Commemorating Morgentaler? Reflections on Movement Leadership, 25 Years Later

• In Event: 474 - Section on Collective Behavior and Social Movements Refereed Roundtable Session and Business Meeting
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 24. Leadership and SMOs

Abstract

Despite the key roles movement leaders play, leadership is understudied in collective action research. While earlier work focused on identifiable traits leaders share, descriptive categorizations tell us little about leaders’ relationships to key aspects of movement development. More promising work connects leadership to the movement lifecycle. Within this emerging literature, the role charismatic leaders play in established movements is empirically underexplored. One such movement—Canada's abortion rights movement—is the focus of this research. Given that much of its success is attributed to the efforts of Dr. Henry Morgentaler, his recent death becomes a sociologically interesting moment to explore how activists think about leadership moving forward. This project thus asks: How do established social movements respond to the loss of a charismatic leader? Based on thirty interviews with Canadian abortion rights activists, this study finds that Morgentaler’s death opened up space for them to voice their ambivalent relationship to their “leader”. While appreciative of how effective he was at garnering media attention and public support, respondents are uncomfortable about the extent to which pro-choice success is credited to him alone. Such overcrediting has led them to (a) reject narratives that inaccurately characterize present-day leadership in their movement, and (b) emphasize their heterogeneity—strategy that resurrects Morgentaler historically but does not position him front and centre. Rather than search for a new leader, respondents thus propose more democratic and populist strategies that decentre leadership and showcase the stories of average rank-and-file activists and ordinary Canadian women.

Author

• Jaime Nikolaou, University of Toronto