Beyond institutionalization: urban movements in Rome

The article focuses on those relationships between urban social movements and political institutions that differ from the «protest-and-repression» kind. The resulting processes of institutionalization that might often affect social movements (Meyer and Tarrow 1998), as well as on the possible instrumental use of movements by political power in order to gain legitimization and/or to prevent or reduce conflicts are taken as a point of reference trying to establish whether and in what way urban movements which are part of the so-called «alterglobal» movement are affected by «feedback effects» of this kind caused by interactions with local political institutions: Are the characteristics of these social actors subject to change because of their involvement in relationships with local political power? Has this change to do with institutionalization? What factors does it depend on?. The chapter is based on the results of research into those forms of interaction between social movements and political authorities that took place in Rome respectively from 2001 and 2002 up to 2008 and in which two different sorts of social movement were involved. Using an analysis of these two case studies, the research tries to answer questions about possible «feedback effects». Not only does reaching this objective assume an empirical approach, but it also deals with a specific theoretical challenge concerning the explanatory capability of some categories formulated within prevailing non-functionalist approaches to the study of social movements. Conclusions unveil weak feedback effects that are at odds with the interpretation based on institutionalisation developed within the Resource Mobilization Theory. In particular, it was possible for the two movement analised to develop cooperative relations with political authorities without either negotiating their frames and discourses (political cultures), or narrowing the range of their activities. The low profile of feedback effect is due to two main types of factor, respectively of a (i) subjective and (ii) environmental kind. The results of this research point out that both Resource Mobilization Theory and Actionalist Sociology may provide an, analysis of «feedback effects» with concrete and useful indicators of changes possibly induced in a social movement’s cognitive and organizational characteristics, as well as in its actions, by the relationships it has with political institutions it becomes involved with.