Moderates and Radicals Under Repression: The U.S. animal rights movement, 1990-2010

This dissertation examines how repression of the animal rights movement, in particular the radical flank, influences movement moderates and the movement as a whole. Focusing on the animal rights movement in the United States from 1990--2010, this dissertation uses a multi-method approach that includes: organizational newsletters from three major animal rights organizations, interviews with organizational actors and animal rights activists who have been arrested for their activism, newspaper coverage of radical animal rights activity, and a dataset of all known illegal acts of radical direct action occurring during this time period.;This dissertation adds to literature examining the radical flank by incorporating the role of repression, as repression is often geared specifically at the radical flank. It also adds to scholarship on repression by taking into account that repression is not typically exerted across a movement unilaterally but is often focused only on particular goals, tactics, or factions of a movement. Additional literatures that speak to radicalism and repression are incorporated to help direct this study. Specifically, literatures addressing waves of contention, institutionalization, and strategic orientation and articulation are addressed. From 1990--2010 the animal rights movement in the U.S. has both had an active radical flank and experienced repression from the federal government.;Some findings of this dissertation confirmed prior expectations, as the animal rights movement experienced a heightened period of protest and radicalism that was eventually quieted by government repression. As expected, this resulted in a radical-moderate split within the movement. Importantly, however, the pathway to this radical-moderate split varied for each organization studied, suggesting a need to address strategic diversity across social movements when examining the effects of repression and other social movement outcomes. Further, government repression came from multiple sources, indicating the need to understand repression as a dynamic process with multiple actors that have various goals. Another important finding was the role that economic interests played in both inciting repression as well as driving social movement organizations to become more moderate over time; this highlights that the role of capital and corporations needs to be more fully developed in future research examining social movement outcomes.