Social Movements - Hardcover

"This is the book we have been waiting for--a comprehensive yet lucid overview accessible to beginning students of social movements that also provides a valuable review of the field for graduate students. Staggenborg has written the clearest, best organized, most systematic summary of social movement analysis available today."--David Walls, Sonoma State University

"I can say without reservation that this is the text I would choose the next time I teach social movements; I would also definitely recommend it to colleagues."--Steven Mizrach, Florida International University

"This is an excellent introduction to the field of social movements for undergraduates. Staggenborg is successful in condensing a vast and varied literature into a concise volume that is nonetheless faithful to the overall emphases and themes in the social field."--Ziad Munson, Lehigh University

"The author's prose is lucid, accessible, and appropriate for an undergraduate text. The book couches major theoretical perspectives and empirical questions within case studies that the students should find very interesting."--Andrew Martin, Ohio State University

Social movements around the world have used a wide variety of protest tactics to bring about enormous social changes, influencing cultural arrangements, public opinion, and government policies in the process. This concise yet in-depth primer provides a broad overview of theoretical issues in the study of social movements, illustrating key concepts with a series of case studies. It offers engaging analyses of the protest cycle of the 1960s, the women's movement, the gay and lesbian rights movement, the environmental movement, the new American right, and the global justice movement. Author Suzanne Staggenborg examines these social movements in terms of their strategies and tactics, the organizational challenges they faced, and the roles that the mass media and counter-movements played in determining their successes and failures. Ideal as a core text for courses in social movements/collective behavior and political sociology/social change, Social Movements is brief enough to be easily supplemented by a reader containing primary documents.