J. Craig Jenkins

Bio: J. Craig Jenkins is an academic researcher from Ohio State University. The author has contributed to research in topics: Politics & Social movement. The author has an hindex of 36, co-authored 86 publications receiving 11985 citations. Previous affiliations of J. Craig Jenkins include Ohio University.

From Mobilization to Revolution.

Abstract: El reciente fallecimiento del sociólogo e historiador Charles Tilly (Lombard, Illinois, 1929-Bronx, Nueva York, 2008) puede servir de pretexto para rememorar una trayectoria investigadora sin duda excepcional, plasmada a lo largo de medio siglo en más de 600 artículos y 51 libros y monografías, que le convirtieron en el más influyente especialista en el análisis de la confrontación política en su relación con los grandes procesos de cambio social. Su audiencia mixta de historiadores interesados en sus métodos de análisis innovadores y de sociólogos que buscan modelos alternativos de acción colectiva y estrategias de investigación histórica que den respuesta a las cuestiones teóricas se explica en buena parte porque empleó un lenguaje ambivalente, pero razonablemente comprensible, y una metodología que siempre aspiró a situarse en el cruce entre la historia y la sociología. Su trayectoria intelectual puede ser contada como un dilatado tránsito desde el reduccionismo estructuralista de sus orígenes hacia lo que él mismo llamó “realismo relacional”: una nueva perspectiva de observación donde las transacciones, los vínculos sociales y las conversaciones se convertían en el tejido constitutivo de la vida social.

Resource Mobilization Theory and the Study of Social Movements

Abstract: Resource mobilization theory has recently presented an alternative interpretation of social movements. The review traces the emergence and recent controversies generated by this new perspective. A multifactored model of social movement formation is advanced, emphasizing resources, organization, and political opportunities in addition to traditional discontent hypotheses. The McCarthy-Zald (1973) theory of entrepreneurial mobilization is critically assessed as an interpretation of the social movements of the 1960s-1970s, and the relevance of the Olson (1968) theory of collective action is specified. Group organization is argued to be the major determinant of mobilization potential and patterns. The debate between the Gerlach-Hine (1970) and entrepreneurial theories of social movement organization is traced in terms of historical changes in the social movement sector and the persistence of organizational diversity. A model of social movement politics is outlined, building on Gamson’s (1975) theory of strate...

Shifting public opinion on climate change: an empirical assessment of factors influencing concern over climate change in the U.S., 2002–2010

Abstract: This paper conducts an empirical analysis of the factors affecting U.S. public concern about the threat of climate change between January 2002 and December 2010. Utilizing Stimson’s method of constructing aggregate opinion measures, data from 74 separate surveys over a 9-year period are used to construct quarterly measures of public concern over global climate change. We examine five factors that should account for changes in levels of concern: 1) extreme weather events, 2) public access to accurate scientific information, 3) media coverage, 4) elite cues, and 5) movement/countermovement advocacy. A time-series analysis indicates that elite cues and structural economic factors have the largest effect on the level of public concern about climate change. While media coverage exerts an important influence, this coverage is itself largely a function of elite cues and economic factors. Weather extremes have no effect on aggregate public opinion. Promulgation of scientific information to the public on climate change has a minimal effect. The implication would seem to be that information-based science advocacy has had only a minor effect on public concern, while political mobilization by elites and advocacy groups is critical in influencing climate change concern.

Insurgency of the Powerless: Farm Worker Movements (1946-1972).

Abstract: Drawing on the perspective developed in recent work by Oberschall (1973), Tilly (1975) and Gamson (1975), we analyze the political process centered around farm worker insurgencies. Comparing the experience of two challenges, we argue that the factors favored in the classical social movement literature fail to account for either the rise or outcome of insurgency. Instead, the important variables pertain to social resources-in our case, sponsorship by established organizations. Farm workers themselves are powerless; as an excluded group, their demands tend to be systematically ignored. But powerlessness may be overridden if the national political elite is neutralized and members of the polity contribute resources and attack insurgent targets. To test the argument, entries in the New York Times Annual Index are content coded and statistically analyzed, demonstrating how the political environment surrounding insurgent efforts alternatively contains them or makes them successful.

Ethnicity, Insurgency, and Civil War

Abstract: An influential conventional wisdom holds that civil wars proliferated rapidly with the end of the Cold War and that the root cause of many or most of these has been ethnic and religious antagonisms. We show that the current prevalence of internal war is mainly the result of a steady accumulation of protracted conflicts since the 1950s and 1960s rather than a sudden change associated with a new, post-Cold War international system. We also find that after controlling for per capita income, more ethnically or religiously diverse countries have been no more likely to experience significant civil violence in this period. We argue for understanding civil war in this period in terms of insurgency or rural guerrilla warfare, a particular form of military practice that can be harnessed to diverse political agendas. The factors that explain which countries have been at risk for civil war are not their ethnic or religious characteristics but rather the conditions that favor insurgency. These include poverty—which marks financially and bureaucratically weak states and also favors rebel recruitment—political instability, rough terrain, and large populations.We wish to thank the many people who provided comments on earlier versions of this paper in a series of seminar presentations. The authors also gratefully acknowledge the support of the National Science Foundation (Grants SES-9876477 and SES-9876530); support from the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences with funds from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation; valuable research assistance from Ebru Erdem, Nikolay Marinov, Quinn Mecham, David Patel, and TQ Shang; sharing of data by Paul Collier.

Resource Mobilization and Social Movements: A Partial Theory

Abstract: Past analysis of social movements and social movement organizations has normally assumed a close link between the frustrations or grievances of a collectivity of actors and the growth and decline of movement activity. Questioning the theoretical centrality of this assumption directs social movement analysis away from its heavy emphasis upon the social psychology of social movement participants; it can then be more easily integrated with structural theories of social process. This essay presents a set of concepts and related propositions drawn from a resource mobilization perspective. It emphasizes the variety and sources of resources; the relationship of social movements to the media, authorities, and other parties; and the interaction among movement organizations. Propositions are developed to explain social movement activity at several levels of inclusiveness-the social movement sector, the social movement industry, and social movement organization.

Frame alignment processes, micromobilization, and movement participation.

Abstract: This paper attempts to further theoretical and empirical understanding of adherent and constituent mobilization by proposing and analyzing frame alignment as a conceptual bridge linking social psychological and resource mobilization views on movement participation. Extension of Goffinan's (1974) frame analytic perspective provides the conceptualltheoretical framework; field research on two religious movements, the peace movement, and several neighborhood movements provide the primary empirical base. Four frame alignment processes are identified and elaborated: frame bridging, frame amplification, frame extension, and frame transformation. The basic underlying premise is that frame alignment, of one variety or another, is a necessary condition for participation, whatever its nature or intensity, and that it is typically an interactional and ongoing accomplishment. The paper concludes with an elaboration of several sets of theoretical and research implications.

Power in Movement: Social Movements and Contentious Politics

Abstract: 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