The Divest Movement: Lessons Learned From a Leaderless Movement

• In Event: Who's in Charge? Youth Dissent and Leadership

Short Description

In recent history, the re-emerging trend of leaderless movements has gained palpable momentum. As such, conventional structures of hierarchy and traditional leadership roles are being challenged by the leaderless movements of today. Researchers employed a single-organization case study design with multiple interviews to explore and explain the leaderless movement phenomena.

Detailed Abstract

PROBLEM

In recent history, the re-emerging trend of leaderless movements has gained palpable momentum. As such, conventional structures of hierarchy and traditional leadership roles are being challenged by the leaderless movements of today. Satterwhite, Miller, and Sheridan (2015) note that the definition of effective leadership is evolving in relation to the way that the challenges of the world are also evolving. Historical trends illustrate Pallotta’s notion (2014) that bottom-up democracy will eventually be replaced by the doubt that ordinary people can handle the pressures of leadership. Thus, society will revert back to valuing top-down leadership. As such, the sustainability of leaderless movements presents a significant challenge. This phenomenon is not alien to the college campus. In fact, college campuses throughout the United States (Wong, 2015) and worldwide (Altbach and Klemenčič, 2014) have reported increased student activism. In particular, the Divest movement, happening across campuses in the United States, is galvanizing students to demand that their respective institutions divest endowments from coal and fossil fuels industries. At a time where climate change and environmental sustainability are at the center of global debate, these movements act as a vehicle through which participating citizens can mobilize to effect change. Given the abundance of these movements, it is imperative that leadership scholars explore the characteristics and qualities therein.

FRAMEWORK

We will define a leaderless movement as one that eschews traditional hierarchical leadership structures and roles for a distributed model that values horizontal and rhizomic organizations (Harcourt, 2012). Sutherland, Land, and Böhm (2014) clarify that leaderless does not refer to a lack of leadership, but rather a lack of leaders. Movements that have been characterized as leaderless such as Indignados 15M, UK Uncut, and Occupy all share the criteria of forgoing traditional leadership structures and relying on a rhizomic or networked structure. Other authors have labeled these movements “networked social movements” (NSM) (Western, 2014).

To further the development of NSM, Western (2014) puts forth an alternative model entitled “autonomist leadership.” He contends that characterizing movements as leaderless creates a gap that cannot be filled when hierarchy and traditional leadership are removed. In its place, his model sets out five principles that better characterize leaderless movements: spontaneity, autonomy, mutuality, affect, and networks. For this paper, we intend to utilize this model as a lens and framework through which to better explore the specific case study.

RESEARCH QUESTIONS

How do campus-led student movements compare with larger scale leaderless movements?
What aspects of this leadership movement contributed to its outcomes in effecting environmental sustainability decisions at the university?
What contributed to or limited the sustainability of this movement?
What implications do cases of student protests have for educators at college and university campuses?

DESIGN

This study comes from an interpretive frame as the best way to understand the ongoing social construction of lived experience (Denzin & Lincoln, 2005). As such, the researchers employed a single-organization case study design. According to Yin (1994), case studies are effective at utilizing multiple sources of evidence to explore and explain phenomena in a real life context when the boundaries of phenomena are not evident. The sources of data for this study included multiple interviews with key actors from varying sides of the issue, ethnographic observation, and document collection.

RESULTS, FINDINGS, AND OUTCOMES

At one private, medium-sized, 4-year university in the United States, a group of students worked over the course of three years to push their institution to divest the university endowment from fossil fuels. This group, with no specific individual in charge, persuaded the Chancellor and Board of Trustees to hear out their demand of divesting the endowment from the top 200 oil and gas companies. After the meeting, the Board formed a task force that consisted of three trustees to conduct hearings and investigate the implications of divesting the endowment from fossil fuels. At the conclusion of the investigation, it was decided that the university would take three steps towards perpetuating a more sustainable operation, but would not divest the endowment from fossil fuels.

Based upon our analysis of interview data, this movement mirrored all of the principles in the model of autonomist leadership suggested by Western (2014). Specifically, elements of spontaneity, autonomy, mutuality, and affect were all evidenced in the Divest framework of “Act-Recruit-Train-Repeat”. There was no hierarchical structure within the movement and they relied heavily on network connections and communication. The students engaging with Divest movement are choosing to claim the power that they believe is rightly theirs. This notion is similar to that of participatory democracy. Pallotta (2014) notes that the momentum behind young people joining these movements stems from the fear that this may be the only tangible sense of power they will have with regards to their economic and political lives.

CONCLUSIONS

The tie between ecological and social justice is evidenced by the strong connections between leaderless, activist movements and the topics of divestment and climate justice (Satterwhite, et al., 2015, p. 61). To be able to sustain the momentum of Divest, the students participating in it must reinforce the idea of the collective good and the moral components behind the movement. In the three years that Divest was working with the Board of Trustees, there was a clear increase in activism, followed by stagnation of participation. Within the first year, the petitions gained approximately 1,000 signatures and only gained another 500 more in the two years that followed. When energy and excitement that spark engagement and interaction dissipates, the cycle of ‘Act-Recruit-Train-Repeat’ must continue.

IMPLICATIONS

Ovans (2012) notes that the disaffection with traditional hierarchies is going to continue to strengthen leaderless movements which capitalize on the idea that influence lies with the masses as opposed to those who are in traditional positions of power. The actions taken by students participating in the Divest movement will continue to see ebbs and flows in engagement based on the framework of ‘Act-Recruit-Train-Repeat’ that the movement subscribes to. It is worth noting how Divest relates to the trends of networked social movements throughout the years.

Participants

• Emily Allen, University of Denver

• Paul Kosempel, University of Denver