Social movements and interrelated effects: The process of social change in the post-movement lives of provisional IRA volunteers

Abstract

This article systematizes a research perspective that assesses how different types of social movement outcomes mutually influence one another over time. This should offer a different perspective on the consequences of social movements by shifting the focus from single outcomes to processes of social change that are generated by the interaction between different types of effects. The variety of ways in which movement outcomes potentially influence each other in the short-term, or over an extended period of time, will be broken down into six hypothetical processes. Empirically, through a process-tracing approach, in this article I investigate how the British state's responses at policy level toward the disruptive mobilization of the Catholic community in Northern Ireland and to the armed campaign of the PIRA have shaped the post-movement lives of PIRA volunteers.