Chapter 17: Social Movements & Revolutions

Pages 474-503

1. What are social movements?

Studying social movements

Politics, human action, & social change

What can movements teach us about social life?

Moral sensibilities

Understanding social movements today

What aspects of movements are contemporary sociologists interested in?

2. Why do movements emerge & who joins them?

How movements take shape

What factors explain why movements emerge when & where they go?

Resource mobilization & political process approaches

Social networks

Cultural approaches

Recruitment: joining or supporting movements

How do movements recruit supporters?

Individual traits among protestors

Recruitment via social networks

How framing & cultural attitudes shape recruitment

Occupy Wall Street

3. What do movements accomplish?

Movement tactics & outcomes

Strategies & tactics of movements

Why do movements use certain tactics & not others?

The decline & disappearance of movements

Why do movements decline or disappear?

Changing political environments

Internal dynamics & evolution

Repression

Outcomes

A sociological perspective: will the labor movement revive?

Measuring a movements success & achievements

How can we measure a movements success or achievements?

Cultural consequences

4. What are revolutions & why do they occur?

Understanding revolutions

Defining revolution

Revolutions, violence, & other forms of conflict

Revolutionary Situations
What makes some social movements revolutionary?

Characteristics of revolutionary situations

Fracturing foundations of a regime

What causes revolutionary situations?

Revolutionary movements & seizure of state power

Requirements for organizing a revolutionary movement

Political environments that encourage revolutionary movements

Democracy & social conflict

How does democracy shape social conflict?

Conclusion: future of movements & revolutions