Understanding the impact of social movementsUnderstanding how social movements can improve the world
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This profile is tailored towards students studying history, political science and sociology, however we expect there to be valuable open research questions that could be pursued by students in other disciplines.
Why is this a pressing problem?
Building social movements is a common strategy when attempting to change the world, and social movements like the anti-apartheid, civil rights, women rights, animal rights, LGBT rights and environmental movements have achieved major changes. Learning more about how this strategy of changing the world works and how social movements can affect positive change and avoid harmful change could help current and future movements to maximise their positive impact.
Much attention has been paid to mass social movements, but it may also be impactful to study smaller, more niche movements (like the neoliberal or effective altruism movements) to better understand in which situations these kinds of movements may be the best strategy. A big problem in this field is the lack of systematisation. It would be most immediately useful to answer the questions below for specific scenarios or cause areas, but to do so in a way that provides knowledge that others can build on.
See the talk below for considerations that could be further explored in relation to the effective altruist movement.
Explore existing research
- Benford, Robert D. & David A. Snow (2000) Framing Processes and Social Movements: An Overview and Assessment, Annual Review of Sociology
- Brulle, Robert J., Jason Carmichael, & J. Craig Jenkins (2012) Shifting Public Opinion on Climate Change: An Empirical Assessment of Factors Influencing Concern over Climate Change in the U.S., 2002–2010, Climatic Change
- Johnson, Erik W., Jon Agnone, & John D. McCarthy (2010) Movement Organizations, Synergistic Tactics and Environmental Public Policy, Social Forces
- Berger, Stefan & Holger Nehring (eds) (2017) The History of Social Movements in Global Perspective: A Survey, Springer
- Castells, Manuel (2015) Networks of Outrage and Hope: Social Movements in the Internet Age, Polity
- Della Porta, Donatella & Mario Diani (eds) (2014) The Oxford Handbook of Social Movements, Oxford University Press
- Hanspeter, Kriesi, et al. (1996) New Social Movements in Western Europe: A Comparative Analysis, Routledge
- Snow, David A. & Sarah A. Soule (2010) A Primer on Social Movements, W. W. Norton
- Tarrow, Sidney G. (2011) Power in Movement: Social Movements and Contentious Politics, Cambridge University Press
- Tilly, Charles (2017) From Mobilization to Revolution, Routledge
- Social Change Lab conducts social movement research to inform attempts to accelerate positive social change. For example, see their research on the effectiveness of protest movements.
- The Sentience Institute is a think tank researching long-term social and technological change. You can see their social movement case studies here.
- The Future Matters Project does research on effective political strategy, advocacy and movement building to help people take more effective action in areas such as pandemic prevention and risks from emerging technologies.
Find a thesis topic
If you’re interested in working on this research direction, below are some ideas on what would be valuable to explore further. If you want help refining your research ideas, apply for our coaching!
- What kind of impact do successful social movements produce? (e.g. to what extent have social movements had an impact via changing public opinion, affecting policy, building movements, changing voting behaviour, leading to the creation of new organisations or changing public discourse)?
- What harms have social movements caused and what factors contributed to harmful outcomes?
- How effective has past philanthropy been? What has made the most successful past philanthropy successful?
- For how long do successful social movements (or organisations trying to do good) tend to persist? What leads them to break up?
- How would [artificial sentience] advocacy affect the trajectory of academic work related to artificial sentience? E.g. would it lead to new ideas and foci or just reinforce the current ones? (from The History of AI Rights Research – see our profile on artificial sentience to learn more)
- What role (if any) has moral philosophy played in past moral changes? What role have social movements played? What role has been played by changes in underlying economic or political considerations? (from our profile on moral circle expansion)
- Explore past intellectual and field-building movements for insights which could be applied to growing academic fields such as longtermism, global priorities research, welfare biology (i.e. wild animal welfare), or artificial sentience. See here for the full list of suggestions for research questions from the Sentience Institute.
- How does value drift work at the movement level? Are there ways to ensure that as ideas spread and movements age, the core parts are preserved faithfully? Are there ways to avoid particularly harmful distortions of ideas? (Some research ideas on the history of social movements)
- How important are external conditions (e.g. presence of elite allies) vs movement agency for movement success?
- To what degree does protest exacerbate polarisation? Is political polarisation always harmful?
- Should protesters demand a specific policy change or is it more effective to do broad “awareness raising”?
- What are the most common causes for social movement organisations to fail to achieve their aims?
- What kind of impact do successful social movements produce? (e.g. to what extent have social movements had an impact via changing public opinion, affecting policy, building movements, changing voting behaviour, leading to the creation of new organisations or changing public discourse)?
- Animal Ask suggests investigating base rates of success for lobbying for welfare reforms and other forms of political influence in different countries. This could help animal advocates to prioritise interventions. Looking at counterfactual timelines – e.g. trying to ascertain the extent to which lobbying speeds up welfare reforms – could also be useful. (Farmed animal welfare)
- Which factors cause social movements to decline?
- How do social movements evolve?
- What kind of impact do successful social movements produce? (e.g. to what extent have social movements had an impact via changing public opinion, affecting policy, building movements, changing voting behaviour, leading to the creation of new organisations or changing public discourse)?
- What does a successful social movement look like for its given goals (e.g. what is the structure, size, coordination mechanisms)? See an example of this kind of research here.
- How do the internet and other new information technologies change size, structure, coordination and other important features of social movements?
- What is a healthy vs unhealthy fluctuation of people within a successful social movement and how does this work?
- How important are external conditions (e.g. presence of elite allies) vs movement agency for movement success?
- To what degree does protest exacerbate polarisation? Is political polarisation always harmful?
- Should protesters demand specific policy change or is it more effective to do broad ‘awareness raising’?
- What are the most common causes for social movement organisations to fail to achieve their aims?
- When do radical protests bring about more negative consequences than positive?
- How does value drift work at the movement level? Are there ways to ensure that as ideas spread and movements age, the core parts are preserved faithfully? Are there ways to avoid particularly harmful distortions of ideas? (Some research ideas on the history of social movements)
- Exploring past intellectual and field-building movements for insights which could be applied to growing academic fields such as longtermism, global priorities research, welfare biology (i.e. wild animal welfare), or artificial sentience. See here for the full list of suggestions from the Sentience Institute.
Further resources
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Research on how social movements can have a more positive impact could help further many neglected cause areas. Some of our relevant profiles are:
- AI sentience, moral status and rights
- Behavioural and attitudinal change in animal products consumption
- Moral circle expansion
Contributors
This profile was last updated 31/12/22. Thanks to Vaidehi Agarwalla for originally creating this profile. Thanks to James Ozden and Viktoria Spaiser for helpful feedback. All errors remain our own. Learn more about how we create our profiles.
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