Methodological Advances In Research On Social Movements Conflict And Change

Now that we are almost a quarter of the way into the 21st century, the field of sociology is in need of research like this which explores methods for studying contentious politics in the context of broader social changes to peacebuilding, armed conflicts, and social movements.

Presents two papers on methodological issues facing the study of social movements. This work includes four papers on specific social movements or social movement organizations, two papers on aspects of social change and inequality, and one study critically analyzing the conflict resolution prospects in a situation of protracted violence.

This work is part of a series of original articles on research in social movements, conflicts and change. It carries papers that are broad in scope and methodologically diverse.

A systematic, authoritative, and accessible introduction to empirical research in social movement studies. Each of the main methods of data collection and data analysis are presented with a practical approach, from research design to data collection, the use of information through to ethical issues.

Presents papers that analyze tactical and strategic innovations in movement organizing. Perhaps the most fertile area of social movement research examines the increasingly complex and busy intersection of collective identity issues with social movement membership and mobilization. This title presents three papers representing this theorizing.

More than any other topic in social science, the study of social movements provides an opportunity to combine social theory with political action. Such study is a key to understanding the motivations, successes, and failures of thousands who aspire to high ideals of justice, but who sometimes aid in perpetuating inhumane political acts and systems. Building upon the past twenty years' developments in theory and research, Social Movements combines original theoretical and methodological approaches with penetrating analyses of contemporary movements from the sixties to the present. Anthony Oberschall argues that social movements are central to contemporary politics in both Western and Third World nations. They are not quaint stepchildren to public policy and social change that disappear as nations modernize. Collective action by the citizenry, spilling beyond the boundaries of routine politics is an integral part of the process of creative destruction that Joseph Schumpeter ascribed to modern capitalism and all dynamic, modern societies. Among the subjects that OberschaU examines in Social Movements are the Civil Rights movement, decline of the New Left, the feminist movement, the New Christian Right, the tobacco control movement, collective violence in U.S. industrial relations, and some comparative historical movements, including the Cultural Revolution in China, the abortive 1968 revolution in Czechoslovakia, political strife in postcolonial Africa, and the sixteenth-century European witch craze. In looking beyond the immediate political circumstances of these social movements, Oberschall points the way to achieving the next major task of social movement theory: a more satisfactory understanding of the dynamics and course of social movements and counter movements and a method of accounting for the outcomes of public controversies. Free of jargon and technical terminology, Social Movements is written for sociologists, political scientists, historians, professionals dealing with conflict and resolution, students and the lay public interested in public affairs.