A Typology of Social Movements

Abstract

In Chapter 5, I argued that Weber’s insights were useful in pointing to the affective, instrumentally rational, value-rational and traditional aspects of activism, and that these should be understood as operating in all movements, but in different combinations. In Chapter 6, I argued that a typology of movements such as Smelser’s could be constructed (Crossley, 2002, also reworks Smelser’s typology), paying particular attention to the ways in which fantasy was worked over in social movements. The aim in this concluding chapter is to work these two arguments into a typology of social movements. This typology is mapped onto the typology of modes of fantasy outlined in Chapter 4, as seen in Figure 7.1. It should be noted that other typologies and distinctions abound in social movement theory, and that some of the distinctions made here will map onto these, but rarely exactly (McCarthy & Zald’s, 1977, concept of ‘withdrawal movements’ is a case in point).