What can social movements teach us about American politics?

Politics in Question

In this week’s episode of Politics In Question, Julia considers social movements and political parties with Marcus Board Jr. Board is an associate professor in the Department of Political Science at Howard University. His research engages social movements, radical Black feminist theories of power, and public opinion. He is the author of Invisible Weapons: Infiltrating Resistance and Defeating Movements (Oxford University Press, 2022). Board most recently co-authored a chapter on social movements and political parties in the American Political Science Association’s Presidential Task Force on Political Parties report, “More Than Red and Blue: Political Parties and American Democracy” (July 2023).

What is a social movement? How do they differ from political parties and interest groups? Can social movements benefit from joining forces with political parties? What are the implications for political parties when social movements try to transform our political institutions? And what can gumbo teach us about grappling with complicated political questions? These are some of the questions Marcus and Julia ask in this week’s episode.