Social Movement Theories And Concepts And Their Applicability To The Arab Spring Analysis

The question is 'Can social movement theories and concepts be successfully applied to the analysis of events related to the Arab Spring?'

The social movements have had a major role to play in the past in awakening, mobilizing and inspiring the marginalized and deprived people to come forward and put an end to several social issues. Instance of such movements and their success are abundant on history with the American civil rights movement of the 1950s being at the peak. The American civil rights movement occurred as a response to the racial segregation and prejudice. In the later years as well, movements such as Tea Party, the very recent MeToo amongst others have also proved effective. The Tea Party was a movement that started at the grassroots level. It called for awareness to any issue that challenged the sovereignty, security or domestic peace of America. In 2006, a group of Black women started the MeToo movement that focused on helping sexual violence survivors especially the women and girls of the Black community (PettyJohn et al., 2018). It later took a broader shape and involved every woman who had to go through sexual violence.

In this paper, the various social movement theories shall be discussed asking whether these theories and concepts could be applied to the events that led to the Arab Spring. The essay will begin with an explanation of the social movement theories followed a brief overview of the Arab Spring. The theories and concepts that will be highlighted include the Relative Deprivation Theory, the Resource Mobilization Theory, New Social Movements, the Political Process Theory, political opportunities, framing, protest cycles, norm entrepreneurs and so on.

Prior to understanding the theories and concepts of social movement, it is important to comprehend clearly what social movement means. In common terms, social movement is an occurrence where large group of people resist or promote some social change in an organized way. Specifically, the social movement is based on two factors – the target group and the level or length of the movement. A social movement occurs to bring about some change however, the amount of change one advocates, differs. Diani (1992) defined social movement as “a network of informal interactions between a plurality of individuals, groups and/or organizations, engaged in a political or cultural conflict, on the basis of a shared collective identity”. Kelly (2013) further defined social movement as a “dynamic pluralistic behavior type that gradually develops composition through time and targets complete or partial alteration of the social order”.

In the words of Demaria et al., (2013), social movement is a deliberate association of people “engaged in concerted efforts to change attitudes, behavior and social relationships in a larger society”. Social movement this, could be collaboratively defined as the effort to effect or resist transformation in the society through association. While some social movements aim modifying certain aspects of the present social order, others target complete transformation. The former refers to reform movement whereas the latter is known as revolutionary movement. Over the years, people have interpreted and explained the social movement in various ways adding various elements to it. Chun, Lipsitz and Shin (2013) include intersectionality as a strategy of social movement. The scholar provides instance of the Asian Immigrant Women Advocates (AIWA) and its struggle to serve the low-wage immigrants. According to the author, “the history of AIWA in Oakland and San Jose over nearly three decades provides a vivid illustration of social movement intersectionality in action and illuminates the relationship that link social theory to social movements”. Many studies on social movement have also focused on the influence of technology in recent times. For instance, Dimond et al., (2013) highlighted the storytelling technique on social media that has been leveraged by the new age social movement. They focused particularly on an organization called Hollaback that works towards stopping street harassment by encouraging the victims to share their stories online. However, these techniques have been questioned for their effectiveness and viability.

The above discussion thus, brings forth the various definitions and explanation of social movement along with different interpretation of it. Social movement is a concept that has been confused often with other concepts such as interest groups, protest events, coalitions or even political parties. Nonetheless, the social movement concept is distinct from other related concepts in that it identifies a particular area of investigation and theorizes for social movement research. Social movement theory seeks to explain the social movements – the reasons for its occurrence, the forms and the consequences. The different theories shall be discussed in the following sections along with the various concepts as well.

As the name suggests, relative deprivation theory explains the occurrence of social movement when people recognize some sort of relative deprivation in the way their standard of living differs from others and the opportunities they have. The theory suggests that individuals are rational actors and that is why they join a movement because they feel it is more advantageous. Smith and Pettigrew (2015) argue that a careful definition of relative deprivation with the “right level of analysis and employed within larger theoretical models” would provide precious insight into the way people react to “often dramatic changes in their objective circumstances”. The theory has been quite effective in explaining the different conflicts that have taken place in the 21^st century. Agbiboa (2013) gives evidence of the effectiveness of relative deprivation theory through its application to the Boko Haram atrocities. The scholar conducted a study to understand the reasons behind Boko Haram’s existence using the relative deprivation theory. The scholar found that major deprivation of employment and other opportunities, finance, education and basic amenities led to the formation and expansion of Boko Haram. Large number of unemployed youths joined the militant group because they felt that they were deprived. A look at other militant groups across the world and the conflicts would reveal that the theory of relative deprivation actually explains those situations in a better light.

The resource mobilization theory, on the other hand, argues that social movements occur and accomplish their goals through the efficient mobilization of resources. In addition, the effective mobilization of resources develops political opportunities for the members as well. The theory emerged in the 1970s and examined the way members acquire resources and assemble support. The resources might include supporters, wealth, media attention, connections with political elites, and organizational structure amongst others. Sommerfeldt (2013) identify that the resource mobilization theory was proposed as a response to the relative deprivation theory and social breakdown “that identify individual grievances as the primary stimulus for collective action”. According to the theorists of resource mobilization, individual grievances and social conflicts are not enough to start a movement although these are necessary. A movement, they argued, cannot start without mobilization of resources that include both wealth and power from credible supporters.

Opposed to both relative deprivation and resource mobilizations, the New Social Movement (NSM) began to emerge as the term to describe movements that went beyond post-material politics. Based on loose networks, the NSMs link middle-class groups and individuals with that of the marginalized class. Pichardo (1997), views that the NSM theory stresses “both the macro-historical and micro-historical elements of social movements”. The scholar further distinguishes between macro and micro history stating that the NSM paradigm focuses on the larger economic structure and rise in contemporary social movement relationship. On the other hand, at the micro level, the NSM concentrates on the issues of identity and personal behavior, and the way these two are “bound up in social movements”. Buechler (1995) shed light on the proponents of the NSM theory Jurgen Habermas and Jean Cohen to reveal that the theory represents “the main vehicle by which a non-instrumental rationality can be brought into public life”. Habermas and Cohen discarded the working class as a democratizing agent and focused instead on the non-productivist, broad-based movements.

In contrast to the NSM, the political process or opportunity theory scrutinizes the factors that contribute to making social movements successful. Although political opportunities are consistent proportions of the political struggle that persuade people to connect with controversial politics, these are not essentially permanent or formal (Tarrow, 1998). Escobar (2018) however observes that limited studies “testing political opportunity hypotheses against other explanations have generated mixed results”. The scholar then offers the proposition that some evident contradictions could be reconciled to construct a more inclusive and “robust theory of opportunities and social movements”. The theory incorporates numerous concepts such as framing, mobilizing, frame alignment, protest cycles, frame resonance, contentious repertoires and norm entrepreneurs.

Framing is a concept of social movement that refers to the “conscious strategic efforts made by groups of individuals to fashion shared understandings of the world and of them that legitimate and motivate collective action” (McAdam et al., 1996). The leaders of an organization carry out the faming process to enable the movement describe clearly and persuasively, the existing problems, the reasons for change, articulating the changes that are required, and the way one needs to achieve these.

The already existing organizations – political or other organizations – that desire change and that are present amongst the larger community are addressed as mobilizing structures. Protest cycles on the other hand, are phases of continuous protest, marked by the rapid increase over geographical distance, use of upsetting tactics and social groups. The demonstrations, strikes and slogans used by protestors to make their claims heard in a movement are termed as contentious repertoires. Protestors are also popularly addressed as norm entrepreneurs because they desire to change the norms of the society (Sunstein, 1996). The norm entrepreneurs also play the vital role of framing the issues. When the norm entrepreneurs associate with social movement organizations or SMOs, it results in interpretive orientation known as framing alignment (Snow et al., 1986). Framing alignment could not be called successful unless it resonates with “life-world of the participants” (Snow & Benford, 1988).

Apart from these above-mentioned theories and concepts, another social movement theory could be discussed, which is the social strain theory. Known also as value-added theory, it states that six factors encourage social movement that include structural conduciveness, structural strain, progress and expansion of a solution, precipitating factors, absence of social control and mobilization. According to this theory, when people start to believe that their society has issues, they experience deprivation, search for solutions and spread it, result in an event that turns events, and organize an effort to resolve the issues, it results in social movement. The Arab Spring is an exceptional example to understand deeply, the theories of social movements and concepts.

The Arab Spring is a collective term used to describe the uprisings that were witnessed in a number of Arab countries during the 2011-2012 springs. The prominent countries involved were Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Syria, and Libya.  The social movements that occurred in these countries had several features in common and were in fact inspired by one another. Starting in Tunisia, these movements were able to oust powerful dictators and cause much trouble for the ones still ruling. High presence of youth structure horizontally, absence of leaders, heterogeneity, non-ideological, use of social media and gradual involvement of political parties and trade unions, professional groups and islamist movements – these were some common features of the Arab Spring.

The Arab Spring commenced in Tunisia when the common people started protesting the death of a young fruit seller in December 2010. Some people captured the incident and the consequent protest on camera, which later spread through the internet. The tyrant Zine El Abidine finally had to step down as the president following the uprising. Egypt soon followed suit and revolted against the tyrant leader Hosni Mubarak. The scale of the uprising was much bigger and bloodier than Tunisia as Mubarak had international support especially the support of the United States. A group of young Egyptians started the movement through the internet and set the date of January 25, 2011 as it was observed as Police Day in the country. On February 11, 2011, Mubarak finally had to step down owing to the increasing pressure from his international allies as well. Other nations like Libya and Syria, Jordan and Yemen also started rebellion against the ruling government.

These revolutions had all the characteristics of the social movement theories and concepts discussed above. It would be easier however, to apply these theories and concepts in two significant movements of the Arab Spring – Tunisia and Egypt.

The Tunisian social movement sparked due to the growing resentment of the common people following their deprivation of basic human rights and necessities. Mohammad Bouazizi, a young fruit vendor from Sidi Bouzid burned himself alive after the corrupt police officials tormented him demanding bribe. Bouazizi tried to lodge complaint at the town hall but his complaints went unheard. He then poured fuel upon himself and immolated right outside the town hall. Hundreds of people who felt deprived just like Bouazizi gathered at the spot where he had self-immolated and protested against the government. It is evident that the movement started as a response to the relative deprivation of life opportunities faced by the people.

The movement spread with the help of the social media when some tech-savvy educated Tunisian youth posted numerous videos on their Facebook pages. The mainstream media reported nothing on the incidents that started the movement because it was censored by the Ben Ali administration. However, when the footage of the incidents began to spread, Al-Jazeera, the Arab satellite channel picked up the phone footages and broadcast it across Tunisia. Similar protests then began to take place in other parts of the country such as Medenin and Kasserine and later engulfed the capital city of Tunis as well. the elements of resource mobilization theory could be visible here with the social media and the mainstream media being the mobilization resources for the protestors. Later, the UGTT or the National Trade Union members also joined the movement after the organizers or the norm entrepreneurs (Slim Amamou and Azyz Amami) hacked into their website and asked them to come to the Mohammad Ali square (Youtube.com, 2018). These instances provide evidence that the Tunisian movement had resource mobilization although on a lower level. Further, the movement had some elements of the New Social Movement (NSM) as it linked the middle-class educated youth to the illiterate fruit sellers.

The Egyptian revolution, known also as the January 25 Revolution or the Egyptian Revolution of Dignity witnessed the power of the common citizens combined with technology that ended the reign of a tyrant of almost 30 years (Youtube.com, 2018). The breeding ground for of the movement was a website dedicated to honor Khaleed Saeed, a computer programmer who was brutally murdered by the police in April 2010 (Youtube.com, 2018). Khaleed Saeed was killed because he was actively exposing the atrocities of the police online. The murder of Khaleed sent a message that the people of Egypt had no right to go against the government or the police even if they are suppressed and tortured. This was a case of relative deprivation. The people who helped spread the movement knew that they had to do something to let their voices heard and end the oppression. However, as opposed to the Tunisian uprising, the relative deprivation theory cannot be applied completely to the revolution. The revolution took place because of the growing resentment of the people against the tyrant emergency laws and police brutality against women and children.

As per the NSM theory, social movements in today’s era witness the lines between middle-class and the marginalized groups blur. In case of the Egypt, these lines blurred when the middle-class and upper middle-class youth decided to communicate with people considered lowest in the societal chain. When midway into the protest, the Mobarak government realized the threat social media posed and decided to cut off all communications. It was then when the protest organizers consisting of doctors, students and other middle class members decided to reach to the most neglected suburbs of Cairo, Imbaba and encourage those deprived population to join the revolution. Their idea worked and hundreds and thousands of protestors gathered at Tahrir Square ad captured it from the police forces thus staring the revolution in a full-fledged way (Youtube.com, 2018).

Apart from that, the Egyptian Revolution also saw the mobilization of other organization members such as the Muslim Brotherhood that joined in the protest not propagating its own ideologies but upholding the greater cause. Then, the Egyptian Army too provided complete support to the movement after initial hesitation. The support of these mobilizing structures made the movement become greater and more powerful.

Conclusion

The analysis above provides evidence that the social movement theories and concepts could definitely be applied to the Arab Spring. The analysis found that most of the theories and concepts are inherently associated with the recent social movements that shook the Arab world. As found from the analysis, the Tunisian uprising was a result of relative deprivation and it spread with resource mobilization. Elements of New Social Movement (NSM) could be found in the revolution where the highly educated youth of Tunis started raising voice against the atrocities being carried out on the lower class fruit seller. Similarly, the Egyptian revolution had features more closely related to the NSM. The Egyptian movement linked the upper middle-class youth with the marginalized population of Imbaba, a poor suburb in Cairo. The essay presented only two Arab countries as examples to show that social movement theory and concepts could be applied to the Arab Spring. Further analysis on other countries is recommended to understand the theories and concepts in a better light.

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