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Sociology 432: Social Movements
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J. Craig Jenkins and Charles Perrow,
"Insurgency of the Powerless: Farm Worker Movements (1946-1972)"
American Sociological Review, April 1977, 42: 249-268.
On JSTOR:
This article is sometimes cited as an early exemplar of
the dominant resource mobilization
"school" of social movements.
Since their focus is clearly on resources that are external to
protest participants, we would classify their
theory as a political opportunity theory.
Jenkins and Perrow begin by contrasting the "classical" model with
their new perspective. The classical model they describe is
what we have called the discontent theory of social movements.
It is not very different from what most of us think of as a common sense theory
of social movements. So the article is important for alerting us
that our common sense may be wrong.
Two models of social movements
Three contrasts between the classical/common sense model and the
resource mobilization perspective that you must understand are:
- the role of discontent in initiating social movements
- the importance of allies to success
- the response of the political system to social movements
Changes between 1940s and 1960s
List at least three obstacles that the farm worker unions faced in organizing
a union.
What obstacles became less of a problem between the 1940s and the 1960s?
How did the farm worker union movement itself change during that period?
For Jenkins and Perrow, among all these changes, what was the one
crucial change that spelled the difference between the two periods?
Methods
What is Jenkins and Perrow's data source?
Compare this to earlier readings such as
Tarrow's article on protest cycles and
McAdam's article on innovation in the civil
rights movement.
What problems do Jenkins and Perrow acknowledge with this data source and
how do they defend their choice?
Results
The first period
What is the meaning of the correlation coefficients that
Jenkins and Perrow calculate?
For example, what does it mean in Table 1 that the correlation between
the insurgents and liberal pressure groups is .33?
The second period
What changed in period 2 that helped the farm worker movement?
And why did that happen?
The third period
What is offered as evidence of the UFW success in the third period?
How important were UFW strikes in creating this success?
What was the main cause of the UFW success?
What is the evidence for Jenkins and Perrow's causal argument?
What role does the government play in promoting change?
Conclusions
What's your one-line summary of Jenkins and Perrow' contribution?
| Last updated November 1, 2005 |
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