Stop Fracking Payne County! Understanding the Phases of Early Social Movement Formation

• In Event: 463 - Section on Collective Behavior and Social Movements Roundtables (one-hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 13. Movement Emergence

Abstract

Social movement scholars have studied the reasons social movements form (Olson 1965); and they have studied the factors that facilitate the success of movements once they are formed (Jenkins and Eckart 1986). Far fewer studies focus on the earliest stages of movement formation – the fits and starts that characterize movements as they struggle to get traction. The early stages of movement formation are marked by a variety of vulnerabilities and require the strengths of many social movement theories to explain. We bring these explanations, as well as a very new approach to this issue, to bear as we tell the story of Stop Fracking Payne County, a social movement organization currently navigating its way through social movement formation in central Oklahoma. We suggest that there are four stages of negotiation that movement leaders must navigate, and these phases follow the pattern of norm emergence.

Authors

• Beth Schaefer Caniglia, Oklahoma State University

• Tamara L. Mix, Oklahoma State University

• Dakota Raynes, Oklahoma State University

• Todd Halihan, Oklahoma State University