Social problems clusters as contexts for claimsmaking: implications for the study of off-campus housing

ABSTRACT

Many social problems claims occur in a context that involves (1) actors’ recognition of other stakeholders, (2) relationships among those actors, and (3) varying temporal frameworks that influence how each claimsmaker views the current collection of issues. We call actors’ involvement in overlapping issues a social problems cluster, a set of claimsmaking efforts that involve many of the same people and groups as advocates, or opponents. Using a case study of local student housing issues as an example, we suggest the following regarding the social problems cluster. First, we consider how the interactions among social problems cluster members shape what happens with a particular issue. Second, we consider the way participants within one social problems cluster recognize links may reflect participants’ biographies, interests, ideologies, and so forth. Attending to how the social problems cluster’s members interact and link issues helps to locate a particular claim within its broader context.

Notes

¹We use the word topic to refer to the subjects of claims. This term, like Spector and Kitsuse’s (1977) “putative condition,” is intended to indicate that we make no judgments about whether this condition/topic actually exists, or whether there is general agreement or intense debate about its nature, causes, and so on.

²Obviously, we do not mean to suggest that these are the only contextual elements needed to understand social problems. Identifying elements of context is definitional work performed by both actors in the social problems process, and by analysts interpreting that process. Nichols (2015) addresses the complexities of interpreting context.

³For an analogous three-level framework, see McCarthy and Zald’s (1977) distinctions among the social movement sector (SMS—all social movements in a society, e.g., the women’s movement, the environmental movement, etc.), the social movement industry (SMI—all social movement organizations within a particular social movement, e.g., the environmental movement encompasses the Sierra Club, Greenpeace, etc.), and the social movement organization (SMO—e.g., the Sierra Club). Just as campaigns by particular SMOs need to be understood within the framework of their SMI, efforts to construct social problems often are shaped by some larger SPC.

⁴Burstein (1991: 328) uses policy domain to refer to: “a component of the political system that is organized around substantive issues.” This concept also focuses on clusters of claims, but its focus seems more narrowly on the policymaking process. Thus, to the degree that drug policy is at issue, many of the actors we have identified belong to a policy domain focused on drugs. Because we view social problems as a process in which many claims fail to gain the attention of policymakers, we offer SPC as a broader concept that encompasses that of policy domain.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Heather Griffiths

Dr. Heather Griffiths received her MA and PhD in Sociology from the University of Delaware. She joined the Sociology Department at Fayetteville State University in the fall of 2006. Her current research focuses on Internet deviance and social construction via traditional and new media.

Joel Best

Joel Best is a Professor of Sociology and Criminal Justice at the University of Delaware. His writing focuses on understanding how and why we become concerned with particular issues at particular moments in time—why we find ourselves worried about road rage one year, and identity theft a year or so later.