Nuclear Pacifism as Collective Action
| Date | 01 June 1986 |
| Author | Paul Wehr |
| Published date | 01 June 1986 |
| DOI | 10.1177/002234338602300202 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Nuclear
Pacifism
as
Collective
Action
PAUL
WEHR
University
of
Colorado
at
Boulder
Nuclear
pacifism
as
a
social
movement
has
received
inadequate
attention
from
North
American
sociolo-
gists.
The
author
analyzes
the
growth
and
crisis
phases
of
contemporary
nuclear
pacifism
using
the
social
disorganization
and
resource
mobilization
paradigms
of
collective
behavior
theory.
He
identifies
certain
growth
stimuli
ranging
from
particular
precipitating,
dramatizing,
and
encounter
events
to
the
dis-
appearance
of
major
non-nuclear
events
that
were
competing
with
nuclear
war
for
the attention
and
energy
of
the
politically
conscious
segment
of
the
US
population.
The
author
examines
the
conducive-
ness
and
social
control
factors
in
US
society
that
have
stimulated
and
restrained
nuclear
protest
in
the
1975-1985
period.
The
ideological
diversity
within
nuclear
pacifism
is
seen
as
both
a
strength,
in
that
it
indicates
imagination
and
widespread
initiative,
and
a
weakness
in
its
vagueness
and
lack
of
goal
clarity.
The
movement’s
low
capacity
for
sustained
resource
mobilization
is
judged
by
the
author
to
be
its
most
serious
shortcoming,
which
can
be
traced
primarily
to
its
underdeveloped
organizational
structures
of
leadership
and
decentralized
decision
making.
The
author
concludes
that
indirect
institutionalization
and
social
invention
hold
the
greatest
promise
of
survival
and
policy
impact
for
nuclear
pacifism.
While
he
found
both
the
social
disorganization
and
resource
mobilization
theories
useful,
the
metamovement
character,
and
size
and
heterogeneity
of
nuclear
pacifism
suggest
that
prescription
for
its
increased
ef-
fectiveness
might
better
be
approached
through
analysis
of
individual
and
small
group
protest.
1.
Introduction
Popular
resistance
to
the
development
and
deployment
of
nuclear
weapons
has
become
a
movement
of
global
proportions.
Nuclear
pacifism,
as
I
have
termed
this
movement,
is
of
course,
only
the
latest
in
a
series
of
peace
movements
stretching
back
in
history
for
at
least
a
century.
I
would
maintain,
however,
that
because
of
the
extraordinary
numbers
of
persons,
social
and
cultural
categories,
and
nations
it
includes,
nuclear
pacifism
is
a
peace
movement
that
is
sui
generis.
It
de-
serves,
therefore,
special
attention
from
the
social
sciences.
Despite
sociologists’
long-
standing
interest
in
the
processes
of
collec-
tive
action,
they
have
given
nuclear
pacifism
and
nuclear
war
relatively
little
scholarly
at-
tention,
at
least
in
North
America
(Finster-
busch
1984).
Yet
sociology
provides
us
with
some
useful
frameworks
for
analyzing
col-
lective
behavior
and
I
will
draw
on
these
to
better
understand
how
and
why
nuclear
pac-
ifism
has
developed
as
it
has,
and
to
explain
the
crisis
the
movement
now
appears
to
ex-
perience.
I
will
also
draw
upon
an
analysis
of
the
growth
and
decline
of
an
earlier
phase
of
the
movement
from
1957-1963,
the
Cam-
paign
for
Nuclear
Disarmament.
What
was
learned
from
that
phase
may
help
us
predict
the
outcome
of
the
current
movement.
2.
The
growth
of
nuclear
pacifism
The
social
disorganization
paradigm
(Smel-
ser
1963)
views
mass
protest
as
primarily
irrational
behavior
with
origins
beyond
the
intellect
of
participants.
Resource
mobiliza-
tion
theorists,
to
the
contrary,
view
collec-
tive
action
as
primarily
conscious,
rational
behavior,
a
response
to
participants’
defi-
nition
of
their
interests
(Jenkins
1983).
This
second
theoretical
orientation
focuses
on
how
’a
discontented
group
assembles
and
in-
vests
resources
for
the
pursuit
of
group
goals’
(Oberschall
1973,
p.
28).
Protest
ac-
tors,
in
that
respect,
do
not
differ
from
other
actors
in
the
political
system.
While
the
social
disorganization
and
re-
source
paradigms
come
out
of
opposing
theoretical
traditions,
the
one
from
structu-
ral
functionalism
and
the
other
from
conflict
theory,
both
are
useful
for
an
understanding
of
the
growth
of
and
crisis
in
nuclear
paci-
fism.
Though
I
restrict
my
analysis
to
nu-
clear
pacifism
in
the
United
States,
much
of
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