Edwin Amenta

Where to Begin

The problem of selecting independent variables for qualitiative comparative analysis (QCA) is addressed. This is a different problem for QCA than for inferential statistical methods, for both technical and epistemological reasons. Technically, QCA can manipulate only a few variables at one time. Epistemologically, QCA expects causation to work in a combinatorial fashion. The authors isolate and reject four ways of choosing independent variables for QCA and advocate a fifth method, the conjunctural theories approach, which is more compatible with the characteristics of QCA. Their decision is supported by way of discussion and an empirical analysis based on theories of the welfare state and U.S. social spending in the Great Depression.

All the Movements Fit to Print: Who, What, When, Where, and Why SMO Families Appeared in the New York Times in the Twentieth Century

Why did some social movement organization (SMO) families receive extensive media coverage? In this article, we elaborate and appraise four core arguments in the literature on movements and their consequences: disruption, resource mobilization, political partisanship, and whether a movement benefits from an enforced policy. Our fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analyses (fsQCA) draw on new, unique data from the New York Times across the twentieth century on more than 1,200 SMOs and 34 SMO families. At the SMO family level, coverage correlates highly with common measures of the size and disruptive activity of movements, with the labor and African American civil rights movements receiving the most coverage. Addressing why some movement families experienced daily coverage, fsQCA indicates that disruption, resource mobilization, and an enforced policy are jointly sufficient; partisanship, the standard form of “political opportunity,” is not part of the solution. Our results support the main perspectives, while also suggesting that movement scholars may need to reexamine their ideas of favorable political contexts.

Wage Wars: Institutional Politics, WPA Wages, and the Struggle for U.S. Social Policy

The WPA was the most expensive and politically prominent U.S. social program of the 1930s, and the generosity and very nature of U.S. social policy in its formative years was contested through the WPA. In this article, an institutional politics theory of social policy is elaborated that incorporates the influence of both institutional conditions and political actors: Institutions mediate the influence of political actors. Specifically, it is argued that underdemocratized political systems and patronage-oriented party systems dampen the cause of generous social spending and the impact of those struggling for it. State actors, left-party regimes, and social movements spur social policy, but only under favorable institutional conditions. To appraise this theory, key Senate roll-call votes on WPA wage rates are examined, as well as state-level variations in WPA wages at the end of the 1930s. The analyses, which include multiple regression and qualitative comparative analysis, support the theory

It Happened Here:Political Opportunity,the New nstitutionalism,and the Townsend Movement

The Townsend movement, which sought pensions for the elderly in the Great Depression, was much larger in some states than others and its size fluctuated in the 1930s. Frustration or grievance theory predicts that the movement would be stronger when and where old people suffered more. The challenger perspective expects greater growth when and where indigenous organizations of the aged already existed. Political opportunity theories expect challenges to flourish when and where openings are provided by members of the polity or by related challenges. We supplement these theories by exploring the concept of political opportunity from an institutionalist perspective, assessing the model by comparing it with the other perspectives to account for longitudinal and cross-sectional differences in the movement’s strength. Although some support for each perspective was found, the movement was spurred most by indigenous organizations and different forms of political opportunity. We suggest an expansion of Tilly’s polity model, to recognize that the political party system can influence challenges and that the structure and policies of the state can aid challenges as well as hinder them.

Democratic States and Social Movements: Theoretical Arguments and Hypotheses

In this paper we theorize the impact of democratic states on state-oriented challengers. We argue that aspects of states influence the overall mobilization of state-oriented challengers and the forms of their mobilization and collective action. We develop 12 hypotheses about the impact of state political institutions, democratic processes, bureaucracies, and policies on mobilization and provide illustrative evidence for each from studies of social movements. We also discuss the implications of the hypotheses for U.S. social movements. One key implication is that the U.S. state, comparatively speaking, has discouraged and continues to discourage social mobilization. Another is that the U.S. state has important systematic influences on forms of mobilization and collective action.

The Formative Years of U.S. Social Policy: Theories of the Welfare State and Social Policies in the American States During the Great Depression

This paper reports the results of a cross-sectional analysis of emergency relief, unemployment insurance, and old-age pensions in the 48 American states. It analyzes six outcomes: state emergency-relief expenditures andfederal emergencyrelief expenditures from 1933 to 1935; the timing of passage of unemploymentcompensation legislation; the timing of passage of old-age pension legislation; and the contents of old-age pension and unemployment-compensation legislation. These outcomes represent different dimensions of social policy and are used to appraise three theoretical approaches: economic, democratic politics, and statist explanations. In the analysis, the sample is split into industrialized and nonindustrialized states, in accordance with recent cross-national research on social policy and social spending. Although the results yield some support for all three perspectives, the statist perspective is especially well supported. The findings suggest that the different perspectives are limited in applicability to specific outcomes or samples, or both. The superior performance of the statist perspective is due to its applicability across outcomes and subsamples.

A Story-Centered Approach to the Newspaper Coverage of High-Profile SMOs

Purpose – To theorize and research the conditions under which a high-profile social movement organization (SMO) receives newspaper coverage advantageous to it. Design/methodology approach – To explain coverage quality, including “standing” – being quoted – and “demands” – prescribing lines of action – we advance a story-centered perspective. This combines ideas about the type of article in which SMOs are embedded and political mediation ideas. We model the joint influence of article type, political contexts and “assertive” SMO action on coverage. We analyze the Townsend Plans coverage across five major national newspapers, focusing on front-page coverage from 1934 through 1952, using fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analyses (fsQCA). Findings – We find that only about a third of the Townsend Plans front-page coverage was initiated by its activity and very little of it was disruptive. The fsQCA results provide support for our arguments on coverage quality. Disruptive, non-institutional action had no specific influence on standing, but its absence was a necessary condition for the SMO expressing a demand; by contrast, assertive action in combination with movement-initiated coverage or a favorable political context prompted the publication of articles with both standing and demands. Research limitations/implications – The results suggest greater attention to a wider array of SMO coverage and to the interaction between article type, SMO action, and political context in explaining the quality of coverage. However, the results are likely to apply best to high-profile SMOs. Originality/value – The paper provides a new theory of the quality of newspaper coverage and finds support for it with fsQCA modeling on newly collected data.

Bring Back the WPA: Work, Relief, and the Origins of American Social Policy in Welfare Reform

When people think of the origins of American social policy, they usually think of the 1935 Social Security Act, part of Franklin D. Roosevelts second New Deal. That legislation created both old-age insurance, now commonly known as social security, and Aid to Dependent Children (ADC), recently known as welfare. Though central to todays social policy, these programs were somewhat marginal to New Deal social policy because they dealt with special categories of “unemployable” citizens. The key concern of New Deal social policymakers was instead with those deemed “employable,” and their problems were addressed mainly by another and much less studied program from the second New Deal: the “Works Program” operated mainly by the Works Progress Administration (WPA). The lack of attention to the WPA has had important consequences for understandings of American social policy.

How to Analyze the Influence of Movements

Scholars have been shifting their attention from explaining the rise and fall of social movements to addressing their influence on political and other institutions. And why not? Social movements’ bids to effect social change are why people join them, and why scholars first studied them. Possibilities for analysis abound. Movements target many institutions—mainly states, but also the news media (Ferree, Gamson, Gerhards, and Rucht 2002, Sobieraj 2011), businesses (Soule 2010, King 2008), religious organizations (Katzenstein 1999, Kniss and Burns 2004), and universities (Rojas 2006, Moore 2008), among others. Social movement scholars refer to attempts to change these institutions and their processes and outcomes as potential ‘‘external’’ consequences of social movements. They are not directly under the control of movements, as are bids to change members’ lives, their commitment to the organization, or to create frames. But transforming movements from an object of explanation to an explanation sets up obstacles to developing a coherent and cumulative scholarship.

Thinking about the Influence of Social Movements on Institutions.

SOCIAL MOVEMENTS TARGET MANY institutions—mainly states, but also the news media, businesses, political parties, religious organizations, and universities, among others. Social movement scholars often refer to attempts to influence the various processes and outputs of these institutions as outcomes of social movements. But transforming movements from an object of explanation—the initial focus of scholarship— to a potential explanation—the current focus—creates key obstacles to scholarship (Amenta 2014). As a result, some scholars have called to remove movements from the center of these analyses (Jasper 2015; Luders 2011; McAdam and Boudet 2012). With this I agree, but I call for a more radical, decentralized approach, one that seeks to broaden political sociology.