Glimpses of the Anti-Sweatshop Movement

A New Approach to Strategy


While the work of Alimi (2007), McCammon et al. (2008), and Ganz (2000, 2009) provides an important starting point in the analysis of strategy, they still leave much unexplored. In particular, they do not look into the process of how social
movement organizations and networks formulate strategy. Both Alimi and McCammon et al. stress the importance of a movement taking the time to analyze the social
environment--but they do not explore the interpretive process by which movements do so. This is not a simple matter, however, and there are no guarantees that a movement’s analysis of its environment will be either terribly accurate or useful. Ganz, on the other hand, presents us with a model of a social movement organization that can successfully strategize—but, while he recounts the events of meetings where activists debated strategy, he does not explore this process theoretically. In this dissertation, 1 wish to begin exploring the process behind formulating strategy in more depth. Below, 1 present a model of how movements strategize, one which I will apply to the anti-sweatshop
movement in the rest of this dissertation.


To understand how a movement organization or network thinks about strategy, we must start with the systems of ideas through which they make sense of the world around them. Despite its centrality to the anti-sweatshop movement and other movements, ideology has been a largely neglected topic in the study of movements. Somewhat recently, however, a few respected social movement scholars (Ferree and Merrill 2004; Oliver and Johnston 2000; Zald 2000) have suggested reviving the concept of ideology in the study of movements, emphasizing the need to distinguish it from the more commonly used--and, as already discussed, overextended--concept of frames. While movements deploy flames for strategic purposes--to persuade people to support them and counter their foes’ claims (Ferree and Merrill 2004; Ryan 1991; Snow and Benford 1988)-- ideology is what guides a movement’s actions (Zald 2000}. Here, I wish to follow Pamela Oliver and Hank Johnston’s (2000) definition of ideology--a core set of values, a sei of theories (not necessarily coherent) about how the social world works, and norms for taking action in the world in the light of those values and theories. (A flame, on the other hand, focuses in on an issue, defining it in a specific way, with the hope of appealing to people who do not necessarily share the movement’s larger ideology, in order to build broader public support (Ferree and Merrill 2004).) Of the three elements of ideology, the most important, according to Oliver and Johnston, are the movement’s values. While movements may change their values, this is relatively rare and a long, difficult process, involving much reflection and discussion. Although also an involved process, movements are more likely to change their theories and norms, doing so in light of their successes and failures, but also in ways consistent with their values; theories and norms change as movements seek to better understand how to see their values realized in the larger social world.
While values, social theories, and norms may broadly guide a movement’s actions, if a movement is to act strategically, they must think through their actions at a more specified level, relevant to whatever campaign they are undertaking. In designing their strategy, the anti-sweatshop movement has drawn on the lessons of past campaigns and movements. Just as individual tactics are modular and can be passed on, so are strategies. Movements link together tactics, frames, mobilizing structures, etc. in relatively standardized (though not necessarily dogmatic or static) ways—models of strategic activity that can be passed from one movement to the next and one generation of activists to the next. Activists do not blindly cling to or apply these principles and models though. As they encounter obstacles, they learn from experience and innovate, adapting their social theories and strategic models. In this dissertation, I will explore in depth the
strategic models of the anti-sweatshop movement and how they have evolved over time.

In particular, I will look at the models USAS has developed to wage campaigns on campus to get college administrators to give into their demands; and that the US anti- sweatshop movement as a whole has used to organize successful solidarity campaigns in support of workers on the ground in sweatshops across the world.

This process of innovation involves a continuous dialectic between action and reflection (Ryan and Jeffreys forthcoming; Ryan et al. forthcoming), experience and ideology. When developing an initial strategy, activists will reflect on the world about them, using their ideology as a means to interpret that world and understand it. Based on

this understanding, they develop a strategic model, which they then put into action. No strategic model will be perfect, however, and even the most successful one will run into limits, as authorities figure out how to respond to it and blunt its impact. When members of a movement realize that this is occurring, they will then start a new cycle of reflection, including an examination of their experiences in taking action. Indeed, even a movement just getting started will draw on the experience of other movements in the past, particularly their strategic models, reflecting on the successes and failures of the past to better understand how to best achieve success in the present. In this dissertation, we will see the anti-sweatshop movement do this repeatedly, both in small ways as they formulate strategies on different college campuses, and in large ways, as they develop

major innovations like the Worker Rights Consortium and the Designated Suppliers

Program, both meant to fundamentally alter the landscape of anti-sweatshop activism.

The articulation of ideology, the learning and adaptation of strategic models are not things that happen spontaneously. The process of interpreting the social environment and taking action occurs in the content of SMOS and the networks between them. Social movement organizations and networks play two critical roles in strategizing—creating a system of institutional memory, whereby the knowledge of strategic models is passed onto new generations of activists; and facilitating a process of deliberative decision- making, in which activists actively interpret their social environment, decide how to apply their existing models and what innovations to adopt. Over the course of this dissertation, I will look at how USAS has drawn on the strategic knowledge of older SMOs, such as UNITE HERE (the major US apparel union) and the United States

Student Association (USSA), a student organizing group. 1 will also look at how USAS has passed on its knowledge to new members through annual conferences, something especially important for student groups like USAS, which, by their very nature, have extremely high turn-over rates as more experienced members graduate and new students join. I will also look at how activists made decisions at various key points in the evolution of the movement’s strategic models, as well as somewhat more routinely in campus-based and international solidarity campaigns, and how these decision-making processes shaped the resulting strategies.