Pamela E. Oliver
Professor of Sociology

Fields in Social Movements

These readings use field theory

  1. Diani, M. and K. Pilatit (2011). “Interests, Identities, And Relations: Drawing Boundaries In Civic Organizational Fields.” Mobilization 16(3): 265-282. This article combines social movement and organizational theory to explore boundary definition in civic organizational fields. Drawing upon evidence from two British cities and applying network analysis to relations between organizations interested in environmental, ethnicity, and migration issues, we show that identities shape network patterns more consistently than interest in specific issues. While this finding supports previous insights from organizational and social movement research on the relation between identities and fields, we go beyond them in showing that the role of identities is pivotal regardless of the nature of local political opportunity structures and cultures. We conclude by discussing possible strategies for exploring the link between organizational and social movement fields. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
  2. Evans, J. H. (1997). “Multi-Organizational Fields and Social Movement Organization Frame Content: The Religious Pro- Choice Movement.” Sociological Inquiry 67(4): 451-469. This article builds on the idea of a “multi-organizational field” to analyze the multiple targets that influence the creation of a social movement organization’s frame and apply these ideas by examining the framing efforts of the SMOs in the religious pro-choice movement from 1967 to 1992. The frame literature identifies two distinct types of frame processes directed toward targets: frame alignment and counter-framing. Frame alignment processes attempt to link the interpretive orientations of the SMO with those of the target group. Secondly, the SMO attempts to undermine their opponents’ attempts at frame alignment with contested targets through “counter- framing”–attempts to “rebut, undermine, or neutralize a person’s or group’s myths, versions of reality, or interpretive framework.” If left unchallenged, the SMO’s opponents’ frames will eventually carry away even the targets in the SMO’s alliance system. In the multiorganizational field context then, the alliance and neutral systems of an SMO are targeted through frame alignment processes, and the antagonists in the conflict sector are targeted through counter-framing. For most SMOs these framing efforts toward multiple targets are not sequential but simultaneous.
  3. Fligstein, N. and D. McAdam (2011). “Toward a General Theory of Strategic Action Fields.” Sociological Theory 29(1): 1-26. In recent years there has been an outpouring of work at the intersection of social movement studies and organizational theory. While we are generally in sympathy with this work, we think it implies a far more radical rethinking of structure and agency in modern society than has been realized to date. In this article, we offer a brief sketch of a general theory of strategic action fields (SAFs). We begin with a discussion of the main elements of the theory, describe the broader environment in which any SAF is embedded, consider the dynamics of stability and change in SAFs, and end with a respectful critique of other contemporary perspectives on social structure and agency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
  4. Fligstein, N. and D. McAdam (2011). A Political-Cultural Approach to the Problem of Strategic Action.” Research in the Sociology of Organizations 34: 287-316. The discovery of meso-level social orders in organizational theory, political sociology, and social movement theory, what have subsequently been called sectors, policy domains, and most popularly, fields (or in organizational sociology, organizational fields), opens up a theoretical terrain that has not yet been fully explored (see Martin, 2003 for one view offields). In this chapter, we propose that in fact all of these phenomena (and several others), fields, domains, policy domains, sectors, networks, and in game theory, the “game” bear a deep theoretical relationship to one another. They are all a way of characterizing how meso-level social orders, social spaces are constructed. We want to make a bold claim: the idea of fields is the central sociological construct for understanding all arenas of collective strategic action. The idea offields is not just useful for understanding markets and political policy domains, but also social movements, and many other forms of organized social life. In essence, scholars working on their particular empirical corner of the world have inadvertently discovered something fundamental about social structure: that collective actors somehow manage to work to get “action” toward their socially and cultural constructed ends and in doing so, enlist the support of others in order to produce meso-level social orders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
  5. Fligstein, N. and D. McAdam (2012). “Response to Goldstone and Useem.” Sociological Theory 30(1): 48-50. The article offers the authors’ insights regarding the comment of Jack Goldstone and Bert Useem for their article concerning theory of fields. They mention that Goldstone and Useem point out that the said theory has to be less sensitive to the particular struggles of a particular field, structure and dynamics. They state that Goldstone and Useem explore the issues on accounting for stability and change in fields, in which they criticize the theory that Goldstone and Useem offer.
  6. Goldstone, J. A. (2004). “More social movements or fewer? Beyond political opportunity structures to relational fields.” Theory & Society 33(3/4): 333-365. If social movements are an attempt by “outsiders” to gain leverage within politics, then one might expect the global spread of democracy to reduce social movement activity. This article argues the reverse. Granted, many past social movements, such as women’s rights and civil rights, were efforts to empower the disenfranchised. However, this is not typical. Rather, social movements and protest tactics are more often part of a portfolio of efforts by politically active leaders and groups to influence politics. Indeed, as representative governance spreads, with the conviction by all parties that governments should respond to popular choice, then social movements and protest will also spread, as a normal element of democratic politics. Social movements should therefore not be seen as simply a matter of repressed forces fighting states; instead they need to be situated in a dynamic relational field in which the ongoing actions and interests of state actors, allied and counter-movement groups, and the public at large all influence social movement emergence, activity, and outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
  7. Goldstone, J. A. and B. Useem (2012). “Putting Values and Institutions Back into the Theory of Strategic Action Fields.” Sociological Theory 30(1): 37-47. Neil Fligstein and Doug McAdam have presented a new theory of how collective action creates the structure and dynamics of societies. At issue is the behavior of social movements, organizations, states, political parties, and interest groups. They argue that all of these phenomena are produced by social actors (which may be individuals or groups) involved in strategic action. This allows Fligstein and McAdam to advance a unified theory of “strategic action fields.” This article takes issue with aspects of Fligstein and McAdam’s important contribution. We argue that that all organizations are not essentially the same; in addition to the location and interactions of their strategic actors, their dynamics are shaped and distinguished by differing values and norms, by the autonomy of institutions embedded in strategic action fields, and by the fractal relationships that nested fields have to broader principles of justice and social organization that span societies. We also criticize the view that social change can be conceptualized solely in terms of shifting configurations of actors in strategic action fields. Rather, any theory of social action must distinguish between periods of routine contention under the current institutions and norms and exceptional challenges to the social order that aim to transform those institutions and norms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
  8. King, L. (2007). “Charting a Discursive Field: Environmentalists for U.S. Population Stabilization.” Sociological Inquiry 77(3): 301-325. This article seeks to extend our understanding of the forces that shape social movement messages. Using a framework that focuses on a movement’s discursive field, I analyze the U.S. movement for population stabilization, which is made up of groups that call for stricter limits on immigration to the United States as a means to forestall environmental decline. Drawing upon data from a range of sources, including the Web sites of 10 environment-oriented immigration-reduction organizations, I make the case that this movement’s particular field is composed of the discursive repertoires (or messages) of a set of environmental and nonenvironmental social actors and three central discourses: science, political economy, and nationalism. I argue that the movement’s relative lack of success is partially attributable to its position in the discursive field in which it must operate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
  9. Levitsky, S. R. (2007). “NICHE ACTIVISM: CONSTRUCTING A UNIFIED MOVEMENT IDENTITY IN A HETEROGENEOUS ORGANIZATIONAL FIELD.” Mobilization 12(3): 271-286. This article draws on a study of interorganizational relations in the Chicago gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender movement to elaborate a theory for how activists integrate divergent organizational approaches to social reform into a coherent ‘movement identity.’ Departing from the resource mobilization and collective identity literatures, which tend to reduce organizational specialization either to a competition over resources or to ideological differences among movement participants, I argue that organizational interests and shared beliefs play interrelated, but nonreducible roles in the construction of movement identity. Activists understand social reform as requiring competencies in a wide range of cultural and political venues. Focusing on specific forms of movement activity, or niches, organizations develop proficiencies that activists share as part of a collective effort in which each organization is seen as playing a necessary, but insufficient part. Rather than undermining a unified movement identity, then, organizational specialization is seen here as producing it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
  10. Walker, E. T. (2012). “Social Movements, Organizations, and Fields: a Decade of Theoretical Integration.” Contemporary Sociology 41(5): 576-587. The article reviews several books about theoretical integration in social movements and organizations, including “Challenging Operations: Medical Reform and Resistance in Surgery,” by Katherine C. Kellogg, “Contention and Corporate Social Responsibility,” by Sarah A. Soule and “Forging Gay Identities: Organizing Sexuality in San Francisco, 1950-1994,” by Elizabeth A. Armstrong.
  11.  Jasper. 2015.  “Introduction: Playing the Game” in Players and Arenas: The Interactive Dynamics of Protest,” edited by James M. Jasper and Jan Willlem Duyvendak. Amsterdam University Press.   This is a link to the whole book:  JasperDuyvendak_2015_Players_and_Arenas_The_Interactive_Dynamics_of_Protest.pdf
  12. Elizabeth Armstrong. 2002. “Crisis, Collective Creativity, and the Generation of New Organizational Forms: The Transformation of Lesbian/Gay Organizations in San Francisco.” In Social Structure and Organizations Revisited, pp. 361-395. Emerald Group Publishing Limited. Armstrong2002_SocialStructureOrgs_CrisisCollectiveCreativity_NewOrgForms.pdf
  13. Jan Willem Duyvendak and Olivier Fillieule. 2015 “Conclusion: Patterned Fluidity: An Interactionist Perspective as a Tool for Exploring Contentious Politics.” in Players and Arenas: The Interactive Dynamics of Protest,” edited by James M. Jasper and Jan Willlem Duyvendak. Amsterdam University Press.  This is a link to the whole book: JasperDuyvendak_2015_Players_and_Arenas_The_Interactive_Dynamics_of_Protest.pdf
  14. John Levi Martin. 2003. “What is Field Theory?” American Journal of Sociology 109(1): 1-49. Martin_2003_AJS_WhatIsFieldTheory.pdfDownload Martin_2003_AJS_WhatIsFieldTheory.pdf (Note: A comprehensive review and explanation of “field,” best forever!)
  15. Sida Liu and Mustafa Emirbayer. 2016. “Field and Ecology.” Sociological Theory 34(1): 62-79. LiuEmirbayer_2016_SocTheory_FieldEcology.pdfDownload LiuEmirbayer_2016_SocTheory_FieldEcology.pdf (Note: make sure you know there is another theoretical lineage that looks similar and equally important, but it is called “ecology.” This article explains the different strengths and weaknesses of field theory and ecology theory)
  16. If you are looking for textbook reivews, the 2019 Snow et al Encyclopedia of Social Movements SnowSoule2019_WileyBlackwellCompanionSocialMovments2ndEd_wholevolme.pdf  Download SnowSoule2019_WileyBlackwellCompanionSocialMovments2ndEd_wholevolme.pdf(this is a link to the WHOLE BOOK) includes
    1. Chapter 8 Networks and Feilds by Nick Crossley and Mario Diani
    2. Chapter 11 How Social Movements Interact with Organizations and Fields: Protest, Institutions, and Beyond
    3. Raka Ray, Women’s Movement and Political Fields” (#9 in group 1)

Abstracts of these papers are on my web siteLinks to an external site.

  1. Fligstein and McAdam, Theory of SAFs.pdfDownload Fligstein and McAdam, Theory of SAFs.pdf
  2. Diani and Pilati, Interests, Identities, RelationsLinks to an external site.
  3. Evans, Multiorganizational fields and SMO FramesLinks to an external site. 
  4. Goldstone & Usee, Putting Values & Institutions into SAFs Goldstone and Useem, Putting Values and Institutions Into Strategic Action Fields.pdfDownload Goldstone and Useem, Putting Values and Institutions Into Strategic Action Fields.pdf
  5. Goldstone Beyond Political Opportunity Structure to Relational Fields. Goldstone, Beyond Pol Opp Structures to Relational Fields.pdfDownload Goldstone, Beyond Pol Opp Structures to Relational Fields.pdf
  6. Jack Goldstone’s (2004) “More Social Movements or Fewer? Beyond Political Opportunity Structures to Relational Fields (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site..” (summary pgs. 335-337)
  7. King, Charting a Discursive Field.pdf  Download King, Charting a Discursive Field.pdf 
  8. Walker, SMs, Organizations and Fields.pdf