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Abstract  This article demonstrates Gamson's claim that behind the apparent agreement implied by "consensus frames" lies considerable dissensus. Ironically, the very potency of consensus frames may generate contested claims to the ownership of a social problem. Food security is a potent consensus frame that has generated at least three distinct collective action frames: food security as hunger; food security as a component of a community's developmental whole; and food security as minimizing risks with respect to an industrialized food system's vulnerability to both "normal accidents" as well as the "intentional accidents" associated with agriterrorism. We show that each collective action frame reflects internal normative variation identified here with Goffman's "keying" concept. These keys suggest power differentials in the endorsement or critique of dominant institutional practices. Each frame and associated keys reflect distinct sets of interests by collective actors, such as demands for substantively different applications of science and technology. The prognostic framing of the community food security movement coincidentally holds potential for reducing not only the accidental risks of productivist agriculture but also the uncertainty induced by the risk of terrorist exploitation of those vulnerabilities. The article explores power differentials and variable levels of oppositional consciousness as mechanisms by which keys generate contentious politics within frames while serving as potential bridges between frames. This contested ownership of food security has implications for the associated movements' and organizations' capacity to influence the structure of the agrifood system as well as the broader socioeconomic organization of rural regions.

A unitary, strongly centralized state has characterized French political thought and practice for centuries. The Socialist Party broke from this tradition during its recent tenure in national office when it passed a comprehensive program of political decentralization. We consider these recent changes in the structure of the French state from pluralist, elitist, and ruling class perspectives, and conclude that each of these traditional conceptualizations limits our understanding of state power in various ways. We explore the utility of a refined ruling class perspective known as social capital, and suggest it offers insights into political decentralization and state structure not provided by alternative perspectives. We conclude by suggesting that social capital holds promise for application to problems of analytical and practical significance.

This paper seeks to illuminate how social movements collectively construct and communicate power. Drawing on insights from dramaturgy as well as from field research of several movements, the article demonstrates how social movements are dramas routinely concerned with challenging or sustaining interpretations of power relations. Four dramatic techniques associated with such communicative processes are identified and elaborated: scripting, staging, performing and interpreting. It is suggested that movement outcomes hinge in part upon how well activists employ these techniques and manage various emergent contingencies and tensions. The paper concludes with a discussion of several sets of theoretical and empirical implications.