Social Movements And Social Activism

Social problems are generally characterized by the traits of a specific social movement, though they often begin, and remain for a fairly long time, in the general movement stage.

The Sociology of Social Movements
Sociologists have viewed social movements using a number of different perspectives - movements as a response to social strains, as a reflection of trends and directions throughout the society more generally, as a reflection of individual dissatisfaction and feelings of deprivation, and as a natural step in the generation and modification of social institutions (McAdam, McCarthy, & Zald, 1988). Much traditional work on the sociology of mass movements concentrated on the processes by which such movements emerged, how they recruited new members, defined their goals, and gathered the initial resources that would allow them to survive.

More recent work has focused attention on the processes by which movements, once organized, contrive to assure the continued existence of their group and the long-term furtherance of its aims. Increasingly, social problems that in earlier eras were the occasion for short-lived expressions of protest by groups that may have measured their life-spans in months, are now the foci for long-lived organizations, for the activity of "social movement professionals," and for the creation of new institutions (McCarthy & Zald, 1973). This process is especially typical of those "professional" social movements where a primary intent is to create, extend, and preserve markets for particular professional services.

But while professionally oriented social movements enjoy some advantages in terms of expertise, organization, and the like, they also are often relatively easy for the state to control. In totalitarian governments, social movements have been controlled simply by repressing them; but in democratic systems, state and federal agencies, and their attached superstructure of laws and regulations, may in fact serve much the same function, directing and controlling the spheres of activity in which a movement is allowed to operate, offering penalties or rewards for compliance (e.g., tax-exempt status). - Stephen T. Kerr - University of Washington

More than two decades ago, Herbert Blumer (1951) set forth a typology of social movements which still seems relevant. His main distinction is between general and specific social movements, which differ according to the degree of their focus and organization. He describes also some kinds of movements which are distinguished mainly by their quality or style: expressive movements (including some religious movements and fashion movements), which seek to cope with personal and social dissatisfactions without aiming to change external social conditions; and nationalistic or revival movements, which seek to impose on present-day society certain idealized values or arrangements from the past. While the reform movements around social problems frequently partake of expressive or revivalist qualities, we are most concerned here with the more "quantitative" distinction Blumer makes between general and specific social movements.

General social movements consist mostly of "groping and unco-ordinated efforts" toward vague goals or objectives. They lack organization, leadership, and structure. They grow gradually out of what Blumer calls "cultural drifts," which are "gradual and pervasive changes in the values of a people." As a general movement begins to form from a cultural drift, it gradually acquires spokesmen who are more like "voices in the wilderness" than real leaders. A literature of protest and advocacy begins to develop, and the "media of interaction" among the people interested in the issues are in the form mainly of discussions, reading, and the selective perception and exchange of examples from social life to support their uneasiness. There is little or no concerted action by groups; most of the activity is on an individual basis. A general movement is carried by a vague collectivity of individuals--a "mass," as Blumer calls it, or perhaps a "public," as we have called it in the previous chapter.

A specific social movement usually grows out of a general movement as the latter grows out of a cultural drift. Instead of being carried by a mass or a public, the specific movement is an expression of the activities of interest groups and pressure groups, which have fairly well-defined goals. Blumer offers the example of the anti-slavery movement of the 19th century, which grew out of a more general humanitarian movement beginning somewhat earlier. Specific movements are apt to be of either a reform or revolutionary nature. They have certain generally acknowledged leaders, an overall organization broken down into a division of labor and roles, a guiding philosophy and set of rules, a body of traditions and expectations, and a kind of "we-consciousness." In short, a specific social movement is a kind of social organization, though not always as organized as established groups and institutions. Its organization and other characteristics are not, of course, present from the beginning, but they develop with the passage of time, largely out of the interaction of the movement with the rest of the society. For this reason, Blumer stresses the importance of the time dimension in the "career" of a specific social movement, a point to which we shall return later in this chapter. Most social problems are characterized by the traits of a specific social movement, though they often begin, and remain for a fairly long time, in the general movement stage.

As part of his comprehensive treatment on collective behavior, Smelser (1962 :IX and X) deals with two kinds of specific movements: norm-oriented and value-oriented movements. The first of these seeks to "restore, protect, modify, or create norms in the name of a generalized belief." It addresses existing norms and laws and concrete ways of doing things in a society, sometimes out of conservative tendencies, but usually out of a desire for some kind of change. In terms of the outline of a normative system, discussed in Chapter l, we would say that norm-oriented movements deal with the two top levels of the diagram (i.e., norms and laws). Those movements which deal with the bottom level of the diagram, however, Smelser calls value-oriented movements: collective attempts to "restore, protect, modify, or create values in the name of a generalized belief." Because value-oriented movements deal with the most fundamental and all-inclusive aspects of a culture, they might be described as trying, in effect, to create a new culture. They include many of the movements called by Blumer "expressive" and "nationalist," many of the religious movements of history, especially those that have swept whole societies and continents, and probably all of the movements based on the great "isms," such as Communism, Fascism, millenarianism, and the like, which attempt to reorder entire ways of life. By contrast, norm-oriented movements are content to leave the underlying culture and organization of a society pretty much intact, striving only for changes in (or preservation of) some of the social arrangements, rules, norms, laws, and other less fundamental aspects. Most social problems are of the norm-oriented type and only very rarely value-oriented, for they do not typically address the basis of the culture itself. The population problem-movement, for example, does not call for a basic change in the economy, in family life, or in any other institution; it advocates only that we establish as a norm the two-child family and encourage that norm through a variety of social and legal sanctions. To the extent, however, that a social problem-movement defines the source or cause of a problem as lying within the basic nature of the society (as, for example, when "radical" social theories claim that certain problems can be solved only by the abolition of capitalism), they take on some characteristics of a value-oriented movement; but the typical social problem is norm-oriented.

- From Armand Mauss, Social Problems as Social Movements, Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1975, pp. 38-71.

Prof. Pamela Oliver. - University of Wisconsin - Protests and Social Movements
ssc.wisc.edu/~oliver/PROTESTS/PROTESTS.HTM

American Sociological Association's Section on Collective Behavior and ... The Continuum of Collective Action - nd.edu/~dmyers/cbsm/

The purpose of the CBSM section is to foster the study of emergent and extra-institutional social forms and behavior, particularly crowds and social movements. This includes but is not limited to disasters, riots, protests, rumors, panics, fads, fashions, popular culture, strikes, and reform, revival and revolutionary movements. - asanet.org/sectioncbsm/

Prof. Steven E. Barkan - Steve's areas of interest in teaching and research are: criminology; deviant behavior; law and society; collective behavior and social movements, and research methods. His current research projects focus on: commitment and participation in social movement organizations - ume.maine.edu/~SOC/barkan.html

The Moral Issue in Collective Behavior and Collective ... for the Cause: Group Processes, Recruitment, and Commitment in a Student Social Movement ...

Professor Staggenborg teaches undergraduate courses on contemporary social movements, socialproblems, and conflicts, and graduate seminars on qualitative methods of social research andmovements/collective action. She is currently Chair of the Collective Behavior and SocialMovements section of the A.S.A.

Journal, Associate Editor of the Social Movement book series for the University of

Minnesota Press, and serves on the Council of the Collective Behavior/Social ...

Psychologists Working for Change - This page contains links to psychologists working either as individuals or in groups to bring about social change through their activism. This activism takes diverse forms, ranging from research on activism and social movement to direct participation in activities such as public education and civil disobedience.

Hasegawa Koichi: Japan Sociological Society American Sociological Association("Environment and Society" Section and "Collective Behavior and Social Movement" Section) ... sal.tohoku.ac.jp/~hasegawa/vita.html

Collective Behavior and Social Change members.tripod.com/~RBrownfield/index-41.html

The theory of collective behavior ... sweeping mass movements stimulated by the immense social ... Certain leaders can establish direction to this movement ...

Disaster response involves the mass movement of people, goods, and ... examines the sociology of disasters, qualitative methods, collective behavior, and social ...

Theories of Social Movements - Theories of social movements are closely connected with the general problems of society's development. To analyse social movements separately, in abstraction from the social structure, is to limit the problem by superficial analysis, which is not fruitful and does not allow us to understand the nature of social movements. From the Centre for Social Anthropology and Computing at the University of Kent at Canterbury. - lucy.ukc.ac.uk/csacpub/russian/mamay.html

Social Movement Studies is an international and inter-disciplinary journal providing a forum for academic debate and analysis of extra-parliamentary political, cultural and social movements throughout the world. The journal will be launched in 2002 and we are now actively looking for contributions. Social Movement Studies has a broad, inter-disciplinary approach designed to accommodate papers engaging with any theoretical school and which study the origins, development, organisation, values, context and impact of historical and contemporary social movements active in all parts of the world. - tandf.co.uk/journals/carfax/14742837.html

Research in Social Movements, Conflicts and Change
Description: This journal seeks to create a scholarly forum that would encourage dialogue and cross-fertilisation across a number of related but disconnected disciplines - social movements, conflict resolution and political change. - personal.kent.edu/~pcoy

Mobilizations is an international journal on social movements and collective behavior.