Current theory and research on social movements continue to treat these movements as discrete entities, rather than to focus on the ways in which activists in one struggle borrow elements from other similar groups. With its emphasis on the spread of information or other cultural elements, the diffusion literature represents a potentially fruitful starting point for theorizing about the transfer of ideas or tactics from one movement to another. Drawing on this literature, the authors sketch a model of the cross-national diffusion of movement ideas that emphasizes (1) the role of direct relational ties in encouraging an initial identification of activist-adopters in one country with activist-transmitters in another and (2) the role of nonrelational channels as the principal means of information transmission once this initial identification is established. The authors then use the case of the American and German New Left to illustrate the utility of the approach for the study of cross-national diffusion.
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References
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2. This chain of events from Gandhi's acts of civil disobedience to those of the Clamshell Alliance could be easily extended in both chronological directions, but also broadened into a more complex web that covers other areas and conflicts: for example, the influence of Gandhi on the U.S. civil rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s and from there to the California farm workers movement as well as to activities of the nuclear freeze movement in the United States; the support of the Larsac activists for antinuclearists in Plogoff, Brittany, in the late 1970s; the blockade of housewives in Port Tenant, England, that opposed the construction of a polluting industrial plant in 1972, which, besides the Larsac conflict, was the second source of inspiration for the Kaiseraugst activists.
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6. See, for example, Everett M. Rogers with John Dudley Eveland, “Diffusion of Innovation Perspectives on National R&D Assessment: Communication and Innovation in Organization,” in Technological Innovation: A Critical Review of Current Knowledge, ed. Patrick Kelly and Melvin Kranzberg (San Francisco: San Francisco Press, 1981), p. 271.
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For a case where the absence of such ties appears to have doomed the movement from the outset, see Maurice Jacksonet al., “The Failure of an Incipient Social Movement,”Pacific Sociological Review, 31:35-40 (1960).
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23. In highlighting the American influence on the German New Left, we are nonetheless mindful of the central role of the British intellectual Left in shaping the thinking of New Leftists in both Germany and the United States in this period. Indeed, at the beginning of the decade, it is clear that young leftists in both countries were far more attuned to ideological and intellectual developments in Great Britain than to each other. In their interviews, Todd Gitlin and Michael Vester confirmed this impression for both the U.S. and German New Left.
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27. Passed in 1965, the Emergency Acts granted state authorities enormous discretion in the handling of internal conflicts.
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34. Michael Vester, “Schone neue Welt?”Neue Kritik, 15:3-8 (1963).
