Showing papers on "Social movement published in 1982"

Political Process and the Development of Black Insurgency, 1930-1970

Abstract: 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

The battered women movement and the creation of the wife beating problem

Abstract: Wife beating has become the object of media attention and government policy, not because of an increase in its frequency, or because the public has become more concerned, but because a social movement developed in the 1970s to help battered women. The growth of the battered women movement illustrates both successful resource mobilization and the creation of a social problem. Pre-existing organizational ties, structural and ideological flexibility, and, in particular, the benefits sponsors gain by supporting movement activities account for the movement's rapid growth and impact. At the same time, increasing co-optation is affecting both how wife beating is defined and managed, and the course of the movement itself.

Countermovements and Conservative Movements in the Contemporary U.S.

Abstract: Research on social movements continues to be a vigorous and theoretically significant field. Marx & Wood's review article (1975) indicated the growth of research on leftist movements, such as the civil rights, anti-war, women's, and student movements. Since then countermovements have arisen to oppose these movements. This development has sparked new research into the antibusing, Stop-ERA, right-to-life, and conservative religious movements. Here I consider research only on movements in the United States, focusing on literature published after 1970. For the pre-1970 period, Lipset & Raab's The Politics of Unreason: Right Wing Extremism in America (1978) provides a comprehensive summary. In this review I concentrate on conservative rather than extremist right-wing groups, and thus depart from the emphasis of previous research. There is little social science literature about today's extreme right, such as paramilitary, National Socialist, and Ku Klux Klan groups (Mars 1977; Anti-Defamation League 1978a,b). Historians, however, have analyzed similar groups that flourished during 1920 and 1940 (Ribuffo 1974; Degler 1965). Social science research can help to resolve a number of questions about conservative movements in contemporary America. How adequate are existing theories? In section 1 I evaluate theories about status and politics, which analyze past right-wing phenomena such as McCarthyism and the John Birch Society. Are these theories applicable to the "new right?" In section 2 I ask what types of people support the right-to-life, Stop-ERA, and anti-busing movements. How much does the public support these movements? The strength of conservative movements might stem not from popular approval but

Movements of "Crisis" and Movements of "Affluence": A Critique of Deprivation and Resource Mobilization Theories

Abstract: In response to the empirical and theoretical weaknesses of the older social stress or deprivation theories of social movements, a new general theory of social movements—resource mobilization theory—has become increasingly popular. One of the most basic points of disagreement between theorists accepting one or the other general perspective involves the extent to which the development and growth of a social movement can be attributed to the preconditions of social stress or some form of deprivation. This article begins by describing how the two perspectives are indirectly rooted in differeing paradigms of social organization, which leads to divergent assumptions about the nature of social conflict and social order. Next, theoretical and empirical problems contained in each perspective are shown to be partially related to these assumptions. Finally, a continuum describing “movements of crisis” and “movements of affluence” is constructed to suggest that the structural conditions inviting social movement activ...

A New Social Movement

Abstract: “New Movements” today embrace a vast array of phenomena but can be separated into at least two types: (a) communal movements such as the youth, the feminist, and the anti-industrial movements seeking alternative relations to nature; and (b) various regional or anti-bureaucratic movements (in energy, housing or psychiatry) and, to a lesser extent, the student movement. The new movements can be best divided into cultural and political movements. Cultural movements oppose present social life. Political movements challenge modern state domination. Historically, cultural movements have challenged the process of cultural rationalization by developing anti-rational positions in epistemology, ethics, and aesthetics. Truth is seen as attainable not through research, but by mystical insight;

Merchants and Entrepreneurs in Imperial Russia

Abstract: This book is the first general history of Russian "businessmen" from Peter the Great to the Revolution of 1917. It is also a challenging new interpretation of the nature of social change in tsarist Russia. Alfred Rieber seeks to explain how Russia developed a capitalist economy and launched a major industrialization without giving rise to a mature bourgeoisie. His analysis concentrates on the deep-seated social divisions that prevented the political unity of the Russian middle classes even when their vital interests were threatened by powerful bureaucrats and a workers' revolution. He concludes that the fate of the Russian merchants and industrialists was part of a larger social fragmentation in Russia on the eve of World War I. Rieber argues that the merchantry was throughout its history the most unstable and politically passive group in Russian society. Periodically swamped by an influx of peasants, the merchants were never able to free themselves from state tutelage or their own traditional values. Surrounded by ethnic rivals, the Great Russian merchantry adopted the mentality of a besieged camp. The real innovators in Russia's industrialization were social deviants--Old Believer peasants, declasse nobles, and non-Russian peoples on the periphery of the empire. But even these "entrepreneurial groups" failed to provide the leadership for a strong middle class because they were deeply marked by competing regional and ethnic attachments. In Rieber's analysis the Russian bureaucracy shares much of the blame for the absence of a cohesive class structure in Russia. It feared and opposed the emergence of a bourgeoisie, and it was deeply split over the question of industrialization. Rieber concludes that the bureaucracy helped to maintain the legal distinctions within Russian society that contributed to its fragmentation. This work touches on almost every aspect of imperial Russian society--its political and legal institutions, social movements, intellectual currents, and economic development. Rieber has drawn on a wide range of sources including Soviet archives, merchant memoirs, contemporary journals, pamphlets and newspapers, and the proceedings and reports of many specialized societies and organizations. A UNC Press Enduring Edition -- UNC Press Enduring Editions use the latest in digital technology to make available again books from our distinguished backlist that were previously out of print. These editions are published unaltered from the original, and are presented in affordable paperback formats, bringing readers both historical and cultural value.

From Pressure Group to Social Movement: Organizational Dilemmas of the Effort to Promote Nuclear Power

Abstract: Social movement theorists have focused on the efforts groups make to gain the right to routinely influence government policy, while ignoring the opposite process, in which groups lose this right. This paper examines the development of the pronuclear movement in the United States as a case study of a pressure group which lost power and mobilized a social movement to restore it. The antinuclear movement helped to dislodge the pronuclear pressure group. We describe two wings of the pronuclear movement, an industry-based wing and a community-based wing, and look at the different organizational and strategic problems these two bases of mobilization gave rise to.

Theological Crucibles: Social Movements in and of Religion

Abstract: By their nature, religious organizations are deeply involved with theological and ideological beliefs about the relation of individuals and groups to each other, to society, and to the good and just life. Changes in belief systems in the larger society are bound to enter the internal life of denominations, and, in turn, beliefs developed within religious organizations become the basis for action in the larger society. This paper examines the social movement and political processes that are the carriers through which changes in beliefs are implemented. First, we examine the relation of the rise and fall of classes and groups in a world economy to social movements. Then, building upon a general framework for the analysis of social movements in organizations, we discuss the causes and forms of different kinds of social movements in denominations. The focus is upon mass movements and small scale insurrections in different church polities. Religious denominations evidence a variety of political structures and processes and are especially suitable sites for this kind of analysis.

Recruitment Strategies, Ideology, and Organization in the Hare Krishna Movement

Abstract: Studies of recruitment to social movements have focused mainly on the social psychological reasons for joining or the interaction between members and prospective recruits. This paper examines the inter-relationship between recruitment strategy, ideology, movement structure, and external social forces in the development of the Hare Krishna movement. A survey of over 200 Hare Krishna devotees shows that opportunistic exploitation of local conditions, rather than ideology or structure, has been responsible for the growth of the Hare Krishna movement in the United States.

The Anarchists of Casas Viejas

Abstract: "For its intelligence and humanitarian achievements, for its political honesty, for its power and its beauty (there is no other word), this book deserves to be called a masterpiece." --American EthnologistJerome R. Mintz's classic study of the lives of Andalusian campesinos who were swept up by one of the 20th century's pivotal social movements provided a new framework for understanding the tragic events that tilted Spain toward civil war. In a new foreword, James W. Fernandez reflects on the fieldwork that led to the book and its contribution to subsequent developments in the ethnography of Europe and the historiography of modern Spain.

Mobilizing the Moral Majority.

Abstract: The Moral Majority has been more successful in mobilizing conservative Christians than three other evangelical groups--Third Century Publishers, Christian Voice, and the Religious Roundtable. According to the literature on social movements, four Oossible explanations for the success of such groups are that they have access to financial resources, can maintain an exfensive network of communications between organizers and constituents, can draw upon the expertise and skills of social movement entrepreneurs, and can mobilize during a period in time in'which thers is a favorable conjunction of issues. None of these factors proves wholly satisfactory in accounting for differences among the four organizations in their mobilization of supporters. The Moral Majority was more successful because its leadership provided it with access to pre-existing networks which were unavailable to other Christian groups. For example, Jerry Falwell's "Old Time Gospel Hour" provided a communications link via television to a large national audience. The Moral Majority's genius lay in linking with a national network of nservative clergymen and in championing issues of major concern to this group. While taking advantage of these pre-existing associations, the Moral Majority did have to accommodate their previously organized constituenciesk (RM) *********************************************************************** Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. ***********************************************************************

The Structure of Belief Systems Among Contending ERA Activists

Abstract: The structures of beliefs on feminist policy preferences are compared for activists who led campaigns supporting and opposing a Massachusetts referendum on equal rights for women (ERA) in 1976. Beliefs of opposing activists demonstrate asymmetric structures. The preferences for feminist policies of ERA proponents show significantly greater constraint, consensus, and position extremity than do those of ERA opponents. These findings are explained in terms of differences in the group processes among activists within social movements that assert new claims and responsibilities compared with those that defend old rights and privileges. Are there systematic differences in the patterns of policy preferences held by social movement activists supporting and opposing change? For almost twenty years, Tilly has elaborated systematic differences at the structural level which distinguish proactive movements supporting change from reactive movements opposing. This paper extends that discussion by arguing that the organization of proactive and reactive belief systems differs systematically as well. Data to test this thesis are preferences on feminist policies held.by activists working for and against an Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) to the state constitution of Massachusetts in 1976. *An earlier version of this paper was presented at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association, 1980. Preparation of the paper was made possible by a postdoctoral grant, #1F32 MHO7811-01 from the National Institute of Mental Health to the first author. Data collection and analysis were funded by a faculty grant to both authors from Wellesley College and continued support from its Center for Research on Women and the Wellesley College Computer Center. We thank Henry Noerenberg, our collaborator on the Massachusetts state survey, and Andrea Levere, who conducted most of the interviews with Massachusetts activists. We have benefited from the comments of Myra Ferree, Charles Judd, Robert Mitchell, Tahi Mottl, and Frances Fox Piven. ? 1982 The University of North Carolina Press. 0037-7732/82/030657-75$01.90

Black Newspapers and the Black Protest Movement: Their Historical Relationship, 1827-1945.

Abstract: BLACK NEWSPAPERS in the United States historically have been closely related to the black protest movement. The black papers began in the context of the abolitionist movement and their continuance has been dependent on their presentation of the situation of black people, and advocacy of changes in the oppressive aspects of that situation. However, a great many changes have occurred in the black setting, the black protest movement and the black press. This article is a study of the changes in these three phenomena and their interrelationships with particular attention to the responses of the black press to the black protest movement from the founding of the first black paper in 1827 until the end of World War II. Pre-Civil War and Civil War Periods. Even during slavery some black people agitated for change. The black press itself began during this period with the establishment of Freedom's Journal in New York City. From the beginning, it was associated with northern urban blacks and, in this earliest period, the press was aimed toward whites. At this time the literate population among blacks was so small and its financial resources so slim that the support of whites was necessary.' The bestknown black papers during the Civil War and pre-war period were those associated with Frederick Douglass, the militant black abolitionist: the North Star and later Frederick Douglass' Paper. Even Douglass had a difficult time keeping the press operating; neither of his papers were self-supporting. During this period most blacks were enslaved, illiterate and unable to take advantage of a black press or to participate in a social movement to protest their situation. The little activity that did occur in the way

Between Crisis Management and Social Movements: The Place of Institutional Reform

Abstract: Although the proletariat has been bidden adieu, the specter of Marxian class theory still haunts the Left. Yet the unity of theoretical self-certainty and revolutionary self-confidence (Habermas' formulation) inspiring Marxism has broken down — for historical and theoretical reasons. Changes in the relation between state and society and in the map of stratification of contemporary capitalism, the survival capacity of the capitalist system, and the emergence of new social movements, are some of the historical developments undermining the original theory. But the theoretical weaknesses of the Marxian synthesis are even more telling, for they raise problems that all critical social theory, Marxist or other, must confront.

A Film-Augmented Course on International Social Movements.

Abstract: social movements around the world. The course was designed to cover basic theory on the development of social movements and revolutions and to provide case studies from the United States and around the world through the use of documentary films. A major goal was to present the material in such a way as to be of interest to a wide range of students. This article describes the organization, teaching, and evaluation of such a course recently taught to 100 students at the University of Connecticut.

Political Power and Conventional Political Participation

Abstract: In this review we will provide a partial overview and assessment of political sociology' by focusing on the literature on political power and political participation during the last five years or so. Lipset, the major protagonist of political sociology, laid its groundwork more than 20 years ago in his first edition of Political Man (1960). Since that classic book was published, political sociology has come of age. During the last 20 years, more than two dozen textbooks and readers have been published, mainly during the last 10 years. In spite of the various textbooks, readers, and journals, one develops the

In Defense of Institutionalization: A Rape Crisis Center as a Case Study

Abstract: The prevailing wisdom of both the social science literature and of social movement activists postulates that the institutionalization of social movements is a conservatizing tendency. "The iron law of oligarchy," Robert Michels' concept, is invoked as the rule of thumb for social movement transformation. From my participant observation study of STOP, an urban rape crisis center, I have drawn different conclusions. In that case study, it appears that institutionalization undermines oligarchy and conservatism, rather than contributing to them. Employing Oberschall's resource mobilization theory of social movement development, I suggest that institutionalization fosters social change efforts at STOP by ensuring organizational stability and resource availability. Second, I propose that institutionalization enables STOP to resist co-optation by providing its participants with material, symbolic, and emotional rewards for organizational loyalty. Finally, I conclude that at STOP institutionalization has inhibited the formation of informal elites, or what Jo Freeman has termed the "tyranny of structurelessness." As the New Right waxes powerful, the women's movement, among many others, faces direct and indirect threats to its very existence. To survive economic, political, and cultural attack, feminism, I suggest, must become a complex of institutions with multiple and deep roots. That long-maligned organizational form, the institution, will yet prove to be a source of stability, integrity, and democracy for the women's movement. The radical wing of the United States women's movement, since 1965, has generally focused on the negative dimensions of institutions. For many socialist feminists and radical feminists, institutions are suspect creations of an oppressive patriarchal and capitalist society. The empowering and connective functions are either overlooked or underestimated. As a consequence of this selective perception, we have failed to explore the opportunities for feminist expression, critique, and construction within existing institutions. At the same time, we have, on the whole, failed to make institutions of our own projects and networks. Why have feminists responded in this way? One obvious reason is that women have held little formal power historically within the multiple institutions in which we have found ourselves. As a result, our experience of institutions is a skewed one. The barriers which institutions present have been much more apparent than the potentialities which they promise. Many women infer from their experience that most people, or at least most women, are disempowered by institutions. Species is confused with genus. Feminists misconstrue capitalist and patriarchal institutions as being representative of institutions as a whole. Another part of the explanation for the women's movement's disregard for institutional possibilities has been its unwitting internalization of the individualism embedded in the American ethos. Protecting and enhancing the freedom and power of individuals has been the central concern of most feminist organizati-on-since 1965, with some radical feminist and socialist feminist exceptions. Fears of collective tyranny and of the submergence of the individual within institutions direct feminist attention to the restrictive and inhibiting dimensions of institutionalization. STOP, AN URBAN RAPE CRISIS CENTER STOP is a fictitious name for an urban rape crisis center which I have worked with and observed over an eight-year period. During 1979 and 1980, I carried out a ten-month participant observation study of STOP. Employing a case study approach, I derived from this one example a set of observations concerning the impact of institutionalization on STOP, the anti-rape movement, and feminism in the United States. Like all case study conclusions, my speculations require the corroboration of many other examples before they can take on the authority of reliable generalizations. Pioneer Period: 1972-1974 Organized in the fall of 1972, STOP was the first U.S. rape crisis center to provide services to rape victims "above ground" in a city hospital. Other anti-rape groups founded in the early years of this movement, from 1971-1973, chose to assist victims using underground strategies which did not involve reporting rape to the police or cooperating with the city hospital and district attorney's office, as STOP's approach did. STOP mushroomed quickly in size and reputation. Partly due to the charismatic force of its founder and partly a circumstance of its historical moment, STOP attracted more than seventy regular

Bourgeois Social Movements in Britain: Repertoires and Responses:

Abstract: On Monday 12 July, 1976, some 200 people gathered outside the Customs and Excise Office in London. The crowd consisted of relatively well-dressed, middle-class individuals marching to and fro carrying placards and shouting. Most of them had never been on a demonstration before, but this morning they had gathered to make a visible protest about a matter that concerned them: taxation. Some of the workers in the offices looked out and gestured to the crowd with two fingers. Two youngsters carrying a black-edged photograph were thrust to the front of the demonstration and the assembly set up a chant: 'VAT kills: kill VAT.' What was going on? What were the youngsters doing there? Some days earlier the VAT inspectors had called on a Mr Constantinescu, an elderly small businessman, and demanded to see his business records and accounts. For six hours they searched the house room by room and left at 2 a.m. taking with them a number of files. A few hours later Mr G>nstantinescu was dead. He had committed suicide. The demonstration was the response of a number of small business groups—the Association of Self-Employed People and the National Federation of the Self-Employed and others. They had gathered to register their sense of outrage at what they considered to be the unwarranted power of the Customs and Excise officers and the inquities of an unpopular tax. The adolescents were there to lend effect, to add a touch of pathos, for they were the grandchildren of the late Mr Constantinescu.

Genres, rules, and collective rhetorics: Applying the requirements‐problems‐strategies approach

Abstract: Designed initially as a way of understanding the often anomalous rhetoric of those who lead social movements, Simons' “Requirements‐Problems‐Strategies” approach has been applied in recent years to other collective rhetorics and other leadership roles. Presented here is an extension and elaboration of RPS framework and a review of illustrative scholarship.

The Movement toward Procedural Informalism in North America and Western Europe: A Critical Survey

Abstract: Publisher Summary This chapter discusses the movement toward procedural informalism in North America and Western Europe. One task of comparative legal scholarship is to relate seemingly isolated national developments to more pervasive social movements. Legal reformers who wish to build on welfare state promises may have a difficult task. An extraordinary effort will be needed to shape the movement toward procedural informalism in a favorable direction. The success or failure of that effort will have a significant impact on how welfare state reforms affect the day-to-day lives of ordinary people. Problems remain in making rights effective. That approach perpetuates the paternalism inherent in the idea of legal needs, which are defined from above by lawyers, sociologists, and social workers, among others. Furthermore, the categories of need assume the existence of such inherently unequal statuses as consumers, tenants, employees, and the poor. The proliferation and enforcement of rights may ameliorate these statuses but it obviously does not address more fundamental questions about their very existence. In the absence of a broad-based political movement going beyond the welfare state, therefore, we may be relying on professionally dominated activities that spread not only rights but also an acquiescence in duties that contribute to the perpetuation of unequal conditions. The chapter cannot develop a critique of the welfare state from a perspective sympathetic to its ostensible goals, but we should recognize that the limits of the welfare state in both the United States and Western Europe are evident even in the most progressive of the movements for change through procedural reform.