The way how (1) a reduction of the welfare state (placing middle-class professionals at the mercy of the market, thus reducing their freedom to self-organize and risk job market consequences), and (2) a general disenchantment with the state by activists (due to the failure of the state to achieve the type of social and economic equality it had promised) will affect our social movement mobilization in the Netherlands, is a complex matter of legal consciousness and social mobilization theories. To explore why the experience of a reduced welfare state and reduced faith in the state change the social movement attitude and practices of the Dutch economic middle, we need to look at how legal consciousness is an individual understanding of social and legal rules, but also how this individual consciousness can be shaped by vernacularization on a common ground of understanding, such as that of Human Rights.
Legal consciousness scholars, like Ewick and Silbey, argue that people’s perception of law, and what is legal or illegal at a certain point in time, is shaped by the gap between law and society. Law therefore is plural by nature, meaning we, people have many different beliefs about laws, not only one ‘truth’. For example, one might take the NS’s policy on tickets being mandatory for each travel seriously because they think this is the way to keep the service running and NS workers also need to earn their wages. While someone else might think of this policy as an exclusionary verdict against the poorer, so they perceive the policy as something against them and hence, try to bypass it, as the train service ‘should be a public good’ in their opinion, if it is called Nederlandse Spoorwegen, suggesting a national service. Hence, as Hertogh mentioned, people do not agree on one meaning of the law.
This highly links to Foucault’s (1972, 1978, 1981). constructivist argument: everything is something in the construct that we give to it (Foucault, 1972, 1978, 1981). For example, I associate myself as a white woman because sex and race are the culturally defined self-identifying tools of today’s era, which were not 500 years before. Also, this is what I, as an individual, have learned from my surrounding society’s language. Although, legal consciousness focuses more on individual understanding, rather than collective societal constructive language. This understanding better explains the above-mentioned case of some travellers play the wag on the train – due to their own individual perception of the NS ticket-policy, while the collective majority follows the policy – as well as the debate about what the future holds for social movements.
Building on the above-mentioned theory of legal consciousness and the vernacularization analysis of Chua, in a scenario, where there is a reduction of the welfare state that reduces the middle-class professionals’ freedom to self-organize themselves, some individuals from the middle-class would perceive the change as a threat to them and their Human Rights while others would not necessarily, at first. Meanwhile, most of the ruling elite class would perceive the change as their benefit, since in the increase of gap between classes they would come out wealthier. As some of the opposers of the changes from the middle-class would turn into activists. These activists, based on the SOGI case explored by Chua, ‘set their strategy and goals in response to [the Dutch] political context and the sociolegal conditions for’ (p. 310) the more oppressed middle-class. They, in other words, become ‘translators’ who try to shape the legal consciousness of more individuals, to have the same perception about the declining welfare state and the rights of middle-class professionals, as they do, and urge action for change.
The general disenchantment with the state by activists (due to the failure of the state to achieve the type of social and economic equality it had promised) would potentially affect our social movement mobilization, precisely based on the stages Chua has explored. The disenchantment shall start as a small movement, with a few unsatisfied middle-class citizens who become so-called ‘translators’ for others in the let-down middle-class. In this stage of ‘reframing grievances’, they translate the situation into a message of dissatisfaction, by leveraging on Human Rights’ symbolic effects ‘to associate the transformed attribution of blame with systemic Human Rights violations’ (p. 304) and also via activities (e.g., protests). This stage is about framing collective action of vernacular mobilization, and it encourages collective action. It builds on the ground of common understanding of Human Rights, within the realm of different legal conscious understandings of the situation.
Then, as more and more of the middle-class receive the ‘message’ (of what the situation means, how it should be perceived) of the ‘translators’, a community formulates ‘with mobilizing structures that enable further movement expansion and mobilization’ (p. 305). This second stage, called political community fostering, whereby the collective identity is again, building on the common consciousness of Human Rights. This way, individual legal consciousness is held together in one community, under one common understanding of, at least, one thing: the Human Rights of the middle-class to a better welfare state. In this stage, old relations are restructured, and new ones are created (e.g., those being in opposite parties within the middle-class before, for example, due to market competition, now come together under the same understanding of their human right to a welfare state).
Finally, this two-stage movement of Human Rights activism (the process being called ‘vernacularization’ by Chua and Merry, both) against the failing welfare state shall have a multiplier effect. ‘As new activists are recruited and mobilized through these processes, they continue to expand the movement across the country as they, too, engage in vernacularization.’ (p. 327) It is important to take into account the Dutch context. In the Netherlands, equality at all levels is generally perceived by Dutch citizens as a highly important topic (Piercy, 2022). In addition, the Dutch population has been an actively mobilising one, whether it was for lower housing costs or against COVID-related safety measures (Lalor, 2019). Therefore, the process shall be a relatively fast one since it will be unusual and perceived as an offence by many from the very beginning.
In conclusion, the way the reduction of welfare state for the middle-class and general disenchantment with the state by activists affects social movement is, on one hand, a clear demonstration of how individuals’ legal consciousness can turn ‘the game’ around and make a large activist movement against the dissatisfying government, from a few of whom dislike the situation. On the other hand, the – potential future – evolution of this disenchantment can be calculated based on Chua’s Vernacular Mobilization of Human Rights model, whereby the understanding (legal consciousness) of Human Rights forms a base for those with ‘an alternative’ view of the status quo and policies. The experience of a reduced welfare state and reduced faith in the state change the social movement attitude and practices of the economic middle by turning the ‘ordinary law-obeying many’ into a growing mass, a social activist movement that has a multiplier effect. Hence, after some affected become ‘translators’ and urge the others to have the same Human Rights-based understanding, the movement will grow until it achieves (small) changes in the system, not necessarily the abolition of the government or the form of state, based on the SOGI case.
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