The Political Strategy of Social Movements: Centralized or Leaderless?
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Abstract
The political strategy of social movement has long been a controversial issue. The main point of controversy is, in order to achieving the objective of their struggles, movements should organized themselves into centralized organizations or leaderless networks. Resource mobilization, a popular theory in social movement studies, believes that social movement organization (SMO) is vital to the success of movements. These movements are led by professional activists, who create campaigning issues and decide movements’ direction. These activists are movements’ decision-makers and act on behalf of members. Members have duties primarily to contribute money and occasional direct action at the behest of the professional activists. The activists of leaderless movements do not believe that professional-led organizations are good for movements’ struggle. Horizontal network relationship, in their opinions, is more efficient than top down, hierarchical relationship. Because the action of network does not derive from anyone directive, but from the initiative of members, it therefore lead to active participation in movements’ activities.
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