ABSTRACT
The notion of “weakly resourced groups” assumes that the power of a social movement is determined by the resources that it has at its disposal. This assumption has been shaped by resource mobilization theory and the work of leading American theorists who, during the 1970s and 1980s argued that the availability of resources (financial, organizational, external institutional support), rather than the existence of latent grievances within society, was crucial in determining the success or failure of social movements (McCarthy and Zald 2008; Jenkins 2008). This theory was in turn influenced by the discipline of economics and tended to incorporate into social movement analysis, core elements of classic economic theory. A seminal text for resource mobilization theorists was Mancur Olson’s The Logic of Collective Action (1965), in which he used economic variables to analyze the motivations for collective action within producer groups. With its origins in the economic sciences, resource mobilization theory has tended towards a materialist and instrumental approach to the study of social movements. However, some European theorists have drawn attention to the symbolic aspects of collective action. They argue that in today’s globalized society of technological and information flows, social movements increasingly have the capacity to transcend their own physical and material limitations and assume alternative symbolic forms of influence. Hence, for Alberto Melucci, in our contemporary “information age,” the power of social movements is based increasingly on a capacity to produce meanings, representations and “cultural codes” within society. For him, social movements are “prophets of the present” whose power is derived not from the force of apparatus or material power, but from the capacity to construct cultural meanings. The role of social movements is to subvert the dominant cultural codes produced by those in power and to construct a countervailing set of representations:
In this chapter, I focus on the work of French sociologist, Pierre Bourdieu, as he has gone furthest in developing a theoretical and conceptual framework for the
notion of symbolic power. In Language and Symbolic Power, Bourdieu argued that power in modern societies was not confined to institutional and structural forms, but is exerted by expressive, interpretive, and representational means that operate outside the formal mechanisms of apparatus or structure (Bourdieu 1991). This “symbolic power” involves a capacity to produce meanings, norms, and representations in the public domain and thereby to shape consciousness and the way people understand the world. In this sense, the success of French paysans1 who mobilized during the late 1990s and 2000s within the Confédération Paysanne, led by the charismatic figure, José Bové, may be derived less from conventional material or institutional patterns, than from a capacity for symbolic intervention. Since its creation in 1987, the Confédération Paysanne was overshadowed by a powerful farming lobby representing the interests of large-scale farmers. Despite limited political opportunities, French paysans within the Confédération Paysanne commanded, at the height of their influence, widespread popular support within France and were hailed as champions of the general interest. Politicians especially from the Left rallied to their side and their leader, José Bové, stood as a candidate in the 2007 presidential elections. More specifically, the Confédération succeeded in transforming its cause from a narrow economic interest into a symbol of French identity that transcended farming circles and concerned French society as a whole. At international level, this farmers’ union was at the forefront of a rising movement of opposition to neo-liberal globalization and was often considered by activists around the world as the “model to follow” (Pleyers 2003: 141). It provided a symbolic and discursive platform for activists across the international stage who sought to articulate their opposition to neo-liberal globalization.
