The field of social movement studies has expanded dramatically over the past three decades. But as it has done so, its focus has become increasingly narrow and movement-centric. When combined with the tendency to select successful struggles for study, the conceptual and methodological conventions of the field conduce to a decidedly Ptolemaic view of social movements: one that exaggerates the frequency and causal significance of movements as a form of politics. This book reports the results of a comparative study, not of movements, but of 20 communities earmarked for environmentally risky energy projects. In stark contrast to the central thrust of the social movement literature, the authors find that the overall level of emergent opposition to the projects to have been very low, and they seek to explain that variation and the impact, if any, it had on the ultimate fate of the proposed projects.

Although the fields of organization theory and social movement theory have long been viewed as belonging to different worlds, recent events have intervened, reminding us that organizations are becoming more movement-like - more volatile and politicized - while movements are more likely to borrow strategies from organizations. Organization theory and social movement theory are two of the most vibrant areas within the social sciences. This collection of original essays and studies both calls for a closer connection between these fields and demonstrates the value of this interchange. Three introductory, programmatic essays by leading scholars in the two fields are followed by eight empirical studies that directly illustrate the benefits of this type of cross-pollination. The studies variously examine the processes by which movements become organized and the role of movement processes within and among organizations. The topics covered range from globalization and transnational social movement organizations to community recycling programs.

The aim of the book is to highlight and begin to give "voice" to some of the notable "silences" evident in recent years in the study of contentious politics. The coauthors hope to redress the present topical imbalance in the field. In particular, the authors take up seven specific topics in the volume: the relationship between emotions and contention; temporality in the study of contention; the spatial dimensions of contention; leadership in contention; the role of threat in contention; religion and contention; and contention in the context of demographic and life-course processes.

Dissatisfied with the compartmentalization of studies concerning strikes, wars, revolutions, social movements, and other forms of political struggle, McAdam, Tarrow, and Tilly identify causal mechanisms and processes that recur across a wide range of contentious politics. Critical of the static, single-actor models (including their own) that have prevailed in the field, they shift the focus of analysis to dynamic interaction. Doubtful that large, complex series of events such as revolutions and social movements conform to general laws, they break events into smaller episodes, then identify recurrent mechanisms and proceses within them. Dynamics of Contention examines and compares eighteen contentious episodes drawn from many different parts of the world since the French Revolution, probing them for consequential and widely applicable mechanisms, for example, brokerage, category formation, and elite defection. The episodes range from nineteenth-century nationalist movements to contemporary Muslim-Hindu conflict to the Tiananmen crisis of 1989 to disintegration of the Soviet Union. The authors spell out the implications of their approach for explanation of revolutions, nationalism, and democratization, then lay out a more general program for study of contentious episodes wherever and whenever they occur.

Social movements such as environmentalism, feminism, nationalism, and the anti-immigration movement figure prominently in the modern world. Comparative Perspectives on Social Movements examines social movements in a comparative perspective, focusing on the role of ideology and beliefs, mechanisms of mobilization, and how politics shapes the development and outcomes of movements. It includes case studies of the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, the United States, Italy, the Netherlands, and West Germany.

The field of social movement studies has expanded dramatically over the past three decades. But as it has done so, its focus has become increasingly narrow and movement-centric. When combined with the tendency to select successful struggles for study, the conceptual and methodological conventions of the field conduce to a decidedly Ptolemaic view of social movements: one that exaggerates the frequency and causal significance of movements as a form of politics. This book reports the results of a comparative study, not of movements, but of 20 communities earmarked for environmentally risky energy projects. In stark contrast to the central thrust of the social movement literature, the authors find that the overall level of emergent opposition to the projects to have been very low, and they seek to explain that variation and the impact, if any, it had on the ultimate fate of the proposed projects.

The aim of the book is to highlight and begin to give "voice" to some of the notable "silences" evident in recent years in the study of contentious politics. The coauthors hope to redress the present topical imbalance in the field. In particular, the authors take up seven specific topics in the volume: the relationship between emotions and contention; temporality in the study of contention; the spatial dimensions of contention; leadership in contention; the role of threat in contention; religion and contention; and contention in the context of demographic and life-course processes.

Social movements such as environmentalism, feminism, nationalism, and the anti-immigration movement figure prominently in the modern world. Comparative Perspectives on Social Movements examines social movements in a comparative perspective, focusing on the role of ideology and beliefs, mechanisms of mobilization, and how politics shapes the development and outcomes of movements. It includes case studies of the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, the United States, Italy, the Netherlands, and West Germany.

In this classic work of sociology, Doug McAdam presents a political-process model that explains the rise and decline of the black protest movement in the United States. Moving from theoretical concerns to empirical analysis, he focuses on the crucial role of three institutions that foster protest: black churches, black colleges, and Southern chapters of the NAACP. He concludes that political opportunities, a heightened sense of political efficacy, and the development of these three institutions played a central role in shaping the civil rights movement. In his new introduction, McAdam revisits the civil rights struggle in light of recent scholarship on social movement origins and collective action.
"[A] first-rate analytical demonstration that the civil rights movement was the culmination of a long process of building institutions in the black community."--Raymond Wolters, "Journal of American History"
"A fresh, rich, and dynamic model to explain the rise and decline of the black insurgency movement in the United States."--James W. Lamare, "Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science"

Finding ways to understand the nature of social change and social order-from political movements to market meltdowns-is one of the enduring problems of social science. A Theory of Fields draws together far-ranging insights from social movement theory, organizational theory, and economic and political sociology to construct a general theory of social organization and strategic action. In a work of remarkable synthesis, imagination, and analysis, Neil Fligstein and Doug McAdam propose that social change and social order can be understood through what they call strategic action fields. They posit that these fields are the general building blocks of political and economic life, civil society, and the state, and the fundamental form of order in our world today. Similar to Russian dolls, they are nested and connected in a broader environment of almost countless proximate and overlapping fields. Fields are mutually dependent; change in one often triggers change in another. At the core of the theory is an account of how social actors fashion and maintain order in a given field. This sociological theory of action, what they call "social skill," helps explain what individuals do in strategic action fields to gain cooperation or engage in competition. To demonstrate the breadth of the theory, Fligstein and McAdam make its abstract principles concrete through extended case studies of the Civil Rights Movement and the rise and fall of the market for mortgages in the U.S. since the 1960s. The book also provides a "how-to" guide to help others implement the approach and discusses methodological issues. With a bold new approach, A Theory of Fields offers both a rigorous and practically applicable way of thinking through and making sense of social order and change-and how one emerges from the other-in modern, complex societies.

The United States is now more starkly divided in political terms than at any time since the end of Reconstruction and more unequal in material terms than on the eve of the Great Depression. How did we go from the bipartisan cooperation and relative economic equality of the war and postwar years to today's inequality and partisan divisions? In Deeply Divided, sociologists Doug McAdam and Karina Kloos argue that to represent contemporary political polarization and economic inequality as byproducts of party politics alone is to distort the complex origins of the mess in which we find ourselves today. Rather, it is social movements, from the Civil Rights movement to today's Tea Party, that have pushed Republicans and Democrats toward the fringes. Owing in large part to WWII and then to the Cold War and McCarthyism, the period from 1940 to 1960 was uniquely devoid of social movement activity. Spared these pressures, both parties were able to hew to the ideological middle, creating opportunities for bipartisan cooperation and conditions for relative material equality. Social movements re-emerged as a significant force in the 1960s, moving the Democrats and Republicans sharply left and right respectively over the course of the decade. The movements most responsible were two linked struggles: the civil rights movement and the nationwide "white backlash" that developed in response. Over the past half-century social movements have continued to challenge parties as the dominant mobilizing force in American politics. This is especially true today on the right, where the Republican Party and the policies of its House delegation largely reflect the views of its mobilized movement wing. McAdam and Kloos stress that a reversal of these trends is possible-if only we are able to understand the challenges involved in overcoming political and economic divisions.

In this book, two titans of social movement scholarship bring together the best current research on the nexus between the local and the global in translating the global justice movement into action at the grassroots, and vice versa. Using recent cases of transnational contention_from the European Social Forum in Florence to the Argentinean human rights movement and British environmentalists, from movement networks in Bristol and Glasgow to the Zapatistas_the original chapters by distinguished scholars presented in this volume adapt current social movement theory to what appears to be a new cycle of protest developing around the globe.

For the first time in a single volume, the growing field of network analysis is systematically explored and assessed in terms of its ability to throw light on individual behaviour, social movements and political processes.

For the first time in a single volume, leading social movement researchers map the full range of applications of network concepts and tools to their field of inquiry. They illustrate how networks affect individual contributions to collective action in both democratic and non-democratic organizations; how patterns of inter-organizational linkages affect the circulation of resources both within movement milieus and between movement organizations and the political system; how network concepts and techniques may improve our grasp of the relationship between movements and elites, of the configuration of alliance and conflict structures, of the clustering of episodes of contention in protest cycles.Social Movements and Networks casts new light on our understanding of social movements and cognate social and political processes.

Dissatisfied with the compartmentalization of studies concerning strikes, wars, revolutions, social movements, and other forms of political struggle, McAdam, Tarrow, and Tilly identify causal mechanisms and processes that recur across a wide range of contentious politics. Critical of the static, single-actor models (including their own) that have prevailed in the field, they shift the focus of analysis to dynamic interaction. Doubtful that large, complex series of events such as revolutions and social movements conform to general laws, they break events into smaller episodes, then identify recurrent mechanisms and proceses within them. Dynamics of Contention examines and compares eighteen contentious episodes drawn from many different parts of the world since the French Revolution, probing them for consequential and widely applicable mechanisms, for example, brokerage, category formation, and elite defection. The episodes range from nineteenth-century nationalist movements to contemporary Muslim-Hindu conflict to the Tiananmen crisis of 1989 to disintegration of the Soviet Union. The authors spell out the implications of their approach for explanation of revolutions, nationalism, and democratization, then lay out a more general program for study of contentious episodes wherever and whenever they occur.

From Contention to Democracy addresses a crucial aspect of contemporary societies: the role of social movements for political and social change. The volume gathers together essays written by prominent social theorists who have been asked to reflect on the relationship between movements and processes of social, political and cultural change. Three broad types of movement-change nexus are distinguished and discussed: incorporation, transformation, and democratization. The chapters in this book all point to the place of social movements in relation to these three processes of change, while discussing the history and well-known events of social movements. Individual occurrences such as the protest of French students in 1968 or Chilean shantytown dwellers are examined. The final essay looks ahead, wondering: what is the future of social movements?

Although the fields of organization theory and social movement theory have long been viewed as belonging to different worlds, recent events have intervened, reminding us that organizations are becoming more movement-like - more volatile and politicized - while movements are more likely to borrow strategies from organizations. Organization theory and social movement theory are two of the most vibrant areas within the social sciences. This collection of original essays and studies both calls for a closer connection between these fields and demonstrates the value of this interchange. Three introductory, programmatic essays by leading scholars in the two fields are followed by eight empirical studies that directly illustrate the benefits of this type of cross-pollination. The studies variously examine the processes by which movements become organized and the role of movement processes within and among organizations. The topics covered range from globalization and transnational social movement organizations to community recycling programs.