Annotated list of popular movement literature

Generally about peoples' movements

Veit Michael Bader: Kollektives Handeln (Leske+Budrich 1991)

The standard work, which, however, is almost unknown outside Germany. German thorough investigation of popular movements -- reports, according to its own statement, “partial theories” about popular movements, but no one has done it more completely. Chapter headings, which follow an order that goes from origin to result according to what one might call a “people’s movement cycle”: Objective modes of life, Habitus, Collective identity, Interests, Articulation, ideology and utopia, Organization, Mobilization, Possibilities for action, Dynamics and Consequences of conflict. A longer summary can be found in Carriers of Democracy, Appendix.

Doug McAdam, Sidney Tarrow & Charles Tilly: Dynamics of contention, Cambridge University Press 2001

A similar attempt to summarize all the theories of popular movements, with, according to my taste, a slightly split result. The starting point is that all conflict-filled politics are basically the same phenomenon, i.e. both popular movements and wars. Which leads to the whole thing becoming unreasonably abstract and even less can actually be said than what Bader succeeds in anyway. But it still has some advantages that make it worth reading. It establishes that popular movement politics is relational -- it is someone who acts, in constant interaction with other parties who also act, and that those who act shape both themselves and their goals in the meantime, in response. Unlike Bader, it illustrates its sometimes snarky theses with exciting snapshots of popular struggle. And it is really strong in formulating concepts for different mechanisms which, according to the authors, govern all mobilisations, such as “brokerage” (actors who initially put different categories in relation to each other and make them start acting together) or "social appropriation" (the process when a social category begins to thematize an issue or think in terms of an issue being important).

Charles Tilly: From mobilization to revolution, Addison Wesley 1978

Slightly less thorough American classic; thesis: People’s movement = resource mobilization, i.e. that collectives in struggle try to mobilize as many resources as possible on their side, and how this is done. Content: Existing theories, Interest, organization and mobilization, forms of action. This can be seen as the classic within the so-called the resource mobilization school, a direction within popular movement research that starts from the question “how can people win even though they are by definition at a disadvantage?” They can, says Tilly, by blocking the other party’s resources and by being faster than him.

Daniel Foss & Ralph Larkin: Beyond revolution, Bergin & Garvey 1986

Protest against Tilly. Thesis: Folk movement = revival. Depicts how ingrained and paralyzing notions of the world are dispelled by new liberating utopias created by acting collectively. Contents: Behavioral forms of social movements, Previous research, Reproduction of social privileges, Intensification of conflicts, Reinterpretation of social reality. The empirical evidence in the book is based primarily (but not exclusively) on the youth movements of the 60s and 70s.

James Jasper: The art of Moral Protest: Culture, Biography and Creativity in Social Movements, University of Chicago Press 1997

A protest against popular movement research that only deals with external conditions; instead wants to emphasize the activists' own motives in terms of culture and morality. A laudable venture, but unfortunately a bit hastily executed - since Jasper focuses almost exclusively on American middle-class movements, it's easy to believe that only these have any morals and culture to speak of, and reasonably they will also be of a rather special kind. In and of itself, it is not surprising that he is so narrow-minded, he belongs to those who believe in big differences between the so-called “new social movements” and others, but it thus results in him losing quite a lot of points for his thesis.

Ron Eyerman & Andrew Jamison: Social movements - a cognitive approach, Polity Press 1991

An investigation of how a people's movement = the building of an understanding among those who participate, through participation in a joint project. The movement begins, according to the authors, because the common societal understanding of something does not match reality, and it ends when the societal understanding has been brought into line with reality. The Nordic environmental movement along with the American civil rights movement serve as examples - which in itself defeats the thesis because none of these movements won more than moderate concessions from the establishment but can still be said to have disintegrated. A certain predominance of academic namedropping makes the book less readable than it deserves; it is one of those thin books that you would have liked to see much thicker, with many more examples and a little less academic authentication.

Rick Fantasia: Cultures of solidarity, University of California Press 1988

Empiricism for Eyerman and Jamison above. Shows how workers embroiled in a conflict - three cases - develop a “we” and a solidarity within the group even in the United States. In the third of the cases described, this solidarity even develops over an entire city’s working class.

Aziz Choudry & Dip Kapoor: NGOization, Zed 2013

About the damage well-meaning NGOs cause – the really concerned people become clients to all-powerful and often not very aware experts, and lose their ability to act in their own interest.

Michael P. Young: Bearing witness against sin, University of Chicago Press 2006

On the original basis of American antislavery and temperance movements in religious salvation waves and the repertoires that followed. Salvation was strongly associated with a quest for perfection of the personality, which quickly spread to the perfection of the whole society; during the 1830s, many such movements were started, with Christian overtones. All of them had perfection and the voice of conscience as a supporting element, which provided a huge motivation for the active but also unfortunately limited the scope and created contradictions to the majority in society who were uninterested in perfection and were content to let it float by. Possibly one could have wanted an account of connections to old European movements with the same approximate background, e.g. peace movements, but that will have to be another book. However, it also highlights other movements with the same inspiration and historical roots, e.g. women’s movement and environmental movement.

Hanspeter Kriesi et al: New social movements in Western Europe, University College of London 1995

Evolution of Tilly. Uses the 1980s peace movement mobilization (and other socially related mobilizations) to clarify what a mobilization is, and how it takes place, and how it is dependent on both the actions and organizational structure of its counterparts and its own strategic and tactical choices. The conclusion is roughly that a movement can arise where there is a space to thematize some interest, and where it can appear possible to win a fight. It arises in such a way that fairly temporarily formed groups take initiative, because they are the only ones who take any new initiatives. However, it continues in such a way that stronger actors intervene, e.g. well-established organizations. These drive the mobilization for a time, but then a large number of participants allow themselves to be bought into state-controlled structures for small benefits, while people with greater ambitions are marginalized; if some of them allow themselves to be provoked into illegitimate actions, the movement is doomed.

Craig Calhoun: “New social movements” in the early nineteenth century, Article, Social Sciences History 17, 1993

The final burial of the theory of “new social movements” that was so popular in the 80s. Calhoun shows that everything that was considered new at the time -- little focus on class, thematization of topics such as environment, gender and identity, disinterest in state solutions, flat organizations -- was extremely present both during the popular movement boom of 1905-1914 and even more so before 1848. Rather rather than asking what happened in 1968, Calhoun argues, one should ask why these typical popular movement expressions were so absent in the late 19th century and even more so between 1920 and 1968. Could it be that they are typical expressions of a creative period?

Craig Calhoun: The roots of radicalism, University of Chicago Press, 2012

Only the conservatives can become radicals, Calhoun says with empirical evidence from the popular movements of the early 19th century. Only those whose existence is linked to what the system annihilates can be expected to bet on revolution -- total change so that nothing changes. Those who like e.g. industrial workers in the 20th century see a future for themselves rather bet on gradual reforms. See longer review here.

Charles Tilly: Social movements 1768-2004, Paradigm publishers 2004

A history of the only kind of people's movements that Tilly accepts as people's movements or “social movements” -- a category of people who develop a long-term “we” and who, by demonstrating respectability, unity, mass and commitment, put pressure on the authorities. Such must have started in England in 1768 in connection with the demands for democratization then, and then spread decently, if not in the whole world, then in large parts of it. Tilly puts this kind of popular politics in the context of the then new kind of states that were ruled by a bourgeoisie that claimed to represent “the people”, and not just by a dynasty, which gave the people a handle. A problem that Tilly does not discuss is that his popular movement concept excludes the popular movements that are based on direct action, e.g. labor movements based on the strike and national and other movements based on the boycott. What he is really discussing is the future prospects of such people’s movements -- which don’t look too bright, Tilly thinks, considering that the global powers don’t refer to the people as a source of legitimacy at all, but rather to GDP and survival of the fittest. Tilly isn’t entirely happy about having to fight over the concept of people's movement -- he thinks a concept is needed for this kind of movement, unlike unions and the like, but can’t think of anything better.

Sidney Tarrow: Power in movement, Cambridge University Press 1994

Undertakes to answer the question "what makes a people's movement successful". Now he doesn't quite succeed in that, but a lot of thought-provoking questions are raised along the way. For example, that the smartest way to organize action in a movement is not the organization but the network of organizations, and why that is so. Or what the “openings in the system” look like that make it possible for a people's movement to emerge. Or what factors bring a popular movement down, as a rule (well, it's the quarrels that arise when some start striving to consolidate the successes won while others want to radicalize the movement). Historical examples are used extensively. Tarrow also believes that something big in the history of popular movements happened around 1800, but uses a slightly less grandiose terminology for it.

Ruud Koopmans: Democracy from below - New social movements and the political system in West Germany, Westview Press 1995

An interpretation of the strong popular movement mobilizations of the 1960s and 1980s in West Germany. Unfortunately, Koopmans does everything to squeeze history into his POS model. But you still get some descriptions of decisive mistakes that led to defeat, such as e.g. the inability of the peace movement to find a way between the competing elitisms of the party people and the stone-throwing autonomists. In addition, you get an elementary review of various popular movement theoretical directions.

Sidney Tarrow: The new transnational activism, Cambridge University Press 2005

Tarrow’s special thing is to interpret popular movement mobilizations based on the favorable opportunities that present themselves and allow an opposition to get a grip on the development, and here he uses that grid to understand the global justice movement of recent years. His conclusion is, among other things, after he has looked at a lot of amusing examples, that it is not globalization itself that the mobilizations are about, but the political attempts to deal with it. And it is also quite obvious; the opposition opposes what the government does. Another of Tarrow’s conclusions is that there is no “global” movement; all its manifestations are firmly rooted in local conditions and consist of locally based people trying to find allies for their own struggle over local manifestations of global power relations. This is less obvious - it is only when you get involved in things that people locally and nationally think is important that you can become a force to be reckoned with.

Kurt Schock: Unarmed insurrections - people power movements in nondemocracies, University of Minnesota Press 2005

Based on six examples, Schock considers when nonviolent movements succeed or fail. His conclusion is that they are successful if they are sustained and if they can cause political division in the ruling elite – and also investigates the conditions for this. Also interesting is Schock’s criticism of the traditionally too narrow definition of “non-violent resistance” - everything but war should be counted there, and whether the participants are moralists or not is irrelevant.

Alain Touraine: Return of the actor, University of Minnesota Press 1988

French sociological investigation of popular movements. Touraine theorizes about a kind of escalation, from collective behavior, through struggle, to social movements that are a culmination. The themes seems to be about the same as Bader’s, above, but somewhat over-theoretical in the French manner and much less thorough.

Samir Amin et al: Transforming the revolution -- social movements and the world system. Monthly Review Press 1990

The situation today in the world of popular movements. Three chapters: The labor movement 1800-2000, The national movements in the periphery during the 20th century, “New social movements” which according to the authors are not so new. Plus a summary. Thesis: all popular movements are facing a new situation that is due to the incipient disintegration of capitalism plus their own strategy’s (taking power in the state) tactical successes and strategic failures.

Charles Tilly: The contentious French -- four centuries of popular struggle. Harvard University Press 1986.

The illustration of the concept of “repertoire”, i.e. how folk fighting forms have changed over the centuries. Broad and bold depiction of the French popular movement scene from tax revolts to bread revolts to strikes, mass meetings and demonstrations. Not much theory, but all the more scenes.

Jan Wiklund: Demokratins bärare; det globala folkrörelsesystemet. Roh-nin 2010. In an English pdf as Carriers of democracy; the global peoples’ movement system.

History of Global People’s Movements since 2000 years, the most complete available. Chapters about who are the actors, what are the world, and stories about old movements before 1789, labour, agrarian, national, marginalized, peace, and commons, with a tying together at the end. Treats peoples’ movement as an actor at the same level as states and capitals, with the same power – but somewhat more fluctuating of course. But read it yourself and I won't have to refer to it! There is also a kind of short version here.

Max Beer: Social struggles 1-5, L Parsons 1922-25.

A general history of popular movements written for the labor movement, which means that only such movements as Beer saw as relevant to social democratic workers are observed. But within that framework, he goes a long way. He is at his funniest when he depicts the rise of Christianity -- even though it is so clear that he is using that history to attack the power he does not dare to attack directly within the labor movement. The remarkable thing about this book is also that, as far as I know, it is the only one published so far that tries to take an empirical historical comprehensive approach to popular movements. With the exception of the above of course.

Michael Edwards & David Hulme (eds): Making a difference, NGOs and development in a changing world, Earthscan 1992

An analysis of the NGO concept which, among other things, tries to distinguish various professional charities from popular movements.

Ponna Wignaraja (ed): New social movements in the south, Zed 1993

Anthology; contents: Rajni Kothari: Masses, Classes and the State (on how the ruling middle class only thinks about exploiting its own people to get rich in the international system and why people must therefore organize themselves). Samir Amin: People’s Movements in the Periphery (about the “re-compradorization”, ie how the rulers of the southern states give hell to the national self-assertion, about the new strategy of people's movements). Harsh Sethi: Environmental Struggle in India (excellent overview of what the environmental movement is doing, why, who is doing it, what their problems are; wish there was such a thing for other countries). Etc.

J Craig Jenkins & Bert Klandermans (ed): The politics of social protest, University College of London Press 1995

Collected volume with various essays on the popular movements of the 70s and 80s. In my opinion, the funniest ones are Diarmuid Maguire: Opposition movements and opposition parties, which shows how the eighties’ peace movement in England and Italy was suffocated by dependence on social democrats and communists respectively, and Donatella della Porta & Dieter Rucht: Left-libertarian movements in context, which shows how the action patterns of these anti-establishment and anti-government movements were in fact dependent on the response of governments. The entire book is strongly marked by the so-called The POS school (stands for political opportunity structure), where the actions of popular movements are primarily interpreted as guided by the openings that exist with the state and the party system, which possibly makes the above chapter a little exaggerated.

Sidney Tarrow: Democracy and disorder; protest and politics in Italy 1965-1975, Clarendon Press 1989

Written by the creator of the POS school. Describes, using Italy as an example, how a popular movement cycle is created due to conflicts becoming more evident at a stage of great change, how they start in old interest organizations but how soon new centers of mobilization take over the activities. Tarrow depicts how these compete with each other to attract people and thus broaden the protests, but in the end state and capital can co-opt important people and buy out many, whereby those who do not want to be bought out are isolated, in desperation resort to practices that their own potential base condemns, and kills the movement. But the consequences of it all is that much of what the movement has advocated is nevertheless being realized, Tarrow believes, including a more democratic society. The strength is, as with Tilly above, the scenes, the experience. The weakness is that he -- despite references to “practicing the goal” as the Italian term reads to act as if the movement's goal has already been achieved -- seems to assume that the system-integrated parliamentary fixed game is nevertheless the core of politics and what the movements do on their own only the subaltern is “pressure”.

Robert Lumley: States of emergency -- cultures of revolt in Italy from 1968 to 1978, Verso 1990

About exactly the same events as Tarrow's book, but without so much theorizing and with a focus on what people did, both in terms of actions and general behavior, and on the cultural expressions of the time and the participants' sense of excitement and creativity. As well as the rapid institutionalization with the subsequent marginalization of the rank and file, which made things like the Red Brigades a reasonable solution for some disappointed.

Peter Waterman: Globalization, social movements and the new internationalisms, Mansell 1998

Investigates the question of whether popular movements can break out of the narrow national scene and begin to cooperate against an adversary that is global. Written just before Seattle, which is the reason for the rather theoretical approach. Realistically points out the shortcomings that exist within labor, women’s and environmental movements, but completely misses the absolutely decisive role of small farmers in today’s global popular movement cooperation. The funniest chapter is the one that deals with the (European) international mobilization of the dock workers from the 80s onwards, and how their own formal organizations are constantly scuttling them under the guise of helping.

Joe Foweraker & Ann Craig (ed): Popular movements and political change in Mexico, Lynne Rienner 1990

A reasonably versatile book about recent popular movement mobilizations in a southern country. Only one of the fifteen chapters deals with the Zapatistas, which shows that there is a vibrant environment around them that has enabled them to survive. There are also chapters here that show how shantytown movements with 85% female participation fight for water and electricity and change municipal politics and how textile workers in maquiladoras revive the trade union movement after three generations of state attachment. Nevertheless, the book leaves behind a certain irritation: there are too many analyzes of things that the reader has no idea about, which is why the analyzes become a bit out of the blue; stricter stories with maybe a third as much analysis would have suited me better, at least.

Yongshun Cai: Collective resistance in China, Stanford University Press 2010

About numerous protest movements by victims of official corruption – workers who are not paid, peasants who lose their land to development schemes, etc. Cai concludes that such movements are quite as likely as movements in Western Europe to succeed; governments in the West has it legitimacy for free through elections while Cinese governments have to earn it the hard way, giving people the politics they want.

David Meyer & Sidney Tarrow: The social movement society, Rowman & Littlefield 1998.

With stars in academic popular movement research such as Tarrow, Bert Klandermans, Dieter Rucht, Donatella della Porta and others, among the authors, this book is still something of a disappointment. It contains a lot of data from widely different countries that show their thesis -- that political activity is at an unchanged high level and is rapidly rising, and that the so-called unconventional grassroots politics is rising even more -- but what does that mean? That society is democratized as the authors mean? Or that the successful neoliberal attacks of anti-democratic elites drive people to defend themselves, quite desperately it seems?

Marcela López Levy: We are millions, Latin America Bureau 2004

A kind of standard, if yet a small one, about the mass movement in Argentina that evicted three presidents, and took over quarters as well as industries in 2001-02

Global social movements before and after 9.11; Journal of World Systems Research X:1, 2004.

A compilation from a dozen or so researchers. Some are noticeably more academic than others, and even some of those who have really taken the trouble to gather empirical evidence have sometimes put a bit of funny emphasis. But it’s actually fun to read about, for example, how different mobilizations for the same goal can look very different in different places. Check for yourself, it’s easy.

Ruth Reitan: Global Activism, Routledge 2007.

The best description so far of the so-called global justice movement (should it be called the movement for global justice?). Here we learn how all its roots arose - the church initiative Jubilee2000 which arose out of the IMF riots in the south, Via Campesina which arose out of the agrarian crisis and out of opposition to northern NGOs, the American opposition to NAFTA which began to collaborate with southern NGOs such as Focus and Third World Network, and Peoples’ Global Action which was inspired by the Zapatistas which in turn is a liberation theology inspired land reform movement. Unfortunately, the book is somewhat embarrassed by the fact that the main purpose is to substantiate theses from the world of research, not to give an account of what has happened.

Asef Bayat: Revolution without revolutionaries, Stanford University Press 2017

Makes sense about why the Arab Spring didn’t lead anywhere. Bayat argues that the movement, although with a huge support, couldn’t agree on anything else than “fire Mubarak”. Which simply isn’t enough when Mubarak is fired. There was simply no time to grow together into a more encompassing movement, so free-riders could easily take the spoils. (On the other hand, the revolutions of 1848 didn’t achieve anything either in the short run, for the same reasons.)