When eighteenth-century revolutionary elites set about designing new political orders, they drew on commonplace theoretical understandings of “democracy” as highly undesirable. They therefore designed government institutions in which popular participation was to be extremely limited. The new political constructions, in both France and the United States, never worked as planned. The mobilizations of the revolutionary era did not vanish as the constitutional designers hoped. More profoundly, challenging social movements were unintentionally woven into the fabric of modern democracy due to the (...) confluence of three processes: The legitimacy claims of democratic powerholders also legitimate protest; the institutional architecture of modern democracy, especially the allocation of office through elections, provides structural support for social movements as well; and the practices of democracy recurrently trigger politically powerful emotions that energize protest. Understanding democracy therefore demands a theory of the interplay of social movements and governing institutions from the foundational moment. (shrink)

This article advances theory on social movements’ strategic adaptation to political opportunity structures by incorporating a narrative perspective. Our theory explains how people acquire and use knowledge about political opportunity structures through storytelling about the movement’s past, present, and imagined future. The discussion applies the theory in an ethnographic case study of the climate movement’s mobilization around the UN Climate Summit in Paris, 2015. This analysis demonstrates how a dominant narrative of defeat about the prior protest campaign in Copenhagen, 2009 (...) shaped the strategizing process. While those who experienced Copenhagen as a success preferred strategic continuity, those who experienced defeat developed a “Copenhagen narrative” to advance strategic adaptation by projecting previously experienced threats and opportunities onto the Paris campaign. Yet by relying on a retrospective narrative, movement actors tended to overlook emerging political opportunities. We demonstrate that narrative analysis is a useful tool for understanding the link between structure and agency in social movements and other actors affected by (political) opportunity structures. (shrink)

Dominant food systems, based on industrial methods and corporate control, are in a state of flux. To enable the transition towards more sustainable and just food systems, food movements are claiming new roles in governance. These movements, and the initiatives they spearhead, are associated with a range of labels (e.g., food sovereignty, food justice, and community food security) and use a variety of strategies to enact change. In this paper, we use the concept of relational fields to conduct a post-hoc (...) analysis of nine cases, examining how social movement organizations and other actors actively create new deliberative governance spaces. We argue that successes are related to the “power to convene,” a process-oriented approach that increases movements’ capacity to mobilize; leverage different types of power; and integrate, coordinate, and build a systems-oriented vision. The power to convene and create deliberative spaces is demonstrated in a variety of contexts and often results in outcomes that further movement aims, including policy change and repositioning food movement actors vis-à-vis others in the field. Our findings suggest that success is not only measured as policy outcomes, but as an advantageous repositioning of social movement actors that enables them to be part of governance processes beyond simple policy advocacy. (shrink)

Supporting the view that ethics can be taught, this paper will explore the frequent lack of a philosophical foundation in scientific training and its impact on a course on ‘Science and ethics.’ The incidence of cases of misconduct by scientists engaged in basic research led the United States to establish the Office of Research Integrity. Their publication, “Introduction to the Responsible Conduct of Research” covers the ethical conduct of research and defines misconduct as fabrication, falsification and plagiarism. Concern for breach (...) of public trust with repercussions in scientific funding has led to mandates courses in ethics for students training for scientific research careers. Having concentrated their course work in laboratory-based science, these students have less familiarity with philosophy and consequently struggle with the ethical reasoning aspects of a course in science and ethics. Discovery of a therapeutic drug or device opens a complex web of regulations by Food and Drug Administration for the ethical use of human subjects. Again the ethical system is one of rules and conduct based norms without foundational philosophical support for the ethical principles used in the guidelines. Rules of law reflect corrective action. Engaging students in case studies helps alert them to potential ethical dilemmas and invites them to explore why one action is right, good or better than an alternative. Narrative ethics provides a human presence to competing and compelling claims, the intersection of which is the ethical issue and concept. Dissection narratives help students explore how ethics can be taught and learned in a pluralistic society and remain relevant to the field of expertise they have chosen. The challenge lies in finding the best methods for teaching ethics in a particular discipline. Is there a code of ethics that applies crossculturally and across disciplines? Early and often should be the mantra of teaching ethics throughout the development of the individual and emergent professional. (shrink)