Engaging with Burstein

It is notable that most democratic governments are considered people centered, such that the public is involved in making decisions that affects them. This is one of the reasons the US Constitution was amended to factor in this attribute by way of entrenching public rights that would allow the people to make demands on the government (Burstein, 2014). As such, political advocacy had been assumed by people across divides to be the heart of policies in such democratic governments. However, as it appears, most enacted policies have not gone through awareness raising to ensure public participation. As of Burstein (2014), most of the issues affecting the public go through hardly any awareness raising for them to bring about the change required for the good of the public. Therefore, social movements matter in bringing about change, however small it may be, but this is only possible in democracies that work so well.  Democracies that work so well have variables that are favorable for the parties involved in advocacy, and this makes it possible for most of individuals or organizations that may want to take part in advocacy. Burstein (2014) states that most American political activities are unconventional, therefore not captured by news media hence little advocacy reported, but this does not disqualify social movements from influencing policy decisions. Moreover, activities carried out by social movements may be highlighted, but only few issues are examined. Finally, Burstein states that the focus on American views rather than their goals obscures the knowledge on how the American public has its government do something. However, this should not be the umbrella reason as to why many may think that social movements do not matter.

Theoretically, collective action is unnecessary in affecting public policy. However, according to Burstein (2014), social movements use collective action to achieve a collective good. It is also worth noting that to influence policy, the effort required should be large, which means that in most cases, the chance of affecting policy is small thus the benefit is likely to remain the same irrespective of the effort. However, social movements are able to bring together change because of the large effort they put in influencing policy, hence increased benefits. Therefore, when Burstein (2014) asserts that only few people try to influence policy, the issue of large effort and negligible benefit applies. Therefore, protesters are likely to succeed in democratic governments in pushing their agenda because they are likely to catch the attention of state actors like elected officials who are mostly motivated by winning the hearts of the electorates especially back in their states, and not for any other reason (2014). Thus, in America, it becomes pointless to make statements in the print media, but rather attend congressional meetings and give testimonies, as well as organize social movements to make the effort big enough for the desired benefits.

Debate notes

Social movements do not matter for they depend on reported advocacy to influence the change desired by the masses but they fall short of this achievement because of the systems preference of congressional testimonies over public statements. Moreover, social movements are likely to disintegrate and thus, will not last long for a solid change to occur. It may be argued that social movements embrace collective action to achieve collective good, which is good for advocacy for its benefits are tangible, but it should be noted that the advocacy is only relegated to the leaders of the movements who are acting in the interest of those in the movement, most of which disintegrate before achieving their goal. Therefore, social movements do not matter (Opening statement).

First, in as much as advocacy is thought of as the heart of most democratic governments, it is worth noting that advocacy for most issues do not happen, only for a few. This emanates from the fact that instead of change following a down-up structure, it is mostly skewed towards top-bottom structure whereby the few get to decide for the many and influence change on their behalf. An example of this is a movement that is advocating for climate change, in as much as it is a social movement, only the leaders are vocal, and in the end, the lobbyists and government officials will take up the issue to the congress. This is true in the sense that collective action is no longer practiced for it is assumed that collective good can be achieved by a few who represent the many. This then means that social movements have little or no space in political advocacy after all; the state actors such as lobbyists and elected officials always hijack the process in the name of representing the many. Therefore, social movements have long been dead, and thus do not matter in influencing policy change. The task of influencing change has long been relegated to those whose part of their job is advocacy, and that the costs attached to the advocacy is close to zero.

Social movements may be established for good reasons of achieving collective good and thus have ambitious aims. However, a mismatch between these aims and the capabilities required to achieve policy change affects their success in achieving their goals. It is agreeable that, the effort required to effect change is large, which means that the chances of a social movement affecting change are minimal, thus leading to a dead end whereby the efforts are not reciprocated in terms of anticipated benefits. As a result, most social movements are likely to disintegrate, as the collective action required has not yielded the collective good, thus being as good as dead, thus, the effort exerted goes to waste. Moreover, social movements are mostly seen an obstacles for many governments achievement of policy changes, especially those that are urgent. In this regard, the movements experience repression from different spheres that makes them ineffective in delivering benefits. In this sense, the social movements are incapacitated and thus become relegated to the backbench whereby their work remains to be that of making broad demands and having the lobbyists and government officials work out the details, which in essence is not the anticipated end, thus social movements do not matter in influencing change. A good example is the Stop Huntingdom Animal Cruelity (SHAC), in Britain that faced government repression until it disintegrated.

It may be agreeable that social movements come to matter in influencing policy change, but the fact that even in those social movements, no collective action is done, but rather representation. Therefore, social movements have lost value and thus individual action is better than social movements. The right channel of addressing the elected officials is only through congressional hearings, which happen in form of testimonials, rather than through reported action by news media, and verbal statements by activists.

In this regard, social movements have little, if any effect on policy changes because they are most likely to be issue public statements rather than congressional testimonies, and they are prone to repression by most governments. Moreover, social movements are likely to count losses rather than benefits while trying to advocate for reforms, thus, it would be better for them to stop existing.