Jonathan Matthew Smucker

Thank you, Ernesto Laclau

I was sad to learn of Ernesto Laclau’s passing this morning. Laclau’s intellectual contributions to Left social movements were profound and bountiful. He is the author of many books, including Hegemony and Socialist Strategy (co-authored with Chantal Mouffe). He has a new book due out in May: The Rhetorical Foundations of Society. Laclau deeply influenced…

April 14, 2014

Uncategorized

Ernesto Laclau, hegemony, socialism, strategy

Recapture the Flag (new post at Beautiful Trouble)

Andrew Boyd and I have a new post at Beautiful Trouble: Recapture the Flag. Check it out!

Jonathan Matthew Smucker

April 10, 2014

Uncategorized

Beautiful Trouble, narrative insurgency, nationalism, patriotism, strategy

Strategic logic falls on deaf ears

Strategic logic falls on deaf ears; upon ears that have heard enough strategic logics. From birth through youth, daily we are barraged with appeals to buy sugar cereal, candy, toys, and the latest gadgets. And before long we learn the essence of an elaborate manipulative logic whose central goals are private profit and power. We…

Jonathan Matthew Smucker

March 27, 2014

Uncategorized

clubhouse, Habermas, prefigurative politics, strategy

The individual rational actor paradigm (is dumb)

Boring warning: Just like yesterday’s post, this one is also boring. You have been warned. In the individual rational actor paradigm, the unit of analysis tends to be the generic, atomized, essentially selfish individual. When applied to social movements, the paradigm clumsily attempts to illuminate the “mystery” of collective action by examining the peculiar types…

Jonathan Matthew Smucker

March 26, 2014

Uncategorized

collective action, rational choice, social movement theory

Boring ramble about levels and units of analysis for examining political contention

Note: The word “boring” is the first word in the header; if you read this and are bored, you have only yourself to blame! For practical shorthand we treat groups as if they had coherent singular wills. A political group navigates a terrain—distinct and external to itself, ostensibly—that it finds itself situated within, in order…

Jonathan Matthew Smucker

March 25, 2014

Uncategorized

contestation, terrain

Not all groups have strategies.

Ah social movement theory… I get to read quite a lot of it this year. I’m enjoying it, but of course I will probably end up writing more about the things that I am critical of. For example, the often loose usage of the word strategy. Scholars often make an implicit assumption that social movements…

Jonathan Matthew Smucker

March 24, 2014

Uncategorized

social movement theory, strategy

Political action’s psychological layer

The “classical model” of social movement theory explains the emergence of social movements in terms of collective psychological reactions to structural changes in society. In short, people are alienated and therefore join protest movements. Hating on this approach is something of a cornerstone of the sociological canon of contemporary social movement theory. Central among the…

Jonathan Matthew Smucker

March 21, 2014

Uncategorized

alienation, anomie, classical model, collective action, Doug McAdam, OWS, social psychology

Let the culture have Mandela

Originally published December 10, 2013 at Waging Nonviolence. A screenshot of Apple’s homepage. (WNV/Jonathan Matthew Smucker) Nelson Mandela’s legacy is not the exclusive property of the revolutionary Left, and we should not want it to be. Bob Herbert and many others are certainly right to insist on the inclusion of Mandela’s revolutionary content in the…

Jonathan Matthew Smucker

January 1, 2014

Uncategorized

Nelson Mandela, wagingnonviolence.org

Mandela round-up

Thanks to Tej for this roundup of analyses re: Mandela. Articles by: Ariel Dorfman Barbara Ransby Bill Fletcher Jr. Bill Keller Bob Herbert Breyten Breytenbach Dara Kell Desmond Tutu Francis Njubi Nesbitt Gary Younge Jelani Cobb Jonathan Matthew Smucker Kate Doyle Griffiths-Dingani Leonard Peltier Melissa Harris-Perry Nicholas Kristof Patrick Bond Peter Beinart Robin D.G. Kelley…

Jonathan Matthew Smucker

December 13, 2013

Uncategorized

Mandela

I’m posting at Waging Nonviolence

Hello regular readers. I’ll be posting some articles at Waging Nonviolence. I’ll still be posting my more sub-par and off-topic memos here, so don’t remove it from your bookmarks. My first post is up today: Let the culture have Mandela Check it out!

Jonathan Matthew Smucker

December 11, 2013

Uncategorized

Mandela, Waging Nonviolence