The Future of Social Movement Research: Dynamics, Mechanisms, and Processes

Description

Are the dynamics of contention changing? This is the question confronted by the contributors of this volume, among the most influential scholars in the field of social movements. The answers, arriving at a time of extraordinary worldwide turmoil, not only provide a wide-ranging and varied understanding of how social movements arise and persist, but also engender unanswered questions, pointing to new theoretical strands and fields of research.

Jacquelien van Stekelenburg is associate professor of sociology at VU-University, Amsterdam.

This is a major, very important work which brings together the leading lights in the international, interdisciplinary, invisible college of social movement scholars. The book combines thoughtful essays on the state of the art in the study of contentious politics with grounded speculation on the many still unanswered or incompletely answered questions. The authors do an excellent job of distinguishing what is based on solid empirical research and what would require additional research to answer with confidence. This does not prevent them from suggesting hypotheses and impressions which are based on reasonable and probable extensions of what we already know.-William Gamson, Boston College