understanding anti-systemic social movements, social revolutions and related forms of contentious politics. I then argue that without an understanding of communism as Marx understood it, and the broader theoretical framework such an understanding enables, that most of the scholarship on contentious politics will, the best intentions of sympathetic scholars notwithstanding, continue to be of marginal value to the movements themselves. A number of theories of contentious politics recognize the critical role that cultures of resistance and processes of cognitive liberation play in the formation of social movement actors as political subjects. In their definition of protest movements, Piven and Cloward describe the process of cognitive liberation: The emergence of protest movements entails a transformation both of consciousness and of behavior. The change in consciousness has at least three distinct aspects. First, “the or those aspects of the system that people experience and perceive loses system” – – legitimacy. Large numbers of men and women who ordinarily accept the authority of their rulers and the legitimacy of institutional arrangements come to believe in some measure that these rulers and these arrangements are unjust and wrong. Second, people who are ordinarily fatalistic, who believe that existing arrangements are inevitable, begin to that imply demands for change. Third, there is a new sense of efficacy; assert “rights” people who ordinarily consider themselves helpless come to believe that they have some capacity to alter their lot. (Piven and Cloward 1978:3–4) They continue with a description of the change in behavior, noting first the element of defiance, and secondly its collective character, even in instances that appear to be individual in character, those involved perceive themselves to be acting as members of a group, and when they “when share a common set of protest beliefs.” This emphasis on the central importance of the transformation of consciousness in the emergence of social movements was a challenge not only to theories of collective behavior which cast the motivations of movement participants as irrational, but also to theories of resource mobilization that emphasized the conscious intentions of formalized social movement
understanding anti-systemic social movements, social revolutions and related forms of contentious politics. I then argue that without an understanding of communism as Marx understood it, and the broader theoretical framework such an understanding enables, that most of the scholarship on contentious politics will, the best intentions of sympathetic scholars notwithstanding, continue to be of marginal value to the movements themselves. A number of theories of contentious politics recognize the critical role that cultures of resistance and processes of cognitive liberation play in the formation of social movement actors as political subjects. In their definition of protest movements, Piven and Cloward describe the process of cognitive liberation: The emergence of protest movements entails a transformation both of consciousness and of behavior. The change in consciousness has at least three distinct aspects. First, “the system” – or those aspects of the system that people experience and perceive – loses legitimacy. Large numbers of men and women who ordinarily accept the authority of their rulers and the legitimacy of institutional arrangements come to believe in some measure that these rulers and these arrangements are unjust and wrong. Second, people who are ordinarily fatalistic, who believe that existing arrangements are inevitable, begin to assert “rights” that imply demands for change. Third, there is a new sense of efficacy; people who ordinarily consider themselves helpless come to believe that they have some capacity to alter their lot. (Piven and Cloward 1978:3–4) They continue with a description of the change in behavior, noting first the element of defiance, and secondly its collective character, even in instances that appear to be individual in character, “when those involved perceive themselves to be acting as members of a group, and when they share a common set of protest beliefs.” This emphasis on the central importance of the transformation of consciousness in the emergence of social movements was a challenge not only to theories of collective behavior which cast the motivations of movement participants as irrational, but also to theories of resource mobilization that emphasized the conscious intentions of formalized social movement
PPW-9-Gunderson.docx