Comparative Perspectives on Social Movements Political Opportunities, Mobilizing Structures, and Cultural Framings

This volume examines various social movements from a comparative perspective.

Social movements such as environmentalism, feminism, nationalism, and the anti-immigration movement are a prominent feature of the modern world and have attracted increasing attention from scholars in many countries. Comparative Perspectives on Social Movements, first published in 1996, brings together a set of essays that focus upon mobilization structures and strategies, political opportunities, and cultural framing and ideologies. The essays are comparative and include studies of the former Soviet Union and eastern Europe, the United States, Italy, the Netherlands, and Germany. Their authors are amongst the leaders in the development of social movement theory and the empirical study of social movements.

Introduction: opportunities mobilizing structures and framing processes Doug McAdam; Part I. Political Opportunities: 1. Clarifying the concept of political opportunities Doug McAdam; 2. States and opportunities: the political structuring of social movements Sidney Tarrow; 3. Social movements and the state: thoughts on the policing of protest Donatella della Porta; 4. Opportunities and framing in the East European revolts of 1989 Anthony Oberschall; 5. Opportunities and Framing in the Political Cycle of Perestroika Elena Zdravomyslova; Part II. Mobilizing Structures: 6. Mobilizing structures: constraints and opportunities in adopting, adapting and inventing John D. McCarthy; 7. The organizational structure of new social movements in relation to their political context Hanspeter Kriesi; 8. The impact of national contexts on social movement structures: a cross-movement and cross-national comparison Dieter Rucht; 9. Organizational form as frame: collective identity and political strategy in the American Labor Movement 1880–1920 Elisabeth S. Clemens; 10. The collapse of a social movement: the interplay of mobilizing structures, framing, and political opportunities in the Knights of Labor Kim Voss; Part III. Framing Processes: 11. Culture ideology and strategic framing Mayer N. Zald; 12. Accessing public media electoral and governmental agendas John D. McCarthy, Jackie Smith, and Mayer N. Zald; 13. Media discourse, movement publicity, and the generation of collective action frames: theoretical and empirical exercises in meaning construction Bert Klandermans and Sjoerd Goslinga; 14. Framing political opportunity William A. Gamson and David S. Meyer; 15. The framing function of movement tactics: strategic dramaturgy in the American civil rights movement Doug McAdam.

Comparative Perspectives on Social Movements, first published in 1996, examines social movements in a comparative perspective, focusing upon the role of ideology and beliefs, mechanisms of mobilization, and how politics shapes the development and outcomes of movements.