Rethinking Social Movements

This landmark volume brings together some of the titans of social movement theory in a grand reassessment of its status. For some time, the field has been divided between a dominant structural approach and a cultural or constructivist tradition.. The gaps and misunderstandings between the two sides—as well as the efforts to bridge them—closely parallel those in the social sciences at large. This book aims to further the dialogue between these two distinct approaches to social movements and to show the broader implications for social science as a whole as it struggles with issues including culture, emotion, and agency.

This landmark volume brings together some of the titans of social movement theory in a grand reassessment of its status. For some time, the field has been divided between a dominant structural approach and a cultural or constructivist tradition. The gaps and misunderstandings between the two sides—as well as the efforts to bridge them—closely parallel those in the discipline of sociology at large. This book aims to further the dialogue between these two distinct approaches to social movements and to show the broader implications for sociology as a whole as it struggles with issues including culture, emotion, and agency.

Chapter 1 Introduction
Part 2 I Political Process Theory: Opportunity or Constraint?
Chapter 3 Caught in a Winding, Snarling Vine: The Structural Bias of Political Process Theory
Chapter 4 Wise Quacks
Chapter 5 Paradigm Warriors: Regress and Progress in the Study of Contentious Politics
Chapter 6 Tending the Vineyard: Cultivating Political Process Research
Chapter 7 Political Opportunity Structure: Some Splitting to Balance the Lumping
Chapter 8 Trouble in Paradigms
Part 9 II Beyond Dominant Paradigms
Chapter 10 Culture Is Not Just in Your Head
Chapter 11 The Post-Structuralist Consensus in Social Movement Theory
Chapter 12 The Intellectual Challenges of Toiling in the Vineyard
Chapter 13 Knowledge for What? Thoughts on the State of Social Movements Studies
Chapter 14 Passionate Political Processes: Bringing Emotions Back into the Study of Social Movements
Chapter 15 Why David Sometimes Wins: Strategic Capacity in Social Movements
Part 16 III Concluding Reflections
Chapter 17 Rethinking Political Process Theory
Chapter 18 Reflections on Social Movement Theory: Criticisms and Proposals
Chapter 19 Hot Movements, Cold Cognition: Thinking about Social Movements in Gendered Frames