The community mediation movement in the United States arose in the late 1970s as an alternative to a formalized justice system that was perceived to be costly, time consuming, and unresponsive to individual and community needs. Community mediation advocates also valued community training, social justice, volunteerism, empowerment, and local control over conflict resolution mechanisms. But over the past quarter century, community mediation has become increasingly institutionalized and has undergone various degrees of co-optation in its evolving relationship with the court system.Drawing on the literatures of dispute resolution, co-optation, and social movements, we analyze the evolution of community mediation and identify the degrees and dimensions of its co-optation. Thus, we develop a four-stage model of co-optation as it has occurred within the community mediation movement, identifying multiple steps in each stage. This analysis facilitates greater understanding of specific events, particular processes, and individual decisions and dilemmas that mediation activists face in their working relationships with their communities and the formal legal system. Further, scholars studying similar processes in other social movements may find that this stage model of co-optation, in whole or in part, is useful to their analyses of other movements.

To mobilize support for war and to control dissent, governments draw upon deeply engrained discourses regarding soldiering and the citizen's duty to support the troops. We identify the cultural and political evolution of the discursive legacy of "support the troops" from the Vietnam War through the Iraq War. Using longitudinal and comparative organizational analyses, we analyze how this discursive legacy was engaged by U.S. peace movement organizations (PMOs). PMOs frequently made positive references to U.S. troops during both the Gulf War and Iraq War, creating a stable discourse centered around supporting the troops. Moreover, during the Gulf War the movement expanded the web of support by asking who else should be cared about beyond the troops, thus de-coupling the support discourse from the nation and the state. During the Iraq War, PMOs also developed an elaborated "discourse of betrayal" by redefining what it means to support the troops. Here they deployed proactive, anticipatory discourses, turning the tables on the Bush administration. PMOs also increasingly criticized the troops during the Iraq War due to well publicized human rights abuses. The findings demonstrate that movement discourses are both stable and flexible, influenced by past rounds of discursive contention as well as contemporary political events. We highlight the cultural constraints imposed on movements by dominant discursive legacies, and the strategic responses made by movements in response to emerging discursive opportunities.

Institutionally privileged political discourses not only legitimate the policy agendas of power-holders, but also de-legitimate dissent. Oppositional discourses are social movement responses to these cultural obstacles to mass mobilisation. Integrating discourse analysis and framing theory, we argue that the production of oppositional knowledge constitutes a long-term, counter-hegemonic project that connects macro-level discourses with meso and micro-level efforts at political persuasion, mobilisation, and change. Drawing examples from statements issued by U.S. peace movement organisations (PMOs) over fifteen years, we map the production of oppositional discourses across five conflict periods. Using qualitative data analysis and both inductive and deductive theorising, we develop a typology of the U.S. peace movement's discourses on democracy. We show that four forms of oppositional knowledge were generated by PMOs to facilitate policy dialogue and accountability. Through their statements, peace movement organisations crafted a shared conception of democracy that is antithetical to military intervention abroad and political repression at home.