User:Priem365/sandbox

Classical approaches
The classical approaches emerged at the turn of the century. These approaches rely on the same causal mechanism: the sources of social movements are structural strains. These are structural weaknesses in society that put individuals under a certain subjective psychological pressure, such as unemployment, rapid industrialization or urbanization. When the psychological disturbance reaches a certain threshold, this tension will produce a disposition to participate in unconventional means of political participation, such as protesting. Additionally, these approaches have in common that they view participation in collective action as unconventional and irrational, because the protests are the result of an emotional and frustrated reaction to grievances rather than a rational attempt to improve their situation.

Collective behavior theory
Sociologists during the early and middle-1900s thought that movements were random occurrences of individuals who were trying to emotionally react to situations outside their control. An important writer in this area of research was Gustave LeBon. In his book The Crowd, he studied the collective behavior of crowds. What he concluded was that once an individual submerges in a crowd, his behavior becomes primitive and irrational and he is therefore capable of spontaneous violence. This transformation happens under certain conditions. Once individuals submerge themselves in a crowd, they gain a sense of anonymity and this causes them to believe that they cannot be hold accountable for their behavior within the crowd. This is combined with a sense of invisibility by being part of a crowd. Under these conditions, critical reasoning is impossible and a unconscious personality emerges: a personality which is dominated by destructive instincts and primitive beliefs. This theory has been picked up and further developed by other theorists like Herbert Blumer and Neil Smelser[4].

Mass society theory
Mass society theory emerged in the wake of the fascist and communist movements in the 1930's and 1940's and can be seen as an attempt to explain the rise of extremism abroad. The central claim of mass society theory is that socially isolated people are more vulnerable to extremism

An important underpinning of this theory is Durkheim's analysis of modern society and the rise of individualism. Durkheim stated that the emergence of the industrial society caused two problems:


 * Anomie: There were insufficient ways to regulate behavior due to the increasing size and complexity of the industrial society.
 * Egoism: The excessive individuation of people due to the weakening of local communities.

These problems signify a weakened restraining social network to control the behavior of individuals. According to Burkheim, this will lead to dysfunctional behavior, such as suicide.

Arthur Kornhauser applied this theory to social movements in his book: the Politics of Mass Society. He stated that in a mass society, anomie and egoism cause small local groups and networks to decline. What is left after this are powerful elites, massive bureaucracies and isolated individuals. In this society intermediate buffers between the elite and the non-elite erode, normal channels for political participation become ineffective and extremism becomes more likely.

Relative deprivation
(Here, I add the piece that is already written on relative deprivation)

Contemporary approaches
During the 1960's there was a growth in the amount of social movement activity in both Europe and the United States. With this increase also came a change in the public perception around social movements. Protest were now seen as making politics better and essential for a healthy democracy. The classical approaches were nog able to explain this increase in social movements. Because the core principle of these approaches was that protests were held by people who were suffering from structural weaknesses in society, it could nog explain that the growth in social movement was preceded by a growth in welfare rather than a decline in welfare. Therefor, there was a need for new theoretical approaches.

Because of the fact that deprivation was not a viable explanation anymore, researchers needed to search for another explanation. The explanations that were developed were different in the United States than in Europe. In the United States the structural approaches emerged. These approaches examined how characteristics of the social and political context enable or hinder protests. In Europe the social-constructivist approaches emerged. These approaches rejected the notion that class-struggle is central to social movements, and emphasized other indicators of a collective identity, like gender, ethnicity or sexuality.

Political opportunity/political structure
(Here I add the piece that is already written about political opportunity).

Resource mobilization
(Here I add the piece that is already written about resource mobilization).

New Social movement theory
(Here I add the piece that is already written about new social movement theory).