Abstract
In the effort to create a general, encompassing theory of social movements, a flurry of proposals for “synthesis” have recently been submitted. At first, suggestions were made to reintroduce social-psychological perspectives to the resource mobilization approach (Klandermans, 1984; Ferree and Miller, 1985). Now, the integration of even the resource mobilization and classical perspectives is urged (McAdam, McCarthy and Zald, 1988; Rule, 1989). And in the international debate, a synthesis of European (structural) and American (resource mobilization) traditions is proposed. (Kriesi, 1988; p. 364; Klandermans and Tarrow, 1988; Tarrow, 1991). These propositions, no doubt, reflect researchers’ growing awareness of the particular limitations within each perspective to fully account for the emergence, dynamic, and characteristics of these movements. Thus, it is hoped that the systematic silences within the theory of resource mobilization (RM) on the role of norms, beliefs, or emotions might be filled by a return to some of the explanations offered within the collective behavior or mass society tradition. Or, in a somewhat parallel fashion, that the recent European new social movement theories, which link social movements to large-scale structural or cultural change, might nicely complement the American resource mobilization approach, as the latter focuses more exclusively on mobilization processes at the group and individual level.
Reprinted from International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society, vol. 4, no. 4 (Summer 1991), pp. 459–80.
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Mayer, M. (1995). Social Movement Research in the United States: A European Perspective. In: Lyman, S.M. (eds) Social Movements. Main Trends of the Modern World. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-23747-0_9
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