Opening and Closure in the Reproduction of Social Movements and Organizations

This study examines the social mechanisms behind the reproduction of social movements and organizations based on Max Weber's distinction of open and closed relationships.

Max Weber's concept of social closure played an important role in the academic discourse about Marxist class theory in the 1970s and 1980s (Parkin 1972, 1979). Accordingly, the formation of classes is closely related to processes of social closure where a group of privileged actors monopolizes their access to certain resources (Murphy 1986, 1988). In this sense, the concept refers to a central mechanism behind the formation of social collectivities. In the context of the discussion about the production of social capital, the distinction between opening and closure was further developed and refined in the field of social network analysis. Burt (2000, 2005) demonstrated in several studies how processes of opening (brokerage) and closure affect the innovative capacities of social networks.

This presentation aims at transferring the findings of past research on social classes and networks to formal organizations and social movements. In the first part, I will discuss the social mechanisms that produce closure: While the closure of formal organizations typically depends on a continual process of decision-making (Luhmann 1998), social movements reproduce the boundary between "us" and "them" through ongoing mobilization. In the second part, I will draw on network analytical concepts in order to operationalize the opening and closure of social structures. In the third part, I will show on the case of the energy market in Germany how the mobilization of the environmental movement affected the balance of opening and closure between electric power companies.