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theses

In the current study, I propose a reiterative dilemma-solving model to illustrate how social actors create the fate of social movements. The reiterative dilemma-solving model is built on three theoretic pillars: strategic dilemmas, strategic action fields, and path-dependency. In the reiterative dilemma-solving model, first, the problems that social actors encounter constitute strategic dilemmas, which means that there is no perfect solution for the problems. Every strategic choice has a trade-off. Second, the reiterative dilemma-solving model assumes that the social movement is a strategic field embedded in the broad field environment. The social movement’s identity establishes the local order in the movement and negotiates the relationship between the movement and the broad field environment. Third, the reiterative dilemma-solving model assumes the path-dependency of strategic choices: previous strategic choices constrain future strategic choices. Built on these three theoretical pillars, the reiterative dilemma-solving model provides a dynamic picture of the life course of social movements. Social actors strategically build movement identities, which facilitate the formation and operation of the social movement. This identity work in turn creates the initial structural constraints that shape the movement’s future moves. The trade-offs from these strategic choices reconfigure the initial structural constraints, which go on to shape future strategic choices. This process repeats throughout the life course of the social movement until its decline. To demonstrate my argument, I analyze the development of three social movements in Taiwan: the blue camp’s post-election protest in 2004 (a partisan movement), the Reds in 2006 (a civic movement), and the Wild Strawberries in 2008 (a student movement). Drawing on interviews and media reports, I show how the leaders’ strategic choices articulated and rearticulated the relationships among the participants and the relationships between the movements and their environments. The comparison of these cases can demonstrate that the fate of the social movement is not determined by structures, but constructed through a series of choices of social actors.

ETD_5365

Ph.D.

Includes bibliographical references

by Yu‐Sheng Lin

doi:10.7282/T3BG2M8T

ETD doctoral

The author owns the copyright to this work.