social-movements bibliography

This is a set of lists of suggested reading related to the social-movements mailing list. The lists are as follows:

  1. Social movement theory (Sebastian Haunss)
  2. General reading (Laurence Cox)
  3. German social movement research (Sebastian Haunss)
  4. The German Autonomen (Sebastian Haunss)
  5. World collective action (Mark Douglas Whitaker)
  6. Links for activists (CyberBrook)

If you'd like to contribute to this bibliography - either as a separate list or individual references - please email . Suggested reading for theoretical frameworks, countries or languages that aren't well covered here would be greatly appreciated.

Social movement theory

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General reading

Barker, Colin and Tyldesley, Mike

1995 Alternative futures and popular protest. Manchester: Manchester Metropolitan University. (2 vols.)
1996 Alternative futures and popular protest II. Manchester: Manchester Metropolitan University. (2 vols.)
1997 Third international conference on alternative futures and popular protest. Manchester: Manchester Metropolitan University. (2 vols.)
1998 Fourth international conference on alternative futures and popular protest. Manchester: Manchester Metropolitan University. (2 vols.)
- Complete proceedings of the annual Manchester conference on "Alternative Futures and Popular Protest". A wide variety of perspectives and subjects, with strong-points in Marxist approaches and research on contemporary ecological movements. Much crossover between academic and activist viewpoints.

Bey, Hakim

1991 T.A.Z.: the temporary autonomous zone. Brooklyn: Autonomedia.
- A creative voice from the more literary-minded and cultural-revolutionary wing of contemporary anarchism. Argues for a view of "free spaces" as shifting attempts to carve out some self-controlled areas against the state.

Buckner, Hugh

1971 Deviance, reality and change. New York: Random.
- Unjustly forgotten attempt to link the then radical sociology of deviance, Berger and Luckmann's Social construction of reality and the development of large-scale oppositional and revolutionary movements of the time.

Diani, Mario and Eyerman, Jon

1992 Studying collective action. London: Sage.
- Important collection on how social movement research is, and should be, done.

Freeman, Joe and Levine, Cathy

1984 Untying the knot: feminism, anarchism and organisation. London: Dark Star / Rebel Press.
- Short pamphlet from early second-wave feminism covering crucial issues of organisation from conventional and anarchist points of view.

Gitlin, Todd

1987 The sixties: years of hope, days of rage. Toronto etc.: Bantam.
- One of a number of good historical works on the movements of the 1960s (largely restricted to the USA), written by a member of the SDS leadership some twenty years later.

(IT) Gramsci, Antonio

1949 Note sul Machiavelli, sulla politica e sullo stato moderno. Torino: Einaudi.
- One of the most important Marxist contributions to the discussion of social movements (selections available in English); develops theories of cultural hegemony, the role of movement intellectuals, the relation between movements and social classes, etc. Written by one of the leaders of Italian Communism while imprisoned under Mussolini.

(DE) Huber, Josef

1980 Wer soll das alles ¬ndern: die Alternativen der Alternativbewegung. Berlin: Rotbuch.
- Short essay attempting to define and outline the prospects of the then contemporary German "alternative movement"; pays close and realistic attention to the organisational and economic problems of alternative projects within capitalism, based in the author's own experience of supporting and networking such projects.

Katsiaficas, George

1987 The imagination of the new left: a global analysis of 1968. Boston: South End.
- A creative attempt to understand 1968 as the most recent of a series of "world-historical" revolutions and to theorise the nature of its political challenge. Includes chapters on the French general strike of 1968 and the American movement of 1970. Draws on Herbert Marcuse's pro-sixties movements version of critical theory.

Melucci, Alberto

1989 Nomads of the present: social movements and individual needs in contemporary society. London: Hutchinson.
- One of the defining books of contemporary European research on social movements: presents them as socially constructed and internally contested fields of action, with much emphasis given to their long-term cultural effect. (Other works by Melucci are available in Italian and increasingly in English.)

Peterson, Abby

1997 Neo-Sectarianism and Rainbow Coalitions. Aldershot and Sydney: Ashgate Publishing Ltd.
- (from the blurb) In this book the author discusses the two sides of the antiracist movement in Sweden, on the one hand, the explosive sociality of the confrontation, a phenomenon she designates as neo-sectarianism, and on the other hand, the ephemeral sociality of 'rainbow coalitions' of non-confrontation. In focus is the participation of young people in the antiracist movement. It is an attempt by young people to not merely respond to perceived social changes and problems within society but to actively participate in and shape society.

(DE) Raschke, Joachim

1985 Soziale Bewegungen: ein historisch-systematischer Grundriss. Frankfurt a.M.: Campus.
- Important early overview of the field geared to systematic understanding of the problem area; combines a political scientists' focus on problems of mobilisation and action with a historical awareness of the changing nature and context of movement activity.
Social Research no. 52 (winter 1985)
- Special issue on social movements including important articles from a number of major contemporary theorists: Cohen, Tilly, Touraine, Melucci, Offe, Eder.

Thompson, E. P.

1963 The making of the English working class. London: Gollancz.
- Defining text of the new labour history and one of the inspirations for later cultural studies; intensely readable account of the development of working-class consciousness, culture and politics in Britain at the end of the 18th century and the start of the 19th, by a major figure of the British New Left.

Touraine, Alain

1981 The voice and the eye: an analysis of social movements. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Much-criticised but also challenging analysis of social movements as the central creative forces in social life, by one of the best-known theorists of social movements from 1968 to Solidarity. One of the canonical sources of "new social movement" theory, it also develops a methodology of social movement research which throws the question of the nature of such research into sharp relief. (Also available in French.)

(DE) Vester, Michael et al.

1993 Soziale Milieus im gesellschaftlichen Strukturwandel: zwischen Integration und Ausgrenzung. KØln: Bund.
- Large-scale social research project (in German) grounded in theories of "lifestyle milieus" and a cultural analysis derived from Bourdieu; attempts to relate the development of new social movements to this structural / cultural analysis.

Wainwright, Hilary

1994 Arguments for a new left: answering the free market right. London: Blackwell.
- Important new socialist-feminist attempt to theorise the "politics of knowledge" of the new social movements and to ground a contemporary New Left politics in these terms.
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State of social movement research in Germany / case studies:

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The German Autonomen

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World collective action

Mark Douglas Whitaker

This is a short bibliography of some literatures I have combed for social movements collective action. I have cursorily glanced at several of the titles. Though I am putting this bibliography on the backburner for while, I thought I would share it with those who helped to contribute to it.

I would propose that a great deal of difference is in the origins of the mobilization bases=97differences ranging from land tenure and commons management structures in interaction with the state. This is of course a much different heavy urban context that can charactertize most of Euorpe, the United States. Canada, Australia, and New Zealand would be interesting "controls" for natural experiments of Anglo cultural frames in predominately rural contexts. Australia of course, being a strand of major cities may be an exception. This can have effects on the political ecological bases of different repetriores of social movement action and affect exactly who becomes predominant collective actors. Tarrow makes the point as well, relatively, when he discusses the ecological and political shifts marxism went through in different state and political economic contexts from Germany to Russia to China.

Raw materials and land tenure highly important in the thrid world for mobilization bases, wedded with urban claims on the state perhaps, foreign corporate domination of the local political economies for export or manufacturing - all these generally should be comparative pattern- approaches.

Historically, one could demonstrate the result of less urbanized populations around the state, upon which the state is a dependenant for services and for finance in its own territory. Additionally, due to the greater violence and the felt unreptresentativeness of the state there are more many movements which attempt governmental structural change or for collective managemnet structures, and land tenure changes.

I would like to find more about South East Asia, and titles relating to something about indigenous mobilizations in Australia and New Zealand. As well as Tibet and Nepal in connection with the Chinese.

INDIA

BRAZIL

EAST ASIA (CHINA, JAPAN, TAIWAN, KOREA, SINGAPORE, VIETMAN, PHILIPPINES)

LATIN AMERICA

THE AMERICAS

  • Langley, Lester D. 1996. The Americas in the Age of Revolution 1750-1850. New Haven, Conn. and London: Yale University Press, 1996. xvi + 374 pp. Maps, notes, index.
  • Ray, Larry. ~1993. 'Rethinking Critical Theory' (I think the publisher is Sage and the date was about 1993 Ray seeks to explore several non-European/North American movements using a combination of Habermas and Resource Mobilisation. If you don't like Habermas' work you won't like the book as it is very much rooted in H'. If you do, however, it is a very good book.)

    • AFRICA

    UNPUBLISHED WORKS

  • SOCIAL MOVEMENTS IN EAST ASIA
    EDITED BY JEFFREY BROADBENT AND VICKY BROCKMAN Back to top

    Links for activists

    A set of links for activists, provided by "CyberBrook"
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    Criticisms, comments, additions to

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