Lecture 10 - Social Movements Flashcards
Define social change.
The alteration of social structures, cultural symbols, rules of behaviour and/or value systems
What are the 3 sources of large-scale social change?
- Technology
- Environmental challenges
- Large-scale (political) conflict
Define technology.
The practical application of scientific principles
(Oppenheimer)
- Improvement of life pre-Hiroshima (naive optimism)
- Inevitability of failure post-Hiroshima (growing pessimism)
Define normal accidents.
(Perrow) Accidents that are inevitable, but unpredictable, because of the complexity of modern technology (Not all eventualities can be tested)
Define risk society.
(Beck) A society where technology distributes environmental dangers among all categories of the population (to varying degrees)
- Danger because of technological accidents + environmental threats (climate change)
How do technology and people cause social change?
- Technological determinism (Kondratiev) –> the belief that technology is the main factor shaping human history
- Technology doesn’t become a tool of economic growth until social conditions allow them to
Describe how environmental problems become social issues when promoted, using global warming as an example.
- Proposed in the 1900s
- Didn’t garner attention until the 1970s, w/ droughts prompting more coverage in 1988
- Dismissed by corporations until it was brought back as an issue in 2007
Define environmental racism.
The tendency to heap environmental dangers on the disadvantaged, especially disadvantaged racial minorities
- Advantaged often put disadvantaged in harm’s way to avoid danger themselves
Ex. Uranium workers in Alberta not being told the risks, cancer being common in the community
What are 3 factors that suggest market forces + technological fixes can’t solve environmental issues by themselves?
- Imperfect price signals –> not reflective of the actual cost to society (which is the monetary cost + the social/environmental const)
- Slow pace of change –> efforts are insufficient (global warming is still accelerating)
- Importance of political pressure –> efforts are needed from environmental groups/organizations, public opinion, etc. to motivate government action
Define collective action.
Ppl. acting in unison to bring about/resist social/political/economic change
Define social movement.
Collective attempt to change political/social order (partially or fully) by means of rioting, petitioning, striking, etc.
Until 1970, what 2 conditions did sociologists believe were needed for social movements to form (which then came together as breakdown theory for functionalists)?
- Social marginality –> early leaders + recruiters must be poorly integrated into society
- Strain –> ppls. norms must be strained/disrupted
- Relative deprivation (growth of a gap b/w expected social rewards VS actual received awards)
COLLECTIVE ACTION AS A FORM OF SOCIAL IMBALANCE
What are the 2 flaws of breakdown theory?
- Lenders/Early recruits are usually well-established
2. High levels of deprivation aren’t associated w/ social movements
How do conflict theorists see social movements?
Solidarity theory –> social movements are social organizations that emerge when potential members can mobilize resources, take advantage of political opportunities and avoid a high level of social control by authorities
FOCUS ON THE SOCIAL CONDITIONS THAT ALLOW FOR A “SOLIDARY” POLITICAL FORCE
What are the 3 social conditions within solidarity theory?
- Resource mobilization –> process by which social movements crystallize because of increasing organizational/material/other resources
- More collective action from a power increase - Political opportunities –> chances for collective action + movement growth is during election campaigns, when influential allies offer support, ruling political alignments become unstable and elite groups become divided
- Social control –> how government reacts to protests
