Social Movement Organizations in Global Cities

• In Event: 277 - Section on Collective Behavior and Social Movements Roundtable Session (one-hour).
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 15. Global Forces and Movements

Abstract

How does the urban context influence social movement organizations (SMOs)? Globalization causes economic, social, political and cultural activity to coalesce in what have become known as global cities. Scholars have speculated that global cities may offer a beneficial environment for the formation and success of SMOs (Sassen 1990), but while there is a great deal of research into the determinants of SMO formation and success, how the urban context influences these processes is poorly understood, especially in a cross-national context. This paper advances current research by using a transnational dataset to examine how the urban context influences the age of SMOs, which I use as a proxy for healthy organizations. Furthermore, I also examine the effect of the national context upon SMOs, something that has not often been studied in a comprehensive, cross-national context. Using the Transnational Social Movement Organizations Dataset (Smith & Wiest 2012), OLS regression indicates that the more globally competitive a city is, the older and healthier their SMOs tend to be. Older organizations tend to be more institutional, well-respected and better able to work through institutional channels. This paper also finds that urban inequality is associated with older organizations, but the most unequal cities have younger organizations. Human rights violations are negatively associated with the age of SMOs, but among the most oppressive regimes, SMOs become older. Finally, I conclude with a discussion of the implications for both social movement research and urban theory.

Author

• Matthew Schoene, The Ohio State University