Page 118 - Contemporary Political Sociology Globalization Politics and Power

104 Social Movements

“ cultural turn ” of RMT. The understanding of actors ’ motivations for
collective action as socially constructed cannot simply be grafted on to
the RMT approach, as if its premises in rational choice theory were irrel-
evant. The turn to culture implies a radical constructionism which is an
unexpected and unwelcome consequence for Resource Mobilization theo-
rists. It can no longer be assumed that participation in social movements
is rational, the realist epistemology on which analyses of political oppor-
tunity structures is based becomes untenable, and RMT ’ s understanding
of politics as centered on the state becomes problematic. These conclu-
sions are avoided because Resource Mobilization theorists tend to see
culture simply as a resource, to be manipulated by an actor who is
somehow outside it, using it rationally as the best means to reach a given
end. However, this is unsatisfactory, even within the RMT tradition, since
it means that the question the “ cultural turn ” was supposed to address
– how it is that social actors become involved in collective action –
remains unanswered.
McAdam et al. ( 1996 : 6), for example, see framing as “ the conscious
strategic efforts by groups of people to fashion shared understandings of
the world and of themselves that legitimate and motivate collective
actions. ” On this model, framing takes place after the (rational?) decision
to undertake collective action on the part of the social movement ’ s orga-
nizers. For Snow and Benford, however, whose view of framing McAdam

and colleagues specifically commend for its clarity, frames provide the
initial motivation for individual involvement in collective action. According
to Snow and Benford, as we have seen, they do so insofar as they resonate
with the ideas, experiences, and values of potential adherents, that is, with
already existing frames within which social actors locate themselves. It is
on the basis of these existing frames, and their “ fi t ” with “ collective action
frames, ” that social actors identify themselves as members of the group
for which the movement exists, or as sympathizers with its cause who are
prepared to commit their support, and possibly money, time, and energy
to achieve its ends. In this case, collective action in the form of the con-
testation of actors ’ identities and the framing of cultural understandings

is prior to the individual calculation of the costs and benefits of collective
action.
If McAdam et al. ’ s view is followed, the question remains unanswered
of how it is that the instigators of the social movement come to decide to
participate in collective action, if not on the basis of cultural framing. On
Snow and Benford ’ s account, there is no need to conclude that the process
of mobilization is fundamentally different for leaders and followers:
micromobilization may take place in networks and friendship groups,