"Left with No Alternative:” Articulating Race and Class in the Chicago Civil Rights Movement 1958-1967

• In Event: 50660 - Section on Marxist Sociology Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (90 minute): Table 4: The Politics of Class Struggle

Abstract

While political sociologists demonstrate increasing interest in studying movements' political orientations and ultimate political outcomes, these agendas have not yet converged. This gap has allowed for reductive assumptions about why movements adopt the politics they do, and why they succeed or fail - with especially problematic consequences for mainstream accounts of racialized political contention, as critical race theorists have objected. I propose extending the concept of “political articulation” from specialized research on political parties to the broader field of political sociology. De Leon et al have helpfully conceptualized articulation as the active role of parties in structuring cleavages and politicizing identity categories in order to construct political blocs. However, parties are not the only type of political actor that engages in articulation. I refine the concept of articulation as a decisive causal mechanism that explains whether or how actors’ political aims are successfully realized as political outcomes. I develop a processual framework for the analysis of social movement organizations’ articulation practices in contentious episodes, which I illustrate through a case study of the Chicago Civil Rights Movement. Over a nine year period, the field of movement organizations underwent a rapid series of significant changes, as a cast of Civil Rights organizations rallied first behind school children, then slum tenants, before finally settling on a program prioritizing homeowners‘ rights. My results indicate recurring patterns between instances of (dis)articulation and sweeping changes to movement frames, tactics, and collective identities. This broad yet systematic conceptualization of political articulation not only equips political sociology to address internal challenges, but provides new avenues for fruitful engagement with sociology of race and racial capitalism theory.

Author

• Sally Schmisek, University of Illinois-Chicago