Targets, Grievances, and Social Movement Trajectories

• Published date: 01 September 2021
• Author: Erica S. Simmons
• DOI: 10.1177/0010414018806532
• Date: 01 September 2021
• Subject Matter: Articles

2021, Vol. 54(10) 1818 –1848

https://doi.org/10.1177/0010414018806532

Comparative Political Studies

© The Author(s) 2018

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DOI: 10.1177/0010414018806532

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Article

Targets, Grievances,

and Social Movement

Trajectories

Erica S. Simmons1

Abstract

Why do targets of social movement activities respond to movements in the

ways they do? Many factors play a role in shaping targets’ responses to social

movement activities. This article focuses on one particular factor: targets’

perceptions of social movement claims. The article argues that a target’s

understanding of a social movement’s claims helps shape its response, which,

in turn, shapes the evolution of the social movement. Two cases of social

mobilization, one in response to water privatization in Bolivia and the other

in response to rising corn prices in Mexico, serve as a lens through which

to explore these issues. In each case, differences in how public authorities

understood the movements’ claims help explain why they reacted in starkly

different ways to the emerging movements. Where officials appreciated the

symbolic value of the good at stake, they acted quickly to curtail resistance.

Where officials failed to grasp those meanings, they dismissed the potential

for widespread mobilization and inadvertently accelerated movement

growth.

Keywords

Latin American politics, social movements

1University of Wisconsin–Madison, USA

Corresponding Author:

Erica S. Simmons, Associate Professor of Political Science and International Studies, University

of Wisconsin–Madison, 110 North Hall, 1050 Bascom Mall, Madison, Wisconsin 53706, USA.

Email: essimmons@wisc.edu

806532

CPSXXX10.1177/0010414018806532Comparative Political StudiesSimmons

research-article

2018

Simmons 1819

2 Comparative Political Studies 00(0)

Why do the targets of social movement activities respond to social mobiliza-

tion in the ways they do? Why do state or corporate actors facing social

movement pressures choose to ignore those movements in some cases, co-

opt them in others, and repress them in still others? Exploring these ques-

tions not only uncovers dynamics of a given target’s structures and

decision-making practices but also sheds light on why and how social move-

ments develop in the ways they do. Social movements do not operate in

isolation from their targets; interactions between the two shape both the tar-

get and the social movement itself.

Multiple factors are undoubtedly at work in shaping how a target responds

to social movement activities. This article focuses on one potential factor:

How well the targets of a social movement’s claims understand those claims.

What do the actors charged with responding to the movement think that the

movement is really about? How might those perceptions be different from or

similar to the perceptions of the participants in the movement itself? How

might those differences shape interactions between the two? This article

argues that a target’s understanding of a social movement’s claims will help

determine whether the target perceives the movement to be particularly

threatening and what kind of threat it might pose. These perceptions shape a

target’s response, which, in turn, shapes the evolution of the social move-

ment. Although they are not the only element at work, we cannot understand

target responses without them. The article focuses on mobilizations during

which the state is the primary target, but the theoretical insights should apply

to other categories of targets (e.g., corporations).

Two cases of social mobilization, one in response to water privatization in

Bolivia and the other in response to rising corn prices in Mexico, serve as a

lens through which to explore these issues. This article shows how differ-

ences in how public authorities understood the movements’ core claims help

explain why state actors in the two countries reacted in starkly different ways

to the emerging movements. Where government officials appreciated the

symbolic value of the protesters’ claims, they acted quickly to curtail resis-

tance. Where officials failed to grasp the meanings with which those claims

were imbued for movement participants, they dismissed the potential for

widespread mobilization, not only allowing the movement to grow but also

intervening in ways that directly encouraged movement acceleration.

Targets, Culture, and Social Mobilization

The argument developed here builds on recent efforts to put contention in con-

text (Goodwin & Jasper, 2012), acknowledges that social movements develop

in fields with multiple players and arenas (Jasper & Duyvendak, 2015), and