Introduction American Behavioral Scientist

Volume 53 Number 1
September 2009 3-9
© 2009 SAGE Publications

Political Shocks 10.1177/0002764209338782

http://abs.sagepub.com

and Social Movements hosted at

http://online.sagepub.com

Deana A. Rohlinger
Florida State University, Tallahassee

This special issue of American Behavioral Scientist, “Activism After 9/11,” addresses
a void in the social movement research literature and illuminates the practical implica-
tions of political shocks, or dramatic changes to international and/or national systems
that fundamentally alter the processes, relationships, and expectations that drive politi-
cal interactions, on social movements and democratic processes. The nine original
research articles in this volume examine how political shocks shape state response and,
in turn, how these responses—represented in both policy and rhetoric—affect move-
ment trajectories, opportunities for democratic expansion, democratic participation and
protest, and coalition building. The work in this issue highlights the need for social
scientists and citizens alike to understand how political shocks like 9/11 affect consen-
sus, dissent, state transparency, and democratic processes more generally.

Keywords:  political shocks; social movements; 9/11; protest; democracy

M any will remember September 11, 2001, as the “day that changed the world.”
Although it may take decades for scholars to assess the full effects of 9/11 on
global society, the shock of the attacks quickly changed the political and cultural
­terrain. Hours after the towers fell, Gallup Polls reported that the majority of
Americans regarded the attacks as an “act of war” and favored a military response
(Maney, Woehrle, & Coy, 2005). As a majority of Americans rallied around the flag,
social solidarity reached new heights and citizens expressed a renewed confidence
in the executive branch (Skocpol, 2003; Unknown, 2007). The Bush administration,
and politicians more generally, appealed to American nationalism and called on the
country to support a “War on Terror,” which would bring Osama bin Laden and
Al-Qaeda to justice, thwart the emergence of other terrorist networks through
increased global surveillance, and sanction states believed to be harboring terrorist
groups. Within a month, the United States invaded Afghanistan in hopes of capturing
bin Laden and crushing the Taliban regime believed to support Al-Qaeda. At the
same time, the Bush administration called for a renewed focus on national security,
and this appeal found support among the citizenry and in Congress. On October
26, 2001, President Bush signed the USA PATRIOT Act into law, which, among
other things, eased restrictions on intelligence gathering within the United States

Author’s Note: The author thanks Dennis Downey for his comments on earlier drafts of this article.

3
4   American Behavioral Scientist

and expanded law enforcement powers by including “domestic terrorism” among

its provisions. The Homeland Security Act, which created the U.S. Department of
Homeland Security charged with preparing for, preventing, and responding to
domestic emergencies, particularly terrorism, became law a month later.1 Within a
year, President Bush outlined the “Iraq threat” to Americans, and in March 2003, the
United States “authorized military engagement.”2
Political scientists provide frameworks for understanding the significance of the
9/11 moment particularly in terms of its implications for the sweeping policy
changes outlined above. Political psychologists highlight the relationships between
symbols and policy preferences. Murray Edelman (1964, 1988), for example,
argues that political symbols are important because they reduce ambiguity and
allow citizens to better negotiate daily life. Specifically, political symbols are
rooted in ideologies that impose a framework for understanding the social and
political world, identify enemies that threaten this understanding, and offer a set of
policy preferences for enforcing order on a generally disorderly world. Political
shocks, or dramatic changes to international and/or national systems that funda-
mentally alter the processes, relationships, and expectations that drive political
interactions (Bennett, 1998; Goertz & Diehl, 1995), are important catalysts for the
creation of such symbols as well as the articulation of policy preferences. Deborah
Schildkraut (2002, 2009), for instance, examines how the American national iden-
tity was constructed after the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the 9/11 attacks as well
as how these constructions relate to support for policies that institutionalize racial
profiling and internment of ethnic and religious minorities. Research on policy
change also highlights the importance of political shocks. Scholars note that politi-
cal institutions are relatively inert and, as a result, policy and institutional change
occur when shocks disrupt the existing order, calling attention to new problems that
require redress (Baumgartner & Jones, 1993; Sabatier & Jenkins-Smith, 1993).
Although these literatures are useful for understanding institutional and policy
change, it is not clear how activists respond to political shocks and, more specifi-
cally, how social movements navigate the world of political symbols and respond
to a dramatically changed political and cultural environment (except see Maney
et al., 2005).
It is unfortunate that the social movement literature does not address this issue
either. Scholars tend to focus on events that alter the fortunes and fates of particular
social movements or systemic changes that pave the way for revolution. In the case
of the former, scholars emphasize events as they relate to a specific issue—also
described in the movement literature as “critical events” (Staggenborg, 1993),
“critical discourse moments” (Gamson, 1992; Rohlinger, 2002; Rojecki, 1999),
“suddenly publicized grievances” (Raeburn, 2004), “suddenly imposed grievances”
(Walsh, 1988), and “transformative events” (Flacks, 2004; Hess & Martin, 2006)—
and examine how they influence the ability of a particular movement to mobilize
broader publics and effect change. In the case of the latter, scholars point to events
 Rohlinger / Political Shocks   5

that precipitate changes in society, economics, and/or politics and lay the groundwork
for revolutions (McAdam, Tarrow, & Tilly, 2001; Moore, 1993; Skocpol, 1979;
Tilly, 1978). Political shocks like 9/11, however, lie somewhere between issue
events and revolutions because although they dramatically alter the social, political,
and cultural landscape, these events do not cause the citizenry to collectively chal-
lenge basic government power or the ideological premises on which the state is
built.3 In fact, in this case, it is quite the opposite.
Political shocks, then, are important theoretically. They represent times of intense
and dramatic change as well as historical moments weighted with political choices
that have both national and international import in terms of whether and how social
movements respond. For instance, how the state responds to political shocks can
generate new grievances and, thus, new social movements or create opportunities for
existing movements to reach new constituents and mobilize on behalf of a cause.
Other social movements may find their issues dropping into relative obscurity after
political shocks and struggle to find ways (such as joining coalitions opposing some
aspect of state action) to remain relevant. However, depending on the nature of the
political shock and the strategic responses of state actors, new, newly energized, and
slightly modified social movements may find it more or less difficult to effect
change. If state actors work to tighten their control over agencies, offices, and institu-
tions, it may be difficult for social movements to influence the agenda. For example,
social movements often use mass media to reach broader audiences (Gamson, 1990).
However, if the state intervenes and affects how its actions are covered, then wide-
spread dissent can be difficult to detect even as there is less support for dissent in
general. In short, political shocks have important theoretical implications for social
movements and how the state responds to external challenges—and these conse-
quences need to be investigated empirically.
The study of political shocks and social movements also has practical implications.
Dissent and consensus form the backbone of American democracy, and social and
political movements often articulate and represent dissent. However, in the days and
months following political shocks, state actors make policy decisions that selectively
legitimate some movements while making other kinds of challenges difficult and risky.
Viewed in this way, gaps in our understanding about how political shocks like 9/11 affect
the ability of citizens to organize and lodge challenges against the state have important
implications for our understanding of democracy. In short, it is imperative that social
scientists and citizens understand the potential and pitfalls presented by political shocks
and monitor how the state shapes opportunities for both consensus and dissent.
This issue of American Behavioral Scientist addresses both the theoretical and
practical implications of political shocks on social movements and democratic pro-
cesses. Specifically, the nine articles in this volume examine how political shocks
shape state response and, in turn, how these responses—represented in both policy
and rhetoric—affect movement trajectories, opportunities for democratic expansion,
democratic participation and protest, and coalition building. The work in this issue
6   American Behavioral Scientist

highlights the need for social scientists to seriously consider how political shocks
affect dissent and democratic participation in the United States.
This issue begins with an article by David Meyer, who explicitly considers how
political actors used both the cold war and 9/11 to construct a narrative of “threat”
and justify policy positions. He suggests that the dilemma that social movements
face is determining how much and what aspects of the political rhetoric they should
embrace and criticize. This decision is a critical one for movements because it deter-
mines the contours and possibilities of activism. Meyer argues that activists have
narrowly focused on opposition to the war but that there are still possibilities for
progressive social action at home. This is followed by Stephen Poulson’s article,
which illuminates the implications of rhetoric for international politics. Poulson
argues that the United States missed an opportunity to foster democracy in Iran after
9/11 and, instead, strengthened conservatives in the Iranian government. Specifically,
he shows that President Bush’s rhetoric and policies toward Iran in the wake of the
attacks quashed efforts of the Iranian reform movement to normalize relations with
the United States, strengthened conservative factions in the Iranian government, and
facilitated the decline of the reform movement.
The next two articles critically examine how the War on Terror affected policing
techniques as well as citizen support for policing practices. In her analysis of the polic-
ing of the 2004 Republican National Convention, Jennifer Earl finds that law enforce-
ment agencies have used the war to mask their policing techniques, which in the case
of the convention included infiltration and surveillance of progressive activist groups.
More important, Earl documents a growing information gap between state agencies
and the citizens they ostensibly represent. Because government and law enforcement
officials can withhold information to protect it from falling into the hands of terrorists,
the policies and practices employed to balance public safety and civil liberties are dif-
ficult to ascertain and almost impossible to study empirically. However, Deborah
Schildkraut’s article indicates that some segments of the American citizenry are more
concerned with shifts in policing practices and policies than others. Her work analyzes
how competing definitions of American identity—one based on ascriptive boundaries
and one based on the rights of citizenship—influenced support for legal profiling and
the internment of Muslims or people of Middle Eastern or Arab descent living in the
United States. She finds that individuals who emphasize the importance of ascriptive
boundaries are supportive of more extreme public policy (like internment) than indi-
viduals who underscore the importance of the rights of citizenship in their definitions
of American identity. In other words, there are divisions among citizens in terms of
how they define what it means to be an American that greatly affect their support for
policies and practices designed to protect us throughout this War on Terror.
The next two articles analyze how individuals and institutions responded to 9/11.
Karen Albright, Courtney Abrams, and Aaron Panofsky draw on ethnographic
research of New Yorkers’ immediate post-9/11 experiences to illuminate how it
affected social interactions among residents and the opportunity missed by city and
 Rohlinger / Political Shocks   7

state government to encourage meaningful democratic participation. Specifically,

the authors note that officials stressed the importance of production and consump-
tion after the attacks, which meant that the potential and inclination for collective
action was not realized on a broad scale. Although opportunities for democratic
engagement may have been missed in New York City, Dennis Downey’s article
shows that some governmental groups did indeed work to promote community-
building and cultivate a capacity for social change after 9/11. Using the Orange
County Human Relations Commission as an example, Downey finds that “institu-
tional activists” quickly organized after 9/11 to prevent violence against Muslim
Americans and to further their inclusion in civic institutions. These efforts were very
successful insofar as they created networks and fostered understanding among
diverse communities, both of which are important for long-term social change.
The final two empirical pieces examine social movements and dissent after 9/11.
Gregory Maney, Lynne Woehrle, and Patrick Coy analyze how the U.S. peace move-
ment responded to the War on Terror and, more specifically, to President Bush’s rheto-
ric with regard to the various “threats” that posed a danger to the American way of life.
Their analysis of movement discourse before and after 9/11 clearly shows that activists
can respond to and at times “harness” the emotional dimensions of political discourse
for their own purposes. However, in our article, Jordan Brown and I illustrate that
rhetoric and policy have implications for participation in social movements. Drawing
on interview and participant observation with the group MoveOn.org, we discover
that some citizens found dissent in the post-9/11 context to be a risky affair. However,
instead of opting out of politics, citizens turned to Internet-based organizations so that
they could voice their dissatisfaction with the state and get involved in intermediary
forms of activism such as discussion groups and letter writing campaigns. The issue
concludes with an article by G. William Domhoff, who offers an outline for progres-
sive social change. He argues that the key to a successful liberal-left coalition is the
creation of a new organizational structure that simultaneously recognizes electoral
politics as an important site of contestation and the value of nonviolent social move-
ment strategies in bringing about social change and economic justice.
This issue publishes the most recent work and theorizing on 9/11 specifically and
political shocks more generally. However, this volume represents only a first step.
America’s past is peppered with political shocks that have altered the course and
content of the country and international relations. Although we can hope that the
future is more peaceful, scholars, politicians, and citizens alike must take steps to
understand how political shocks affect consensus, dissent, state transparency, and
democratic processes more generally.

Notes
1. For highlights of the USA PATRIOT (Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate
Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism) Act, see the Department of Justice Web site at http://
8   American Behavioral Scientist

www.lifeandliberty.gov/highlights.htm. The complete text of the act is available online through the
Library of Congress at http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c107:H.R.3162.ENR.
2. The Homeland Security Act is available through the White House Web site at http://www.white-
house.gov/deptofhomeland/bill/.
3. This is not to suggest that all segments of the citizenry are in agreement, only that challenges do
not question the capacity of the government to act on behalf of the state. It is important to note that I am
not making distinctions between international and national political shocks, which could affect how the
citizenry responds to state action. Although American citizens may generally be supportive of the state
when it comes to international political shocks, they may not when the political shock is based within
national boundaries. For example, the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., fueled riots in U.S. cities.
It is arguable that although riots generally involve a relatively small segment of the citizenry and are not
organized by social movements, they do represent direct challenges to the state. I leave it to others to
parse out theoretically relevant distinctions in political shocks. The point, here, is to take a first step in
recognizing the importance of political shocks to the course and content of social movements.

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Deana A. Rohlinger is assistant professor of Sociology at Florida State University. She works on mass
media, social movements and the abortion issue and is author of recently published pieces in Social
Problems, Sociological Theory, The Sociological Quarterly, Research in Social Movements, Conflicts and
Change as well as several book chapters. Her current research projects include an examination of media
outcomes in the abortion debate, an investigation of the role of the Internet in social movement strategy
and an analysis of how contemporary senior organizations affect cultural change.