STRATEGIC TRADEOFFS: MOVEMENT-GOVERNMENT INTERACTIONS AND DUTCH GAY AND LESBIAN POLICY, 1986–1994*
Interactions between social movements and government actors have been conceptualized as either combative and exclusionary or institutionalized and coopted. This article transcends that dichotomy by tracing one social movement organization's tactical pursuit of institutionalization, examining the process through which institutionalization occurred, and evaluating its effects. This case study, based on qualitative, archival data, traces the institutionalization of the gay and lesbian social movement organization, the Dutch Association for the Integration of Homosexuality, COC, between 1986 and 1994. The analysis offers three findings: First, institutionalization is a process built through sustained exchange relations over time. Second, institutionalization does not necessarily result in cooptation but does involve tradeoffs. Third, both SMO and governmental actors are affected, albeit differently, by the process of institutionalization. While the COC was primarily affected organizationally, the Dutch government became more activist by attempting to influence the social institution of sexuality to accommodate homosexuality.
Contributor Notes
* I would like to thank the staff of the archives the IHLIA, the IISG, Atria, and the Dutch National Archive for being particularly helpful in assisting with the collection of documents for this article. I would also like to thank the program group Political Sociology of the Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research of the University of Amsterdam for funding the PhD research of which this article is a part. I am grateful to Jan Willem Duyvendak, Anna Korteweg, Peter Geschiere, Benjamin Radcliff, Yannis Tzaninis, Davide Gnes, Chelsea Schields, Katharina Natter, and Christian Bröer for providing comments on earlier versions of this article. I am also grateful for the helpful comments of the editor and the anonymous reviewers.
† Robert J. Davidson is a PhD candidate at the Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research (AISSR) of the University of Amsterdam (UvA). His research examines the changing relationship between the Dutch government and the gay and lesbian social movement. Davidson is the program manager of the Amsterdam Research Center for Gender and Sexuality (ARC-GS), has taught courses at the UvA in the disciplines of political science and sociology, and has previously published on the Dutch gay and lesbian social movement, queer theory, and intersex social movement organizations.