Research in contemporary social movements: a case study of Guatemala 2015

Appendix 3: The value added theory framework, a closer discussion

3.1: Underlying assumptions

I like to compare the model with the contemporary ‘business model canvas’ [BMC](Osterwalder & Pigneur 2009) in the way the model is constructed. While the BMC does not have a sequential relation, it provides an analytical frame rather than a structural argument of causal predictions. Its analytical components are intended to be applied to empirical observation, not to logical deduction or prescription¹³⁴. As such, I believe that stressing its qualitative aspects is much more useful than stressing its structural aspects, other than the value of the structural relations for analytical purposes. This is also the reason why the model can easily encompass more contemporary, qualitative approaches and help to systematize and guide empirical enquiries from such a departure. This research attempts to improve on this frame by incorporating RM and PPT as the foundation of the analytical aspect under the main framework. And while we pursue a qualitative approach, I believe that the overarching frame could easily be used together with ‘more’ qualitative orientations as well, i.e. textual analyses, ethnographic methodologies, phenomenological orientations, etc.

Returning to the concrete aspects of the model itself, the essential idea of the approach is the outline of the 6 sequential components that, if they are activated and combined correctly, ‘leads’ to outbreaks of social movements. Smelser’s next attempt is to determine which combinations of determinants leads to outbreaks of which types of social movements. However, this attempt we dismiss in our reconfiguration of the model, for several reasons. One of these is that we are not particularly interested in different types of social movements, but perhaps more importantly, neither does his observations appear to be correct. Here is where the fundamentally structural characterstic of the theory is raised, and it is these assumptions that we do not follow in our reconfigured analytical approach.

While these inherently structural aspects have been avoided, the analytical apparatus for strain, however, has been maintained. I did this because I found it valuable to work with from the beginning of the theoretical design. However, I have come to believe that this aspect should be reconfigured for future research as well. At the very least, that researchers should contemplate the usefulness of this conceptualization. I do not believe Crossley's modernization on this aspect either by simply stating that strain arises from a mismatch between ‘expectations and reality’, while this certainly appears true, it provides very little analytical quality or depth (Crossley 2006). The original framework, on the other hand, appears to be overly complicated in its modelling. I would advocate for an update to this approach that maintains the quality of the old, yet simplifies it to better operationalize its application and perhaps improves the analysis with complimentary theorizations.

In the original formulation, strain was an essential aspect in explaining the development of a general belief which, in turn, was essential in explaining which kind of collective behavior would result from the combination of determinants leading up to it. However, this formulation has not been maintained for this research because of various complications with its application and conceptualizations. Instead, general belief has been reformulated as ‘rational’ beliefs (in contrast to the original formulations as ‘somewhat akin to magic’) and to understand general beliefs, instead of prescribing these general ideas as irrational or worse, the analysis must aim to understand their rationalities rather than prescribe them. General beliefs are not presumed to be directly caused by strain, but instead they are influenced through a multiplicity of interrelations that inform and underpin these beliefs. Both network analysis, media analysis, frame analysis, and others can be adapted to explain the development of general belief and to better undertand what the fundamental rationality behind might be (though we do not adopt an in-depth frame here). Assuming a priori that these are irrational, illogical, etc. seems contradictory to observations (Morris & Herring 1984, see also appendix 5).

We will only shortly consider the background of Smelser’s theory, as we do not share the same fundamental assumptions in this work. The value-added model presupposed an adherence to Talcott Parsons’ structural societal theories of society as a self-equilibrating system. He describes the components of the societal system as stable and argues that societies tend to be based on ‘self-equilibrating mechanisms’ that keeps the interrelations stable. If such systems did not exist, indeed there would be no reason to call it a ‘system’ at all (Black 1961: 27). While I am sympathetic to the argument about stability to the system of relations in society, I do not believe that we may deduct a priori that social movements develop as a consequence of ‘structural breakdown’. In fact, we might as well assume that the opposite is true as fundamental changes often follow social movements, rather than the other way around. Likewise, societal changes and developments may be relatively unrelated to the underlying structural relations, unless we assume that every relation is a qualitative but stable relationship, at which point the argument approaches its limits of usefulness. I believe that it makes more sense to conceptualize society as far from stable and hardly intent ‘equilibrating’ around any one specific core. It seems much more likely that a myriad of competing, antagonistic value-orientations, at all times attempts to draw society in different directions, which has the ‘side-effect’ of creating social movements whenever the forces of two or more of these value-orientations are strong enough. This assumption is more closely related to Marxist conceptualizations, though it need not be related to classes as Marx’s classical theory concentrated on. Value-orientation may internal to a single class as much as an inter-class conflict. Indeed, using class as a point of departure may be counter-productive in the first place, unless the research area is explicitly focused on class. The instance of Guatemala, for instance, can only to some extent be explained in terms of classes, but the notion would be quite insufficient in itself to explore the entirety of the dynamics of the social movement in our case. Nevertheless, the important notion here is that the relations between Smelser’s theory and Parsons’ are not maintained and that Parsons’ influences are generally not adapted in this research.