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About This Book
A new, fully-revised and updated edition of the leading introduction to social movements and collective action â covers a broad range of approaches in the social sciences.
Now in its third edition, Social Movements is the market-leading introductory text on collective action in contemporary society. The text draws from theory-driven, systematic empirical research from across the social sciences to address central questions and concepts in the field. Sophisticated yet reader-friendly chapters offer critical analyses of relevant literature whilst exploring important issues and debates.
The global political landscape has undergone significant changes in the years since this book's initial publication, such as the spread of online protests, the resurgence of nationalist and right-wing activity, global revolts, and increased social and economic polarization. This thoroughly updated edition offers fresh discussions of recent social movements against austerity from around the world, new empirical examples, references to recent episodes of contention, an expanded comparative approach to social movement theory in the scientific literature, and more. Positioned at the intersection of sociology and political science, this book:
- Presents an empirical and engaging exploration of contemporary social movements
- Discusses topics such as organizing within social movements, eventful protests, political opportunities, symbolism and identity in collective action, and social change
- Highlights how core mechanisms of collective action operate in different movements, past and present
- Provides a conceptual methodology useful for social science students and researchers alike
- Highlights how core mechanisms of collective action operate in different movements in the past and present
Written by two internationally recognized experts in sociology and political science, the third edition of Social Movements: An Introduction is an essential course text and a must-read for students and scholars of sociology, political sociology, political science, and social movement studies.
Frequently asked questions
Information
CHAPTER 1
The Study of Social Movements: Recurring Questions, (Partially) Changing Answers
- Opposition to neoliberal policies can be looked at as the ensemble of individuals expressing opinions about certain issues, advocating or opposing social change. Globalization has surely raised fears and hopes in equal measure, but the balance is distributed unequally across countries and socioeconomic areas. Repeatedly, public opinion surveys indicate diffuse worries about the impact of globalization over peopleâs lives, both economically and politically. Although this may be more a diffused concern in Western Europe than in the United States or even more so elsewhere, globalization is undoubtedly at the core of public opinionâs interest these days. Those who are skeptical and often hostile to it represent a distinct and vocal sector of public opinion. Their views are forged and reinforced in dialogue with a range of prominent opinion makers and public figures, exposing the costs and faults of globalization from a Western/Northern as well as an Eastern/Southern perspective, such as Indian writer Arundhati Roy, Philippine sociologist Walden Bello, Australian journalist John Pilger, or economist and Nobel laureate Josef Stieglitz. Books like Naomi Kleinâs No Logo (1999) may be safely credited with the same impact that Rachel Carsonâs Silent Spring (1962), or the Club of Romeâ s report on The Limits to Growth (Meadows, Randers, and Behrens 1972) had on the spread of environmental concerns back in the 1960s and 1970s. Building on this sensitivity in public opinion, antiâausterity protests have also built on and fueled a widespread concern for economic inequalities and social injustice in the public opinion, that in large part started to stigmatize the elites (the 1%) as being responsible for the suffering of the people (the 99%) (Flesher Fominaya 2014; della Porta 2015a).
- Individual opinions and concerns often turn into various forms of political and social participation. Moral and philosophical worldviews and deeply felt convictions are then paralleled by specific attempts by individuals to stop threatening developments, redress instances of injustice, and promote alternative options to the managing of social life and economic activity. A possible way of looking at the movements for social justice and against inequalities is, then, by focusing on those individuals who actively express their opposition to neoliberal capitalism. By signing petitions calling for the cancellation of developing countriesâ debt, contributing money to the activities of various social movement organizations, mobilizing to stop the building of dams or the effects of extensive exploitation of land in Asia or Africa, blocking access to the European Central Bank in Frankfurt, or Occupying Wall Street, or attempting to stop ships exporting toxic waste to developing countries or trains carrying military equipment, individuals citizens may contribute to the campaigns against neoliberal globalization and its effects at domestic level. They may do so, however, also through actions that affect individual lifestyles and private behavior as much â and possibly more â than the public sphere. Throughout the West, the recent years have seen the spread of fair trade organizations and practices that have been further fueled as direct practices aiming at the same time to criticize austerity policies and to build alternatives (Boström, Micheletti, and Oosterveer 2019; Monticelli and della Porta 2019). By consuming certain products or choosing to do business only with banks committed to uphold moral and ethical standards, individuals may try and affect the balance of economic power on a broad scale.
- However, antiglobalization can hardly be reduced to sets of individuals with similar views and behavior. Rather than on individual characteristics, it may also be interesting to concentrate on the properties of the events into which conflictual interactions take place between powerholders and their opponents; as well as in events in which individuals and organizations identifying with a cause meet to discuss strategies, to elaborate platforms and review their agendas. Global justice activists have been particularly good at staging events â or disrupting opponentsâ events â with a strong emotional impact over public opinion and participants alike. Already before Seattle, periodical meetings by international bodies associated with the neoliberal agenda, such as the World Trade Organization, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, or the G8, have provided the opportunity for a string of highly visible, very well attended demonstrations trying to both disrupt the specific gatherings and draw peopleâs attention toward alternative agenda. Events promoted by global justice activists, most notably the World Social Forum gatherings in Porto Alegre and in Mumbai, their European counterparts in Florence (2001), Paris (2003), or London (2004), the corresponding meetings in the South, such as the African Social Forum that met first in Bamako, Mali, in January 2002, all confirmed the vitality and strength of the âmovement of movementsâ (Pianta 2001). Below the global level, critics of globalization have promoted thousands of events, ranging from confrontational demonstrations to presentations of reports or press releases, from religious vigils to squatting into military buildings. Located anywhere from the national to the very local level, those events also support popular views about the existence of a distinctive antiâglobalization movement. As the Great Recession spread, protests shifted in scale, with very large waves organized by national networks of organizations mobilized against home evictions, cuts in welfare, privatization of public services, and the like. Longâlost protest camps in highly symbolic public spaces became, for a while, most lively innovation in the repertoire of contention, allowing for highly visible contestation of the existing order, but also the prefiguration of a different world.
- Other times, by global justice movement are actually meant, first and foremost, the organizations operating on those issues. The opposition to neoliberal globalization has been conducted by broad coalitions of organizations. Some â probably most â of them had a long history of political and social activism, well spread over the political spectrum. In Seattle as well as in Genoa or elsewhere, involved in the demonstrations were established political parties, mostly if not exclusively from the left; trade unions, farmers, and other workersâ organizations; ethnic organizations representing both native populations and migrant groups; consumers associations challenging multinational companies; religious organizations and church groups; environmental groups; womenâs associations; radical autonomous youth centers (Italyâs centri sociali); and the like. But the criticism of neoliberal globalization has also produced specific organizations, such as Attac, who advocate the soâcalled Tobin tax to reduce financial gains in the international stock market; Peopleâs Global Action, a coalition of hundreds of groups in the North...
Table of contents
- Cover
- Table of Contents
- Foreword to the Third Edition
- CHAPTER 1: The Study of Social Movements
- CHAPTER 2: Social Changes and Social Movements
- CHAPTER 3: The Symbolic Dimension of Collective Action
- CHAPTER 4: Collective Action and Identity
- CHAPTER 5: Individuals, Networks, and Participation
- CHAPTER 6: Organizations and Organizing within Social Movements
- CHAPTER 7: Eventful Protests
- CHAPTER 8: Political Opportunities for Social Movements
- CHAPTER 9: The Effects of Social Movements
- References
- Index
- End User License Agreement