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In this paper, we draw from our own empirical data on worker organizing and identify important concepts that bridge social movement (SM) and industrial relations (IR) theory. In a context of traditional union decline and a surge of alternative types of worker mobilization, we apply SM and IR concepts related to the mobilizing structures and culture to cases of labor organizing via worker centers and community–labor alliances in the United States and China. From an analytical perspective, we argue that the field of SMs and IR can both benefit from this type of cross-discipline theorization.

We examine why some groups use violence while others use nonviolence when they push for major political change. Nonviolence can be less costly, but nonstate actors must mobilize a large number of people for it to be successful. This is less critical for violent rebellion, as successful attacks can be committed by a small number of people. This means that groups that believe that they have the potential to mobilize larger numbers of people are less likely to use violence. This potential is related to the lines along which the group mobilizes. Campaigns mobilized along ethnic or Marxist lines have fewer potential members and are most likely to use violence. Prodemocracy campaigns have a higher number of potential members and are more likely to use nonviolence. For movements against a foreign occupation, campaigns in larger countries are more likely to use nonviolence. These predictions are supported in a multilevel logit model of campaigns from 1945 to 2006. The mechanism is tested by looking at the interactive effect of democratic changes on the likelihood of nonviolence and looking at a subsample of 72 campaigns that explicitly draw from certain ethnic or religious groups.

In the growing field of nonviolent social movement studies, questions of power are often layered in inquiries into drivers of mobilization and dynamics of success, from the individual to the societal level. The different ways marginalized groups utilize power are not adequately theorized, however. Here I address paradigmatic approaches to understanding power in nonviolent movements, identifying conceptual limitations to explaining stratification among nonviolent resisters. In response, I develop a framework for better understanding the socially constructed origins of nonviolent power among different mobilized groups. I first provide a sociology of knowledge survey of common theories of power in nonviolent mobilization. I also review literature on mobilization among marginalized populations to identify valuable insights lacking in nonviolent movements studies. I then explore one case of marginalized nonviolent resistance, that of the Mothers of the Plaza Mayo who mobilized for an end to the Argentine Dirty War. Through this case, I develop a social constructionist framework that can be generalized to better understand how stratification shapes nonviolent resistance differently for different actors. I conclude by proposing a general framework of inquiry, guiding scholars to pay attention to four dimensions of conflict and resistance when examining the power dynamics of nonviolent movements: the temporal context of conflict, the degree of repression, actor status and positionality, and how nonviolent strategies and tactics correspond to each of these dimensions.

The national immigrant rights campaign of 2006 stands as one of the largest mobilizations by people of color in US history, yet less scholarly attention has been given to systematically comparing these mobilizations at the local level. To develop an understanding of what led to sustained mobilization, a comparative case study analysis of seven cities in California's San Joaquin Valley is employed. The empirical evidence is based on interviews with key organizers and participants, newspaper documentation of protest events, census data, and other secondary sources. I find that the presence and size of policy threats explained the initial protest during the spring of 2006 in all localities, but cities with elaborate resource infrastructures (preexisting organizations, histories of community organizing, and coalitions) had more enduring levels of collective action.

Scholars have long argued that churches play a critical role in mobilizing communities marginal to the political process, primarily by pooling resources, disseminating information, and providing opportunities for members to develop community networks, leadership, and civic skills. However, recent research suggests that churches only serve as effective mobilizing institutions when they engage in direct political discussion and recruitment. Even so, churches may face economic, legal, and institutional barriers to entering the political sphere, and explicit political speech and action remain rare. Through an analysis of two years of ethnographic fieldwork following faith-based community organizers attempting to recruit Spanish speakers throughout a Catholic Archdiocese into a campaign for immigrant rights, this paper explores the institutional constraints on church political mobilization, and how these are overcome to mobilize one of the most politically marginal groups in the United States today: Hispanic undocumented immigrants and their allies. I argue that scholars of political engagement must look beyond the structural features of organizations to consider the effects of their institutionalized domains and practices. While churches do face institutional barriers to political mobilization, activists who specialize their recruitment strategy to match the institutional practices of the organizations they target can effectively overcome these barriers to mobilize politically alienated populations.

This chapter uses McAlevey's mobilising/organising dichotomy to analyse the recent McDonald's mobilisation in Britain. It argues that this movement has had some impressive successes but building on these requires greater organising activities. However, conventional union organising techniques are unlikely to be successful in hospitality. Instead, the approach of another low-wage worker movement OUR Walmart demonstrates how social media can be used not only to benefit mobilising activities but to enable organising beyond the workplace.

How do large-scale protest events differ across nation-states? Do social networks play different roles in different places and, if so, how do they matter? This paper compares the role that social networks play in mobilizing participants in large-scale domestic protest. Employing a paired comparison of large-scale domestic protests in the United States and France, I find that social ties play a differing role in each country. Although personal and organizational ties played almost equal roles in mobilizing participants at the protest-event in the United States, organizational ties played a much more significant role in mobilizing participants to protest in France. In addition, participants in these two events reported having very different levels of civic engagement at these two protests. I conclude by discussing how these differences are related to the characteristics of the mobilizations themselves.

Netroots organizations are re-defining political struggle by providing the resources and environment necessary for political mobilizing, and are affecting the ways that parties and traditional groups now campaign, recruit, and fundraise. While there is no clear consensus in the social movement literature regarding information communication technology's (ICT's) influence on participation on political participation, campaigns, and parties, or on social movement participation more broadly, there is substantial agreement that the Net has increased information available for citizens and has changed the capacity for mobilization. The key question is if (and if so how) the increasing availability of information and more efficient mobilizing tactics enabled by the Internet translates into motivation, interest, and participation. As an electronic social movement organization (SMO), MoveOn has become one of the most successful advocacy operations in the digital era. This paper examines ways in which MoveOn has used the Internet and alternative forms of grassroots mobilization to fuse contentious politics with institutional means of reform via the electoral process. A case study of MoveOn is relevant to broader arguments regarding how the Internet is re-defining our understanding of mobilization and participatory politics, and demonstrates a shift in contentious politics and protest. The findings support the arguments in the literature that information sharing electronically can lead to a more informed citizenry, yet goes beyond previous research by suggesting that this refers not only to those that are initially politically aware, but also to otherwise uninformed or disengaged citizens (who have access to the Internet). This analysis also challenges previous research that asserts that there is little or no relationship between Internet use to obtain political information and political participation.

Amidst the backlash against gay rights in the U.S., a rapidly expanding number of companies are instituting inclusive policies. While in 1990 no major corporations provided health insurance for the partners of lesbian and gay employees, by early 2004, over 200 companies on the Fortune 500 list (approximately 40%) had adopted domestic partner benefits. This study of Fortune 1000 corporations reveals that the majority of adopters instituted the policy change only after facing pressure from groups of lesbian, gay, and bisexual employees. Despite such remarkable success, scholars have yet to study the workplace movement, as it is typically called by activists. Combining social movement theory and new institutional approaches to organizational analysis, I provide an “institutional opportunity” framework to explain the rise and trajectory of the movement over the past 25 years. I discuss the patterned emergence and diffusion of gay employee networks among Fortune 1000 companies in relation to shifting opportunities and constraints in four main areas: the wider sociopolitical context, the broader gay and lesbian movement, the media, and the workplace. Next, using the same wide-angle lens, I explain the apparent decline in corporate organizing since 1995. My multimethod approach utilizes surveys of 94 companies with and without gay networks, intensive interviews with 69 networks and 10 corporate executives, 3 case studies, field data, and print and virtual media on gay-related workplace topics. By focusing on not simply political but also broader institutional opportunities, I provide a framework for understanding the emergence and development of movements that target institutions beyond the state.