Political Embeddedness and the Management of Emotions

Abstract

This article explores how variation in political embeddedness of social movement organi-zations (SMOs) influences the management of emotions. By variation in the political embed-dedness of SMOs, we mean variation in the strength and the number of ties between SMOs and the political establishment. By management of emotions, we mean the efforts of SMO leaders to evoke particular emotions among SMO members. Using data from protest surveys conducted at demonstrations regarding climate change in Belgium and the Netherlands in 2009, we find that protestors who are members of more politically embedded SMOs are generally less angry than protestors who are members of less politically embedded SMOs. The finding that this pattern is especially strong among SMO members who heard about the dem-onstration through an SMO confirms the assumed role of SMO leaders in the management of emotions.

Response Problems in the Protest Survey Design: Evidence from Fifty-One Protest Events in Seven Countries*

“…1 Some of this work dating from the last decade is Adler and Mittelman (2004); Bédoyan, Van Aelst, and Walgrave (2004); Bennett, Breunig, and Givens (2008); Blocq, Klandermans, and Van Stekelenburg (2012); Boekkooi, Klandermans, and Van Stekelenburg (2011); Botetzagias and Boudourides (2004); Chan and Lee (2009); della Porta, Andretta, Mosca, and Reiter (2006)…”

Emotions and protests: Contributions to political psychology from Latin American research.

“…• The ritual expression of certain shared emotions is important (Collins, 2012;Páez et al, 2015). Furthermore, organizations and governments are able to manage emotions in order to strengthen or weaken protest waves (Blocq et al, 2012;Flam, 1990;Reger, 2004).…”

Advances in social movement theory since the global financial crisis

“…The bulk of these studies are empirical (e.g. Bergstrand, 2014; Blocq et al, 2012; Chiarello, 2013) and seek to integrate framing with other theoretical approaches, such as the analysis of emotions (see Blocq et al, 2012; Halfmann and Young, 2010; Schrock et al, 2004), political opportunities (Shriver et al, 2013) and culture (Snow et al, 2013), or within more pragmatic examinations of particular cases (Nulman, 2015a; Rizzo et al, 2012; Shultziner, 2013).…”