Social Movements, 1768-2004

Social Movements, 1768-2004
by Charles Tilly

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Book Summary Information

Author: Charles Tilly
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2004-05-30
ISBN: 1594510431
Number of pages: 262
Publisher: Paradigm Publishers

Book Reviews of Social Movements, 1768-2004

Book Review: Studying social movements requires the study of history
Summary: 4 Stars

Charles Tilly decided to write this book for 2 reasons: he needed something meaningful to do during his approximately 5 month treatment of chemotherapy and secondly, Sidney Tarrow decided to not write a social movement's history.

Tilly thinks that a historical narrative is required to understand social movements. "History...helps because it identifies significant changes in the operation of social movements...and...because it calls attention to the shifting political conditions that made social movements possible" (pg. 3). Philosophically, Tilly is a historicist who refuses to "search for grand laws in human affairs comparable to the laws of Newtonian mechanics" this attempt, Tilly says, has "utterly failed" (pg. 9). Instead, a better "effort necessarily depends on turning away from 'laws' of social movements toward causal analogies and connections between distinctive aspects of social movements and other variables of politics" (pg. 10).

To that end, Tilly pursues 9 main arguments in this book:
(1) From their 18th century origins onward, social movements have proceeded not as solo performances, but as interactive campaigns. (2) Social movements combine 3 kinds of claims: program, identity, and standing. (3) The relative salience of program, identity, and standing claims varies significantly among social claimants within movements, and among phases of movements. (4) Democratization promotes the formation of social movements. (5) Social movements assert popular sovereignty (6) As compared with locally grounded forms of popular politics, social movements depend heavily on political entrepreneurs for their scale, durability, and effectiveness. (7) Once social movements establish themselves in 1 political setting, modeling, communication, and collaboration facilitate their adoption in other connected settings (8) The forms, personnel, and claims of social movements vary and evolve historically. (9) The social movement, as an invented institution, could disappear or mutate into some quite different form of politics (pgs. 12-14, 35-37,150-152).

Tilly pays very little attention to the history and power of ideas (this may annoy some Political Theorists). Also, according to Richard Hogan's book review in "Contemporary Sociology," proponents of the resource mobilization model and political process model of social movements will find Tilly's overall approach as a challenge and opposing view.

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Summary of Social Movements, 1768-2004

Westerners invented social movements during the 18th century, but after that social movements became vehicles of popular politics across the world. By locating social movements in history, prize-winning social scientist Charles Tilly provides rich and often surprising insights into the origins of contemporary social movement practices, relations of social movements to democratization, and likely futures for social movements. Shows how social movements are changing, including the impact of new technologies and globalization. Traces the invention and evolution of social movements with lessons for how social movements could lose their vigor. Explores fundamental questions such as 'How does democratization really occur?' Considers the relation of movements to identity, citizenship, and capital and questions whether social movements are viable in authoritarian states. Students will appreciate Tilly's vivid examples from around the world (including a fantasy of 17th century figures John Wilkes and Samuel Adams trying to discern the effectiveness of 2003 Iraq War demonstrators).

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