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Culture and Structure in Political Process Theory

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Sociological Forum, Vol. 14, No. 1, 1999Snarls, Quacks, and Quarrels: Culture andStructure in Political Process TheoryFrancesca Polletta1Political process theories of social movements have relied on a set of opposi-tions between culture and structure that has limited their capacity to capturethe supraindividual, durable, and constraining dimensions of culture. Thesolution is not to abandon an emphasis on "objective" political structuresin favor of potential insurgents' "subjective" perceptions of political opportu-nities, but rather to probe the (objective) resources and constraints generatedby the cultural dimensions of political structures. Such a perspective wouldpay closer attention to the cultural traditions, ideological principles, institu-tional memories, and political taboos that create and limit political opportuni-ties; and would link the "master frames" that animate protest to dominantpolitical structures and processes.As Goodwin and Jasper note, leading exponents of political processtheory have recognized the limitations of strict political opportunity models,in which the opening of political opportunities is necessary and sufficientcause of mobilization. Doug McAdam, for example, argues that, "the domi-nance, within the United States, of the 'resource mobilization' and 'politicalprocess' perspectives has privileged the political, organizational, andnetwork/structural aspects of social movements while giving the more cul-tural or ideational dimensions of collective action short shrift" (1994:36).McAdam and others have responded by trying "to incorporate what weknow about the role of organizations, material resources, and social struc-1Department of Sociology, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027.KEY WORDS: social movements; culture; political opportunity; structuralism.630884-8971/99/0300-0063$16.00/0 © 1999 Plenum Publishing Corporationture with culture," as Johnston and Klandermans put it in a recent vol-ume (1995:21).Such efforts have been hampered by a narrow view of (political) struc-tures as noncultural. Like Goodwin and Jasper, I believe that we canusefully adopt a less anemic conception of culture than some politicalprocess analyses have done without making actors, interests, strategies,and resources simply figments of a culturalist imagination. However, bycharacterizing the problem as the "structuralist bias" of current approaches,Goodwin and Jasper suggest that the problem lies in a misrecognition ofthe nonstructural—i.e. cultural—dimensions of political institutions andpractices. I argue to the contrary that structures are cultural (although notonly cultural). The task is not to abandon an emphasis on "objective"political structures in favor of potential insurgents' "subjective" perceptionsand valuations of political structures, but to probe the (objective) resourcesand constraints generated by the cultural dimensions of political structures.To develop this argument, I critique formulations of the culture/struc-ture relationship by leading political process theorists. Some authors associ-ated with the political process model have avoided the theoretical traps Idescribe, and every author who figures in my criticisms has also contributedto the analytical alternatives I endorse. This suggests that the problem laysin the appealing familiarity of certain widespread but limiting understand-ings of culture, an appeal to which sociologists both inside and outside thefield of social movements have been vulnerable.CULTURE VERSUS STRUCTURE2In spite of his intention to grant culture its proper due, McAdam'sformulation of the problem, as quoted previously, gives away the game.Analysts have mistakenly concentrated on the "political, organizational,and network/structural aspects of social movements," he argues, at theexpense of the "cultural and ideational dimensions." By implication, then,the former are noncultural. He goes on:It is extremely hard to separate these objective shifts in political opportunities fromthe subjective processes of social construction and collective attribution that render2Political process theorists have used the term structure in two ways: to describe a configurationof political opportunities ("political opportunity structure") and to describe those politicalinstitutions, arrangements, and processes that distinguish one political context from another(in comparative studies of movement emergence) or that change in some crucial fashion (inlongitudinal studies of movement emergence). My objections are to the latter use of theterm structure. With respect to the former, political process theorists now more commonlyrefer to political "processes" and "opportunities" than to a "political opportunity structure"(see, for example, Tarrow, 1998:77).64PollettaSnarls, Quacks, and Quarrels: Culture and Structure in Political Process Theorythem meaningful. . . . Given this linkage, the movement analyst has two tasks:accounting for the structural factors that have objectively strengthened the chal-lenger's hand, and analyzing the processes by which the meaning and attributedsignificance of shifting political conditions is assessed. (1994:39)McAdam insists on distinguishing "objective" "structural" opportunitiesfrom the "subjective, cultural" framing of those opportunities. Culturemediates between objective political opportunities and objective mobiliza-tion, on this view; it does not create those opportunities (see also McAdam,McCarthy, and Zald, 1996:8; McAdam, Tarrow, and Tilly, 1997:158).The restriction of culture to insurgents' framing efforts reflects a deeperopposition between structure and culture that has characterized sociologicalanalysis more broadly (Sewell, 1992; Hays, 1994). In social movement the-ory, the opposition takes the following form. Political opportunities arerepresented as structural, not cultural; activists' capacity to take advantageof those opportunities is cultural (although only in part cultural, becauseit depends also on the prior networks that make people "structurally avail-able" to participate [McAdam, 1994]).Let me list the set of contrasts underpinning this conception of culture'srole in mobilization.3 Cultural processes shape potential challengers' per-ception of objective opportunities (1; see Table I); culture is malleable,whereas structure, by definition, refers to relations that are beyond thecontrol of individual actors (2); political structures and processes makepossible the expression of preexisting


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