Power in Movement: Social Movements and Contentious Politics

by Sidney G. Tarrow

• ISBN13: 9780521155724
• ISBN10: 052115572X
• Edition: 3rd
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2011-02-04
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

Social movements have an elusive power but one that is altogether real. From the French and American revolutions to the post-Soviet, ethnic, and terrorist movements of today, contentious politics exercises a fleeting but powerful influence on politics, society, and international relations. This study surveys the modern history of the modern social movements in the West and their diffusion to the global South through war, colonialism, and diffusion, and it puts forward a theory to explain its cyclical surges and declines. It offers an interpretation of the power of movements that emphasizes effects on the lives of militants, policy reforms, political institutions, and cultural change. The book focuses on the rise and fall of social movements as part of contentious politics in general and as the outcome of changes in political opportunities and constraints, state strategy, the new media of communication, and transnational diffusion.

Author Biography

Sidney G. Tarrow is Maxwell M. Upson Professor of Government and Professor of Sociology at Cornell University.

Table of Contents

List of Figures	p. xi
List of Tables	p. xiii
Preface	p. xv
Acknowledgments	p. xix
Introduction	p. 1
Contentious Politics and Social Movements	p. l6
The Birth of The Modern Social Movement
Modular Collective Action	p. 37
Print and Association	p. 57
States, Capitalism, and Contention	p. 71
Powers in Movement
Acting Contentiously	p. 95
Networks and Organizations	p. 119
Making Meanings	p. 140
Threats, Opportunities, and Regimes	p. 157
Dynamics of Contention
Mechanisms and Processes of Contention	p. 183
Cycles of Contention	p. 195
Struggling to Reform	p. 215
Transnational Contention	p. 234
Conclusions: The Future of Social Movements	p. 259
Sources	p. 275
Index	p. 315
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