Showing papers on "Social movement published in 1981"

In Praise of Paradox: A Social Policy of Empowerment over Prevention

Abstract: The thesis of this paper is that the most important and interesting aspects of community life are by their very nature paradoxical; and that our task as researchers, scholars, and professionals should be to “unpack” and influence contemporary resolutions of paradox. Within this general theme I will argue that in order to do so we will need to be more a social movement than a profession, regain our sense of urgency, and avoid the tendency to become “one-sided.” I will suggest that the paradoxical issue which demands our attention in the foreseeable future is a conflict between “rights” and “needs” models for viewing people in trouble.

Sex, Politics and Society: The Regulation of Sexuality Since 1800

Abstract: A pioneering study which has become an established classic in its field, Sex, Politics and Society provides a lucid and comprehensive analysis of the transformations of British sexual life from 1800 to the present. These changes are firmly located in the wider context of British social, political and cultural life, from industrialization, urbanisation and the impact of Empire and colonisation, through the experience of economic disruption, World Wars, the establishment of the welfare state, changing patterns of gender and the emergence of new sexual identities. This book also charts the rise of both progressive and conservative social movements, including feminism, LGBT activism, and fundamentalist movements. It is a history where the past continues to live in the present, and where the present provides ever more complex, and often controversial patterns of sexual life, with sexual and gender issues at the heart of contemporary politics. Now fully revised and updated, this edition examines key new developments including: the impact of globalisation, and the digital revolution; gender nonconformity and the rise of transgender consciousness; shifting family and relational patterns, and new forms of intimacy; changes in reproductive technology including the debates on IVF and surrogacy; new discourses of equality and sexual rights for LGBT people; the irresistible rise of same-sex marriage; the weakening of the heterosexual/ homosexual binary divide and the development of new lines of concern and divisions in the politics of sexuality. Combining rich empirical detail with innovative theoretical insights, Sex, Politics and Society remains at the cutting edge of the subject, and this fourth edition will inspire and provoke a whole new generation of readers in history, sociology, social policy and critical sexuality studies.

Resource mobilization and citizen protest in communities around three mile island

Abstract: The rapid growth and development of social movement organizations around Three Mile Island after the 1979 nuclear accident provide data for assessing and refining theories on social movements. This paper summarizes an intense first year of grass roots mobilization and documents the importance of grievances in precipitating and sustaining protest. The resource mobilization perspective regards discontent as a constant rather than a variable, and ignores cases where suddenly imposed major grievances generate organized protest. Grievances, existing structures and the mobilization process itself should all be treated as variables in the search for more inclusive theory, and three hypotheses involving these variables are included in the final section of the paper.

Research Frontier Essay: When Are Interests Interesting? The Problem of Political Representation of Women

Abstract: Recent years have witnessed an increasing demand by women for political representation of women. This demand points the way toward a number of important problems for political research, many of which remain unsolved primarily because of the segregation of women's studies from the dominant concerns of political science. This discussion focuses on the problem of group interests and representation, drawing on and suggesting further research on public opinion, interest groups, social movements, international politics, political elites, and public policy.

Self-Help and Mutual Aid: An Emerging Social Movement?

Abstract: This paper reviews the social science literature that has appeared in the past two decades on self-help and mutual aid groups. It starts with a brief description of the nature, scope, and magnitude of current self-help mani­ festations, and a sketch of scholarly work concerning them. Indigenous and largely spontaneous groups organized on the self-help/mutual aid pattern constitute an important variety of informal, voluntary associations in modern societies; they have received little systematic study by social scientists.

Relative Deprivation and Social Movements: A Critical Look at Twenty Years of Theory and Research*

Abstract: The relative deprivation perspective was widely employed in the social movement literature of the late 1960s and early 1970s. In spite of the growing popularity of some newer approaches which criti...

Faces of Feminism: A Study of Feminism As a Social Movement

Abstract: " Faces of Feminism admirably demonstrates the movement has a history going back one and a half centuries and has shown itself remarkably resilient to the attacks, defeats and attempts to silence its message." Sociology . "The most complete history to date of women's movements. [The author] covers feminism in England and America from 1840 to the present showing clearly - as previous studies have not - the philosophical and political strands that link the new feminism of the past two decades with the old feminism." Victorian Periodicals Review .

A time for every purpose under heaven: Rhetorical dimensions of protest music

Abstract: This paper examines the role of a specific rhetorical form, the protest song, in social movements. Relying on a content analysis of songs from the tabor movement and the anti‐war movement of the 1960s, the paper advances the argument that such songs are pre‐eminently in‐group messages designed to reinforce feelings of solidarity. As such, the songs are generally negative in their reaction to external circumstances, simplistic in their world view, and expressive rather than instrumental in their intention.

The Political Culture of Arab-Israeli Conflict:

Abstract: Listen to the language of the Arab-Israeli conflict. The Yom Kippur War. The War of Ramadan. Zionism is the national liberation movement of the Jewish people. Zionism is racism. The administered territories. The occupied territories. The West Bank. Southern Syria. Judea and Samaria. Sometimes it is said of a conflict that i t is merely symbolic. As if symbols were not central to most conflicts and fundamentally inseparable from the material aspects. Every conflict takes place in a particular symbolic environment. Political discourse surrounding Arab-Israeli conflict draws on a catalogue of available idea elements and makes use of a variety of symbolic devices to express these ideas. This set of idea elements, organized and clustered in various ways, comprises the political culture of the conflict. This culture is rooted in time and space. The political culture of Arab-Israeli conflict is not the same today as it was in 1948. There is one political culture in Israel, a different one in Arab countries, and still another in the United States. The catalogue from which the Gush Emunim in Israel draw their symbolism has no counterpart in the United States. The idea of jihad or holy war in Arab culture has no counterpart in American culture. Events, such as the Sadat visit to Jerusalem, or the onset of a war, provide an occasion for display of the political culture. Spokesmen for various parties in the conflict display it in their pronouncements on these events. Journalists display it in their commentary on the events. Major events affecting the conflict make the culture visible and provide us with an opportunity to analyze it.

Representing Women: The Transition From Social Movement To Interest Group:

Abstract: T HE CHALLENGE posed by new social movements and the response of the political system are dynamic aspects of American policy formation which have been neglected by most political scientists. Yet, interaction between movements and the government has frequently resulted in extending the range of political debate in the United States as well as introducing new and innovative policy alternatives. Social movements raise serious questions outside normal government channels, often concerning subjects which are not being treated as topics of political concern. The response of the government to demands by movements often results in expanding the areas of government interest and involvement.1 For example, in the 1960s and 1970s the United States government, responding to the demands of the black civil rights movement, the environmental movement and the women's movement, involved itself in areas of policy such as integrating the schools, eliminating sexism in job recruitment and monitoring environmental impacts, which were previously considered beyond the scope of federal responsibility. Yet despite the ease with which one can identify social movements that have introduced important new elements to American politics, little attention has generally been paid to the process by which social movements are incorporated into the political system. What factors determine the success or failure of movements that try to gain access to the political system? This study examines factors which allowed one movement the women's movement to make this breakthrough. It compares these factors with what is known about other movements active in the same period. The importance of such an inquiry is suggested by sociological research that delineates the distinctive characteristics of social movements.2 This re-

Philanthropy and the Gospel of Child Development.

Abstract: PHILANTHROPY in America has sparked numerous innovations in the fields of education, social work, and public health, but rarely has it been instrumental in generating and sustaining a popular social movement. In the Post-World War One decade, however, the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial (LSRM) did just that, subtly but aggressively nurturing and coordinating the long-since-forgotten parent education movement. (1) For hundreds of thousands of middle-class Americans, principally young mothers, parent education provided not only a topic of everyday conversation and a structure for continuing education, but a genuine social cause. Philanthropy alone did not create this crusade, of course. Many other factors were involved, some antedating the war, others originating in the twenties and reflecting its distinctive political and cultural spirit. Nonetheless, LSRM's role was central and formative, and merits considerably more attention from historians of education and of philanthropy than it has heretofore received. Before proceeding, a few comments on terminology may be helpful. Were it not for literary awkwardness, I would join the terms "child development," "child study," and "parent education" to form a single, hyphenated phrase, so closely were they linked in common discourse and in LSRM's philanthropic strategy. The modern field of child development owes its very existence as a respectable scholarly enterprise to the Rockefellers' generous financial support in the twenties, as part of what LSRM referred to most frequently as the child study and parent education movement. Much more than today, child development research was then oriented unabashedly toward immediate practical application. Indeed, LSRM agreed to invest so heavily in this relatively uncharted scientific arena only on the supposition that programs in parent education would be created concurrently to carry the latest findings to mothers for

Presidential Leverage over Social Movements: the Johnson White House and Civil Rights

Abstract: F OR THE CONTEMPORARY PRESIDENCY, social movements can pose an unsettling prospect. Social movements raise divisive issues, drawing attention to controversies more likely to polarize than to unify a president's supporters. They call into question a president's commitments, contrasting their extensive objectives to an administration's modest proposals. They threaten electoral punishment, tying an administration to dangerous militancy in the eyes of some, to timidity and ineffectiveness in the eyes of others. In the face of these worries, the White House will ordinarily devote some measure of attention to managing its relations with social movements. Legislative proposals and rhetorical gestures are the most obvious, public form its response will take. Less visible, but equally significant, are White House attempts to exercise leverage over social movements. The White House thus may try to modify the character of a social movement; it may seek to influence its leadership, to delimit its objectives, or to slow the tempo of its actions. It may attempt to forestall movement projects that conflict with its own projects, thereby averting the explosion into public notice of embarrassing clashes. It may hope, ultimately, to transform social movements from political liabilities into political advantages. Despite their significance, the difficulties that social movements

The French New Left: An intellectual history from Sartre to Gorz

Abstract: PrefaceThis study is not a history of the new left itself, but rather of its theoretical dimension as it evolved in its most developed form --i.e., in France. For it is in France that the intellectual origins of new left social theory are most obvious in the work of Jean-Paul Sartre and others. And it is also in France that the clearest political expression of the new left occurred -- the May 1968 upheaval. Thus, an intellectual history of the French new left covers a rich field of experience. It surveys the efforts by radical social theorists both to confront the historically experienced limitations of marxism as a liberating social theory and to continue and extend the critical role of marxism by analyzing the new contradictions engendered in advanced industrial societies, as well as proposing strategies for liberating social change.The study begins, in Part I, with a critical appraisal of the intellectual origins of French new left social theory as it emerged from the radical critiques of traditional marxism carried out by Sartre, Henri Lefebvre, and Cornelius Castoria- dis in the period 1945 to 1968. Sartre's existentialist critique revolved around what he considered to be the lack of a marxist theory of subjectivity. Lefebvre's revisionist critique questioned the validity of the traditional marxist view of advanced industrial society. Castoriadis' gauchiste critique denied marxism revolutionary status, claiming it had been transformed into a bureaucratic ideology.The existentialist, the revisionist, and the gauchiste critiques developed in the late 1940s and 1950s, and converged in the 1960s as a French new left social theory. Its main themes focused on the project of discovering egalitarian solutions to the problems of alienation and bureaucracy in advanced industrial society. The explosion of May 1968 -- which is discussed in Part II -- appeared to confirm the relevance of this project and opened a new era of social contestation. In this sense May 1968 was an important turning point. It represented the culmination of new left social theory and opened the way for the incorporation of its assumptions and themes into the political and social movements of the 1970s.In Part III I survey the legacy of the French new left in the aftermath of May 1968. On the one hand, we witness the resurgence of structuralism in the domain of theory, and the rise of Eurocommunism and left electoralism in the political arena. But more significantly, the social movements of selfmanagement, feminism, and ecology emerge to continue the new left project and expand its meaning. It is toward these movements, I argue, that radical social theory must turn if it is to move beyond its present fragmentation and confusion to achieve a coherent vision capable of inspiring progressive social change.As an essay in intellectual history, this work does not claim to be exhaustive of all the material which could conceivably be classified under the heading of the French new left. Rather, I have attempted to select what I think are the basic themes and to develop them in the context of a broad survey of recent French social theory. It is hoped that the result of such an approach is a work that may be of use for the general reader as well as for specialists in social theory and intellectual history.

The sting of death in American society.

Abstract: A collective interest in death and dying has progressively developed in American society since the 1960s. Among the factors associated with it are demographic shifts; medical, scientific, and technological advances; changes in the statuses, roles, and outlook of medical professionals, patients, and women; and the affirmation and broadening of individual rights. Life-and-death issues have moved increasingly from private to public spheres of the society and are appearing more frequently in the courts, the media, and the arts. They are also principal foci of several social movements. This pervasive preoccupation with death seems related to deep cultural changes occurring in our society and in its world view.

Belief Constraint and Belief Consensus: Toward an Analysis of Social Movement Ideologies—A Research Note

Abstract: The purpose of this research note is to point toward procedures for the comparative analysis of social movement ideologies. The need for such procedures follows from our conviction that, to describe the outcomes of recent social movements, we need to understand their ideologies and the differential impact of those ideologies on subgroups within the general public. We have found, however, that adequate procedures for comparative study of social movement ideologies do not exist in the resource mobilization paradigm currently favored for the study of social movements. The techniques we use to characterize social movement ideology are borrowed from the study of political belief systems in political science (Converse). In adopting these procedures, we identify a methodological flaw in them that is particularly troublesome when studying groups that exhibit a great deal of consensus in their beliefs (e.g., social movements). Converse and his colleagues studied belief system differences between political elites and the public at large. They focused on differences in the consistency or constraint of political beliefs, where constraint is defined as the extent to which various beliefs can be predicted from each other. Typically constraint has been assessed by intercorrelating attitudes on different political issues and then averaging the resulting correlations across issues. Elites have generally been found to show much greater constraint than the public at large, although this conclusion and the procedures employed to reach it have been criticized. The greater belief constraint of political elites is assumed to be due to their high level of political involvement. Political activity and opposition make political issues salient and results in consistency across issues. The factors that lead to high levels of constraint in political elites are also found in social movements. Social movements typically demand high

Le vote écologiste en 1978

Abstract: The French ecologist movement has been an active political force at each election for some years, but because it refuses to accept certain political ground rules, this « new social movement » is resistant to the usual procedures of political analysis The ecologist movement daims not to belong to traditional political classifications and, similarly, not to represent specifie social interests To what extent are these characteristics confirmed by analysis of the ecologist electorale in the 1978 parliamentary election ? Despite its stated political neutrality, can certain signs of belonging to right or left-wing political groupings be detected in this electorale ? On what political or cultural attitudes is the originality of this population based ? Lastly, with what social, economie or cultural affinities are the features thath define the ecologist voter linked ?

Urban Social Movements and the Production of Urban Space

Abstract: This article is a brief resume of a three years' research work on urban social movements. A theoretical framework for the analysis of urban social movements is outlined and a methodology for their study is developed. The case of Barcelona is drawn on to illustrate the conclusions, and to demonstrate that urban movements can be social, e.g. that they can modify the power relationships between social classes. In the case of Barcelona these movements started when small groups of neighbours claimed better conditions in their urban environment and collective consumption, and have developed during the last fifteen years to become one of the most important social forces in the whole region of Catalonia, a force which cannot be ignored by the local authorities.

Comparative Social Movements

Abstract: In the last decade two major developments have taken place in the comparative study of social movements. First, the social-integration perspective has been challenged by the growth of the resource-mobilization paradigm. These opposing perspectives make different assumptions about the rationality of the motives of social-movement participants and assign different weights to institutional structures and group interests in promoting social movements. In general, social integration researchers assume less rationality on the part of individuals and collectivities than do writers working within the resource-mobilization paradigm. In general, resource-mobilization

The Local State, Planning and Social Movements

Abstract: This article asserts that social movements have their base in the sphere of reproduction of labour power. The increased activities of the state within that area are examined, and it is pointed out that it is primarily the local state which carries out these activities. This in turn results in a basically local orientation of the movements. In an attempt to evaluate the political perspective of the movements we analyse the development of the factors – including collective consumption – which have caused their appearance, and at which they are aimed. We also deal with the development of the framework within and against which the movements struggle. This includes the local state and the relationship between the local and central states.

Alternative Movements in Finland: The Case of Koijärvi

Abstract: In Western Europe, many 'new' social movements have emerged in the 1970's, some of them called 'alternative movements'. In Finland, the best known of these is the Koijarvi movement, the ideology and support of which is sketched. The main connecting ties in the movement are found to be conservation, criticism of the consumer society, questions of civic activities, and those of global solidarity. On other matters, differences of opinion prevail in the movement. National support of the movement is found to be surprisingly high in e.g. different age and occupational groups.