[lbo-talk] Identity wars and other issues

Wojtek Sokolowski sokol at jhu.edu
Tue Jul 19 06:06:33 PDT 2005



> Jim Devine:
> FWIW, in economics, the J curve refers to the effect of falling
> exchange rates: first they _hurt_ a country's net exports; eventually
> they help.

WS: In sociology, the J-curve theory attempts to explain social movement mobilization. The theory claims that after a prolonged period of economic growth, people's expectations are rising. If, however, at certain point the growth rate slows down or falls (which can be graphically represented as the letter J sideways - hence the name of the theory), the expectations are unlikely to follow, but continue to rise. This creates a growing gap between expectations and what the system can deliver - or increasingly unmet demand if you will - which causes frustration and willingness to join social movements challenging the status quo.

The problem with the theory is that, while it looks good on paper, it makes some heroic assumptions about human behaviour - it essentially regurgitates the rat-choice model. It basically ignores the cognitive factors i.e. how people frame the perceived falling opportunities. If people frame them as "someone else's fault" (e.g. immigrants, foreign intervention, unpopular minority or kindred scapegoats) - they are more likely to stick with the status quo and endorse law-and- order measures rather than joining a social movement challenging it.

Another problem is that this perspective also ignores transaction costs of movement participation, which vary among social movements as well as various form of conformity with status quo. In some movements, such transaction costs can be quite high - social ostracism, informal sanctions, legal penalties or reprisals, and these cost may outweigh the frustrations caused by unmet expectations. Again, cognitive framing of these issues plays a significant role (cf. white racists in the US south who are willing to take considerable risks).

What is more, otherwise "risky" social movements may employ tactics that lower participation cost - e.g. use social networks for recruitment, offer material and emotional incentives, offer types of involvement with various levels of risk, engage in cognitive frame re-alignment (i.e. re-defining the issue as to lower the perceived cost of participation and increase the perceived cost of non-participation), etc.

FS:


>>just wondering which causes more death: college graduate eastern suicide
bomber fanatics or, college graduate non suicide western air force bombers, like george bush, george mcgovern, howard zinn... <<<

WS: This is an absurd comparison, pure demagogy. There is a big difference between western governments and eastern suicide bombers. The former do mainly other things, such as managing vast economies, and blowing other people up is a tiny and rather marginal fraction of these activities. What is more, even when they engage in blowing up, they usually show considerable restraint, trying to limit "collateral damage" and punishing (at lest in principle) those who fail to show such restraint.

For eastern suicide bombers, otoh, bombing is primary and overarching goal. They live to bomb, literally, and do hardly anything else. They strive to maximize the collateral damage to maximize the impact of their actions, and do not mind killing their own in the process.

So if you insist on comparing these two, do it the scientifically correct way, by comparing factors on the independent variable (rather than on the dependent one). That is to say, compare the likelihood of western governments' and eastern terrorists' activities involving terrorist actions (low for the former, high for the latter), as well as the likelihood of producing collateral damage, controlling for the size of the operation and the force being employed.

Wojtek



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