Countermovements and Conservative Movements in the Contemporary U.S.

Abstract

Research on social movements continues to be a vigorous and theoretically significant field. Marx & Wood's review article (1975) indicated the growth of research on leftist movements, such as the civil rights, anti-war, women's, and student movements. Since then countermovements have arisen to oppose these movements. This development has sparked research into the antibusing, Stop-ERA, right-to-life, and conservative religious movements. Here I consider research only on movements in the United States, focusing on literature published after 1970. For the pre-1970 period, Lipset & Raab's The Politics of Unreason: Right Wing Extremism in America (1978) provides a comprehensive summary. In this review I concentrate on conservative rather than extremist right-wing groups, and thus depart from the emphasis of previous research. There is little social science literature about today's extreme right, such as paramilitary, National Socialist, and Ku Klux Klan groups (Mars 1977; Anti-Defamation League 1978a,b). Historians, however, have analyzed similar groups that flourished during 1920 and 1940 (Ribuffo 1974; Degler 1965). Social science research can help to resolve a number of questions about conservative movements in contemporary America. How adequate are existing theories? In section 1 I evaluate theories about status and politics, which analyze past right-wing phenomena such as McCarthyism and the John Birch Society. Are these theories applicable to the new right? In section 2 I ask what types of people support the right-to-life, Stop-ERA, and anti-busing movements. How much does the public support these movements? The strength of conservative movements might stem not from popular approval but