Managing the State: A Relational View of LGBTQ Hybrid Organizations and the Shadow State

• In Event: 474 - Section on Collective Behavior and Social Movements Refereed Roundtable Session and Business Meeting
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 12. Neoliberalism and Movements

Abstract

Using data generated from ethnography, semi-structured interviews, and archival data, this paper complicates the co-optation thesis in the social movement literature, which argues that the goals of indigenous grassroots groups become displaced as they become more professionalized and formalized. Alternatives to the co-optation thesis, I argue, over-determine the influence of state penetration and, therefore, do not fully consider the multi-directional ways in which influence between social movement organizations and the state flows. In contrast to monolithic conceptualizations of the “shadow state,” a parastate apparatus that emerged in the 1980s following welfare state restructuring, this study views the state as comprising multiple agencies, systems, and institutions that, at times, take on contradictory, competing, or corresponding positions. Viewing the state from this standpoint, I extend Trudeau’s (2008) relational and interactional framework of the shadow state by using Smith’s (2005) institutional ethnographic approach and drawing on Armstrong and Bernstein’s (2008) “multi-institutional politics” model. I highlight under what conditions non-profits can maintain autonomy and challenge the state as they, paradoxically, become entangled in state incentives. My study reveals the multiple and overlapping relationships between True Colors, an LGBTQ identity-based social service organization, and the State, as True Colors seeks to challenge heteronormativity. In contrast to over-determined theories of state co-optation and monolithic conceptualizations of the shadow state, I find that True Colors is able to pursue independent agendas when contracting with state agencies, as it seeks to “queer the state” by targeting multiple state institutions using specified strategies.

Author

• Stephen M. Wulff, University of Minnesota