Course Introduction

In the early 1970s, sociologists shifted from viewing social movement activists as malintegrated individuals swept up by charismatic leaders to viewing them as rational political actors. Protest was purposive and political, a reasonable alternative for people denied access to the regular political system. And rather than frenzied crowds social movements were made up of formal organizations which, like mainstream organizations, depended on resources, competed with other organizations, and strategized to adapt to the environment. Yet, for all sociologists' emphasis on strategy and organization, there has been relatively little theory or research devoted to either one. These are curious omissions since how effectively groups structure themselves and make decisions about tactics and targets are crucial to understanding their trajectories and impacts. Moreover, issues of strategy and organization raise questions that are fundamental to sociological theorizing most broadly conceived, about the relationships between structure and agency, culture and rationality, and institutionalization and change.

In this course, we will draw on existing theory and research as well as participants' own ongoing research projects to assess and develop theories about how groups choose from among the strategies, tactics, targets, and frames available to them, and how they structure themselves to make those choices. After a broad overview of social movement theory and the place of strategy and organization in it, we will focus on the rest of the course on decisionmaking processes within social movement organizations. How do movement groups reconcile their ideological commitments to particular organizational forms with the pressures exercised by funders?  How do they balance accountability with effectiveness? Does organization tend inevitably to oligarchy? Viewed in a larger historical context, how did certain organizational forms in movements come to be taken for granted?  Does thinking in terms of legal rights restrict activists' vision to the limits of the law?

As we pursue these questions, students will be conducting their own empirical studies of decisionmaking within a social movement organization, broadly defined. Students may choose to study a contemporary movement organization (or organizations) or a historical one and may use any of a number of methods, including participant observation, interviews, archival research, network analysis, or a content analysis of meeting transcripts. I will work with students individually to help formulate research questions and identify and gain access to organizations. However, students should expect to devote a considerable amount of time outside class to their research projects. Seminars will relate readings to students' research projects.