"Mobilization after Loss? Social Movements and the Effects of Losing"

FAIN: FT-57086-09

Karen Beckwith
Case Western Reserve University (Cleveland, OH 44106-1712)

Why do some social movements persist in the face of continuing loss? What are the conditions under which social movements remobilize for a new campaign after loss, and what factors instead lead some social movements into abeyance, demobilization or dispersion? I plan to answer these questions by examining women's activism in three coalfield communities during the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) strike against the National Coal Board in Britain in 1984-85, and by exploring women's remobilization opportunities in the NUM's anti-pit closure campaign in 1992-94. Relying on evidence from field research, primary documents and interviews with activists, I will assess the impact of the prior strike loss on the 1992-94 campaign by considering three possible explanations for post-loss remobilization: opportunity for political learning; framing of loss by the social movement; and reshaping the political opportunity structure.