On Political Institutions and Social Movement Dynamics: The Case of the United

Abstract. In this article, I consider the institutional infl uence of the United Nations on the organizational structures, tactical repertoires, and claims of the global indigenous movement. A predominant sociological paradigm has tended to view a movement’s being located in conventional political space as promoting its “institutionalization, ” generally understood as a more or less determined process by which social movements under-going organizational change eschew confrontational strategies and claims for more moderate approaches. This article illustrates that the consequences of interacting with institutions can be rather different than is expected from this paradigm, and thereby reinforces the need for a new approach allowing for more variation in terms of what takes place when social movements engage in conventional political activity