Solidarity and Identity: Political Cooperation in Contexts of Domination and Distrust

Abstract

What role do values, interests and identities (gender identities, ethnic identities, etc.) play in enabling coordinated political action, such as social movements? Political scientists who study mobilization seem to take political identities (for example, ethnic identities) as given bases for action. Sociologists studying social movements see these identities as constructed in the process of mobilization. Many social theorists posit that identities are prior to interests as they define the interest-bearing group to some degree, while others argue that identities are completely subordinate to interests, being deployed like resources to advance strategic ends. Last, some scholars point to the ways that values and ideas (though these can never be fully separated from identity) infuse social movement mobilization. In this project, we seek to elucidate the relationship between interests, identities and values in enabling social movements to build solidarity. Certainly, social movement identities and other political identities are constructed as part of the process of mobilization. The key to building a powerful and lasting movement, we would argue, is deliberation, a process of building active solidarity. Solidarity, or coordinated political action, can range from the passive (refusing to take action that would run counter to others’ stated positions - for example, honoring a picket line) to active (engaging with others to jointly define political projects and purposes, through a deliberative process). We first develop the concept of active solidarity and distinguish it from extant notions of solidarity, both practical and theoretical. We use this to ground our discussion of the causes and consequences of various forms of political cooperation (focusing, in particular, on what it takes to achieve active solidarity, and on the likely consequences of doing so). We use a series of examples to illuminate and ground this theoretical discussion, examining the approach to building solidarity in a series of (mostly transnational) social movements to explore 1) the challenges of building such an active solidarity, and how to overcome those challenges, focusing in particular on organizational structure and opportunities for deliberation, and 2) the likely consequences of building active solidarity for organizational persistence and impact. We expect that inclusive deliberation makes active solidarity more likely, and that active solidarity produces movements with more persistence through time and more policy impact.