Social Movement Literature Review

A social movement is defined as the gathering of people to change an element of society that they feel is not acceptable and cannot endure any longer. There are two primary types of movements: reactive and proactive. Reactive movements typically involved resistance movements and are a pushback or reaction to current social changes. Proactive social movements include reform and revolutionary social movements which are designed to bring radical social change and replace the existing structures with new ones. While these definitions remain constant, as social changes impact societies, many social movements may change labels. A proactive movement can become a reactive movement and vice-versa.

Social movements are not spontaneous events, and they must build towards their goals over time on a series of phases and preconditions. Successful social movements rely on a number of micro and macro factors including efficient organizational structures, the ability to mobilize human and material resources, as well as effective leadership and rapid diffusion of ideas. As it will be shown, the presence of mobilizing structures, movement frames as well as suitable political opportunities combined with reactionary incentives during the Civil Rights Movement helped culminate both short and long term societal changes.

Therefore, it is understandable that movement scholars tend to write from a rather activist stance. There is nothing wrong with this per se, however, as historians, we should critically assess in how far this positioning might limit our scholarship. At times, Payne tends to overemphasize the unity and the solidarity among the organizers and the local population and fails to mention the tensions among direct democratic groups like SNCC. Every social movement is made up of people, united under what they perceive as an urgent need to bring about change. This unity tends to suppress theoretical and practical differences for some time and can thus create a tremendous amount of communality and solidarity among its members. However, as history has shown over and over again, as soon as the external threat either diminishes or proves resistant to change, movements tend to disunite. This is what Baker and other activists wanted to prevent by modeling their training around local long-term strategies and individual

Social movements of the 1960’s and 1970’s have been interpreted and written about in varying ways. While contemporary scholarship disagrees with past analyses and offer fresh perspectives, past research can also provide a pathway for defining important questions for future research on social movements in America.

In the past few years, the United States has experienced many social movements. For example, there have been movements such as Black Lives Matter (2012), North Dakota Access Pipeline (2016) and the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge (2014). These movements have been lead by students, unions, and concerned citizens of the United States who want to see a change in social or political issues. These movements can be seen across the United States and even across the world. But how are these movements funded and what are the issues that go along with funding them? To understand how social movements are funded, first you need to understand what a social movement is.

Over time, the way social movements are organized changes. As technology becomes more advanced the process of these movements is able to reach a larger number of individuals. In the early twentieth century, two men were able to change the nature of social movements in ways that are very different, yet very similar. Huey Long and Father Charles Coughlin altered the way social movements advanced their agendas by using their standing within society and unconventional resources to organize and advance their causes. Huey Long’s

Despite the inequality in the United States, many Americans have been determined to have their voices heard. Recently, movements such as Occupy Wallstreet and the Tea Party Movement have formed in response to the growing wealth and control by the “1%”. These social movements have become very popular at times due to discontent among the populace and the wide accessibility of social media. While these movements tend to have rapid success early on; lack of cohesion, results, and true direction

Tarrow, Sidney G. Power in Movement: Social Movements and Contentious Politics. Cambridge University Press; 2 edition (May 13, 1998).

Protests have long been an essential part of American life, employed to to draw attention to critical issues,events, and injustices. Ranging from peaceful marches to powerful acts of civil disobedience, not only in the United States but in Central American countries such as Nicaragua. This being said, civil protests and peaceful demonstrations were not necessarily more successful in exuding change than pieces of legislation but moreso acted as a catalyst for social change, leading towards legislation that would positively impact those who protested. The concept of civil disobedience and peaceful demonstration acting as a catalyst can be examined mainly through the protests during the Civil Rights Movement in the U.S. and the Sandinista

What determines a movement? Malcolm Gladwell defines what pushes a movement to make a difference. He analyzes the concept of “strong ties” and “weak ties” and how these relationships affect an individual’s willpower and determination to help a cause. Gregory Orr puts these ideas into context in his memoir, “Return to Hayneville”, in which he recounts his experience and involvement in the civil rights movement of the 1960s. Malcolm Gladwell’s “Small Change: Why the Revolution Will Not Be Tweeted”, focuses, in particular, on the civil rights movement concentrates to the lunch counter sit-ins in Greensboro, North Carolina. Gladwell’s ideas and opinions of social and political emancipations are given a real world setting, as

Social movements shed light to social issues present in communities and harvest social change in political, religious, educational, health, government, and other institutional matters. Social movements give individuals a clear outlet to concerns about the rights and well-being of themselves and others, mostly through public protest and conversation, in order to promote social justice and democracy. Throughout history, humans naturally ended up starting movements to simply improve their way of life and movements have continually aided in a remarkable change in communities. In the essay “From Civil Rights to Megachurches,” Charles Duhigg explains the three critical steps that initiative successful social movements. Social movements must

“As they fathom injustice, organize to protest, craft a tactics, and engage in action, these bodies read what is happening and articulate their imaginative rebuttal. In so doing they demonstrate to themselves and all those watching that something can be done. Could this be why they are called political ‘movements’?”

Start by narrowing the historical literature down into three main schools of thought so you can take a closer look at how social movements are born, why some succeed, and others fail. (Clearly, using a broad brush to paint a simplified scope of the topic, but this will help to centralize the data in a more digestible context.) The main schools of thought in this paper have been grouped in the following types of action: Collective Action, Economic/Political, and Leadership Centered.

Non- violent movements are a way for groups of people to achieve change and create an impact in the society. The labor, African American, and Vietnam anti-war peace movements were significantly successful in abolishing harsh working conditions, gaining civil rights for blacks, and withdrawing from the Vietnam War (Upchurch). Non-violent and violent movements have been used throughout history to evoke change in the society, obtain equality, civil rights, and peace. While violent protest result in the same changes, non-violent methods can ultimately go beyond local violent protest, spread nationally through movements, and protest without requiring violence. These events because of the non-violent

The second characteristic of NSM’s is tied to the first, in that groups no longer tend to share an over-arching ideological framework, whereas in Marxist discourse, such a shared frame was the “unifying and totalizing element for collective action” (Buechler & Cylke 277). Ideological unity has been supplanted by “pragmatic orientations” where movement members seek “institutional reform” to attain greater power in decision making processes, promoting a “‘democratizing dynamic’” in social movement discourse.