Critics of identity politics decry the celebration of difference within identity movements, yet many activists underscore their similarities to, rather than differences from, the majority. This article develops the idea of "identity deployment" as a form of strategic collective action. Thus one can ask under what political conditions are identities that celebrate or suppress differences deployed strategically. A comparison of strategies used in four lesbian and gay rights campaigns shows that interactions between social movement organizations, state actors, and the opposition determine the types of identities deployed. The author suggests the model's application to the Civil Rights and feminist movements. [The organizers of the 1993 lesbian and gay march on Washington] face a dilemma: how to put forward a set of unsettling demands for unconventional people in ways that will not make enemies of potential allies. They do so by playing down their differences before the media and the country while celebrating it in private. (Tarrow 1994, p. 10) Sidney Tarrow's portrayal of the 1993 lesbian and gay march on Washington highlights a central irony about identity politics and the decline of the Left: Critics of identity politics decry the celebration of difference

We argue that critiques of political process theory are beginning to coalesce into a new approach to social movements-a "multi-institutional politics" approach. While the political process model assumes that domination is organized by and around one source of power, the alternative perspective views domination as organized around multiple sources of power, each of which is simultaneously material and symbolic. We examine the conceptions of social movements, politics, actors, goals, and strategies supported by each model, demonstrating that the view of society and power underlying the political process model is too narrow to encompass the diversity of contemporary change efforts. Through empirical examples, we demonstrate that the alternative approach provides powerful analytical tools for the analysis of a wide variety of contemporary change efforts. anonymous reviewers for helpful comments. A special thanks to Kristine Olsen for research assistance.

This review presents an overview of research on identity politics. First, I distinguish between various approaches to defining identity politics and the challenges presented by each approach. In the process, I show that these approaches reflect competing theoretical understandings of the relationship between experience, culture, identity, politics, and power. These debates raise theoretical issues that I address in the second section, including (a) how to understand the relationship between personal experience and political stance, (b) why status identities are understood and/or portrayed as essentialist or socially constructed, (c) the strategic dilemmas activists face when the identities around which a movement is organized are also the basis for oppression, (d) when to attribute certain movement outcomes to status identities, and (e) how to link collective action to specific notions of power to help explain the cultural and political goals at which identity politics is aimed. I conclude by recommending some promising avenues for future research.

In 1934 Huey Long created "Share Our Wealth," a national challenger that sought economic redistribution. Our study explores the outcomes of this insurgency and the reasons for its successes and failures. We first review perspectives on success for social protest movements and provide a new definition of success, based on securing collective goods for a beneficiary group through movement organization efforts. Next we elaborate a "political mediation" theory of movement success. This theory holds that to be successful a movement organization must do more than just mobilize supporters and engage in collective action-political conditions must also be favorable to winning new advantages. We then examine historical information about national policymaking in Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal and quantitative data on spending by the Works Progress Administration. To assess the influence of Share Our Wealth, we analyze a secret poll undertaken by the Roosevelt Administration. The historical and quantitative analyses indicate that Share Our Wealth achieved partial success in ways that support the political mediation theory. 1935, the New Deal of President In April 1935, the Democratic National Com-I n Franklin D. Roosevelt was at a crossroads. mittee conducted a secret poll, and, to the The programs of his "first 100 days" in 1933 Committee's chairman, James Farley (1938), had failed to end the Great Depression, and the results suggested that Long might hold criticism was mounting. From the left, Sena-the balance of power in the 1936 Presidential tor Huey P. Long of Louisiana promoted a contest. The summer of 1935 saw the beginplan to "Share Our Wealth"; by February he ning of Roosevelt's "second hundred days." claimed that 7.7 million had joined more than In June, Roosevelt demanded the passage of 27,000 Share Our Wealth societies or clubs. four liberal bills and added a "soak;the-rich" tax proposal to his "must" list of indispens-* Direct all correspondence to Edwin Amenta, able legislation. Could Long have upset

This article employs and expands a multidimensional framework for understanding movement effects that includes political, mobilization, and cultural outcomes. It compares lesbian and gay efforts to decriminalize sodomy between 1961 and 1977 and between 1986 and 1991 and examines the conditions under which activists strive for different sorts of goals. Because movement strategies are inextricably tied to what motivates activists-that is, their understanding of what constitutes success-this article sheds light on how activists understand and negotiate their external environment. In contrast to previous formulations, it argues that political, mobilization, and cultural goals do not always line up in a one-to-one fashion. Therefore, activists' understandings of the relationship between political opportunities and different sorts of outcomes influences their strategic choices, which in turn affects the types of outcomes they achieve.

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