The Structure of Support in Social Movements: An Analysis of Organization and Resource Mobilization in the Youth Contra-Culture

Abstract

Many social theorists have pointed to problematic aspects of viewing tile I g60s youth culture as an enduring form of social movement ;2 however these analyses spring largely from the traditional sociological frame that sees the frustration and deprivation of a population leading (more or less) directly to the rise of social movements.3 McCarthy and Zald, in their recent and cogent discussion of resource mobilization and social movement organizations,4 have pointed to the fact that this focus upon frustrations and deprivations is in opposition to the focus of practical theorists (such as Lenin, Mao Tse-Tung and Saul Alinsky), who have emphasized the ways in which particular social structures make the tasks of resource mobilization more or less diffieult.