Introduction to Social Movements
Fall, 2008
James M. Jasper
Mondays, 4.15-6.15, Room ?
This course reviews the history and current directions of research and theory about social
movements. Its premise is that the cognitive-cultural turn in social science has given us
new tools for thinking about political action that were not available to the crowd and
collective behavior traditions that flourished until the 1960s or to the structural paradigms
that vanquished them in the 1970s. I hope to show the pitfalls of research guided by
grand metaphors, theories of history, or normative agendas, compared to research guided
by modest micro-level mechanisms.
There are no formal prerequisites for this course, but some background in contemporary
social theory would be an advantage. Please read Archer’s Culture and Agency before the
semester begins.
Although students may negotiate written work that is more appropriate to their
circumstances, the normal assignment is for each student to choose a micro-level causal
mechanism, preferably an emotion or strategic dilemma, as the subject of a ten to twenty
page review of the literature on this topic.
Readings marked with an * can be found in Jeff Goodwin and James Jasper, Social
Movements: Critical Concepts in Sociology, 4 volumes. These and other books should be
on reserve.
Week 1: What are social movements? What was the cultural turn in social science?
September 8th
Readings:
Margaret Archer, Culture and Agency;
Jasper, “Culture, Knowledge, and Politics,” in Thomas Janoski et al.,
Handbook of Political Sociology.
Part I: Before-and-After Comparisons
Week 2: Crowds and Collective Behavior. September 15th
Readings:
*Gustave Le Bon, “The Mind of Crowds,” selection from The Crowd;
*Herbert Blumer, “The Field of Collective Behavior”;
Randall Collins, “Social Movements and the Focus of Emotional
Attention,” in Passionate Politics.
Week 3: Relative Deprivation and other Grievances. September 22nd
Readings:
*James Davies, “Toward a Theory of Revolution”;
*David Snyder and Charles Tilly, “Hardship and Collective Violence in
France”;
Peter Grant and Rupert Brown, “From Ethnocentrism to Collective Protest:
Responses to Relative Deprivation and Threats to Social Identity,” Social
Psychology Quarterly 58:195-211 (1995).
Week 4: Mass Society and Social Networks. October 6th
Readings:
Alexis de Tocqueville, Arendt,
*William Kornhauser, selection from The Politics of Mass Society;
Robert Putnam, Bowling Alone, chs. 1, 6, 8;
*David Snow et al., “Social Networks and Social Movements.”
Week 5: Personal and Collective Identities. October 14th (Tuesday)
Readings:
*Neil Smelser, “Social and Psychological Dimensions of Collective
Behavior”;
Orrin Klapp Search for Collective Identity, selection;
*Joshua Gamson, “Must Identity Movements Self-Destruct?”
Week 6: True Believers. October 20th
Readings:
Eric Hoffer, The True Believer, selections;
Janja Lalich, Bounded Choice, selections.
Week 7: How people think. October 27th
Readings:
Neil Smelser, selection from Theory of Collective Behavior;
Francesca Polletta, “Strategy as Metonymy,” in It Was Like a Fever;
reread Jasper, “Culture, Knowledge, Politics.”
Part II: The Economic and Structural Paradigms
Week 8: The Political Process Approach. November 3rd
Readings:
Tilly, “Does Modernization Breed Revolution?” Comparative Politics 5
(1973):425-447;
*J. Craig Jenkins and Charles Perrow, “Insurgency of the Powerless”;
*Herbert Kitschelt, “Political Opportunity Structures and Political
Protest.”
Week 9: The Resource Mobilization Approach. November 10th
Readings:
*John McCarthy and Mayer Zald, “Resource Mobilization and Social
Movements: A Partial Theory’;
Aldon Morris, The Origins of the Civil Rights Movement, selections.
Week 10: Culture and Structure. November 17th
Readings:
*Alain Touraine, “An Introduction to the Study of Social Movements.”
*Alberto Melucci, “The New Social Movements.”
Week 11: Learning from Economics. November 24th
Readings:
Mark Lichbach, The Rebel’s Dilemma, selections.
Part III: Combining Agency and Culture
Week 12: Agency. December 1st
Readings:
Mustafa Emirbayer and Ann Mische, “What Is Agency?” American
Journal of Sociology 103 (1998):962-1023;
Douglas Bevington and Chris Dixon, “Movement-Relevant Theory,”
Social Movement Studies 4 (2005):185-208.
reread Archer, Culture and Agency.
Week 13: Emotions. December 8th
Readings:
Jeff Goodwin et al., Passionate Politics, introduction, conclusion, Parts 3
and 4.
Week 14: Strategy. December 15th
Readings:
Marshall Ganz, “Resources and Resourcefulness,” American Journal of
Sociology ;
*Jasper, “A Strategic Approach to Collective Action.”