Books in the Social Movements, Protest and Contention series

Movements for social change are by their nature oppositional, as are those who join change movements. How people negotiate identity within social movements is one of the central concerns in the field. This volume offers new scholarship that explores issues of diversity and uniformity among social movement participants.

While gay rights are on the national agenda now, activists have spent decades fighting for their platform, seeing themselves as David against the religious right’s Goliath. At the same time, the religious right has continuously and effectively countered the endeavors of lesbian and gay activists, working to repeal many of the laws prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation and to progress a constitutional amendment “protecting” marriage. In this accessible and grounded work, Tina Fetner uncovers a remarkably complex relationship between the two movements—one that transcends political rivalry. Fetner shows how gay activists and the religious right have established in effect a symbiotic relationship in which each side very much affects the development of its counterpart. As lesbian and gay activists demand an end to prejudice, inclusion in marriage, the right to serve in the military, and full citizenship regardless of sexual orientation, the religious right has responded with antigay planks in Republican party platforms and the blocking of social and political change efforts. Fetner examines how the lesbian and gay movement reacts to opposition by changing rhetoric, tone, and tactics and reveals how this connection has influenced—and made more successful—the evolution of gay activism in the United States. Fetner addresses debates that lie at the center of the culture wars and, ultimately, she demonstrates how the contentious relationship between gay and lesbian rights activists and the religious right—a dynamic that is surprisingly necessary to both—challenges assumptions about how social movements are significantly shaped by their rivals.

How feminists and Islamists have constituted each other's agendas in Morocco

How activists changed the trajectory of the new agricultural biotechnologies.

Examines how strategies within social movements develop and work

Szasz identifies the force that pushed environmental policy away from pollution removal towards the logic of prevention. He describes how lawmakers sought to appease popular discontent by reinforcing toxic waste laws, and suggests this force may be a further impulse for progressive politics.

Citing the critical importance of empirical work to social movement research, the editors of this volume have put together the first systematic overview of the major methods used by social movement theorists. Original chapters cover the range of techniques: surveys, formal models, discourse analysis, in-depth interviews, participant observation, case studies, network analysis, historical methods, protest event analysis, macro-organizational analysis, and comparative politics. Each chapter includes a methodological discussion, examples of studies employing the method, an examination of its strengths and weaknesses, and practical guidelines for its application.

'The Voice of Southern Labor' chronicles the lives and experiences of southern textile workers and provides a new perspective on the social, cultural, and historical forces that came into play when the workers struck, first in 1929, and then in 1934.

This work explores the various police strategies of coercion, negotiation, and information surveillance. It discusses specific countries' governments and considers public opinion, media and the police's perception of reality to illustrate the reciprocal ways in which police and protest are defined.

Offers an in-depth look at the Genoa G8 summit and the European Social Forum, from the protesters' point of view. Presenting the systematic empirical research on the global justice movement, this work analyzes a movement from the viewpoints of the activists, organizers, and demonstrators themselves.

A long-overdue study of the workplace movement, Raeburn's analysis focuses on the mobilization of lesbian, gay, and bisexual employee networks over the past fifteen years to win domestic partner benefits in Fortune 1000 companies.

Confronts the gulf between social movement theory and activism. This book exposes the frayed relations between activism and social movement scholarship, and examines the causes and consequences of this disconnect. It asserts that partnerships among scholars and activists benefit both academic inquiry and social change efforts.

On one side are the policy makers, on the other, the movements and organizations that challenge public policy. Where and how the two meet is a critical juncture in the democratic process. Bringing together a distinguished group of scholars from several different disciplines in the social sciences, Routing the Opposition connects the substance and content of policies with the movements that create and respond to them. Local antidrug coalitions, the organic agriculture movement, worker's compensation reforms, veterans' programs, prison reform, immigrants' rights campaigns: these are some of the diverse areas in which the contributors to this volume examine the linkages between the practices, organization, and institutional logic of public policy and social movements. The authors engage such topics as the process of involving multiple stakeholders in policy making, the impact of overlapping social networks on policy and social movement development, and the influence of policy design on the increase or decline of civic involvement. Capturing both successes and failures, Routing the Opposition focuses on strategies and outcomes that both transform social movements and guide the development of public policy, revealing as well what happens when the very different organizational cultures of activists and public policy makers interact.

With any formal government, there is political contention - an interaction between ruler and subjects involving compliance or resistance, co-operation, resignation, condescension and resentment. This work examines the interaction between these forces at the very heart of contentious politics.

Kurt Schock is associate professor of sociology and global affairs at Rutgers University.Contributors: Sean Chabot, Eastern Washington U; Véronique Dudouet, Berghof Foundation, Germany; Dustin Ells Howes, Louisiana State U; Brian Martin, U of Wollongong, Australia; Sharon Erickson Nepstad, U of New Mexico; Olena Nikolayenko, Fordham U; Julie M. Norman, Queen's U, Belfast; Chaiwat Satha-Anand, Thammasat U, Thailand; Janjira Sombatpoonsiri, Thammasat U, Thailand; Stellan Vinthagen, U West and U of¿Göteborg, Sweden