Sociology 924: Social Movements Seminar Calendar Pamela Oliver

 

Spring 2011 Course meets Mondays 3:00-6 in #4314 or 8146 Sewell Social Science.

Calendar of assignments and ntoes

How this works: If you click on a topic heading, you open a page which lists readings and has hot links to on-line copies of many of them. Copyrighted materials are in a password-protected directory for class members only, but you can read the list of articles & chapters without the password.

January 24 Introduction & overviews.

January 31 Organizations, External Resources, Professionalization Key issues: What kinds of resources constrain/impact social movements? What kinds of organizations carry social movements? How does organizational form vary with movement type or environmental constraints?

Feb 7

  1. A brief overview of collective action theory. Readings on Collective Action Theory & Mobilization Processes
    1. Read selected pages from Mancur Olson's The Logic of Collective action
    2. Read Oliver's overview of collective action theory in the first six pages of "Formal Models of Collective Action"
    3. I will give a mini-lecture on what I see as the key ideas. (Hint: besides benefit/cost, the other key ideas are probability of making a difference and assessments of others' actions.)
  2. Networks & Mobilizing Structures. Read over the three review chapters to get the lay of the land and identify key issues and then explore some of the empirical articles on the web site or that are cited by the reviews (and accessible) that seem relevant or interesting to you, given your research concerns. The overarching ideas here are the way people are pulled into collective action through networks and the way collective action is pursued through networks and relations between people and between groups.
    1. Della Porta & Diani text chapter 5
    2. Diani's network article in Blackwell Companion
    3. Rucht's allies, adversaries, third parties article in Blackwell Companion.
Feb 14 Party at my house
Feb 21 Social movements analysis of the Madison protests. Most of us have been involved in these protests. Class discussion will examine the competing ways the issue was framed, processes of mobilization, media coverage, intertwining of protest and institutional politics. If you got ahead on the frames reading, you'll have less to do for next week and theoretical ideas to contribute this week.

Feb 28 Frames, Framing Processes, & Related Issues (assginment on topic page)
March 7 Political structures and movement (more on political opportunity) Interactions of Movements with Opponents, part I Key questions: how do political structures and opportunities vary between polities, between groups within a polity, and across time? What elements of variation are most imporant?. See page for specific assignment.
March 21 Politics II: Interactions. Countermovements and repression . Outcomes & Consequences of Movements. Also dynamics Something about countermovements I suggest Meyer & Staggenborg for general synthesis or Andrews for an empirical study
March 28 Identity, Consciousness, Emotions Assignment: (1) Per class discussion, we will give more attention to the Ferree and Ellingson articles from last week, to focus on empirical examples of frames. (2) Della Porta and Diana Ch 4, identities, *'d with short chapter summary on assignment page (3) Also Morris & Braines (oppositional consciousness) and Poletta "It was like a fever" which are *'d in the assignment page for Identity. Assignment page: Identity, Consciousness, Emotions Note that the assignment pages for this week and last week include a lot more articles that are worth pursuing if you have a special interest in this area.

Media & Movements

Transnational movements

April 26 Readings on organizing suggested by Sara, Jessica and Mitch
 
 

 

 

 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 

 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Sociology 924: Social Movements Calendar Pamela Oliver

Last updated April 19, 2011 © University of Wisconsin.