Dynamics of (dis)empowerment
in recent social movement participation:
Collective identity and social change
John Drury
University of Sussex, UK
Rise of anti-globalization/anticapitalist movement (1999-2001)
 People interested in ‘political’ issues
 Unity of a variety of struggles
 Social change back on the agenda
"Identity and Socio-Political
Participation“ network
Our concerns include:
 ‘… the interrelationships of issues of identity
and socio-political participation in the context
of migration and globalization….
 ‘With regard to identity, the focus is on
collective identity, while issues of sociopolitical participation include … processes of
collective claims making and protest by both
minority and majority groups….’
Trajectory of the anti-globalization/
anti-capitalist movement
Development
 UK: anti-roads movement (1992-1998)
 Movement against Criminal Justice Bill (1994-1995)
 Reclaim the Streets (1995-1999)
 J18 (1999)
 Seattle, Quebec, Gothenburg, Prague, Genoa
 9/11 (2001) and the anti-war movement
 Antiglob/anti-cap movement today: G8 protests, e.g.
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Gleneagles (Scotland) 2005
Berlin 2007
Issues of theoretical interest
 1. Escalation, generalization (empowerment)
Issues of theoretical interest
 1. Escalation, generalization (empowerment)
 2. Decline (disengagement,
disempowerment)
Issues of theoretical interest
 1. Escalation, generalization (empowerment)
 2. Decline (disengagement,
disempowerment)
 3. Vestigial participation (motivation of
‘activists’)
Theoretical grounding for the issues of
interest
‘Identity’
What kind of model of identity do we
need?
1. Identity as collective
2. Identity changes as a function of social
relations
3. Identity as a definition of proper and possible
practice in social relations
4. Linking these: identity as both input and
outcome in collective action
1. Explaining empowerment
 Empowerment: development of a social-psychological state of
confidence in one’s ability to challenge existing relations of
domination
 Neglect in the literature::
agency (power, empowerment) as a function of politicized
collective identity…
Despite its importance (both subjectively and
theoretically), this agency or empowerment function
has been under-researched.
(Simon & Klandermans, 2001)
 Research has concentrated on subjective power as a
precondition for action – But it’s also of interest as an outcome
1. Explaining empowerment
 The No M11 Link Road Campaign (1993-4)
 Participant observation framework
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Interviews (contemporaneous, post-hoc)
Soundtrack recordings
Notes
Campaign documents
News reports
Official materials
 Acknowledgements: Steve Reicher
1. Explaining empowerment
George Green ‘tree-dressing ceremony’
 Activists’ attempt to involve more ‘locals’
 Contractors erection of fences round Green and tree
 Incursions into site
 Security capitulate
 Fences demolished
 Green ‘reclaimed’ and restored
Empowerment – an analysis
(i) A common categorization in relation to an
outgroup
 Int: Can you tell me a bit about your experiences
yesterday, first of all what was it about?
 P3: Well we were just trying to get on to the land that
- cos it's our land really (if you think about it), it's
everybody's land, and they were fencing it off from
everybody. We thought we had the right to come in
here
P4: And there was all sorts of Wanstead people
here, and it I think that's what made it so
powerful, it wasn't just the - I mean I don't
know what you call them - the protesters in
inverted commas, it was everybody seemed
to have heard about it and was actually
reclaiming the Green
(ii) Expectations of support
P4: I decided, well, everyone else was doing it,
I'd join in
Empowerment – an analysis
 Unity and support: empowerment processes found
previously in anti-poll tax riots, student protests about
fees, and football-crowd related disorder
 BUT what hadn’t been addressed in these previous
studies was the experiential outcome of acting on
this sense of unity and support
 The act of pushing the fences down and ‘reclaiming
common land’ itself was empowering
Empowerment as an after-effect
P5: It was almost it was almost as if that kind of sent a kind
of wave of- a wave of kind of empowerment through a lot
of people, including protesters. I think a lot of people [ ]
suddenly realized that they could actually- they could
actually take take some responsibility for what was going
on and actually take control. [ ] A lot of people have just
powered on since then, they really have.
Int: Finally what is the most you think this er this campaign
can achieve?
P21: Stopping the road
Int: You think it can
P21: yeah
(iii) Collective self-objectification
 Imposition of collective definition of proper practice
(identity) over against established power.
 World changed in line with identity as evidence of
power of identity
 CSO in some ways consistent with:
Marx
 Efficacy
 Self-realization
But in context of intergroup struggle

Explaining empowerment:
Study 1 summary
CONCEPTS
DATA
Contractors’ initial ability to
fence off and police site
Illegitimacy of ‘enclosure’ and
digging
Outgroup practice experienced as
Both ‘locals’ and ‘activists’
indiscriminate
were excluded
All ‘in the same boat’ – saw
More inclusive ingroup selfthemselves as one
categorization
People felt able to act, to take
Expectations of support
risks
Collective reclamation of
Collective self-objectification
‘common land’ through pushing
down fences
Enduring) emotional, psychological Joy, empowerment, confidence
effects of CSO
in future action (own and
collective)
Asymmetry of power relations
(outgroup power)
Legitimation of opposition
The dynamics of empowerment as a
model of possible social change
 Where crowd actions were successful, it was
therefore now in terms of a wider political
context than they were originally perceived
and intended
(i) An increased sense of what one can do
(ii) Generalized to more situations, outgroups
and contexts
(iii) Applied to an ever broadening collective
A virtuous cycle of empowerment
From empowerment to disempowerment:
A rationale for Study 2
Methodology:
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In terms of data, we had read CSO off from behaviour
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We now wanted now a more phenomenological study
of empowerment in collective action
Theory development:
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Such a study should tell us something about processes
of disempowerment: if CSO is empowering, then lack
of failure of CSO should be disempowering.
Empowerment and disempowerment:
Study 2
 Interviews with 37 interviewees (activists) – range of
backgrounds
 Each described two or more ‘empowering events’, two or more
‘disempowering events’ (causes and consequences)
 Third national demonstration against the Criminal Justice Bill
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(1994) - 3
M41 Reclaim the Streets party (1996) - 9
June 18th ‘Carnival against Capital’ (1999) - 6
Mayday (2000) - 6
Mayday (2001) - 5
Genoa anti-capitalist mobilization against G8 (2001) - 4
 Acknowledgements: Chris Cocking, Joseph Beale, Charlotte
Hanson & Faye Rapley
J18 (City of London, 1999)
Table 1: Frequency per participant of types of empowering factor, and correlations with
reported emotions and subsequent participation
Maximum
per
participant
Mean
SD
Positive
emotion
Subsequent
participation
0.99
N of
participants
citing factor
once
or more
34
CSO
4.00
2.03
0.46**
0.31
Unity
5.00
1.65
0.92
35
0.32*
0.48**
Support
3.00
1.24
0.95
28
0.23
0.19
Numbers
3.00
0.59
0.69
19
0.06
0.15
Movement potential
3.00
0.59
0.86
15
0.04
0.23
Overcoming the police
3.00
0.41
0.72
11
< 0.01
0.13
Others’ determination
3.00
0.27
0.73
5
0.15
0.53***
Impunity
1.00
0.14
0.35
5
0.16
0.16
Organization
2.00
0.14
0.42
4
0.13
0.15
Police disunity
1.00
0.14
0.35
5
-0.19
-0.29
Other people
2.00
0.05
0.33
1
0.07
-0.16
Atmosphere and energy
1.00
0.05
0.23
2
-0.08
0.34*
Close to target
1.00
0.05
0.23
2
0.09
0.34*
Variety of people
1.00
0.03
0.16
1
-0.18
0.24
* p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01, *** p < 0.001
CSO and unity/support
 basically we took over the city of London, and yeah so that was
very empowering to see loads of people on the streets who
weren’t running around in suits going about their day to day
business, and like having a big party in the middle of the city
and breaking lots of things too, and you know it was fairly out of
control, but that was fine. It was like we’d totally taken over for
the day.
 (J18)
 there was a real sense of erm, togetherness and you know
people looking out for each other
 (Genoa)
 Yeah, cos it was like saying there were people there who would
back you up if you got into trouble.
 (Corn Exchange protest)
Table 2: Frequency per participant of types of disempowering factor, and correlations with
references to (negative) emotions and reduced participation
Maximum Mean
per
participant
SD
Reduced
participation
1.07
N. of
Negative
participants emotion
citing factor
once or
more
28
0.29
4.00
1.49
Police control/power 3.00
0.97
0.89
24
0.46**
0.38*
Disunity
2.00
0.65
0.75
18
0.46**
0.28
No support
2.00
0.49
0.69
14
0.31
-0.04
Not enough people
2.00
0.35
0.63
10
0.10
0.11
Unable to act
2.00
0.32
0.63
9
0.11
0.20
Isolation
1.00
0.14
0.35
5
0.46**
0.07
Unclear aims
1.00
0.14
0.35
3
0.06
0.07
No potential
2.00
0.05
0.33
1
-0.15
0.37*
Lack of knowledge
1.00
0.05
0.23
2
0.09
-0.17
People not up for it
1.00
0.03
0.16
1
-0.15
0.37*
Betrayal
1.00
0.03
0.16
1
-0.15
0.37*
Disorganization
1.00
0.03
0.16
1
0.06
0.13
Failure of CSO
* p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01, *** p < 0.001
0.38*
Disempowerment through lack of CSO
I just knew that it was a complete waste of time really, it was just like, you
know radical tourism sort of thing- everyone getting to the place, getting
together, showing how hard they are, smash up a few shops and then
going home again, and that is… the reasons for that, feeling that…
since Mayday I’ve started to think about how these one day events
relate to social movements or not. You know cos if they don’t, they
become ritualistic and dull and all that happened in Genoa on the
previous day- well actually on both days. They just faced the state on
their own, and they can’t do anything.
(Genoa)
I didn’t feel like I’d really done anything and I thought that… You know
sometimes if you go, you can come away from these things, and you
can think “yeah we really showed them” or something, and feel a lot
better about yourself, and I just thought the Police had just totally
controlled the situation, and it pissed me off.
(Mayday 2001)
Decline and vestigial participation:
Coping with ‘ineffective’ events
Yeah, well I always see this as a learning experience,
so I can take lessons each time- you have to, and I
just chalked that one up to experience
(Brighton RTS)
J: Did this have any effect on you?
Int 2: No apart from the fact that it just, no not in the
long term, in the short term and subjectively it was
demoralizing and upsetting
(Mayday 2001)
Study 3: Motivation in the face of
potential disempowerment
 Hypotheses to explain motivation in the face
of events interpretable as defeats
 Activist identity (as a socially and culturally
given set of practices with knowledge etc.) as
providing possible resources:
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Knowledge
Others in group to support interpretations, sustain
the identity
Study 3: Gleneagles G8 protest 2005
 Decline after Genoa, burn out, war
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But continued activism among some – how
why continue in the face of ‘defeat’?
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An opportunity to examine possible processes
of empowerment, disempowerment and
motivation strategies in situ.
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Acknowledgement: Dermot Barr
Study 3:Vestigial participation
(motivation of ‘activists’)
 Gleneagles direct actions:
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Mixture of protestors
Attempts to blockade summit
Fragmented protests
Camp as base
Study 3: Methods
 Participant Observation framework
 Semi structured interviews with 40 people
 Cross-sectional and longitudinal
 Opportunity sample
Time 1 identities
D: How would you describe the people that are
protesting, going up now and have gone up recently?
 I think it’s a fairly mixed bag, you’ve got people here
who are protesting against G8, I suppose you’ve got
your kind of anarchists and the anti-capitalist
movement, and you’ve got things like Make Poverty
History which is going up to kind of just reform as
opposed to completely over-rule. So it’s quite mixed,
and it is in ages as well, mixed ages, completely
mixed bag of people.
 Time 1 T1S2I2 So
Discussion and definition of
success/failure varies with time
 Time 1
 D: So is that what you would hope to achieve?
 Ultimately, it would be great to stop the thing from happening T1S2I2
So
 Time 2
 D: What would you consider a success or a failure for the protests
today?
 If we could just get a voice, that people be allowed to demonstrate in
the way that they feel is appropriate. T3S2I5
 Time 3
 I think that their hopes where that they might postpone or shut down or
cause trouble for the G8 taking place. And I think it did to a certain
extent it was more kind of taking back autonomy and power from that
meeting SO
(Dis)Empowerment varies across time
 T3S1I3 SO Time 2
 “but to be honest I don’t know whether to feel more
empowered or less empowered, because it’s a kind
of weird space we’re in because we don’t really know
what’s happened today.”
 So Time 3
 “Then that’s quite empowering so its either a case of
having an immediate goal that you can see or
knowing that you can work, that you’ve got people
that you’re unified with that you can work together to
have an eventual goal that might be sometime in the
future.”
Different understandings of the
campsite
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N After)
D: The camp at Stirling, how important do you think that was.
P(N): I think that was very important. The temporary autonomous zone, the zone
that the camp took up, the area that the camp occupied becamae a, the small
little island of sanity amongst our world, you really got to see an example of how
society could be organised. So that made the ideals of what you were fighting
for somewhat more tangible and therefore more real, because you had this little
example of an alternative way of working.
EMPOWERS (So After)
D: How important do you think the campsite was for the protests
P(S): I think it was very important. I think it was actually like the very central part
of the G8 protests. Because actually what it did was allow activists to network
with each other to understand each others kind of ideas and opinions but it was
also it gave you quite a sort of sense of power cause actually you could see that
you weren’t standing alone that you were standing with how ever many other
people in one area.
CAMP(alice after)
And it was such a brilliant buzz on camp to see that we were living this kind of I
don’t know anarcho-syndiclist dream.
Different understandings of the
campsite
 Yeah Stirling yeah
 D: And what did you think of the atmosphere there
and how did that make you feel?
 P(D): It was quite on guard all the time, probably
cause the police were obviously around all the time
and there was quite a lot of am very like groupy very
kind of cliquey different groups kind of planning
different actions am so it made you feel like part of it
if you were in your own group I guess but if you
weren’t you felt kind of like on the outside
 CAMP (Sara After)
 There was a lot of fear within the camp which was
unnecessary and it seemed like more people spent
their time worrying than taking any action.
The role of activist identity in its own right
Female: Yes, to network and you just want to be seen, want to get
involved, and what you are fighting for is actually, you’re on the right
path or something, T3S1I2
 A After
 “It will definitely change the way I feel about protesting and am just
being part of , I dunno I don’t want to label it as a counter culture or
lifestyle or just something but its just something I can see myself
sticking with for the rest of my life you know.”
 “I think that some of the demos that were the most empowering were
not ones that were kind of about a far off goal they were things like the
reclaim the streets demo because it was like right now this is our space
and that was more empowering because actually right now you were
doing exactly what you wanted to be doing. And you were achieving
your objective by being on the demo” So Time 3
 T3S1I2 A
 D: Was it, tell me why you’re involved in this.
 I’m . . . why am I an activist? Because I fucking love it
Study 3: Empowerment, disempowerment and
motivation at Gleneagles: Some conclusions
 Activist identity operated as a motivational resource in the
interpretation of potentially disempowering events.
 What counts as ‘success’ can be disputed, contested, reinterpreted. Hence in studying CSO as a source of
empowerment we need to pay attention to participants’
(changing) understandings of context and actions
 The motivational role of activist identity allows participants to
carry on even when isolated; it explains vestigial participation
 BUT evaluating events in terms of their ability to realise ‘activist
identity’ may increase their isolation – as ‘activist identity’
becomes seen as a ghetto or clique, excluding those who do not
share the culture and background.
Dynamics of (dis)empowerment: a
summary
(1) Intergroup relations  shared self-
categorization (identity)  mutual support
 CSO: empowerment.
(2) Lack of unity, support and CSO 
disempowerment
(3) BUT meaning of ‘success’ (and hence CSO)
is contestable. Collective identity provides
resources and motivation for continued
participation…. (with possible unforseen
consequences)
Conclusions: (Dis)empowerment and the past,
present and future of the anti-capitalist
movement
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Empowerment explains at least some of the
escalation and development of the movement.
Disempowerment explains some of the decline.
Both empowerment and disempowerment are a
function of collective identity itself, which provides
rationales and motivations for action with others.
The anti-cap movement may rise again in some
form (with new methods, generations of activists)
The same issues analysed here can apply to other
social movements and can help us to explain how
particular struggles become general movements for
social change.
 Thanks for your attention