FRAME CHANGES AND SOCIAL-MOVEMENT CONTRACTION - US PEACE MOVEMENT FRAMING AFTER THE COLD-WAR

This study analyzes framing processes and their relationships with ong oing social movement change. We examine peace frames found among U.S. peace movement organizations (PMOs) in its period of contraction at th e end of the Cold War. On the basis of analysis of a unique two-wave s urvey of U.S. peace movement organizations in 1988 and 1992, we assess the extent to which organizational framing of the peace problematic c hanged. We found an overall shift in emphases from more bilateral fram es like the nuclear weapons freeze to frames emphasizing multilaterali sm and global interdependence. PMO frame transformations that took pla ce between 1988 and 1999 represent a trend towards broader, more radic al (or structural) and less exclusive peace movement frames. We descri be the frame transformations observed here as the emergence of ''reten tion frames.'' Retention frames embody several dimensions of movement abeyance structures and serve to sustain organizational continuity acr oss episodes of movement surges and contraction.