Parental Protest, Public Opinion, and War Termination: Israel's ‘Four Mothers’ Movement

Abstract

Peace movements that challenge national security policies typically remain politically marginal. However, the unusual cases that evince causal linkages among grass-roots activism, public opinion shifts, and a government's decision to change policy suggest hypotheses about the sorts of organizational characteristics and political conditions that can increase movements' prospects for influence. This article considers the case of Israel's Four Mothers – Leaving Lebanon in Peace that in the late 1990s successfully sought to end Israel's war in southern Lebanon. The article adopts a political-mediation model of peace movement outcomes that draws on Giugni's (2004) model of movements' policy impact. It finds support for the idea that when grass-roots activists and their elite supporters among politicians and the media act jointly, they can exert influence on policy outcomes. Anti-war movements led by soldiers' family members may have particularly abilities to shift public opinion against the war so as to create political incentives for office-seekers to end it.

Keywords:

• Anti-war
• Lebanon
• peace movement
• political opportunity

Notes

1. Such PMOs may be distinguished from those formed to promote broader goals like human rights or disarmament. The latter type, which might be considered ‘peace movements’, as opposed to ad hoc ‘anti-war movements’, are more numerous and, perhaps as a result, appear to have received more attention in the social-movement literature. The PMOs included in Gamson's (1975) study of movement outcomes, for example, sought US participation in international conflict-resolution efforts, rather than an end to a particular war.