Abstract

Social movements aim to change society, but whether they actually cause change is difficult for researchers to assess. A social constructionist approach can add to the understanding of social movement outcomes by allowing the activists themselves to define these consequences. I demonstrate the utility of this approach with a qualitative study of the social movement actors who attempted to change their society through Euromaidan in Ukraine. The movement in Kyiv grew into a nation-wide contention in which local Maidan actors issued their own demands to authorities. The larger consequence was the resignation of the President and new elections, followed by a military conflict in the east of the country. To examine the outcomes of Maidans from the participants’ point of view, I used primary documents issued by protest assemblies in 2013-2014 to select four local communities as case studies and, in 2018, held 24 interviews with 33 Maidan activists, representatives of local authorities, and observers. My findings suggest that local Maidans resulted in a rotation of local elites, but also in shifts of the receptiveness of local authorities to public opinion. These changes, however, mostly did not spread, which is due to the military conflict that ensued immediately after Maidan.

摘要

社会运动旨在改变社会，但研究人员很难评估它们是否真的引起了变化。通过允许活动家自己定义这些后果，社会建构主义方法可以增加对社会运动结果的理解。我通过对试图通过乌克兰 Euromaidan 改变社会的社会运动参与者进行定性研究来证明这种方法的效用。基辅的运动发展成为全国性的争论，当地的独立运动演员向当局提出了自己的要求。更大的后果是总统辞职和新的选举，随后是该国东部的军事冲突。从参与者的角度检查 Maidans 的结果，我使用 2013-2014 年抗议集会发布的原始文件选择了四个当地社区作为案例研究，并在 2018 年对 33 名独立运动活动家、地方当局代表和观察员进行了 24 次采访。我的研究结果表明，地方舞会导致了地方精英的轮换，但也导致了地方当局对公众舆论的接受程度的转变。然而，这些变化大多没有蔓延，这是由于迈丹之后立即发生的军事冲突。