Social Movements, Sociology of

Abstract

Social movements are elusive phenomena empirically; they are also hard to grasp conceptually. Yet three criteria for defining them are stated: their critical relation to social change, which they aim at promoting or inversely at resisting, the common use of uninstitutionalized means by participants, and the political relevance of their protest-oriented actions. The early and exclusive identification of the notion with proletarian movements in industrial society had to be discarded and the differentiation of social movements from other forms of collective behavior clearly worked out before the topic developed into a self-contained field. A new approach to social movements emerged in the wake of the turbulent 1960s: whereas students of collective behavior dwelt on grievances, beliefs (with overtones of irrationality), and generally on psychosocial dimensions, the so-called ‘resource mobilization’ theory emphasized organization, interests, and the rationality of participants and it played a great part in stressing the political context and relevance of social movements. Now the keynote of the times seems to lie in systematic attempts at multidimensional synthesis integrating mobilizing organizations, political opportunities, and ‘framing’ processes: although articulating distinctive dimensions with one another is not an easy task, the hoped-for synthesis seems to be under way.