Explaining Institutionalisation of Social Movements: A Comparative Perspective on Organic Farming Movements in Denmark and Japan (PhD project)

 During the past decades, various types of modern social movements have gained public credibility, and in consequence, issues and actors of social movement field have undergone remarkable institutionalisation particularly in the developed part of the world. However, the struggle of activism in the face of institutionalisation, such as the tendency of bureaucratisation and de-radicalisation, has rarely been analysed in depth, while general attentions incline to stress achievements and prospects of social movements within well-established political sphere. Considering this background, this study highlights ongoing "divide" among social movement organisations at being foe or ally to institutionalisation. By taking its research field in organic farming movements, it aims to answer the following two research questions, 1) Why have different trajectories of institutionalisation existed in organic agriculture movements?, and 2) What are possible implications of such different trajectories for the development of organic agriculture movements?

The overall inquiry is based on a historical comparative case study of leading organic farming organisations in two countries, i.e. Denmark and Japan, whose experiences of organic farming movement appear to show the evidence of a "most different case with a similar outcome". Answer(s) to the question 1 will be delivered by pursuing two key variables, namely nation-specific political opportunity structures and/or the fundamentally different type of movements, as suggested by Hanspeter Kriesi et al. in their attempt of combining the New Social Movement and the resource mobilisation approaches. On the other hand, answer(s) to the research question 2 will deal with an evaluation of three hypotheses which assert institutionalisation as inevitable process of organisational development (Max Weber), as evolutionary process of social movements (Claus Offe), or as consequential and temporal stage of social movements (Hanspeter Kriesi) on the basis of the results of research question 1.

I hope this study will, at the end, generate a plausible explanation for the mechanism and consequences of institutionalisation that can contribute not only to the research program of social movement but also to a further understanding of dissimilar process of social change in capitalist societies.