Social Movement Theory, Collective Action Frames and Union Theory: A Critique and Extension
| Author | Peter Gahan,Andreas Pekarek |
| Published date | 01 December 2013 |
| Date | 01 December 2013 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8543.2012.00912.x |
Social Movement Theory, Collective
Action Frames and Union Theory:
A Critique and Extension
Peter Gahan and Andreas Pekarek
Abstract
The publication of John Kelly’s Rethinking Industrial Relations in 1998
spawned a growing interest among researchers in exploring how social movement
(SM) theory can be used to inform union research, particularly in the context
of revitalization/renewal debates. Our starting proposition is that this approach
can be extended through an engagement with the larger corpus of SM theory. We
focus in particular on the ‘collective action frame’ concept. Drawing on examples
used by SM scholars, we illustrate how these concepts can be used to extend and
enrich union theory and pose new questions concerning the role of unions.
1. Introduction
An ongoing concern in industrial relations (IR) research has been the ques-
tion of how unions attract members, elicit their commitment and mobilize
support for their causes (Kelly 1998). These debates have gained renewed
vigour as unions around the world have struggled to retain influence in the
workplace or resonate with many workers (e.g. Frege and Kelly 2004). This
line of inquiry has been driven by a number of concerns, notably the question
of how unions can ‘revitalize’ themselves in an increasingly hostile environ-
ment (Turner 2005). IR scholars have increasingly turned to social movement
(SM) theory to provide a framework for understanding the processes through
which unions create, legitimize and sustain collective action (Heery 2005).
Much of this work is widely attributed to the influence of John Kelly’s
Rethinking Industrial Relations (1998) in which he advocates using ‘mobili-
zation theory’ (MT) to understand how individual workers develop a sense of
injustice at work, identify a collective interest and take collective action in
Peter Gahan is at the University of Melbourne and at the ESC Rennes School of Business.
Andreas Pekarek is at Monash University.
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British Journal of Industrial Relations doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8543.2012.00912.x
51:4 December 2013 0007–1080 pp. 754–776
© John Wiley & Sons Ltd/London School of Economics 2012. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd,
9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.
response to perceived injustices (also see Kelly 1997; Kelly and Kelly 1994).
Although some doubts remain about some aspects of Kelly’s contribution
(Martin 1999), or his prognosis for union renewal (Hickey et al. 2010), his
conceptual framework has proved highly influential. Heery (2005) has, for
example, observed that this re-orientation has worked to ‘re-invigorate the
radical wing of industrial relations scholarship’ (p. 4).
While the use of SM theory has been productive, our starting point is the
observation that a number of conceptual issues remain unresolved. While
some researchers have made valuable contributions to redressing these issues
(e.g. Heery and Conley 2007), we suggest that the framing perspective in SM
theory can be deployed more systematically in ways that advance our thinking
about SMs and union theory — see Frege and Kelly (2003) for a similar view.
In order to develop this argument, Section 2 commences with an exami-
nation of the influence of SM ideas in IR research. Given the centrality of
Kelly’s contribution, this section focuses on his use of SM theory, and
identifies where his approach can be extended using the theory of collective
action framing. Before exploring how this concept might be usefully applied
in union research, Section 3 provides an overview of the major theoretical
perspectives utilized by SM researchers: resource mobilization theory, politi-
cal opportunity theory and cultural-cognitive perspectives. Then in Section 4
we focus on work that has explored different facets of ‘framing’ and ‘collec-
tive action frames’ (CAFs), and illustrate from the voluminous SM research
how these concepts can be employed to extend union theory. The framing
concept plays a central — albeit contested — role in contemporary theories
of SMs (Tarrow 1998). As it turns out, it is also one of the concepts
most regularly borrowed from SM theory by IR researchers and, therefore,
warrants specific attention. Section 5 then brings the strands of our analysis
together, highlighting ways in which a more systematic deployment of
framing theory can be used to extend the analysis and understanding of
union phenomena. Section 6 concludes.
2. SM theory and IRs
Given a number of common concerns within IR and SM research (Kelly
1998: 24), the growing interest in SM theory among IR scholars presents no
surprise. What is perhaps surprising, however, is that this cross-pollination of
ideas has not occurred in the decades preceding Kelly’s contribution. SM
research has long been a central topic within political science and sociology,
and experienced a ‘golden period’ of growth during the 1970s and 1980s
that has resulted in a rich and theoretically informed body of work (della
Porta and Diani 2006). Yet, of the major surveys of union theory published
between 1970 and Kelly (1998), none explicitly canvass SM theory as an
explanatory framework. While some IR research published during this
period cites specific SM writers — notably, Charles Tilly — few studies make
specific mention of the broader corpus of SM theory at all.
Social Movement Theory 755
© John Wiley & Sons Ltd/London School of Economics 2012.
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