Introduction and Overviews

Introduction

NOTE: This page has not been recently updated to encompass newer texts.

This class session provides an overview of traditions in social movements research. The assigned readings are long and synthetic and cannot be fully absorbed in the first read. My goal in this assignment is NOT that you absorb them all now (or even ever), but that you use them to gain a mental map of the terrain and the questions people ask(ed). Begin by skimming all of them: read the introductions and conclusions, use the boldface to orient yourself through the topics covered and the central arguments. Think about what assumptions the authors are making about the nature of society and social movements and what the important questions are. Then think about yourself and what background, assumptions, preoccupations and questions you bring to the table. Because it is very difficult to take any kind of coherent notes on these kinds of overviews, I suggest that your pre-class writing on these overviews for our be relatively short. Summarize the “mental map” you are forming based on these different articles and list questions you have about them.

Required Reading

1. Overviews

• Snow, David A., Sarah A. Soule, et al. (2004). Mapping the Terrain. The Blackwell Companion to Social Movements. D. A. Snow, S. A. Soule and H. Kriesi. Malden, MA and Oxford, UK, Blackwell Publishing: 3-16.
  My notes: movements are common, much growth in scholarship. Main sections: (1) Conceptualizing social movements. 6-11. (2) Org of the volume, 11-13. Also look over the table of contents to get an idea of the scope of the book.
• Social Movements : An Introduction. Donatella Della Porta and Mario Diani. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers. 2006.
  Provides a current overview of movement theory.
  Read Chapter 1. The Study of Social Movements: Collective Behaviors, Rational Actions, Protests, and New Conflicts.
  Sketch of theoretical perspectives and helpful discussion of definition of SM. Their characterization of theories differs from some others’. Could be useful to compare different writers’ ways of describing the field. They equate CB with meaning & values, RM with rational action, PP with politics, and NSM with critique of Marxism and new formations. Look over the rest of the book to get an idea of the book’s content.
• McAdam, Doug, John D. McCarthy and Mayer N. Zald. 1988. “Social Movements.” in Neil Smelser, ed, Handbook of Sociology.
  Micro and macro levels, a good comprehensive review of what was known through the mid-1980s, i.e. with a good emphasis on resource mobilization and early political process.

2. Two reviews separated by 34 years

• Gary T. Marx and James L. Wood. “Strands of Theory and Research in Collective Behavior.” Annual Review of Sociology 1975. Still stands as the definitive review of research through the early 1970s. Excellent theoretical organization, empirical synthesis. This was written on the cusp of the resource mobilization turn, sympathetically looking backward to the research since the 1950s while picking up the threads that led to the change. Stable URL
• Walder, Andrew G. (2009). “Political Sociology and Social Movements.” Annual Review of Sociology 35(1): 393-412. (available through UW library)
  Abstract: Until the 1970s, the study of social movements was firmly within a diverse sociological tradition that explored the relationship between social structure and political behavior, and was preoccupied with explaining variation in the political orientation of movements: their ideologies, aims, motivations, or propensities for violence. Subsequently, a breakaway tradition redefined the central problem, radically narrowing the scope of interest to the process of mobilization — how social groups, whoever they are and whatever their aims, marshal resources, recruit adherents, and navigate political environments in order to grow and succeed. Critics would later insist that the construction of meaning, the formation of collective identities, and the stimulation and amplification of emotions play vital and neglected roles in mobilization, but these alternatives did not challenge the narrowed construction of the problem itself. The resulting subfield has largely abandoned the quest to explain variation in the political orientation of movements. Researchers in related fields — on revolution, unions, and ethnic mobilization — have retained an interest in explaining political orientation, although they often view it primarily as a by-product of mobilization. Reviving theories about the impact of social structure on movement political orientation will require integrating insights from research on related but widely scattered subjects.

Other possibly useful reading

My lecture notes. These are rough notes I wrote over a decade ago which may be useful for reviewing theoretical traditions, thinking about how theories about social movements are tied to history and cases, and making key conceptual distinctions.

• Theoretical Overview
• My graphical representation of elaborated political process model (full page)
• My graphical representation of a coevolutionary model and how specific theories are pieces of the larger theory.

Other suggested readings

A. Articles which provide overviews

• “Emerging Trends in the Study of Protest and Social Movements.” Pamela E. Oliver, Jorge Cadena-Roa, Kelley D. Strawn. Research in Political Sociology, Vol. 11. Betty A. Dobratz, Timothy Buzzell, Lisa K. Waldner, eds. Stanford, CT: JAI Press, Inc.
  Emphasis on protest events and social construction as two main lines of theory development, along with globalizing case base and emphasis on relationships and consequences rather than inputs and outputs.
• Gary T. Marx and James L. Wood. “Strands of Theory and Research in Collective Behavior.” Annual Review of Sociology 1975.
  Still stands as the definitive review of research through the early 1970s. Excellent theoretical organization, empirical synthesis. Stable url
• J. Craig Jenkins. “Resource Mobilization Theory and the Study of Social Movements.” Annual Review of Sociology 9 (1983): 527-53.
  Definitive on RM through the early 1980s.
• David A. Snow and Pamela E. Oliver. “Social Movements and Collective Behavior: Social Psychological Dimensions and Considerations.” In Karen Cook, Gary Fine, and James House, eds., Sociological Perspectives on Social Psychology. Allyn and Bacon.
  A comprehensive review of social psychological issues, including networks, personality, socialization, instrumentalism, and constructionism. 1994.
• McAdam, Doug; Tarrow, Sidney; Tilly, Charles To Map Contentious Politics. Mobilization; 1996, 1, 1, Mar, 17-34.
  Overview of a major collective research program; where political process is today.
• Crist, John T.; McCarthy, John D.”If I Had a Hammer”: The Changing Methodological Repertoire of Collective Behavior and Social Movements Research. Mobilization; 1996, 1, 1, Mar, 87-102.
  A review of 150+ articles published before and after 1970.
• McAdam, D. (1996). Conceptual Origins, Current Problems, Future Directions. CP: 23-40. Standard review of 3 major processes: political opportunities, mobilizing structures, framing processes. Discursive essay, sketches factors relevant to movements and summarizes relevance to comparative studies. + Introduction: Opportunities, Mobilizing Structure, and Framing Processes — Toward a Synthetic, Comaprative Perspective on Social Movements. CP: 1-20.
• Ferree, Myra Marx and Carol McClurg Mueller (2004). Feminism and the Women’s Movement: A Global Perspective. The Blackwell Companion to Social Movements. D. A. Snow, S. A. Soule and H. Kriesi. Malden, MA and Oxford, UK, Blackwell Publishing: 576-607. distinguishing women’s and feminist movements, problems of definitions. Historical contexts. Feminism is not a new social movement. Feminism has long been transnational. Women’s movements and SM theory (leading to gender specifying theory): political opportunity, forms of mobilization, ideologies and frames

B. Books which provide overviews

• Sidney Tarrow. Power in Movement. 1998 edition. This short book is a comprehensive literature review and theoretical synthesis with an emphasis on “cycles of protest” and their integration with a political process model. Chapter list: Introduction; 1. Contentious politics and social movements: Part I. The Birth of the Modern Social Movement: 2. Modular collective action; 3. Print and association; 4. Statebuilding and social movements; Part II. From Contention to Social Movements: 5. Political opportunities and constraints; 6. The repertoire of contention; 7. Framing contention; 8. Mobilising structures and contentious politics; Part III. The Dynamics of Movement: 9. Cycles of contention; 10. Struggling to reform; 11. Transnational contention/conclusion: the future of social movements.
• Gary T. Marx, Douglas McAdam. Collective Behavior and Social Movements : Process and Structure (Prentice Hall Foundations of Modern Sociology) Paperback – 208 pages (July 1993). Prentice Hall College Div. An undergraduate-level text by respected authors; provides a good theoretical overview for those who lack background.
• John Lofland. Social Movement Organizations: Guide to Research on Insurgent Realities. Aldine De Gruyter. 1996. A research-oriented review of all possible questions you might ask about social movement organizations. An odd book, but can be very helpful when you are thinking about formulating a research problem.