The Labor of Diffusion: The Peace Pledge Union and The Adaptation of The Gandhian Repertoire

Abstract

The history of the Peace Pledge Union of Britain illuminates the process of social movement repertoire diffusion. In the late 1950s and 1960s British pacifists successfully used nonviolent direct action, but this was based upon a long-term engagement with Gandhism. Systematic coding of movement literature suggests that the translation of Gandhian methods involved more than twenty years of intellectual study and debate. Rival versions of Gandhian repertoire were constructed and defended. These were embedded in practical, sometimes competing projects within the pacifist movement, and were the subject of intense argument and conflict, the relevance of Gandhism was established through complex framing processes, multiple discourses, and increasing practical experimentation. This article offers methodological and conceptual tools for the study of diffusion. A wider argument for the importance of the reception as will as performance of contention is offered.

Opportunity and threat behind the Iron Curtain: The failed diffusion of human rights activism in Romania

“…A variety of factors influence the diffusion of movements, including geographic proximity and similarities of political and economic context (Bunce and Wolchik, 2006). However, movement diffusion is not an automatic or straightforward process but involves active adaptation and translation by the receiving party (Scalmer, 2002). Beyond structural conditions, cultural affinity and perception also facilitate diffusion.…”

“…Past studies have greatly advanced our understanding of when and how diffusion succeeds, yet we know comparatively little about failed diffusion (della Porta and Mattoni, 2014; Scalmer, 2002; Soule and Roggeband, 2019: for exceptions see Zamponi, 2012). Failed diffusion refers to instances where innovations or movements did not successfully travel from one setting to another, despite ‘attempts .…”

Nonviolent Civil Resistance and Social Movements

“…While the transmission of knowledge is essential to the global diffusion of non‐violence, some argue that transmission alone cannot explain the successful adoption of non‐violent practices. Specifically, Chabot (, ) and Scalmer (, ) emphasize that this information requires a “sustained labor of cultural, intellectual, and practical translation” (Scalmer, : 269). To capture this, they propose a “dialogical model” of diffusion that emphasizes how “adopters” must translate non‐violent ideas and techniques into their own culture, adapting them until they “fit” the new context (Chabot, ; Nepstad and Vinthagen, ).…”

Love and Revolution

“…(Other examples, such as the liberation theology movements in Latin America during the 1970s and the current Zapatista movement in Mexico have received much more attention.) Although contemporary and future revolutionaries cannot simply imitate Gandhian revolutionary love, they can reinvent it and incorporate their own forms of revolutionary love into political cultures embedded in their own social contexts and fields of contention (Chabot, 2003;Scalmer, 2002).…”