Sociology 432: Social Movements

Final exam study questions

(version: December 14, 2005)

One essay and eight short essay questions will be randomly selected from the following questions. The essays have no right or wrong answer. You need to show that you can take a clear position, support it with as many facts and case studies as possible, and acknowledge exceptions to your argument. The short essays are more specific, but they also are designed to test how well you can put together specific evidence with the more general sociological patterns.

Essay questions

1. One of the most popular explanations of the rise and success of protest movements has been the "resource mobilization" perspective. Summarize the main arguments of this perspective and give examples of how it helps explain the rise of social movements. In your examples, be specific about what resources contribute to what mobilization. Then identify what other factors tend to be ignored or at least de-emphasized by this perspective. For each of these de-emphasized causes, suggest a specific case where it might be a mistake to ignore those factors.


2. Often, the success or failure of a social movement depends on events and factors that are external to the movement and its members. We have reviewed factors such as:
   • the strength of the opposition,
   • the support of allies,
   • the legacy of past social movements,
   • the position of some part of the government,
   or
   • the general cultural climate.
   Discuss how each of these played a role in the rise, successes, and failures of the women's movement. Compare or contrast the importance of each factor for the women's movement with its importance for some other social movement (you can select different social movements for different factors). What is your evaluation of which of these factors were more important and which less important for determining the history of the women's movement?

Short essay questions

(preliminary: December 14, 2005)

3. Explain how the "repertoire of contention" varies with the "cycle of protest". Describe examples from the history of U.S. social movements that fit with the usual pattern and any that don't fit.


4. What is the best predictor of the spread of (and the success of) any particular protest tactics in the civil rights movement? What is the evidence? What explains the decline in the use of a tactic?


5. What are two advantages of a formal, more bureaucratic organization for a social movement? What are two disadvantages?


6. What were the structural (i.e., economic, demographic, organizational etc.) changes in American society that facilitated the growth of the civil rights movement? How did the "indigenous organizational strength" of the civil rights movement change prior to the 1950s so that a successful social movement was more likely?


7. What events in the origins of the feminist movement point towards more cultural framing factors as important? What events point towards resource mobilization factors as important? Why might cultural changes be more important for the origins of a feminist movement than for, say, the origins of the civil rights movement?


8. Describe the major differences in the operations of collectivist and bureaucratic strands of feminist movement organizations. Give examples of each strand of movement organization.


9. What were some of the specific goals and changes that the feminist movement accomplished in the 1970s and 1980s? How did the different strands of organization, bureaucratic and collectivist, contribute differentially to these goals?


10. What is the evidence of the decline of the success of the feminist movement in the last two decades? What factors have changed since the 1970s that might help account for that decline?


11. Why are we justified in considering riots as a protest tactic ? What is the evidence? In what sense are they not really a tactic?


12. Analyze the strengths and weaknesses of lawsuits as an effective protest tactic. Consider its impacts on movement participants and on opponents. What are some examples of successful uses of the legal route? some unsuccessful attempts?


13. Why are strikes and boycotts an especially difficult tactic to make successful? Use specific examples to illustrate your analysis.


14. Why is the sit-in such an effective protest tactic? Analyze its impact on relevant targets. How has it been counteracted by the authorities?


15. Describe three tactics used by the Poletown protesters and explain their impacts (or lack of impact) on relevant targets. How does this analysis help us understand their failure?


16. Why is "petitioning" by itself rarely a successful protest tactic? Use a specific example to illustrate its weaknesses. Why bother with petitioning at all (i.e., what advantages are there to choose this tactic)?


17. What is the problem with individual discontent as an explanation for the rise of social movements? Use at least one specific example to illustrate your argument. Then cite a specific counter-example that indicates discontent may be an important factor in explaining the rise of a protest movement.


18. What is the evidence that government or social repression of a social movement is usually effective or is usually counter-productive?


19. What are the possible positive and negative impacts on more moderate activists of the rise of radical, militant factions in a social movement? What does the evidence in the civil rights movement suggest actually happens?


20. What explains the difference in the success of King's Birmingham and Selma campaigns and the relative failure of his Albany and Danville campaigns?


21. Describe two examples of government support and two examples of government opposition that were crucial to the success or failure of social movements. How did those movements work to get government support?


22. Cite three specific examples from our case studies of a crucial role allies (i.e., not protesters, opponents, the state or the media) have played in the success of a social movement. What is the evidence that allies made the difference?


23. Over the course of the debates that surround social movement protests, the issues often get re-framed from the original two competing positions. Sometimes a third position emerges or new dimensions of the conflict assume more importance than the original debate dividing the two sides. Illustrate the role of this re-framing process in a specific case study and evaluate its importance for the eventual outcome of the conflict.


24. Describe three factors that predict which individuals are most likely to join a particular social movement. Give evidence or an example demonstrating each.


25. Why should rational calculation lead most people to be "free riders"? Briefly explain the three factors that Mancur Olson cites as explaining why rational actors would not participate in a social movement. Analyze one specific example of social movement participation and explain why it would not be a rational for a person to support that movement. What are two possible solutions that movements can devise to counteract these "rational" tendencies to be a "free rider"?


26. Evaluate how important internal divisions are to the failure of a social movement. Provide at least two examples of how divisions threaten the success of a movement. What are the counter-arguments and counter-examples to the importance of internal divisions?


27. What are four steps a movement can undertake to increase its solidarity, i.e., the sense of commitment among current members? Give an example of each from four different social movements.


28. Movements that endure beyond their principal wave of popularity are often organized in ways that are characteristic of movements surviving in a mostly unsympathetic environment. Describe three aspects of such "abeyance" organizations with specific examples from the National Women's Party of the mid-twentieth century.


29. Social movement organizations frequently arise from the remnants of former movements. Describe two legacies of these former movements that are often transferred to the new movements and illustrate the patterns with evidence from the transition from first wave (suffragist) feminism to the "second wave" feminism of the 1960s and 1970s.


30. Describe at least three specific examples of the popular cultural trends of the 1950s that planted the seeds of the student movement of the 1960s, and explain what motifs/themes led to generational conflict in the 1960s. Evaluate whether these same themes are present in current popular culture and what effect that has on the validity of the theory that the origin of social movements is rooted in cultural supports.