethnic backgrounds to combat economic injustice in local communities. Hart finds that a good deal of the discourse in which CBCO engages is culturally expansive. On the first dimension, for instance, CBCO articulates its public grievances in a tone that is unequivocally moral and ethical. CBCO's discourse is also expansive on the third dimension, as its political engagement is explicitly connected to religious faith. An example of this within CBCO is the enormous amount of energy devoted during training sessions to disabusing people of the view that religious faith is solely a private matter, irrelevant for public life. In many ways, CBCO also makes it known publicly that religious faith is profoundly shaping its political motivations and actions.

Hart points out, however, that certain elements of CBCO's discourse are constrained. This is most evident in the second dimension. CBCO generally fails to make a connection between the economic issues it pursues and other social and political issues of the day, such as abortion, civil liberties, or gay rights. This is partly because CBCO steers clear of issues that are likely to set whole religious congregations against one another, but also because the majority of such issues are not locally based. CBCO's discourse is somewhat constrained on the remaining dimensions as well. For example, Hart discovered that although CBCO participants perceive the link between religious faith and public activism to be intentional and overt, a good number of them nevertheless feel that this link is rather tenuous and in need of greater theological reflection and grounding.

Contrary to CBCO, AI is a secularly based human rights organization whose main objective is protecting the liberty and dignity of each human person on an international scale. AI organizations exist around the globe, though Hart's analysis focuses mainly on the discourse of two local American AI groups. Hart sees the discourse in which AI engages as more constrained on the first and third dimensions than that of CBCO, but no more so on the second dimension. AI's discourse is expansive on the first dimension, as members passionately engage in human rights work. Moreover, AI strongly conceives of human rights as a universal moral imperative. AI's discourse is more constrained on this dimension relative to CBCO, Hart argues, because AI does not examine substantially the basis of its impassioned and deeply ethical talk. The discourse of AI, like CBCO, tends to be constrained in its issue links. It is uncommon for AI to connect human rights to other current political issues and a broader social vision. According to Hart, the greatest difference in expansive and constrained discourse between CBCO and AI exists on the...