'Social movements' refer to purposeful undertakings by people who do not hold positions of authority or wealth, but who wish to redirect their society towards new goals and values by bypassing or defying those in power. Scholarly opinions about such movements vary tremendously. Some - especially those with painful first-hand experiences of fascist regimes - fear movements, cite their extra-constitutional features, and predict authoritarian consequences if unauthorized collective actions become more common. Others - for instance those who sympathize with recent peace, environmental, or women's movements - admire and applaud social movements, viewing them as schools for healthy citizenship.

This collection contains more than 55 writings by academics and public intellectuals. The essays are drawn from different decades of the 20th and 21st centuries, and from across the globe, presenting different and sometimes divergent lines of thinking about social movements.

Volume One: Theorizing about Movements after World War II

Volume Two: Emergence and Evolution of Political-Process Theory

Volume Three: Cultural Approaches

Volume Four: Components, Contradictions and Contexts

VOLUME 1: THEORIZING ABOUT MOVEMENTS AFTER WORLD WAR II
Editor¿s Introduction to the Overall Handbook
Editor¿s Introduction to Volume 1
Section 1: Mass-Society Theories
Life Cycles of Social Movements
The Revolutionary Process: A frame of reference for the study of revolutionary movements - Rex Hooper
Totalitarian Movements and the Loneliness of the Bourgeoisie
The Origins of Totalitarianism - Hannah Arendt
Class Insecurity versus Status Insecurity
The Radical Right: A Problem for American Democracy - Seymour Martin Lipset
Modernity and Anger
Fascism and Modernization - Henry Ashby Turner, Jr.
Section 2: Marxist Visions
Purposefulness of Resistance
Concept of Class and the Roots of Fascism
The Lower Middle Class as Historical Problem - Arno Mayer
Role of Movements in Class Formation
Proletariat into a Class: The process of class formation from Karl Kautsky¿s The Class Struggle to Recent Controversies - Adam Przeworski
Dangers of Political Incorporation
Retrospective Comments - Francis Fox Piven
Section 3: Peasant Movements as a Theoretical Puzzle
Alternatives to Movement Activism
Hegemony and the Peasantry - James Scott
Instrumental Reasoning and Tactical Choices
The Rational Peasant: The political economy of rural society - Samuel Popkin
Regime Changes and Shifts in Peasant Politics
From Avoidance to Confrontation: Peasant protest in precolonial and colonial Southeast Asia - Michael Adas
Section 4: Speculations about New Social Movements
Uncovering a New Style of Movement Experience
New Social Movements - J rgen Habermas
Analyzing a New Phenomenon
The ¿New Social Movements¿: Moral crusades, political pressure groups, or social movements - Klaus Elder
Are New Social Movements Truly New?
¿New Social Movements¿ of the Early Nineteenth Century - Craig Calhoun
VOLUME 2: EMERGENCE AND EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL-PROCESS THEORY
Editor¿s Introduction to Volume 2
Section 1: Components of Political-Process Thinking
Strategic Calculations and Acts of Protest
Protest as a Political Resource - Martin Lipsky
Resource Mobilization Theory
Resource Mobilization and Social Movements: A partial theory - John McCarthy and Mayer N. Zald
Frame theory
Frame Alignment Processes, Micromobilization and Movement Participation - David Snow, E. Burke Rochford, Jr., Steven Worden, and Robert Benford
Section 2: Vision Articulated
In Sociology
The Political Process Model - Doug McAdam
In History
Social Movements and National Politics - Charles Tilly
In Political Science
Political Opportunity Structure and Political Protest: Anti-Nuclear Movements in Four Democracies - Herbert Kitschelt
Mobilizing Around the Vision
Crossing Frontiers: Theoretical innovations in the study of social movements - Cyrus Ernesto Zirakzadeh
Section 3: Vision Applied and Enriched
Protest Waves
The Dynamics of Protest Waves: West Germany, 1965 to 1989 - Ruud Koopmans
Cycles of Contention
Cycles of Collective Action: Between moments of madness and the repertoire of contention - Sidney Tarrow
Movements and Countermovements
Movements, Countermovements, and the Structure of Political Opportunity - David Meyer and Suzanne Staggenborg
Section 4: Criticisms of Political-Process Theory
Is Political-Process Theory Too Elitist?
An Insider¿s Critique of the Social Movement Framing Perspective - Robert Benford
Is Political-Process Theory Naively Structural?
Caught in a Winding, Snarling Vine: The structural bias of political process theory - Jeff Goodwin and James Jasper
Is Political-Process Theory Excessively Scholastic?
The Question of Relevance in Social Movement Studies - Richard Flacks
Section 5: Responses to Critics by One Political-Process Theorist
Introduction to the Second Edition - Doug McAdam
VOLUME 3: CULTURAL APPROACHES
Editor¿s Introduction to Volume 3
Section 1: Cultural Complexity and Social Movements
Ambiguities of Cultural Practices
¿We Are Not What We Seem¿: Rethinking black working-class opposition in the Jim Crow South - Robin Kelley
Discontinuities in Popular Culture
Structural Opportunity and Perceived Opportunities in Social-Movement Theory: Evidence from the Iranian Revolution of 1979 - Charles Kurzman
Appeals of Stories
Contending Stories: Narrative in social movements - Francesca Polleta
Section 2: Political Struggles over Culture
Culture as Resource with which to Offset Unfavorable Political Circumstances
Linking Mobilization Frames and Political Opportunities: Insights from Regional Populism in Italy - Mario Diani
Myth and the Zapatista Movement: Exploring a Network Identity - Adrienne Russell
Cultural Obstacles to Movement Growth
Must Identity Movements Self-Destruct? A Queer Dilemma - Joshua Gamson
Haunted by the Specter of Communism: Collective identity and resource mobilization in the demise of the Workers Alliance of America - Chad Alan Goldberg
Section 3: Newsmedia and Social Movements
Social Movements and Alternative News Outlets
Claims-Making and the Construction of Legitimacy: Press coverage of the 1981 Northern Irish hunger strike - Aogán Mulcahy
Miscalculating Media Responses
Appeal, Threat, and Press Resonance: Comparing Mayday protests in London and Berlin - Dieter Rucht
Movement Vilification in the Press
¿The Anarchists¿ World Cup¿: Respectable protest and media panics - Michael Rose and Hugo Gorringe
Section 4: Popular Music and Social Movements
Musical Subversion
Rebeldismo in the Revolutionary Family: Rock ¿n roll¿s early confrontations with the state and society in Mexico - Eric Zolov
Popular Music as Mechanism for Mobilization
Media and Mobilization: The case of radio and Southern textile worker insurgency, 1929 to 1934 - Vincent Roscigno and William Danaher
Section 5: Religion, Religious Traditions, and Social Movements
Religious Awakenings as Social Movements
Revitalization Movements - Anthony Wallace
Religious Roots of Democratic Visions
Religion and Revolution - Christopher Hill
Local Prophets and Counter-Hegemony
Popular Publics: Street protests and plaza preachers in Caracas - David Smilde
VOLUME FOUR: COMPONENTS AND CONTEXTS
Editor¿s Introduction to Volume 4
Section 1: Internal Complexity of Social Movements
Organizational Decentralization
Movements of Revolutionary Change: Some structural characteristics - Luther Gerlach
Mixed Messages and Mixed Motives
Thoughts on a Neglected Category of Social Movement Participant: The agent provocateur - Gary Marx
Intra-Movement Pluralism
Tilting the Frame: Considerations on collective action framing from a discursive turn - Marc Steinberg
Section 2: Roles and Styles of Movement Leaders
Competing Tasks of Movement Leaders
Functional Areas of Leadership in Social Movements - Joseph Gusfield
Organizing Democracy: The limits of theory and practice - Lawrence Goodwyn
Gender and Leadership
African American Women in the Civil Rights Movement: Gender, leadership and micromobilization - Belinda Robnett
Section 3: Impact of Local Environments on Movements
Neighborhoods and Movement Development
Networks and Mobilization in the Paris Commune, 1871 - Roger Gould
University Campuses as Movement Settings
Ecologies of Social Movements: Student mobilization during the 1989 prodemocracy movement in Beijing - Dingxin Zhao
Section 4: Movements Acting "Above" the State
Venue Shopping
The Dualities of Transnational Contention: ¿Two activist solitudes¿ or a new world altogether? - Sidney Tarrow
Black Southern Student Sit-in Movement: An Analysis of Internal Organization - Aldon Morris
Different Appeals to Different Audiences
The Benefits of Frame Resonance Disputes for Transnational Movements: The case of Botswanäs central Kalahari game reserve - Danielle Resnick
Section 5: Social Movements and Cultural Globalization
Politics beyond the State: Environmental activism and world civic politics - Paul Wapner
Globalization and Transnational Diffusion Between Social Movements: Reconceptualizing the dissemination of the Gandhian repertoire and the ¿coming out¿ routine" - Sean Chabot and Jan Willem Duyvendak
Globalizing Social Movement Theory: The case of eugenics - Deborah Barrett and Charles Kurzman
Section 6: So, Do Movements Matter?
Processes of Political Education
On Participation - Hanna Fenichel Pitkin and Sara Shumer
Measuring Achievements in Light of Political Possibilities
Stolen Thunder? Huey Long¿s Share Our Wealth, political mediation and the Second New Deal - Edwin Amenta, Kathleen Dunleavy, and Mary Bernstein
Noticing Indirect Effects