Social Movements in Advanced Capitalism: The Political Economy and Cultural Construction of Social Activism / Edition 1

by Steven M. Buechler

Overview

Building on a critical overview of current social movement theory, this book presents a structural model for analyzing social movements in advanced capitalism. This model provides a historically specific analysis that locates movements in global, national, regional, and local structures. The heart of the book draws on diverse theoretical traditions within sociology to specify the structural constraints and opportunities that comprise the environment in which movements mobilize and contest for power. These theoretical traditions include world system theory; critical theory; theories of class, race, and gender; and theories of everyday life. Movement dynamics are explored in terms of their dialectical relationship with these multiple levels of structure. The book also addresses the false dichotomies between political and cultural dimensions of social activism, and restores a critical, normative dimension to the analysis of social movements. Buechler makes a unique argument about the need to reorient social movement theory toward the structural, macrolevel contexts in which movements arise. Clearly presented, this thoughtful introduction links the theoretical traditions that make up the core of the discipline to the subfield of social movements. It is an excellent supplementary text for advanced undergraduate or graduate courses in sociology as well as for courses in such related disciplines as collective action and political protest. Social Movements in Advanced Capitalism contains a detailed, critical overview of the collective behavior and social movement theories that have taken place over the past fifty years.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780195126044
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	07/08/1999
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	9.16(w) x 6.46(h) x 0.67(d)
Lexile:	1550L (what's this?)

About the Author

Minnesota State University, Mankato

Table of Contents

Introduction
Part I: The Sociology of Social Movements
1. Social Movements and Sociology: Siblings of Modernity
2. Social Movement Theory: A Sociology of Knowledge Analysis
Part II: Social-Historical Structures and Collective Action
3. Global Structures: The World-Capitalist System
4. National Structures: Crisis, Colonization and Post-Fordism
5. Regional Structures: Class, Race, and Gender
6. Local Structures: The Politics of Everyday Life
Part III: The Political and the Cultural in Collective Action
7. The Political: State Politics and Social Politics
8. The Cultural: Identity, Ideology and Organization
Epilogue
References
Index