By asking how social movements influence international relations, Moral Movements and Foreign Policy sits at an interesting intersection in the social sciences defined by political scientists who study international relations and sociologists who study activism. Joshua Busby draws these two fields together with a simple, but insightful, analysis of the ways in which activists manage to influence foreign policy. This review focuses on two issues raised by the book. After describing this study, I discuss how movements interact with states and then how social scientists have begun to reconceptualize social-movement outcomes.

Busby asks a simple question: How do activists affect a state's foreign policy? He answers with a two-part theory. First, there is the balance of values and costs. Activists may demand something that is expensive or cheap. Similarly, activists may demand policies that have low or high resonance with moral values. Second, activists must successfully interface with gatekeepers, such as legislators or policymakers, who have the power to legitimize the movement's demands. The author then goes on to support his theory with empirical studies of a range of policy domains, such as AIDS policy and the international courts.

The importance of Busby's argument is that it is an alternative to the interest-based view of foreign relations, which asserts that states do what they must to protect a narrowly defined resource such as trade, military power, and so forth. His view is that the beliefs of citizens are very important, not because political leaders follow the whims of voters but because domestic public opinion defines a spectrum of possibilities. The moral resonance of an issue defines the political cost of taking an action.

What is interesting about Busby's analysis is that activists are the ones who “activate” an issue. They do not possess the capacity to force policy through the political process by means of contentious tactics. They are more like moral investors. Activists are the ones who take the time to cultivate an issue and develop ties with policymakers. This is important from a microinteractional point of view. Advocates, like rock star Bono who promoted debt relief, use their reputation to build a rapport with gatekeepers. They cannot promote issues that are at odds with either national interests or moral values, but they do draw attention to one issue over others and provide a framework for an issue that might trigger a positive emotional response from gatekeepers.

This model of movement–state interactions merits comment and further elaboration. Traditionally, social-movement research has depicted the movement–state interactions in terms of the help that state actors give to movements. At one extreme, states can violently repress movements (Jennifer Earl, “Tanks, Tear Gas, and Taxes: Toward a Theory of Movement Repression,” Sociological Theory 21 [January 2003]: 44–68). At another extreme, states enact movement demands. Successful movements “hand off” their issue to the state once they have achieved some requisite level of mobilization or popularity (see Marco Giugni, Doug McAdam, and Charles Tilly, eds., How Social Movements Matter, 1999). Busby's analysis adds important nuance and depth to the more collaborative end of this spectrum. The model implicit in Busby's is a modification of Paul Lazarsfeld and Elihu Katz's classic model of elite-driven opinion change (Personal Influence, 1955). Foreign policy responds not merely to interests or even shifts in the median voter. Rather, activists do a lot of “face work” with gatekeepers. Movements shift the positions of elites, who then signal to a wider policy world what is now acceptable policy. This happens within a world constrained by public opinion, yet it shows that the locus of change is the contact between activist and gatekeeper.

Busby's book touches on an important question in the study of social and political change—the relative importance of movements. One hypothesis is that movements are important because they draw attention to issues and impose costs on incumbents who stand in their way. In contrast, skeptics point out that states—democratic ones, at least—are responsive to the median voter. If that is true, then movements are at a distinct disadvantage because they usually promote issues that the typical voter does not care about. At best, movements have their biggest impact when voters pay little attention to their issue, or they ride a favorable wave of public opinion, a position promoted by Paul Burstein (“Social Movements and Public Policy,” in How Social Movements Matter).

How does Busby's study contribute to this debate? At the very least, it lends credence to the view that movements complement or enhance public opinion. All of Busby's case studies show that policymakers adopt policies only when it is consistent with public opinion. There is also a reading of his study that places it within the camp that believes that movements do have an effect beyond public opinion. It may be argued that public opinion is often silent with regard to the issues that capture the attention of activists. Consider the cases examined by the author. Currently, Americans have strong opinions on a controversial issue like climate change, but it is doubtful that the average voter would have any opinion on a more technical issue like foreign debt relief. A resourceful movement would try to connect an issue of low voter interest to a frame of high voter interest. Busby argues that debt relief was made possible through such a connection, where activists made a religious case for debt relief, which was acceptable to both gatekeepers and the general public. The more general theory is that the set of policy options has a “sweet spot” of issues where it is possible to circumvent or even shape public opinion by targeting elites.

Works like Moral Movements and Foreign Policy illuminate the relationship between sociology and political science. This book is an example of the use of sociological theory to enrich a topic typically associated with political science. The international relations field has been dominated by arguments among realists, liberals, constructivists, and others over state behavior. Social movements have not usually been at the center of this debate. By itself, Busby's book does not upend these theories, but it does suggest that there is still unexplored territory in IR theory. Social-movement activists are now recognized as a group of actors who are not state elites, nor are they average voters, nor are they marginalized cranks. Rather, they are specialized political entrepreneurs who use tactics ranging from lawsuits to protest to promote their causes. Research on transnational activism documents a global network of actors who influence and create the policy environment for states. By showing when and how activism leads to changes in foreign policy, Busby shows one way that sociology and political science can enrich each other and expand a research area that may appear to be well covered.