Boundary-Spanning in Social Movements: Antecedents and Outcomes

Abstract

Social movement scholarship has increasingly sought to understand the relational dynamics of internal movement activity, from investigating the factors that enable movement coalitions to analyzing the trade-offs of organizational hybridity. We bring these and other related phenomena together under the label of boundary-spanning processes. Specifically, we organize research on boundary-spanning in social movements by identifying three types of boundaries that have symbolic significance as categorical demarcations: ( a) issue and identity boundaries, ( b) organizational boundaries, and ( c) tactical boundaries. We then elucidate the tension in work that has examined how each form of boundary-spanning either promotes or hinders the realization of three important movement outcomes: ( a) mobilization, ( b) internal movement solidarity and scope, and ( c) external social and political change. We relate our three types of boundary-spanning to these three types of outcomes in an organizing framework to locate future opportunities for research on boundary-spanning in social movements.

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