Chapter 16
Collective Action and
Social Movements
Chapter Outline
•
•
•
•
•
How to Spark a Riot
Nonroutine Collective Action
Social Movements
Framing Discontent
The Future of Social Movements
Collective Action
• Occurs when people act in unison to bring
about or resist social, political, and economic
change.
• Routine collective actions typically follow
established patterns of behavior in existing
social structures.
• Nonroutine collective actions take place
when usual conventions cease to guide social
action and people, bypass, or subvert
established structures.
Frequency of Lynching,
United States, 1882–1935
Breakdown Theory of
Nonroutine Collective Action
Three Factors:
• A group of people must be economically
deprived or socially rootless.
• Their norms must be strained or disrupted.
• They must lose the capacity to act rationally
by getting caught up in the madness of
crowds.
Polling Question
•
Civil disobedience is better to use than
militant activity for groups to get their point
across for social change.
A. Strongly agree
B. Agree somewhat
C. Unsure
D. Disagree somewhat
E. Strongly disagree
Deprivation, Crowds, and
the Breakdown of Norms
Most pre-1970 sociologists would have said
lynchings were caused by:
1. Background of economic deprivation
experienced by impoverished and
marginal members of the community.
2. The inherent irrationality of crowd
behavior.
3. The serious violation of norms.
Assessing Breakdown
Theory: Lynchings
•
Deprivation
– Research shows no association between
fluctuations in economic well-being and
lynchings that took place between the
1880s and the 1930s.
• Contagion
– Many lynchings were neither
spontaneous or unorganized.
Assessing Breakdown
Theory: Lynchings
•
Strain
– Lynching was a means by which black
farm workers were kept tied to the
southern cotton industry after the
abolition of slavery threatened to disrupt
the industry’s traditional, captive labor
supply.
Social Disorganization and
Collective Action: Prison Riots
• Prison riots tend to occur under certain
circumstances:
1. Government officials make new
demands of prison administrators
without providing resources.
2. Corrections staff oppose the
reforms.
Social Disorganization and
Collective Action: Prison Riots
•
Prison riots tend to occur under certain
circumstances:
3. Prison administrators take actions that
inmates perceive as unjust.
4. Inmates decide that living conditions
should be better and that rioting will draw
attention to those conditions.
The Social Determinants
of Rumors
Solidarity Theory
• Holds that social movements are social
organizations that emerge when
potential members:
– mobilize resources
– take advantage of new political
opportunities
– avoid high levels of social control by
authorities.
Polling Question
•
Have you ever participated in an
organized protest?
A. Yes
B. No
Frequency of Strikes with
1000+ Workers
Unemployment and
Frequency of Big Strikes,
1948–2003
Framing Discontent
• Frame alignment is the process by
which social-movement leaders make
their activities, ideas, and goals
congruent with the interests, beliefs,
and values of potential new recruits to
their movement - or fail to do so.
Encouraging Frame
Alignment
1. Social-movement leaders can reach out to
other organizations that contain people who
sympathetic to the cause.
2. Movement activists can stress popular
values that have not been prominent in the
thinking of potential recruits.
3. Social movements can stretch their
objectives to win recruits who aren’t initially
sympathetic to the movement’s aims.
Determinants of Collective Action
and Social Movement Formation
History of Social
Movements
• 1700 - social movements were small,
localized, and violent.
• Mid-20th century - social movements were
large, national, and less violent.
• Late 20th century - social movements
developed broader goals, recruited highly
educated people, and developed global
potential for growth.
Quick Quiz
1. Forms of collective action that are
usually nonviolent and follow
established patterns of behavior in
bureaucratic social structures are
called:
a. social movements
b. routine
c. petition drives
d. lobby formation
e. party formation
Answer: b
• Forms of collective action that are
usually nonviolent and follow
established patterns of behavior in
bureaucratic social structures are called
routine.
2. _________________ occurs when
people act in unison to bring about or
resist social, political, and economic
change.
Answer: collective action
1. Collective action occurs when people
act in unison to bring about or resist
social, political, and economic change.
3. A(n) _________________ is an
enduring collective attempt to change all
or part of the social order.
Answer: social movement
• A social movement is an enduring
collective attempt to change all or part
of the social order.
4. According to breakdown theory, collective
action and social movements result from:
a. economic deprivation
b. the irrationality of crowd behavior
c. instigation on the part of political leaders
d. all of these choices
e. economic deprivation and the irrationality
of crowd behavior
Answer: e
• According to breakdown theory,
collective action and social movements
result from economic deprivation and
the irrationality of crowd behavior.
5. According to the textbook, breakdown
theory largely explains annual
fluctuations in the rate of lynching.
a. True
b. False
Answer: b
• According to the textbook, breakdown
theory does not explain annual
fluctuations in the rate of lynching.
6. Frame alignment is the process by
which individual interests, beliefs, and
values either become congruent with
the activities, ideas, and goals of the
movement or fail to do so.
a. True
b. False
Answer: a
• Frame alignment is the process by
which individual interests, beliefs,
and values either become congruent
with the activities, ideas, and goals
of the movement or fail to do so.
7. Around 1700 in Europe and North America,
social movements were typically:
a. large, national in scope, and non-violent
b. large, local in scope, and violent
c. small, local in scope, and violent
d. small, local in scope, and non-violent
e. small, national in scope, and non-violent
Answer: c
•
Around 1700 in Europe and North
America, social movements were
typically small, local in scope, and
violent.