Examining Public Opinion About Social Movements: The Social Bases of Progressive Social Movement Ideology (original) (raw)

Political Reform and the Historical Trajectories of U.S. Social Movements in the Twentieth Century

We propose a political reform theory, a political and historical institutionalist argument that holds that shifts in political structures, partisan regimes and policy greatly influence movements. We appraise this argument, along with resource mobilization, political opportunity and media alternatives, by analyzing 600,000 articles in the New York Times and Washington Post that mention national U.S. social movement organizations (SMOs) in the largest 34 SMO industries across the twentieth century. We provide multivariate analyses of industry-level article mentions of SMOs and detailed analyses of the historical trajecto-ries of coverage across the century. Although we find some support for major theories of movements and media influences, the political reform theory is strongly supported and outperforms standard political opportunity models. We conclude with suggestions to synthesize theories and for research on movement and media outcomes. We elaborate and appraise a " political reform " argument that attributes patterns in social movement organization (SMO) presence in part to the historical rhythms of partisan political dominance and policymaking. The political reform model relies on political institutional influences (Amenta 2005) and the historical institutionalist insight that changes in policy alter politics (Pierson and Skocpol 2002). Diverging from the expectations of standard political opportunity models, we argue that the major regime shifts, both left and right, provide short-term spurs to movements. Moreover, we argue that domestic policy reforms provide extensive legitimation and staging bases for political action among existing SMOs, bolstering them long after the initial causes of the new policy have passed, rather than leading to the decline of the movement.

The Political Consequences of Social Movements

Http Dx Doi Org 10 1146 Annurev Soc 070308 120029, 2010

Research on the political consequences of social movements has recently accelerated. We take stock of this research with a focus on movements in democratic polities and the United States in comparative and historical perspective. Although most studies demonstrate the influence of the largest movements, this research has not addressed how much movements matter. As for the conditions under which movements

There Will be Fighting in The Streets": The Distorting Lens of Social Movement Theory

Mobilization: An International Quarterly

We argue that the disproportionate attention accorded the struggles of the sixties has created a stylized image of social movements that threatens to distort our understanding of popular contention, not only in earlier periods and in nondemocratic contexts, but also in the contemporary U.S. This stylized view tends to equate movements with (a) disruptive protest in public settings, (b) loosely coordinated national struggles over political issues, (c) urban and/or campus based protest activities, and (d) claim making by disadvantaged minorities. Drawing on a larger study of trends and patterns in collective civic engagement in metropolitan Chicago, we employ new data on some 1,000 protest events between 1970 to 2000 to assess these four stylized views and address a number of related questions. The data do not support the common imagery of social movements—since 1980 there has been a marked transformation of the movement form to the point where public protest is now largely peaceful, ...

Becoming a Movement Society? Patterns in the Public Acceptance of Protest, 1985-2006

Sociological Focus, 2019

A social movement society refers to a society in which protest is a standard, institutionalized feature of the political landscape. Is the United States steadily becoming such a society? Whereas other empirical tests of the movement society thesis have focused on political tactics and individual participation in protest, we point to the public’s attitudes as another indicator of the movement society. Using the General Social Survey (GSS) data, we find that the public has grown more accepting of protest with time. In addition, using indicators of social location, social engagement, and political engagement as predictors, we find that while these factors help explain support for the protest, their effects vary depending on the type of protest in question. Age, education, gender, income, employment status, and political interest all affect the acceptance of public meetings and demonstrations; however, the effect of income is reversed when it comes to the acceptance of a nationwide strike. Lastly, an age-period-cohort analysis finds evidence that a period effect is greater than a cohort effect in changing attitudes over time. Taken together, these findings support the claim that broad, societal-level influences have contributed to the public acceptance of protest, which is suggestive of a social movement society. Yet while the United States may constitute a social movement society, it is one with clear boundaries: Individuals do support protest but only to the extent that it does not disrupt the material advantages associated with their social location.