Pamela E. Oliver
Professor of Sociology

Soc 924 – Economic & Social Conditions

Overviews

Axes of domination

  1. Barry Eidlin and Jasmine Kerrissey “Social Class and Social Movements”. Chapter 29 in Snow et al 2019 Wiley Blackwell Companion to Social Movements Link to book in UW Library (requires login) Class grievances and identities, theorizing classes, from classes to masses, social movement theory and retreat from class, from protests to strikes, labor movement scholarship, bridging labor scholarship and social movement theory.
  2. Heather McKee Hurwitz and Alison Dahl Crossley “Gender and Social Movements” Chapter 30 in Snow et al 2019 Wiley Blackwell Companion to Social Movements Link to book in UW Library (requires login) Tactics and strategies, organizations, collective identities, opportunities and constraints.
  3. Peter Owens, Rory McVeigh, David Cunningham “Race, Ethnicity and Social Movements” Chapter 31 in Snow et al 2019 Wiley Blackwell Companion to Social Movements Link to book in UW Library (requires login) race, ethnicity and social movement theory; white racist mobilization; racial oppression and participation in social movemetns; identity processes; strategy and tactics; state repression and racialized consequences of contention.
  4. Hank Johnston. “Nationalism, Nationalist Movements, and Social Movement Theory.” 2019 Chapter 35 in Snow et al 2019 Wiley Blackwell Companion to Social Movements Link to book in UW Library (requires login) . State-facilitated nationalisms; state-destroying nationalisms; national liberation movements; party nationalism in democratic states; labor market inequalities and ethnic competition; national movements in the new millenium.

Mostly Economic Conditions

  1. della Porta and Diani. Social Movements, An Introduction. (2nd or 3rd Edition) Chapter 2. “Social Changes and Social Movements.” Different examples in each edition, but covers the same basic theoretical materials. Opens with mobilization of French unemployed in 1990s. The problem of social tensions vs mobilization. How social/economic structure affects cleavages and collective action. Economic change and labor migration, increased unemployed and ethnic conflict. Globalization and effects on territoriality of conflict; then transnationalization of conflict, weaker nation-states, spread of international law and structures. Conflicts around the welfare state. Shift1ing boundaries of public/private, problems of cultural difference within nations. Problematize social identities. Consumerism. Discussion of whither classes and the “new middle class” in social movements.”
  2. chapters in Snow et al 2019 Wiley Blackwell Companion to Social Movements Link to book in UW Library (requires login)
    1. Paul Almeida “The Role of Threat in Collective Action”. Chapter 2.
    2. Marco Giugni and Maria Grasso. Chapter 26. “Economic Outcomes of Social Movements”
  3. Paul Almeida. Social Movements. Chapter 4 Social Movement Emergence.
  5. Buechler, Steven M. (2004). The Strange Career of Strain and Breakdown Theories of Collective Action. The Blackwell Companion to Social Movements. D. A. Snow, S. A. Soule and H. Kriesi. Malden, MA and Oxford, UK, Blackwell Publishing: 47-66. A good review of the concept from its origins, repudiation, revival. Argues for the need to specify strain & breakdown along with political opportunity to discuss their relations.
  6. Snow, D. A., D. M. Cress, et al. (1998). “Disrupting the “Quotidian”: Reconceptualizing the Relationship between Breakdown and the Emergence of Collective Action.” Mobilization 3(1): 1-22. Provides theoretical refinement & empirical specification for the breakdown variant of strain theory. The relationship between social breakdown & movement emergence is reconceptualized in a fashion consistent with strands of cultural theory, phenomenology, & symbolic interactionism. This reconceptualization resonates with prospect theory & research on collective action in a diversity of settings. It is argued that the key to the breakdown-movement relationship resides in the actual or threatened disruption of the quotidian. Four conditions are especially likely to disrupt the quotidian & heighten prospects of collective action: accidents that throw a community’s routines into doubt &/or threaten its existence; actual or threatened intrusion into &/or violation of citizens’ sense of privacy, safety, & control; alteration in subsistence routines because of unfavorable ratios of resources to claimants or demand; & dramatic changes in structures of social control. The relationship between these conditions & movement emergence is elaborated by drawing on literature regarding the emergence of collective action in various contexts & on fieldwork on 15 homeless social movement organizations in eight US cities. Also explored are the implications for understanding more fully the generality of various conditions & processes commonly thought to apply to social movement emergence. 1 Table, 70 References. Adapted from the source document
  7. Sewell, W. H., Jr. (1996). “Historical Events as Transformations of Structures: Inventing Revolution at the Bastille.” Theory and Society 25: 841-891. The theoretical organization of historical events as sequences of occurrences resulting in durable transformations is discussed. Social structures are defined as mutually sustaining & overlapping sets of cultural schemas, distributions of resources, & modes of power that combine to reproduce consistent patterns of social action. Based on this definition, historical events are theorized as occurrences that inspire a set of related occurrences & lead to long-term transformations of social structures. Further, historical events must be recognized as important by contemporaries. Drawing on the case example of the French Revolution & the taking of the Bastille, a number of other characteristics are cited as fundamental to historical events: the rearticulation of social structures, cultural transformations, heightened emotion, acts of collective creativity, ritualization, production of future events, & articulation through authoritative sanction. It is concluded that the boundaries of an event are determined by arbitrary judgments. T. Sevier.

Empirical

There are dozens (perhaps hundreds) of articles about protests in the wake of the Great Recession after 2008 and the subsequent austerity policies. Keywords “austerity” for Europe and “occupy” for the US protests turn up many articles. The US Tea Party protests of 2009-10 were right-wing protests focused on resisting social programs and the Obama administration.

There are also many articles about labor strikes, protests about housing, protests about cuts to social services.