Social Movements: An Introduction
Donatella Della Porta, Mario Diani (January 30, 2006)
Social Movements is a comprehensive introduction and critical analysis of collective action in society today. In the latter part of the last century, social movements became a permanent feature of modern democracies. The students' and workers' protests of the 1960s have been followed by movements focusing on women's rights, ethnic identities, peace and environmental issues. This book draws on research and empirical work across the social sciences to address the key questions in this international field.
In this new edition, the authors have updated all chapters with the most recent literature, and expanded on topics such as individual motivations, new media, public policies, and governance. The book has also been redesigned to a more user-friendly format. More than ever, Social Movements is the ideal introduction for students of social movements within social and political science.
Donatella Della Porta is Professor of Sociology in the Department of Political and Social Sciences at the European University Institute. She is the author of Corrupt Exchanges: Actors, Resources, and Mechanisms of Political Corruption (1999), and Transnational Protest and Global Activism (2004).
Mario Diani is Professor of Sociology and Director of Graduate Studies at the University of Trento. He is the co-editor of Beyond Tocqueville: The Social Capital Debate in Comparative Perspective (with Bob Edwards and Michael Foley, 2001) and Social Movements and Networks (with Doug McAdam, 2003)

The Politics of Protest : Social Movements in America
by David S. Meyer (March 10, 2006)
Protest is everywhere in American politics. Over the past decade, activists have staged dramatic demonstrations on such diverse issues as the war in Iraq, globalization, standardized testing, and abortion rights. Indeed, protest and social movements have become essential features of
contemporary American life. The Politics of Protest offers both a historical overview and an analytical framework for understanding social movements and political protest in American politics. The book suggests that protest movements, clearly an integral part of our nation's history from the Boston
Tea Party to the Civil Rights Movement, are hardly confined to the distant past. It argues that protest movements in America reflect and influence mainstream politics. In order to understand our political system-and our social and political world-we need to pay attention to protest.
The Politics of Protest opens with a short history of social movements in the United States, beginning with the development of the American Republic, outlining how the American constitutional design invites protest movements to offer continual challenges. It then discusses the social impulse to
protest, considers the strategies and tactics of social movements, looks at the institutional response to protest, and finally examines the policy ramifications. Each chapter includes a brief narrative of a key movement that illustrates the topic covered in that chapter. Drawing students in and
clearly demonstrating how and why the subject is of importance to them, the book addresses such topics as Dorothy Day's Catholic Workers' protest against nuclear fallout drills in the 1950s, the Greensboro civil rights sit-in in 1960, and the so-called "Battle in Seattle" anti-globalization rally.
Providing a concise, yet lively analysis of social movements in America, The Politics of Protest is ideal for political science or sociology courses that consider social movements and political protest.

Social Movements and Networks: Relational Approaches to Collective Action (Comparative Politics) by Mario Diani (Editor), Doug McAdam (Editor) - January 1, 2004

For the first time in a single volume, leading social movement researchers map the full range of applications of network concepts and tools to their field of inquiry. They illustrate how networks affect individual contributions to collective action in both democratic and non-democratic organizations; how patterns of inter-organizational linkages affect the circulation of resources both within movement milieus and between movement organizations and the political system; how network concepts and techniques may improve our grasp of the relationship between movements and elites, of the configuration of alliance and conflict structures, of the clustering of episodes of contention in protest cycles.Social Movements and Networks casts new light on our understanding of social movements and cognate social and political processes.

Power in Movement : Social Movements and Contentious Politics (Cambridge Studies in Comparative Politics)
by Sidney Tarrow, Peter Lange (Series Editor), Robert H. Bates (Series Editor), Ellen Comisso (Series Editor), Peter Hall
(Series Editor), Joel Migdal (Series Editor), Helen Milner (Series Editor)

"This is unquestionably a seminal work, one that lies fundamentally in the literature on social movements....an exceptionally rich synthesis and weaving together of research and literature on social movements..." Studies in Comparative International Development
"The brilliance of this book is the author's ability to transcend conventional schools of social movement analysis....It is difficult to see movements in the same light after reading this book." American Political Science Review
Unlike political or economic institutions, social movements have an elusive power, but one that is no less real. This study surveys the history of the social movement, puts forward a theory of collective action to explain its surges and declines, and offers an interpretation of the power of movement that emphasizes its effects on personal lives, policy reforms and political culture. While
covering cultural, organizational and personal sources of movements' power, the book emphasizes the rise and fall of social movements as part of political struggle and as the outcome of changes in political opportunity structure. This second edition has an entirely new chapter, major additions to the bibliography, new illustrative materials in many of the chapters and a new conclusion.

Social Movements in Advanced Capitalism: The Political Economy and Cultural Construction of Social Activism - by Steven M. Buechler

Sociology and social movements are twin siblings of modernity that view the world as a social construction to be understood and transformed respectively. Based on this premise, Buechler argues for the centrality of social movements to the shape of the
modern world as well as the discipline of sociology. Building on a critical overview of current social movement theory, this book presents a structural model for analyzing social movements in advanced capitalism. This model provides a historically specific analysis that located movements in global, national, regional, and local structures. The heart of the book draws on diverse theoretical traditions within sociology (world system theory, critical theory, neo-Marxism, class/race/gender theories, theories of
everyday life) to specify the structural constraints and opportunities that comprise the environment in which movements mobilize and contest for power. Movement dynamics are explored in terms of their dialectical relationship with these multiple levels of
structure. The book also addresses the recent shift and false dichotomies between political and cultural dimensions of social movements.
This thoughtful introduction to the sociological study of social movements is an excelent supplementary text for advanced undergraduate and graduate students in courses on collective action and social movements.

Social Movement Theory and Research
by Roberta Garner
Reviews and explores social movement theory from the end of World War II to the mid-1990s, focusing primarily on the United States, with some attention to European scholarship as well.

Contemporary Movements and Ideologies - by Roberta Garner
Contemporary Movements and Ideologies introduces the reader to major global social movements. It outlines the basic concepts and theories for the analysis of social movements and provides summaries of the ideas, goals, organization, strategies and social bases of eight major types of movements, i.e., civil rights and human rights, movements of religious faith and women's movements. The book provides a strong historical foundation in which to understand each type of movement. In addition, it examines movements as a response to the modern world and looks at how they are changing to adapt to the "post-modern" era world of globalized markets and cultural diversity.

Social Movements and Social Classes : The Future of Collective Action (SAGE Studies in International Sociology)
by Louis Maheu (Editor)
Racism, class, urban politics, citizenship, middle-class radicalism, and education-all are integral factors when examining the phenomena of social movements. In Social Movements and Social Classes, an esteemed international cast of contributors focuses on these and other inherent issues in social movements and social class from the perspective of collective action. The contributors examine how integrative and expansive collection action is in the constitution of modern societies, review and discuss the various analytical approaches used to explain the foundations for collective action, and analyze the ways that social
struggles penetrate political life--with further reflections on culture and democracy. An original contribution to the understanding of social movements, social classes, and collective action, this book is essential reading for scholars and students in sociology, political science, urban studies, cultural studies, and ethnic studies.