The move of incorporating the social psychological with the structural method of interpreting Social Movement theory was to form a major part of the works of Gamson (1968), Klandermans (1992) and Melucci (1989). Yet, it was with the emergence of the historical social approach of Tarrow (1993) and Tilly (1995, 1997), that of the cyclical nature of organised political mobilisation and protest, that the first signs of the regularity of movement mobilisation as an integral part of European democratic development in times of crisis, was to emerge. For Melucci (1992b: 240), the move to determining and recognising the significance of the relationship between the social actor and social systems was a key to the recognition of points of commonality between 'Resource Mobilisation' and 'New Social Movement' theory. One that Melucci (1996: 16) felt emerged from their association of movement activism with post-industrial systems. Gamson (1995; 85) himself felt that the only way to bridge this gap was through filling the cleavages left between the public discourse, expressed via mobilised discontent and protest activism, and the “coherent frame that supports and sustains collective action.” A combination of attributes gained from both 'Resource Mobilisation' and 'New Social Movement' theory. It is movements, according to McCarthy, Smith and Zald (1996: 292), that in such circumstances act as “sponsors” of the frame. Yet, both still tended to concentrate on theories that were firmly underpinned by 'New Social Movement' and 'Resource Mobilisation' theory.

The creation of oppositional spaces, juxtaposed to the political opportunity structures offered by the state, would still remain central to the new theories (Klandermans & Tarrow 1988; Klandermans 1990). Melucci (1992b: 241) though, would come to recognise the importance of the extension of citizen participation in redressing these demands. Nevertheless, the notion of subcultural identification and submerged networks still concentrated on the cultural nature of oppositional mobilisation without realising that cultural distinctiveness could be a mere catalyst, rather than a completion, of the cycle of discontent (Melucci 1996: 8-9). Both 'Resource Mobilisation' and 'New Social Movement' theorists, according to Mugny and Pérez (1991: 34), tend to neglect cultural distinctiveness first and foremost, as a “weapon of self preservation” for communities seeking redress through established means of conflict resolution, ie, the state. This was a negation of the role of cultural distinctiveness as a progenitor of state oppositional mobilisation (Gamson 1995: 95). In my opinion, the state and cultural reactionism, for a lack of a better term, are not mutually exclusive.

Where Tarrow (1977, 1985, 1993a) and Tilly (1978, 1985, 1986) break significant ground is in their recognition of the parallel development of peripheral mobilisation and the emergence of the centralised state as the predominant form of elite political organisation. In turn, each development in the nature of regime formation brought around a corresponding structural change in movement organisation (Tarrow 1995: 62). A ‘mimicking’ of the ‘other’ that will be the centre of my research. Tarrow (ibid.) notes that it is no coincidence that nationalist movements arose in periods of nation state development. Thus, in modern circumstances such as in Northern Ireland, the Basque Country and the former Yugoslavia, the rise of nationalist movements were symptomatic of the failures of national state development of the British, Spanish and Yugoslav regimes in resolving the national question. The fact that most of the societal strains are clearly defined along such lines also suggests that it is these very issues, rather than the ‘quality of life’ theories of Habermas (1981, 1982, 1983) and Touraine (1971: 209-226), which have the greater political relevance to the populations of these states.

The ‘Mimicking’ the State, Mobilising the Periphery: The Historical Relationship of the Dynamic Relationship between the State and the Social Movement.

The commonalities found amongst centralising regimes surround the fact that political formalisation through participatory means was defined by elite created parameters of citizenry and class differentiation (Giddens 1974; Gellner 1977; Burton et al. 1992; della Porta & Rucht 1995). The fact that this created a centre/periphery division based on ethnicity seemed to matter little, as socio-economic development was seen to be the cure all of cleavages that emerged as a by-product of industrial inspired state centralisation (Deutsch 1963a; Wallerstein 1964; Hechter 1985).1 Many of these crises in legitimacy over centralisation between centre and periphery, emerged in this period of industrialisation as notions of centre/periphery reciprocity were to remain in the minds of much of the newly marginalised rural elites (Hobsbawm 1996: 290; Tilly 1997: 96).

The key issue was the de-autonomisation that occurred as a direct result of centralisation, and the consolidated state was to provide a new target and rhetoric for collective action as the periphery did not believe that the divine right of Kings was necessarily transferable to the emerging elite of the new state system (Tarrow 1995: 62). The fall of the old monarchical order would redirect power relations to eventually accept inclusive forces pushing for full enfranchisement of many social strata through the democratisation of the ancien regimes (Anderson & Anderson 1967; Erget 1977; Hunt 1984; Greenfeld 1993a).

Tilly (1997: 96) felt it was here, in this push for state recognition, that elite formation was to play an influential role in defining the relationship between periphery and centre in citizenship terms. Yet this process was far from complete by the turn of the century, with the effect of the state being viewed as both target of the marginalised, as well as potential protector of citizens’ hard fought for gains (Tilly 1994a). More importantly, for communities defined by their exclusion from access points to policy formation, it would provide a fulcrum for protest action and societal discontent (Tarrow 1991; Heberle 1995; Tilly 1995). It was in this gap between exclusion and inclusion that the role of the movement as the expression of the ‘democratic will’ was to emerge.

The success of the collectivity lay in the realisation of those belonging to movements, that they have a commonality of purpose that could only be realised through combining and de-individualising the battle so as to create a barrier between ‘us’ and ‘them’. This de-individualisation of the group, was done through the socialisation and ritualisation of action, and the adoption of protest as a core identity of one’s own identity in direct opposition to the state (Hobsbawm 1996: 306). Thus, belonging to the mob became more than an expression of political discontent, it enabled the state to take a central role in perpetuating the continuous redefinition of peripheral identity according to the nature of state integrative processes.

At the centre of this was the legitimation of the mob as an expression of oppositional movement mobilisation against state encroachment. One that is rooted in eighteenth century European experiences of revolution being justified in the name of liberté, egalité and fraternité (Wilkinson 1971: 83; Baker 1990).2 That is, in the name of full political enfranchisement, and the state as the sole guarantor of “universal citizenship” (Wilkinson 1971: 83). More significant for the role of the movement as purveyor of social and political demands outside the established political system, is the way in which civil society was to develop collaboratively with political modernisation; leading to the assumption amongst the masses of the inherent right of their political and social demands to be heard by the political centre (Touraine 1995: 380).

State Centralisation as The Catalyst to Peripheral Mobilisation: The Reaction of the State towards Peripheral Movements as the Political Definer of Social Activism.

To ignore the influence of the French Revolution in the standardisation of protest activism would be problematic. In the main this was due both to the role of the French Revolution in destabilising the traditional means of protest activism built on communal and corporate ties, and the placing of the state at the centre of popular sovereignty (Hunt 1984; Tilly 1986, 1994a; Greenfeld 1993a). However, it must be recognised that the formation of the Absolutist state under Cardinal Richelieu had already placed power in the body of the state, albeit in the embodiment of the Monarch (Parker 1984: 57). Hence, it was the French Revolution in commencing the spread of the doctrine of the state as protector of emerging elites, that shifted power away from the King to the new centre of estate interests (Rudé 1964: 65-67; Hufton 1970: 351-356).

It was in the French Revolution, Tarrow (1993b: 73) noted, that the state emerged as the new social definer and guarantor of social and natural rights. Allowing thus, for the state to become the creator of political resistance through its role as the predeterminer of the shape of future civil society. Correspondingly, della Porta (1996: 62-63) believed that too many political theorists have also failed to deal with how protest has directly effected our conceptions of democracy and citizenship. Within this there is also a further question to be addressed of how one aspect of repression, ie, policing (and I would add militarisation of internal power relations) has shaped the nature of protest activism and to what extent it dictates the nature of political conflict between centre and periphery?

The reasoning behind the emergence of extra political modes of collective action had as much to do, according to Tilly (1997: 99), with the military nature of state formation as it did with economic reasons for greater state centralisation. It is here that the notion of repression and perceived grievance become integral to the rise of extra-parliamentary political action, as marginalised populations began to take offence to the encroachment of military discipline into everyday life in return for a minimal amount of political influence (Tilly & Tilly 1981: 14-15). The level of repression thus hinged upon the relevant levels of coercion, as well as capital distribution, implemented by the state and the ability of groups to organise effectively in order to get their demands heard (Hobsbawm 1973b; Tomlinson 1980; della Porta 1995, 1996). It was the state that defined the object of contention: hence, if it was centralisation based around industry and labour then the respondent collective action would take the form of labour interests (Sorter & Tilly 1974; Longo 1978; Rooney 1984; Morgan 1987; O’Connor 1996), if it was land tenure then land rebellion would be the form of collective action (Hobsbawm 1974a; Brockett 1991; Tilly 1997: 99-100). Interestingly, della Porta (1996: 64) feels that the direction of future protest activity is defined here at the point of original dispute between the state and movement, that is the point of initial contact with the law and periphery. A point of contact between centre and periphery that would shape all future methods of mobilisation and collective action of the movement.

It was both the expansion and consolidation of the nation state that provided the formation of movement activity, because while movements are formed in response to new structural change they are also initially more concerned with short term changes in political opportunity structures (Tarrow 1993b: 71). With the expansion of the activities of the nation-state into society as a whole the targets for collective action began to move away from private actors towards national decision making centres (Tarrow 1977, 1996; Higley & Gunther 1992; Tilly 1997). More importantly the state was now becoming associated as a mediator of antagonistic social interests and the creator of frames of reference for political identification (Tarrow 1995: 72-73). What Tarrow (1995: 81) did was recognise that it was the state alone that was able to provide emerging politicised communities with non institutional and institutional political opportunity structures that would ignite political mobilisation either through co-option or repression. Through this cycle of action and response state engendered political environments were able to create four “salient changes” in political opportunity structures that would determine the nature of all movement activity:

1. the opening up of access to institutions of political participation,
2. the shifts that emerged between ruling alignments through such opening up of the state institutions,
3. the availability of forging new alignments with other influential elites,
4. and the preexisting cleavages that exist between elites (Tarrow 1995: 86).

What becomes clear is that long term changes in state strength, including divisions that have occurred amongst internal elites as a result of this, have tended to create new political opportunity structures for submerged, often resource poor, communities to seek access to the state in any form they can (Banton 1986; Avineri 1994; Tilly 1994b). It is here that the choices made in creating different political opportunity structures can also play a large role in the different formalisation processes opted by different movements. In fact, the nature of the political opportunity structure opted for can do much in shaping the movement (Tarrow 1995: 91). Repression itself plays a strong role in determining the essence of a movement and the nature of the collective action they employ (Tilly 1997: 101). Successive waves of repression and centralisation, on behalf of the state, may in fact create a further radicalisation of collective action, that in turn leads to a more effective form of oppositional organisation in placing the movement in the position as an alternative to the state’s ideological position (Tarrow 1995: 92-93; see also Deutsch 1969b; Ferrarotti 1978; della Porta 1983, 1996). As Tarrow (1995: 93) stated:

While it crushes resistance under most conditions, the centralisation of power in repressive states offers dissidents a unified field and a centralised target to attack, once the system is weakened.

Tilly (1997: 101) felt this was the reason behind increased feelings of injustice that underpin all collective action. Yet these actors would not undertake such action without accepting that they truly had a chance of influencing the state. It is here where 'Resource Mobilisation' theorists are correct in recognising that movements are far from ad hoc expressions of social discontent that disappear as rapidly as they emerge (Zald 1970: 49; Oberschall 1973). They are rather planned actions designed to attain maximum gains with minimum losses for the constituency they represent (McCarthy & Zald 1973; McCarthy & Wolfson 1991). Movements are formed around cultural and social frames of reference, that provide cultural cues and submerged codes in order to be interpreted by the marginalised when the right time has emerged to continue old grievances in new forms of collective action (Mayer 1996: 261-262).

Movements, thus, assert their autonomy from state engendered forms of conflict resolution, through utilising cleavages created in state formation between competing elites, to create and sustain new frames of structural opportunity so as to influence future policy directions (McAdam 1996: 340). The danger though is falling into the same trap that Gamson and Meyer (1996: 275) have fallen into of ignoring the significance of Zeitgeist, that of revolutionary opportunities placed before movements by elites in transformation at a given time, in creating the necessary political opportunity structures to be exploited. This was demonstrated by Hobsbawm’s (1974a) study of the Peruvian peasant rebellion during periods of elite transition of the 1970s, or Tilly (1993a) noting that movement activism would wax and wane in times of social crisis, such as increased taxation in eighteenth and nineteenth century Great Britain, in a somewhat cyclical nature.

The problem, however, with McAdam’s (1996) interpretation is that no matter how much space is created outside the state’s realm, even if they are declaring their rejection of the established structures of state, in doing so, they nevertheless define their opposition in terms of the environment created by the very state structure they refute. Havel (1985: 23) feels this is due to the fact that ‘dissent’, be it expressed or not, is a consequence of the state system that perpetuates itself. State and movement development is hence reciprocal. A cyclical restructuring of the political system is engendered, which is instigated by the state’s initial attempts at reform, and is perpetuated by the peripheries response (Tarrow 1977; Bugajski. 1987). Without the instigation of state centralist reform, the periphery would lack political opportunity structures to exploit (Tarrow 1993a). The expansion of movement repertoire, and its corresponding effectiveness, is hence dependent on its ability to engage the state when the state least expects it.

Elites may recognise this, and allow for the marginalised to operate in spaces they perceive as of their own construct so as to alleviate potential rifts, be it through policing or the allowance of counter cultural activity (Havel 1985: 23). It is, though, still the ability of the movement to react to political opportunity structures offered by the state that determines their relative success in either restructuring the state or creating a space outside it (Kriesi 1989; McClurg & Mueller 1992). Even if these political opportunity structures create undesired results, as in the rise of political terrorism in post-1968 Germany and Italy (della Porta & Pasquino 1983; della Porta & Rucht 1995), the polarised cleavages that were responsive to an increase in violence between the state and aggrieved community may indeed nominate, for the state, the level of discontent within the community at large (della Porta 1996: 79-81).

This notion, of the state fostering movement activism in order to placate interests that otherwise would not seek redress through state sponsored institutional means, is a concept that Kriesi (1996) explores quite successfully. Expanding on the four conditions of movement activity that was first postulated by Eisenger (1973), and later reformulated by Tarrow (1977, 1989) and Tilly (1975c), Kriesi (1995, 1996) states that what determines the success of a movement is far from their extra-parliamentary methods. It is rather their ability to place their political agenda at the centre of the state’s agenda that determines the success of their activism (Kriesi 1996). The role of the state is to delicately balance party political interests with non parliamentary demands, through a controlled decentralisation of state (McCarthy et al. 1991). It is here, as an extension of the pluralism that the democratic state offers, where much of social movement activity is formulated in response to political opportunity structures offered by the state in transition (Zald & Useem 1987). For, as Jenkins ( 1995: 15) sees it, following on from Tilly’s (1978, 1985, 1993a) definition, a social movement by definition is “a sustained series of interactions between a challenging group and the state.” Without the state there would be no movement as such.

Shaping up Against the State: Social Movement Activity as a Rational Choice in Oppositional Mobilisation of the Periphery Against the State Centre.

What becomes clearer is that movements must be viewed as organisations that are rational in structure and rational in choice, in choosing forms of mobilisation, organisation, and action, as well as their target. As such, activists hold predetermined political goals and enjoin in movement activity as a product of rational choice (Ferree 1992). Thus, according to Jenkins (1995: 160), the state is central to the study of movement activism because the movement is inherently political. It is the state which is the main obstacle to political reform, and it is the state that creates the cleavages that cause discontent as the monopoliser of institutionalised central power (Zald & Useem 1987; Jenkins 1995). This is realised more commonly when there is a crisis of legitimacy surrounding the state’s mode of conflict resolution, which in Europe is traditionally embodied in the parliamentary system (Tilly 1995). Movements become the alternative to the party political system as a form of political mobilisation and organisation (Jenson 1995: 112; Melucci 1996: 112).

The fact that many people join due to the “outside nature” of the movement does not minimise the influence of the state; even if only as a target (Burstein et al. 1995: 277). It must not be forgotten that it is the institutional structure of the state, combined with ideology, levels of centralisation, policy formation capabilities, and structures of policy implementation, which creates the necessary environment for movement activities to occur (Deutsch 1963b; Tilly 1994b). An aspect of state influence that Jenkins (1995: 16) agrees with:
Social protesters may demand fundamental changes in the nature of the state itself or they may seek more narrow institutional reforms, including those that are required to support changes in their personal lives, but, if their demands are to prevail and become part of the institutional landscape, the state has to become involved in institutionalising these claims. Put another way, social changes without the support of the state will not persist. The state is therefore a target for social movements.

A contemporary example that Tilly (1986: 380-381) gives on the effect that state policy has in the formation of peripheral activism, is in the post-May 1968 environment of France with the handing down of the 1977 Peyrefitte Committee’s findings on the cause of social unrest, popular mobilisation and extra-parliamentary collective action in urban France. The most interesting aspect of this report was the recognition that all causes for the rise in social discontent and mobilisation were attributed directly to the failure of state democracy to fully incorporate disparate communal groupings into the body polity of state (ibid.: 382). Tilly (ibid.) felt this was a recognition by the French government that the rise of popular discontent that transforms into popular contention, is not a disorderly reaction to failed state incorporation, but rather the failure of the state to enfranchise sectors of society previously considered inconsequential.

This fits into Tarrow’s (1992: 175) argument that what has become viewed as a seemingly new phenomenon, such as the sudden rise of protest action throughout Europe after 1968, is not derivative of the society that is perceived to have produced it, but rather the political tension that exists between the movement and its opponent- the state. For Tilly (1986: 5), the movement is but a contentious grouping organised in direct opposition to the state, and as such, the state’s significance in shaping the nature of contention is great. The two ways the state has greatest influence is in its “bulk and complexity” as well as in the “penetration of its coercive and extractive power” (ibid.: 6). This concentration of power would seemingly lead to conflict within the parameters of the state, and those organisations seeking redress outside the political system deemed too difficult to access would nevertheless challenge the state within state defined parameters (Gamson et al. 1982; Gamson 1995). Be they within the structures, borders and societies that the state defined, or in response to strategies employed by the centre (Giddens 1979).

Even the methods employed by the movement are seemingly shaped by strategies that are aimed at combating the pervasiveness of state; suggesting the innateness of the state in relation to the pre-existence of the movement. This is demonstrated by the fact that, even if a movement was to create an ideational framework, in order to establish an ideological lynch pin for movement activity, it would have to provide a link between ‘societal mentalities’, ‘political cultures’ and ‘collective action frames’ which are all moulded from limitations placed upon movements by the state (Tarrow 1986: 176). It is in the intra-systematic and dynamic exploitation of political opportunity structures (Klandermans et al. 1988; Klandermans & Tarrow 1988), rather than the static cross sectional options offered by 'Resource Mobilisation' theorists (Ferree 1992; Hardin 1995), that Tarrow (1996: 42) feels is where the state impinges itself most upon movements.

What Tilly (1978, 1997), Tarrow (1993b, 1993c, 1996) and della Porta (1995, 1996) recognise is that it is the state that provides the routinised arena for political competition and conflict resolution in ways that the movement cannot provide on its own. What cycles provide, according to Tarrow (1996: 44), is the acceptance of the state as a form of political organisation perpetually which recreates and formulates itself. Thus, showing the significance of perpetual state restructuring in shaping movements, as responses to centralist state encroachment. As Tarrow (1996: 44) argues:

entire political systems undergo changes which modify the environment of social actors sufficiently to influence the initiation, forms, and outcomes of collective action.

This is because it is the dynamic, ie, cyclical, paradigm that allows for social movements to attain goals through challenging the state directly (Snow & Benford 1992; Meyer 1993a; Traugott 1995). Hence, the role of the movement has become greater than that of the party political organisation as its main agenda is to address issues that are not necessary on the political agenda, whilst challenging the limits set by a preexisting social system of relations dictated by the state (Melucci 1989: 38).

State Consolidation, Peripheral Mobilisation: The Failure of 'Resource Mobilisation' Theory and 'New Social Movement' Theory to Deal with the Reciprocal Nature of Social Movement Mobilisation.

The traditional statist perspective, as espoused by 'Resource Mobilisation' theorists, fails because it under specifies subnational and subgroup variations, whilst simultaneously underplaying the significance of the dynamics of protest cycles (McCarthy & Zald 1973; McAdam 1988). Taking from de Tocqueville’s (1954) first arguments on the consolidation of civil-democracy and state institutionalisation in the USA, Tarrow (1996: 46) shows how strong state centres have tended to desire a weak civil society, whilst weak states have been central to the encouragement of institutional participation, as opposed to confrontation and violence. The relationship is thus dynamic, as the strategies employed by the centre are reflected by peripheries seeking contemporary redresses for ancient struggles that manifest solely in times of reopening of cleavages by the state (Shorter & Tilly 1974; Tilly 1986, 1993a, 1995; Tarrow 1993b). The cyclical nature of reform-protest-reform supplies the necessary preconditions for subsequent movement mobilisation. Especially in societies such as Northern Ireland and the Basque Country which Maguire (1996b) classifies as ‘abnormal’.

Tarrow (1996: 48) argues that this not only places too great an emphasis upon the French model of state and peripheral relations, but also ignores the significant role that the state plays in forming a target for movements. They are a reflection of political discontent and, as such, aspirations for redress. Movement restructuration can only occur as long as the state remains dynamic. Yet, the state cannot change without the pressures of the periphery leading one to feed off the other. It is in the very processes of state consolidation that movements find the political opportunity structure in which they can best resist. It is only in times of elite shift that these social cleavages emerge so blatantly as to warrant a review of the status of the group within the framework of parallel state-periphery development.

Like state-building in general, each new policy initiative produced new channels of communication, more organised networks of citizens, and more unified cognitive frameworks around which insurgents could mount claims and organise (Tarrow 1996: 49) .

It is when there is a consolidated state entity that movements, as well as national movements, arise to legitimately claim their place as organised opposition. Here Tarrow (1996) follows on from Tilly (1975b) who argued it is in the “consolidated state” that people found grounds throughout Western Europe to embrace collective activism for the first time. Thus, it is not the movement itself that determines its nature but rather how the state reacts to the disenfranchised, in the sense of creating or denying political opportunity structures for a given minority, that determines the nature of oppositional collective action. This is why it is important not to fall into the trap of exploring the differences of each national specific example, one should instead, and here I concur with Tarrow (1996: 49), concentrate on how state-building in general, has set the scene for the legitimation of extra-state activism as a form of external political representation, when state structures of conflict resolution have seemingly failed. This is due to the state’s corresponding failure to incorporate disparate minorities into a framework of state negotiated resolution of conflicting interests (Zald & Useem 1987; Valelly 1993).

I would add, though, that without the initial policy shift by the state centre the necessary preconditions for peripheral mobilisation and the commencement of the cycle of action-reaction-action, so integral for the active movement’s bid to dictate the pace of state initiated reforms, would fail to arise. A shift in elite relations that is also a reflection by the state of the ‘mimicking’ occurring from the periphery. This is further accentuated when generational elites find it difficult to access the state, or as what Hobsbawm (1996: 3-4) calls the ‘permanent present’, whereby they are cut from the organic public past of their era, in a post-industrial society, leading them to question the legitimacy of contemporary state structures.

It is only through exploring the dynamic relationship between the state and movement that I feel we can come to a further understanding of the essence of social movement activism. I believe, therefore, that it becomes important to explore the historical, state-social and cultural aspects of the parallel development of the state’s response to political opposition and the movement as a form of extra-parliamentary oppositional organisation. In my opinion this is best exemplified neither through 'Resource Mobilisation' theory’s total concentration on political opportunity structures offered by the state, nor by 'New Social Movement' theory’s emphasis upon counter cultural models that negate the role of the state, but rather by a combination of political opportunity and alternative societal structures offered in opposition to the state, by the movement. The key lies in recognising the dynamic nature that exists between state/social movement, and centre/periphery development, and political opportunity structures that develop from this in terms of increased protest repertoire. An increase of repertoire movement strategies that recreate themselves according to strategies implemented by the state centre, in attempting to resolve such conflict, and how the periphery ‘mimics’ this in the perpetuation of the cycle of protest. A theory that I will explore in the next chapter.