CARNEGIE MELLON UNIVERSITY.

BIOPSYCHOLOGY.

NAME:

DEPARTMENT:

LECTURER:

BPO 290:

TASK:

I)Discuss four theories of social movements.

II) Explain clearly the difference between collective behavior
and collective action.
4(I) Discuss four theories of social movement.
INTRODUCTION
Social movement is an organized effort by a large number of people to bring
out social, political and economic or cultural change. There are some theories
proposed to explain the birth and growth of social movement. Some of these
theories are as follows; Deprivation theory, resource mobilization theory,
political process theory and structural strain theory.
1.Deprivation theory
According to scholars McAdam, McCarthy and Zald,1988, proposed that
some social movements are born when certain group of people in a society feel
that they are deprived of specific goods, service or resources. Within the
deprivation theory camp, there were two branches: absolute deprivation and
relative deprivation; the proponents of absolute deprivation treated these
grievances of the affected group in isolation from that group’s position in
society while the proponents of relative deprivation regarded a group to be in
disadvantageous positions.
The deprivation theory seemingly provides a powerful reason as to why some
social movement maybe born, for instance one can argue that the feminist
movement was born in 1960’s because prior to that time women were
deprived by the society of rights and opportunities especially in terms of
career that were only accorded to men.
The weakness of the theory is that; it fails to explain why in some cases
deprivation to ignite the birth of social movement. This gives rise to the
suspicion that while the existence of a deprivation maybe be a necessary
condition for the birth of a social movement, it may not be a sufficient
condition for the social movement to be born.
2.Resource mobilization theory.
According to (Dobson,2001; Foweraker 1995, McAdam, McCarthy and Zald
1988; PhongPaichit, 1999), the resource mobilization theory invokes the
importance of the availability of suitable resources in the rise of social
movement.
This theory thus says that when some individuals in a society have certain
grievances, they may be able to mobilize necessary resource to do something
to alleviate those grievances. The “resources” refer to things like money,
labor, social status, knowledge, support of the media and political elites. One
of the major criticisms of this theory is that it has an extremely strong
“materialist” orientation in that it gives primacy to the presence of
appropriate resources (especially money) in explaining the birth of social
movements.
This theory does provide a good explanation of why some social movements
have been able to grow at an exponential rate even in the presence of
seemingly insurmountable obstacles. The civil rights in the United States are
an example; the leaders of that movement primarily Maltin Luther King Jr
and his colleagues in the Southern Christian leadership conference were able
to successfully elicit the support of thousands of supporters in launching and
propagating the movement.
3.Political process theory.
Douglas McAdams is credited with first developing this theory via his study
book of the Black Civil Rights Movement published in 1982. According to
(Dobson, 2001; Foweraker,1995; PhogPaichit,1999, Tilly ,1978) political
process theory treats social movement as a type of political movements in that
the origin of a social movement are traced to the availability of political
opportunities. If the government’s position is strongly entrenched and it is
also prone to repressive behavior, then the chances are high that a social
movement might fall.
If, on the other hand, the government is weak or more tolerant of dissenting
behaving then chances are high that any social movement that is born might
have the opportunity to grow. Primary criticism of this theory is that it
focuses too much on political circumstances and ignores cultural factors that
might be strong enough to mitigates the effect of political factors.
Foweraker (1995) looks at several examples of social movement in American
countries and how the power of the state has affected the outcome of those
movements. One of the poignant examples is where pro-democracy
movements were brutally dealt with by the oppressive U.S government of
General Augusto Pinochet. In Chile case, the ruthlessness of the state crushed
the pro-democracy movements repeatedly, in West European countries the
presence of friendly and cooperative national governments fueled the growth
of the Green movement to what it is today. These two cases are vivid examples
of how the outcome of social movements is intimately tied to the nature of the
governments that these movements have to contend with.
4.Structural strain theory
The structural strain theory was proposed by Smelser (1965). The theory
advocates that any nascent social movement needs six factors to grow. The six
factors are: People in society experience some type of problems(deprivation);
recognition by the people of that society that this problem exists; an ideology
purporting to be solution for the problem develops and spreads its influence,
an event or events transpire that convert this nascent movement into
Bonafede social movement; the society (and its government)is open to change
for the movement to be effective (if not, then the movement might die out) and
mobilization of resources takes place as the movement develops further.
(ii) Explain clearly the difference between collective behavior and
collective action.
Collective behavior is spontaneous and epic in that they take place
occasionally whereas collective actions are regularly and routinely.
Collective behaviors are unstable in that they tend to be short lived and have
no stable goals whereas collective actions have very stable goals and values.
Collective behaviors are loosely structured whereas collective actions have set
rules and procedures to be followed.
Collective behaviors are unpredictable in that the direction and outcome
cannot be foretold whereas collective actions are predictable in that their
actions taken by a group of people to achieve a common objective
Collective behavior is noninstitutionalized gathering whereas collective action
is based on a shared interest.
Collective behaviors are irrational in that they are guided by unreasoning,
beliefs and hopes whereas collective actions are made on the basis of logical or
rational discussion.
Collective behaviors are emotional in that they are based on feelings and
considerable personal interaction whereas collective actions are based on
collective interests.
Collective behaviors are non-traditional in that they are not clearly defined
according to any culturally established norms and values whereas collective
actions are traditionally defined in a way that convectional guidelines and
formal authority follow the cultural direction.
 REFERENCES
Smelser, N. J.) (1965). Theory of Collective Behavior. New York: Free Place.
Foweraker, J. (1995). Theorizing social movements. London: Pluto Press.
Dobson C (2001), Social movements; A summary of what works, The Citizen’s
Handbook: A Guide to Building Community in Vancouver. Retrieved December
2,2006.
Tilly, C. (2004). Social movements, 1768-2004. Boulder, CO; Paradigm
Publishers.