HEARTS AND MINDS - BRINGING SYMBOLIC POLITICS BACK IN

Materialist and rationalist models of collective action often fail to explain political outcomes because they ignore the impact of normative and affective representations, a deficiency that can be remedied by p aying attention to symbolic politics. This article uses a framework dr awn from theories of narrative to explain political struggle as a comp etition between established canons and counter-hegemonic challenges, t o indicate the conditions under which counter-hegemonic challenge is m ost likely to succeed in inspiring collective action, and to suggest a ppropriate research strategies for studying symbolic politics.