The Future of Social Movement Research: Dynamics, Mechanisms, and Processes

12. Ethnicity, Repression, and Fields of Action in Movement Mobilization

235 12 Ethnicity, Repression, and Fields of Action in Movement Mobilization European and American studies of protest came into dialogue through the overt efforts of bridge builders, particularly Bert Klandermans. These studies focused on the dynamics of protest mobilization in the democratic contexts of North America and western Europe and developed cumulative research showing how mobilization actually happens in political and organizational contexts. Mobilization happens through social networks, and social networks are changed in the process of mobilization; identities shape mobilization, and mobilization changes identities; political and organizational structures constrain mobilization, and mobilization changes political and organizational structures. Focusing on the protesters has led to tremendous advances in understanding protest. But this focus on overt intentional protest mobilization has come at a cost. First, it has led to a relative neglect of theorizing the other actors, forces, and types of action in the field. Second, it has led to a relative neglect of theorizing the differences between different social groups in their prospects for mobilization and the ways in which ethnic divisions affect mobilization. The issue of the mass incarceration of African Americans illustrates some of the gaps left by protest-centered research , the usefulness of a broader evolutionary perspective, and the importance of theorizing group differences within and between social movements. The field of action, that is, the political opportunity structure, is never the same for every movement in the same field. Some groups have more influence; some groups are repressed more. In particular, the political opportunities available to members of majority ethnic groups are different from those available Pamela E. Oliver pamela e. oliver 236 to isolated disadvantaged ethnic minorities. Opportunities for resourceful ethnic minorities are different from those for resourceful ethnic majorities. General social movement theory should incorporate these distinctions into its core. Otherwise, it risks marginalizing itself by claiming that a general theory is the theory of affluent majorities and relegating movements by oppressed minorities to the periphery of theoretical concern. The Case of Racial Disparities in Criminal Justice My thoughts on these issues have been influenced by the movement to reduce racial disparities in imprisonment in the United States. I have participated in this movement as a public sociologist and participant in advocacy and governmental organizations (for details, see Oliver 2009). My own research is focused on analyzing and presenting the disparities themselves and on theorizing the interplay between repression, ethnic conflict, and social control. This essay draws on both my sociological research and my informal observations as a participant in the movement. African Americans have extraordinarily high incarceration rates. The gross black incarceration rate in 2006 was 2.5 percent. The Bureau of Justice Statistics estimated that in 2008, over 10 percent of black men aged twentyfive to forty were incarcerated. Black Americans are seven times more likely to be incarcerated than non-Hispanic white Americans.1 However non-Hispanic whites also have very high incarceration rates by world standards: the 2006 rate of 0.4 percent was higher than the rate of all of the world’s nations, except Russia and two other former Soviet republics, plus ten small island nations with high tourism (Walmsley 2007).2 Although the details of this case are peculiarly American, they point to principles relevant to Europe today as it faces increased immigration and cultural diversity. Some sort of ethnic, racial, religious, or nationality disparity in arrest and incarceration is the norm, not the exception (Tonry 1997). Blacks in the United States and the United Kingdom and indigenous people in Canada and Australia have comparable disparities in incarceration (Tonry 1994), as do the Maori in New Zealand (Marie 2010). The Roma are widely viewed as criminal in much of Europe, and disparate incarceration of Roma has been documented in Bulgaria (Gounev and Bezlov 2006). Muslim immigrants or their children are also viewed as dangerous in much of Europe and are disproportionately incarcerated. Quoting from Tonry’s summary introduction to an edited volume of research about Europe, In Every Country, Crime and Incarceration Rates for Members of Some Minority Groups Greatly Exceed Those for the Majority Population. Perhaps most ethnicity, repression, and fields of action 237 important, comparable disparities exist both for racial and ethnic minorities and for national origin minorities who are not visible racial minorities. In England and Wales, and the United States, black residents are seven-to-eight times more likely than whites to be confined in prisons, and the black/white imprisonment...