Sociology 432: Social Movements

We will often ask what causes social movements to succeed? We will have different definitions of success, for instance,

• Better economic or political position of movement constituents
• Growth (including origins) of social movement popular support
• Acceptance as a normal part of the political process

In all these cases we will often sort the causes into four main types. Our categories are not exactly the same as always found in research on social movements, but they do identify different "schools" of thought we will see in the readings.

These four types can be organized into the simple 2x2 table below. The two rows distinguish whether the possible cause describes some characteristics of the movement participants themselves ("internal") or some characteristic of the environment in which the movement finds itself ("external"). The two columns distinguish whether the possible cause describes some attitudes or values inside people's minds ("subjective") or some external characteristic of people that can be assessed by independent observers ("objective", e.g., wealth, power, education, networks). Together these two dimensions define four types of causes:

	Subjective	Objective
Internal	Discontent	Resource mobilization
External	Cultural	Political opportunity

We will find many subtypes of causes within each of these cells. But it will be useful to keep in mind these four kinds of explanations. Many of our readings and films will focus on one or two of these. If you can classify the explanations in each reading, you will understand better the similarities and differences in the explanations.