Revolutionary Social Movements

Question 1

resource mobilization theory

Answer 1

resources: intellectual power/rallies/distributing leaflets

McCarthy and Zald (1977) argue that since powerless groups lack resources, they are dependent upon the donation on resources by sponsors such as foundations, charity and government (elites)

According to resource mobilization theory, a successful social movement is one which maximises its resources, with particular emphasis on getting support from economic and political elites who have access to resources.

Question 2

political opportunity theory

Answer 2

this approach argues that successful social movements occur when contentious groups mobilize their resources to take advantage of political opportunities at the correct timing

(focus on actors, not causes like skocpol did)

Question 3

critique of political opportunity theory

Answer 3

Goodwin and Jasper (1999) opportunity can be anything

Question 4

framing

Answer 4

Frame links the movements elites with the masses, key is in the message

Snow and Benford (1988) successful frame has

• empirical credibility
• credible people articulating it
• experiential commensurability (i.e. relevent to everyday experiences)
• narrative fidelity

Question 5

is the age of revolution over?

Answer 5

• Kumar: we have fragmented identities, there are no more proletariat revolutions, only social movements
• foran: post-modern revolution is non-violent, about technology, about “changing the world without taking power”
• dunn: has not persisted in the 21st century, as we can collapse regimes but we won’t reconstruct them

Question 6

revolutionary situation meaning

Answer 6

emergence of more than one “power bloc” regarded as legitimate by some of a country’s people

(resemble extreme cases of social movement cycles)

Question 7

classic theories of revolution

Answer 7

1. POPULAR challenge to sovereignty
2. RAPID transformation of social structures (Skocpol)
3. social/political/cultural outcome
4. means - some argue that violence is necessary

Question 8

new theories of revolution

Answer 8

1. Tilly (1993) processual approach - course of affairs, focus on both ideas and behaviour (individual + wider structures)
2. Dunn (2018) programmatic view - revolutions built on hope of revolutionaries at one aim- the collapse of the regime

Question 9

How were 20th century Third World Revolutions different to Skocpol’s traditional view of revolution?

Answer 9

Roxborough - not about internal class divisions

Mexican, Bolivian, Cuban, and Nicaraguan revolutions all to varying degrees fought against dependency on foreign powers, for example through investment/loans/exports/political investment

Question 10

How are revolutions about more than class now?

Answer 10

• women’s march on Versailles, ‘sans cullottes’
• the role of women in provoking the February Revolution in Russia
• Moghadam (1995): With the exception of Romania, the political empowerment of men in Eastern Europe brought in everywhere an immediate questioning of the reproductive rights that had been accorded women under state socialism