Inclusive boundaries and other (im)possible paths towards community development in a global world.

• Author: Ansley, Fran
• Position: Plant closings movement

INTRODUCTION

When the organizers of this Symposium on "Social Movements and Law Reform" invited me to participate with the understanding that I would talk about community economic development (CED), it seemed a bit ironic to me. My work is less about the issues and concerns that occupy the attention of most CED lawyers (crucial things like affordable housing finance and small business planning), and more about what I have come to think of as the world of community un-development. I began studying and writing over a decade ago about the phenomenon of plant closings and the harsh impact of deindustrialization on individuals and communities in my own state and across the United States. (1) The lessons I have been contemplating from these investigations are more about unraveling and upheaval than they are about enterprise development, more about the chopping block than the incubator.

On the other hand, on the "Social Movement" side of the title of this Symposium, I can see why conveners might have thought I would have something to offer. An important part of my initial project on deindustrialization was spent as a participant-observer in what was known at the time as the "plant-closing movement." (2) I worked closely with an organization in Knoxville that was a local manifestation of this current, (3) and I interviewed workers, lawyers, and activists who were part of regional and national networks committed to finding effective responses at each of those levels to the unprecedented reorganization of industrial production that made itself so evident from the late 1970s into the 1990s. (4)

Accordingly, one line of discussion that I could have pursued in my talk and in this Article would have been to describe the plant-closing movement as I knew and learned about it in the 1980s and 1990s from my location in the southeastern United States, and to relate that description to some piece of the burgeoning literature on social movements that our conveners have so fruitfully invited us to consider. Indeed, that kind of examination would be well worth someone's time.

Such an examination could draw on a fascinating body of work by social scientists: case studies and theories on social movements that constitute a resource for academics and activists alike, and that should be of particular interest to people who want to understand law and the dynamics of law reform. (5) The definition of "social movement" is hardly settled, but Sidney Tarrow's formulation serves well enough to represent the field. He has said that social movements are "collective challenges by people with common purposes and solidarity in sustained interactions with elites, opponents, and authorities." (6) This definition obviously pitches a big tent. Despite great differences among the groups and activities encompassed in the theory's objects of study, scholars have struggled to develop categories that can be fruitfully applied across a wide range of groups. (7)

Social movement scholars have asked questions about why and when movements arise and spread (or not), how long they last, what sorts of action their members undertake, under what conditions they "succeed," and so on. Using quantitative and qualitative tools, these scholars have searched for factors that could predict or explain the wellsprings, characteristics, growth, impact, and decline of social movements. Some of the concepts they have identified would serve as a fascinating retrospective lens for assessing the strengths and weaknesses, messages, and meanings of the plant-closing movement and its trajectory.

For instance, one of the categories that has emerged in social movement theory is that of "political opportunity structure," a term that refers to elements in the relevant political environment that work to enable, condition or retard a given social movement. Political opportunity structures include, for instance, the fracture or unity of ruling elites, the stability or fluidity of existing political alliances and coalitions, the presence or absence of allies or countermovements, whether would-be reformers have access to insider channels or must resort to outsider strategies, (8) the repression or tolerance shown by the state toward protest activity, and the existence of structural inequalities that have been created, exacerbated, or highlighted in some way that has brought them newly and vividly into public consciousness. (9)

A second category that some theorists have offered to explain social movement origins and their trajectories is that of "mobilizing structures." This concept includes the formal and informal organizational resources that movements are able to create or call upon in their efforts to develop effective strategies and tactics. Such resources may include the movement's own individual and organizational members, its public allies or private friends, other movements that are open to collaborations and alliances, effective movement leaders and organizational professionals, access to media outlets, control of material resources, and the existence and range of familiar forms of collective action, or "repertoires," that are known by those in the relevant setting to have proved successful in the past. (10)

A third, and slightly younger, concept from social movement theory that might cast helpful light on the plant-closing movement is that of the "framing process." This category of analysis reflects scholars' growing recognition that ideas, meanings, and felt identities matter greatly in the development of social movements. Relying in part on cognitive and linguistic research into the ways that human beings make sense of experience, researchers have pointed out that "meaning work" is central to both the subjective experiences and objective impacts associated with social movements. Often one of the most critical indicators of a social movement's capacity to grow and wield influence is whether its way of conceptualizing the issue is taken up by relevant constituencies. Although the capacity to prevail in this way will surely depend, in part, on the political opportunities available to a given social movement, and, in part, on the resources the movement can muster and deploy, it will also depend on the memories, beliefs, emotions and identifications of the movement's members and those of its potential adherents and opponents. (11)

Arguably all actors interested in gaining or maintaining political power--from outsider democratic challengers to well-defended authoritarian rulers--can enhance their power if they are able to articulate an ideological frame that makes sense of their actions, justifies their policies, and legitimizes their claims to authority. In the case of social movements, however, success at framing the issues is particularly crucial because they must be able to move people voluntarily into sometimes risky action, and, ordinarily, they must recruit these volunteers without recourse to the structures, incentives, and general momentum available to those with access to existing political channels. Social movements thus have no alternative but to develop compelling frames that attract and energize members. Further, as will be explored below, social movements must use frames that emphasize the rightness and efficacy of collective action.

Debates continue over the relative force of these sometimes more material and sometimes more psychological approaches to social movement analysis, but many commentators today acknowledge that all three of the categories--political opportunities, mobilizing structures, and framing processes--make some difference and are at work in most situations, often interdependently. (12) As our hosts have suggested by convening this Symposium, lawyers and legal scholars have a lot to gain from a greater familiarity with the body of work in the social sciences through which these and other analytical tools have been forged, because it constitutes an important potential resource for better understanding the relationship between law and social change. (13) Certainly, an examination of the plant-closing movement--the political opportunities that were available to it, the resources it mobilized, and the way it framed its issues--should enable better understanding of the movement, and should provide a fuller account of the law related to plant closings than would a study confined to the examination of isolated legal doctrine. (14)

However, my ambitions here will be more modest. Although I will sketch some basic outlines of the plant-closing movement and its general activities, that profile will neither provide a balanced history or thorough analysis of the movement as a whole, nor will it attempt to assess the movement's trajectory in light of all three of the thematic categories described above. Instead, I will focus on one aspect of my experience as an active participant in the movement's attempts to reframe the plant-closing issue, and I will share and try to unpack one particularly troubling dilemma I encountered in the course of my work in that framing process.

I should also say that, after the instant paragraph, this Article will treat as unremarkable the fact that I was involved in the plant-closing movement as an open partisan. In other words, I am not interested--at least in this venue--in undertaking a defense of politically engaged scholarship in general, or of my commitments to the plant-closing movement in particular. My intent is to offer stories and analysis that will be of interest to a broad group of readers, including some who identify with or participate in social movements, and some who choose to keep a greater distance. I assume that at least some of my readers are specifically asking questions about whether and how they might help create or support social movements capable of demanding more just and sustainable arrangements for the world's economy. I believe such goals are worthy subjects of scholarly inquiry and...