Keyword

Axes

Upper Left Quadrant Details Upper Right Quadrant Details Lower Left Quadrant Details Lower Right Quadrant Details Details

Quadrants

Outline

The URQ describes the marxist tradition of social movements as "the organised collective behaviour of a class actor struggling against his class adversary" (Touraine), a conflict whic is often in the name of - and may lead to - revolution. The focus of the ULQ is on "new social movements" expressing new cultural identities or defending - reconstructing - old ones. A phenomenon described by Castells (1996,22) as "the construction of social action and politics around primary identities, either ascribed, rooted in history, and geography, or newly built in an anxious search for meaning and spirituality". In the LLQ, market and lobbying stress similarities between social movements and interest groups in the "resource mobilization theory" (McCarthy and Zald 1977), analyzing the material resources that various movements use to garner membership support. The LRQ points to the shifting institutional structure and the ideological disposition (McAdam 1982), as well as policy responses, of those in power to account for the timing and fate of insurgency movements. Rather than from socio-economic differences or regional variations, fluctuations in collective protest depend on the "structure of political opportunities", as the strength of a sympatethic political party, a competitive party system, high levels of voting turnout. [Daniel Sherman]