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Social Movements and Social Classes
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Social Movements and Social Classes
The Future of Collective Action

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April 1995 | 288 pages | SAGE Publications Ltd
This book assembles an international cast of eminent contributors who focus on issues of social movements and social class from the perspective of collective action. An important addition to current debate, the text discusses such topics as: middle-class radicalism, racism, class, the institutionalization of movements, urban politics, citizenship, education and democracy.

Part One reviews the various analytical approaches used to explain the foundations for collective action. Part Two examines the close links between local power structures, spatial issues and the institutionalization of collective action. Part Three analyzes the ways that social struggles penetrate political life, with further reflections on culture and democracy.

Louis Maheu
Introduction
 
PART ONE: FOUNDATIONS FOR COLLECTIVE ACTION
Klaus Eder
Does Social Class Matter in the Study of Social Movements?
A Theory of Middle-Class Radicalism

 
Jan Pakulski
Social Movements and Class
The Decline of the Marxist Paradigm

 
Michel Wieviorka
Racism and Social Movements
Alberto Melucci
The New Social Movements Revisited
Reflections on a Sociological Misunderstanding

 
 
PART TWO: SPACE, POWER AND COLLECTIVE ACTION
Chris Pickvance
Social Movements in the Transition from State Socialism
Convergence or Divergence?

 
Henri Lustiger-Thaler and Louis Maheu
Social Movements and the Challenge of Urban Politics
John Urry
Rethinking Class
 
PART THREE: COLLECTIVE ACTION: FROM POLITICS TO DEMOCRACY
Maurice Roche
Rethinking Citizenship and Social Movements
Themes in Contemporary Sociology and Neoconservative Ideology

 
Chris Rootes
A New Class? The Higher Educated and the New Politics
Pierre Hamel
Collective Action and the Paradigm of Individualism
Alain Touraine
Democracy
From a Politics of Citizenship to a Politics of Recognition

 

`This book includes the work of twelve authors and many different topics are discussed... The chapters of the book were originally papers presented in Madrid in 1990 at the conference of the International Sociological Association's Research Committee on Social Movements and Social Classes Research. Since then, the authors have rewritten their contributions, and what is especially interesting is that they have commented on the contributions in the other chapters. This means that most chapters not only present the ideas of the individual authors, but also comment on and engage in a dialogue with the other contributions. In this way the book reveals the variation in the field of social movements and classes and the process has forced the authors to sharpen their arguments. The result is that the book is a presentation of a debate, but it does not provide definite answers. Rather, it mirrors the constant attempts to grasp the different theories and empirical studies of this field' - Acta Sociologica

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ISBN: 9780803979536
£11.99