Democratic States and Social Movements: theoretical arguments and hypotheses.

Edwin Amenta, Michael P. Young. Social Problems.  May 1999 v46 i2 p153(1).

Author's Abstract: 

In this paper we theorize the impact of democratic states on state-oriented
challengers. We argue that aspects of states influence the overall mobilization
of state-oriented challengers and the forms of their mobilization and collective
action. We develop 12 hypotheses about the impact of state political institutions,
democratic processes, bureaucracies, and policies on mobilization and provide
illustrative evidence for each from studies of social movements. We also
discuss the implications of the hypotheses for U.S. social movements. One
key implication is that the U.S. state, comparatively speaking, has discouraged
and continues to discourage social mobilization. Another is that the U.S.
state has important systematic influences on forms of mobilization and
collective action.  

Full Text: COPYRIGHT 1999 University of California Press  

Macro-social scholarship on social movements or challengers typically addresses
questions about their mobilization for collective action or their impacts
(McAdam, McCarthy and Zald 1988). To answer these questions, states have
often been held to matter because challengers are often "state-oriented"
(Amenta, Dunleavy and Bernstein 1994), in that they target the state and
their goals can be achieved only by state action. Challengers that mainly
target other societal actors often attempt to use states as leverage against
their opponents, and even challengers that are mainly identity-oriented
sometimes require state action to realize community-building goals. Perhaps
for these reasons social movement scholars are focusing greater attention
on states (Amenta and Zylan 1991; Goodwin 1995, Jenkins 1995; Kitschelt
1986; Kriesi 1995; Kriesi et al. 1995; McCarthy, Britt and Wolfson 1991;
Tarrow 1994).  

 In this paper, we theorize the impact of democratic states on social movements.
We follow those who have made institutional arguments concerning the development
of public policies (Huber, Ragin and Stephens 1993; Orloff 1993; Skocpol
1992), new political parties (Lipset and Rokkan 1967; Valelly 1989), labor
movements and interest groups (Clemens 1997; Katznelson 1981; Shelter 1986),
as well as social movements (Amenta and Zylan 1991; Kitschelt 1986; Kriesi
1995). Scholars argue that claims about the influence of "political opportunity
structures" on social movements are sometimes pitched imprecisely (Gamson
and Meyer 1996; Goodwin and Jasper 1999; see McAdam 1996). Here we develop
specific hypotheses concerning democratic states, which constitute a key
part of political contexts and opportunity structures as they are typically
conceptualized (Jenkins 1995; McAdam 1996). In developing our hypotheses
we argue that states influence the potential for challengers' winning collective
benefits and in that way influence both levels and forms of mobilization
by state-oriented challengers. That said, we do not intend to provide a
mono-causal theory. Other conditions and actors, such as new regimes, polity
sponsors, pre-existing organizations, and new grievances among others,
have been shown to influence mobilization (McAdam, McCarthy and Zald 1988).
Also, different movements targeting the same state and different groups
within the same movement have adopted divergent forms of action (Tarrow
1996). In addition, our claims are confined to state-oriented challengers
and are also meant to be limited to states in relatively democratic polities,
which are formally open to influence and typically discourage movements
with revolutionary goals (Goodwin 1995).  

 We see the evolution of states similarly to how Tilly (1978:98-142) and
McAdam (1982:40-43) view the evolution of political opportunities. Changes
in states are cumulative and important, but not typically dramatic or influential
in the short run. In developing our hypotheses, we go beyond the distinctions
between "weak" and "strong" states prevalent in the literature on social
movements (Kriesi 1995). Although we address "assimilative" and "disruptive"
and "institutional" and "non-institutional" collective action (Kitschelt
1986; see McAdam, McCarthy and Zald 1996), our hypotheses consider forms
of mobilization and types of collective action that go beyond these standard
distinctions. We illustrate each of our hypotheses with evidence from studies
of social movements.  

 Taken together, our hypotheses also suggest a rethinking of the impact
of the American state on social movements. Kriesi (1995) argues notably
that the U.S. state is a "weak" state - federal, functionally differentiated,
directly democratic, and with a relatively incoherent system of public
administration - which promotes assimilative strategies and higher mobilization
overall. Kitschelt (1986) argues that the post-World War II American polity
is "open" to social movements and thus should produce assimilative collective
action strategies.(1) However, the implications of our hypotheses lead
to different conclusions. It seems probable that the American state has
been and remains significantly discouraging to challengers and is likely
to produce collective action less assimilative than that of other rich
capitalist democracies. Also, the American state is likely to have had
and to continue to have other key impacts on the form of challenger mobilization
and action.  

 Conceptual Definitions and General Expectations  

 To make our case we begin by specifying key concepts. Following in the
tradition of Max Weber we define "states" as sets of political, military,
judicial, and bureaucratic organizations that exert political authority
and coercive control over people living within the borders of well-defined
territories. States engage in action or "policy," including taxation, social
spending, and regulatory policy, that is official, legitimate, binding,
and backed by the aforementioned organizations (Skocpol and Amenta 1986).
"Democratic states" are defined as those states whose leaders, forms, and
policies are decided with key participation and input from everyday people.
In such a state, suffrage is relatively inclusive, citizens have rights
to associate, and the state is significantly responsible to elected officials
(Dahl 1971).  

 By "challengers" or social movements we mean politically disadvantaged
groups engaged in sustained collective action to secure their claims (Jenkins
1995). We distinguish them from "members of the polity" (Tilly 1978). In
democratic polities challengers typically mobilize participants to publicize
their cause and gain support and influence, more so than by mobilizing
pecuniary resources. "Social movement mobilization" or social mobilization
is the amassing of resources by challengers to engage in "collective action"
- action intended to gain benefits from which members of the intended beneficiary
group cannot be readily excluded. We distinguish between form and level
of mobilization. The overall level of mobilization simply refers to the
scale of the resources amassed by challengers. Given their outsider status,
challengers are likely to engage at least occasionally in "unconventional"
(Clemens 1997; Dalton 1988; Kriesi et al. 1995) as well as "non-institutional"
(McAdam, McCarthy and Zald 1996) or "disruptive" (Kitschelt 1986) collective
action, but do not need to do so to fit our definition. Indeed, forms of
mobilization and types of collective action are important issues in themselves
(McAdam, McCarthy and Zald 1996). Challengers can mobilize themselves widely
or narrowly; they can be ideological or issue-oriented; they can be nationally
or locally oriented. Challengers may engage in a variety of institutional
actions, including lobbying, forming new parties, engaging in legal battles,
or peaceful protests. For non-institutional activity, the possibilities
range from terrorism to civil disobedience.  

 Our general premise is that states systematically influence social movements
by influencing the returns to their collective action. Where aspects of
states may repay challengers' action generously, we would expect, other
things equal, that social mobilization would be greater. Similarly, to
the extent that aspects of states lower the returns to action, we would
expect it to diminish. Moreover, some aspects of states may systematically
reward some forms of social mobilization and collective action more than
others. In such circumstances - again, other things equal we would expect
that these forms of mobilization would flourish. The opposite also holds
good. Finally, if challengers have mobilized and acted to the point that
their interests are completely addressed by state policy, raising themselves
in effect to members of the polity, we expect them to demobilize (see also
Eisinger 1973).  

 States and Social Movements: Hypotheses, Implications, and Evidence  

 Specific aspects of states influence the potential returns to collective
action and therewith social mobilization. As Kriesi (1995) argues, many
aspects of states are typically fixed at any given point in time and confront
all challengers and potential challengers as basic facts of political life.
The long-term aspects of democratic states that matter most for social
mobilization are the institutional frameworks and means by which citizens
can influence the state. Medium-term aspects of the state that matter include
state executive bureaucracies - the specific state organizations engaged
in domestic political missions. As for the short-term, we argue that new
policies can reshape politics, including the form and degree of social
mobilization. We hypothesize that variation in state institutions, bureaucracies,
and policies will help to explain variation in mobilization of challengers
over time and across countries and subnational polities.  

 For each hypothesis we present the reasoning behind it. We also discuss
where the American state stands with respect to this influence on social
mobilization. Finally, we discuss evidence for the arguments, including
over-time, comparative, and cross-sectional studies of social movements.(2)
We begin with long-term aspects of states and work our way down to the
short-term ones.  

 Centralization and Divided Authority  

 The degree to which a polity is centralized is often argued to influence
the degree of mobilization and the forms it is likely to take (Kriesi 1995;
Meyer 1993; Meyer and Staggenborg 1996). Tilly (1986:395-398) notably argues
that the process of state-making throughout the last several centuries
has meant that challengers have increasingly turned from local concerns
and have focused on the national polity. According to most hypotheses concerning
current politics, federal or decentralized politics encourage mobilization
generally, because they multiply the targets for action. Another hypothesis
is that collective action is likely to be fragmented (Kriesi 1995).  

 However, federalism in itself does not necessarily increase the chances
of winning collective benefits for challengers, and so we would not expect
it to increase their mobilization overall. But if these politics have power
and vary among themselves in how and the degree to which they are susceptible
to the goals of challengers, they provide a variety of incentives to mobilize
in them and about them. In more centralized politics, the mobilization
of challengers is likely to be less diverse because they face limited targets
of action. And so we argue that federalism will have a greater impact on
the forms of mobilization and action than on its overall level. Hypothesis
1: Decentralized politics encourage a wider variety of challengers to form
and a diversity of forms of collective action aimed at lower-level targets.

 What does this mean for the American case? The United States is highly
federal, like Switzerland and Canada, because of the great authority granted
to states, which is compounded by authority granted to municipalities.
Over time, however, the U.S. central government has become increasingly
important relative to its sub-national polities and, since the Second World
War, has commanded a greater share of fiscal resources. The implications
are that its relative decentralization would likely encourage a wider variety
of mobilizations and forms of collective action, an effect somewhat tempered
over time as power has become more centralized.  

 The hypothesis implies that American social movements should have become
more centralized over time. There is some evidence along these lines from
Gamson's (1990) historical study - which addressed all non-local American
challengers in existence from 1800 through 1945. More than one-third of
challengers appearing in the sample had their origins in the 31-year period
after 1914, but only 15 percent in the 60-year period after 1800.  

 The hypothesis also implies that American mobilizations and those of other
federal polities would focus more on non-national state actors than would
mobilizations in more centralized politics. Although Rucht's (1989) analysis
of the environmental movements in centralized France and federalist West
Germany does not specifically address the influence of centralization of
authority on forms of mobilization, the comparison provides some evidence
for this hypothesis. Rucht finds that the French environmental movement
is characterized by two internally "homogenous" and "compact" camps, while
the three networks of the German movement exhibit a wider variety of forms
and interconnections. Unfortunately, the relative influence of state structures
on differences in the forms of mobilization in two countries is difficult
to distinguish from other potential influences, such as political contexts
and socio-economic and -cultural conditions.(3)  

 A second important aspect of the political system concerns the functional
divisions of powers in the national government. Politics can be divided
in power "horizontally" across the central government as well as "vertically"
between the central government and lower level governments (Pierson 1994).
Kitschelt (1986) and Kriesi (1995) have both posited that horizontal divisions
promote mobilization. Autonomy in courts and legislatures, they argue,
makes a polity generally more "open" to mobilization, as challengers can
target different political institutions.  

 We argue, however, that a polity with separated powers in itself does
not automatically aid the mobilization of the politically disadvantaged.
To the contrary, a political system with greatly separated powers provides
various "veto" points over new state initiatives (Huber, Ragin and Stephens
1993; Skocpol 1992). The executive can thwart the legislature and vice
versa, and both can be thwarted by the judiciary. If the goal of challengers
is to prevent a new policy from being enacted, a political system with
divided authority provides incentives for such action. Yet what typically
differentiates members of the polity from challengers are the routine workings
of politics. At any given moment the political world is working to the
advantage of polity members, who typically need to take only defensive
actions to retain privileges. In contrast, for state-oriented challengers
everyday politics works against their interests and they typically need
to establish new laws, programs, bureaucracies, and so forth to realize
their claims. In a highly fragmented system, the ease with which new initiatives
can be vetoed works against the aspirations of challengers. Hypothesis
2: A division of powers in the central government dampens the overall level
of social mobilization.  

 Powers in the American national government are greatly separated and are
more so than most other western democracies (Pierson 1994:32). The judiciary
as well as the legislature has autonomy. The American Congress is also
subdivided into committees with jurisdiction over specific issues; each
committee is further subdivided, providing additional, partially autonomous
sites for influence. Because the United States has a federal polity and
the state-level polities are constructed similarly to the national one,
these separations of powers are multiplied throughout the political system.
Because such a fragmented system promotes the possibility of thwarting
change, we would expect the U.S. political system to discourage social
mobilization overall. Cross-national efforts to examine overall social
mobilization have been limited, and typically cross-national studies focus
on unconventional political activity rather than the activity or mobilization
of challengers (Dalton 1988; Heunks 1996; Kriesi et al. 1995).(4) Also,
existing cross-national studies have not been designed to appraise claims
on overall mobilization, a central issue in the literature. This dearth
of research makes it difficult to provide comparative evidence regarding
our hypotheses on levels of mobilization.  

 Although radical separations of power likely dampen overall movement mobilization,
we would hypothesize that these divisions encourage a wider variety of
collective action - including suing through courts, proposing new legislation,
attempting to influence bureaucracies concerned with the enforcement of
laws. The profusion of different sites of potential collective benefits
means that challengers with different strategies of action might plausibly
have an impact. Hypothesis 3: Divisions of powers encourage different types
of collective action tailored to influence the various parts of the central
state, especially action geared toward preventing the adoption of new policy.
Specifically, we expect that the degree to which courts are autonomous,
challenger action will take legal turns, and the degree to which legislatures
and executive bureaus are autonomous, we would expect greater lobbying
activity. Because divisions of powers make it easier for political actors
to block new policy, moreover, collective actions will focus more on preventing
policy than on initiating it.  

 Some studies provide suggestive evidence in favor of our hypotheses on
the forms of mobilization and types of action. Collective action with many
targets was characteristic of the U.S. civil rights movement (Burstein
1985; McAdam 1982). What is more, feminist mobilizations, which have spanned
across many nations, had a variety of forms and targets in the American
setting, as compared to European ones (Katzenstein 1987). The women's movement
in the United States has employed a multi-front strategy to test the multiple
points of access presented by the separation of the legislative, executive,
and judicial powers (Costain and Costain 1987). The American abortion rights
or "pro-choice" movement also had an especially wide variety of forms and
targets leading up to its victory in 1973 (Staggenborg 1991).  

 Electoral Procedures and Mechanisms  

 Electoral procedures are long-term aspects of the political context that
also influence social mobilization (Kriesi 1995; McAdam 1996). One crucial
process is how legislative representatives are chosen. A basic distinction
is between winner-take-all and proportional representation. Following long-standing
but sometimes overlooked scholarship (Lipset and Rokkan 1967), we argue
that winner-take-all electoral systems makes it difficult for any group
to form a political party or to threaten plausibly to form one. Thus, this
type of electoral system diminishes the potential of this important means
for challengers to have an influence. The support that new radical parties
can provide for other forms of challenges will also be lessened in a winner-take-all
electoral system. Yet these electoral rules make it more likely that challengers
- and polity members - will attempt to influence the existing parties and
political representatives. Hypothesis 4: Winner-take-all political systems
discourage the formation of political parties by challengers and tilt challengers'
institutional efforts toward influencing existing parties and political
leaders, whereas proportional representation systems have the opposite
effect.  

 America has a winner-take-all electoral system and thus we would expect
that social mobilizations in the United States are less likely to take
the form or sustain the form of new political parties. Historical evidence
seems to bear this out. The U.S. party system was set in the nineteenth
century with two "non-ideological" parties (Burnham 1970; Lipset and Rokkan
1967). This is an unprecedented record of political stability or, for our
purposes, challengers failing to form lasting parties. Populists, Socialists,
and Progressives, as well as advocates of states' rights, prohibition,
and the environment among others - all have failed to gain a secure footing
in the American political system despite great support at one time or another.
In Gamson's (1990:277-285) historical study of American challengers through
the middle of the twentieth century, no new party challengers that appeared
in his sample won new benefits and four of five suffered "collapse." The
hypothesis also suggests that social mobilizations in America are more
likely to focus on influencing political party actors than on creating
parties. According to Clemens's (1997) study of American women, farmer,
and labor organizations, each abandoned strategies to form parties and
instead turned to lobbying activity, which proved to be more useful.  

 Winner-take-all voting systems in other polities, such as those of Australia,
Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom, also seem to discourage challenger
party formation. Although there were many influences on the formation of
"left-libertarian" parties in the 1970s and 1980s (Kitschelt 1988), no
country with a winner-take-all electoral system was host to a significant
one.  

 A second set of electoral rules concerns whether "direct democracy" by
way of initiative and referendum is possible. Such direct electoral procedures
make it possible for challengers to forgo standard institutional politics,
for gains can be won by going directly to the electorate. For that reason,
Kriesi (1995) suggests the initiative stimulates mobilization by the politically
disadvantaged and of an assimilative sort. We disagree. This option is
not limited to the politically disadvantaged, and it seems likely that
these electoral procedures are not mainly employed by them. For this reason,
we believe that initiatives and other direct democratic procedures probably
do not stimulate the mobilization of the politically disadvantaged. Also,
the impact that direct procedures have on the focus of social mobilization
is likely to go beyond inducing assimilative action to influencing action
of a particular sort. Hypothesis 5: Direct electoral procedures increase
the chances that challengers will organize themselves around specific legislative
plans of action, leading to more fragmented, issue-oriented mobilizations.

 The initiative is available in some U.S. western states, and some evidence
suggests that mobilizations around specific issues are more frequent in
them. In U.S. old-age politics, the Townsend Movement, based on the "Townsend
Plan" and state-level "baby" Townsend Plans in the 1940s, did better in
these Western states (Amenta, Halfmann and Young 1999). Similarly, in the
battleground of California, the Townsend Movement was confronted by mobilizations
around alternative old-age pension plans, such as "Ham and Eggs," which
promised a similar sort of pension in the late 1930s (Holtzman 1963; Putnam
1970). Other issues have received national prominence by winning state-level
initiatives. Moreover, the politically advantaged can also use this mechanism;
California's Proposition 13 was orchestrated by real-estate interests to
lower taxes (Lo 1990). Recent mobilizations around affirmative action and
the rights of immigrants have worked in the same direction.  

 Democratic Rules and Rights  

 By way of contrast, we argue that the degree to which formally democratic
institutions are inspired by democratic procedures is more important to
mobilization than usually appreciated. By the extension of democratic rights
we mean the lowering of legal restrictions on institutional political participation
for everyday people. These rights include the ability to assemble and discuss
issues. A highly democratized polity is also characterized by meaningful
choices among parties or factions. An under-democratized polity is one
in which political leaders are chosen by way of elections, but in which
there are great restrictions on political participation, political assembly
and discussion, voting, and choices among leadership groups. In the long
run, the progress of political rights through the society increases social
demands (Marshall 1963). As democratic rights spread, the state becomes
increasingly a target, as challengers hope to establish claims directly
through it (Tarrow 1994:72-73).  

 We expect the extension of democratic rights to influence both the level
of challenger mobilization as well as the types of collective action chosen
by challengers. When new groups are added to the electorate, the bids to
gain representation of those remaining on the outside become more credible.
The process of democratization also encourages the further mobilization
of those who have gained rights to participate, but have not yet secured
policies in their favor. Moreover, when everyday people cannot vote, political
leaders and state officials have no fear of electoral reprisals from them,
and so it seems plausible that movements of everyday people are more easily
ignored or repressed. Hypothesis 6: Expansive and expanding political rights
encourage social mobilization while restricted rights discourage it. A
relative lack of rights to participate in formal political institutions
also suggests that institutional action may be less worthwhile than non-institutional
action. There are fewer reasons to work through institutional processes.
Hypothesis 7: In under-democratized polities, challengers are more likely
to focus on non-institutional actions.  

 Because the extension of political rights is central to the outcomes of
the political process, it seems likely it will have additional effects
on social mobilization. The configuration and evolution of rights will
influence how groups will politically identify themselves and thus mobilize.
Hypothesis 8: Inclusions, exclusions, and restrictions in democratic participation
and representation will induce group-wise mobilizations and adoptions of
political identities along the lines of restriction and exclusion.  

 The United States has been characterized by a highly uneven historical,
geographical, and group-wise pattern of democratization. Early suffrage
for white males was effected in the 1830s - far sooner than in most European
countries. Yet the enfranchisement of black men after the Civil War in
the 1860s was followed by their disfranchisement in the South by the end
of the century (Kousser 1974). For that reason and, to a lesser extent,
restrictions on voting in many states in the North (Burnham 1970), the
United States was a democratic laggard for most of the twentieth century.
Needless to say, some parts of the decentralized American polity lagged
further than others. Despite the Civil Rights Act of ! 964 and Voting Rights
Act of 1965, there remain differences in obstacles to voting that serve
to mute the political voices of Americans - typically poorer on average
- nominally granted the suffrage (Piven and Cloward 1989). Variation in
voting is significant among rich, capitalist democracies (Hicks and Misra
1993), and the United States ranks low. These differences in voting are
due in part to laws about registration and voting periods by which citizens
are able to exercise the franchise (Lijphart 1997).  

 We expect a number of effects from this history and pattern of democratic
inclusion and restriction. We would expect the relatively restrictive practices
of the American polity to have discouraged social mobilization for most
of the twentieth century and that the greatest discouragement would appear
in the most restrictive parts of the polity. Also, we would expect collective
action in the American setting and, historically, in the more under-democratized
parts of the American setting, to be weighted more toward non-institutional
forms than would collective action in other settings. Currently we would
expect U.S. social mobilization to be discouraged by its voting regulations
and that challenger collective action to be more likely to take non-institutional
forms. What is more, group-wise mobilization would be expected to be influenced
by patterns of inclusion and exclusion.  

 Some historical evidence supports our contentions about the impact of
democratic rules and practices on the levels of social mobilization. In
the 1880s, as the Populist movement emerged, voter turnout in the South
remained relatively high and opposition to the Democratic Party there could
still win the vote of blacks and lower-class whites. In presidential elections
from 1880 to 1892, voter turnout in the South was similar to that in the
rest of the country (Kousser 1974:12). In contrast by the end of the century,
disfranchisement was sectionwide, and only a minority of the potential
electors voted - because in the intervening years southern Democrats enacted
a variety of restrictive measures. These restrictive measures at first
spread unevenly across the states. The Populist challenge appeared in the
South before and as voter restrictions were enacted. In 1887, before many
of these restrictions were in place, the Populist movement spread from
Texas across the former Confederacy (Goodwyn 1978:56-58), culminating in
the 1892 electoral insurgency of the Populist Party. From 1892 to 1895
the movement's electoral mobilization proved more successful in those states
where voter restriction had not yet taken hold (Kousser 1974:41). By the
end of the century, as voting restrictions became solid across the South,
the movement collapsed. In cross-state studies that control for other macro-social
determinants of social mobilization and for region, moreover, 1930s American
challengers, such as Huey Long's Share Our Wealth and the Townsend Movement
were significantly influenced by the degree to which voting rights were
extended (Amenta, Dunleavy and Bernstein 1994; Amenta and Zylan 1991).

 Other evidence provides suggestive support for our hypotheses about the
types of collective action. Cross-national studies using the World Values
Survey, have shown significant variation across national settings between
conventional and unconventional action (see Dalton 1988; Halman and Nevitte
1996). Although unconventional political participation is not the same
as non-institutional interaction with the political system, evidence concerning
unconventional action seems to work in the direction we suggest. Dalton
(1988:65) finds that the "level of unconventional activity is generally
highest in France and the United States," as compared to West Germany and
Britain. Still, given the limitations of the survey, his study cannot control
for other macro-social influences on the form of action.  

 The ways that democratic rights were distributed across U.S. groups also
appears to have had an impact on the group-wise mobilization and political
identities of challengers. American workers were granted the vote without
having to contend for it as workers. Perhaps as a result they were less
successfully politically mobilized as workers throughout the nineteenth
century than were their European counterparts, who had to fight as a group
to win the franchise (Katznelson 1981; Oestreicher 1988; Shefter 1986).
By contrast, American women in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth
century (Skocpol 1992) and African Americans in the middle twentieth century
(McAdam 1982) formed organizations based in part on their exclusion from
the franchise. These groups organized themselves in part to gain or regain
the franchise.  

 State Bureaucracies  

 Another set of state factors, more in the middle-range, concern the abilities
to make policies and enforce them. Kitschelt (1986) refers to state policy
bureaucracies as "implementation capacities," and suggests that they are
relevant not to mobilization, but to the outcomes of protest. Kriesi (1995)
argues that the more professional and coherent the bureaucracy the less
likely it will spur social mobilization. According to his conceptualization,
states can be designated "weak" or "strong," with strong states, including
professionalized bureaucracies, discouraging mobilization and weak states
encouraging it. Yet it is unclear why bureaucracies without the capacity
to implement policy would spur social mobilization, as they would minimize
the chances of a movement achieving its goals. The hypothesis also implies
that since domestic state bureaucracies across capitalist democracies have
become more coherent, professional, and larger throughout the twentieth
century, these developments would constitute increasing hindrances to social
mobilization.  

 If strong bureaucracies increase the chances that challengers will win
substantive gains, as Kitschelt (1986) suggests, we would argue that strong
bureaucracies should spur movement mobilization. More important, however,
because domestic bureaucracies vary in strength and form, they make some
lines of future state action more likely than others. Domestic bureaucracies
are typically launched with missions to provide services and relieve socially
and politically defined problems, and those with careers in such bureaus
are typically committed to their missions. For these reasons, a state's
executive bureaucracy might promote challenges along the lines that bureaucracies
are already working (Nagel and Olzak 1982:136137; Orloff and Skocpol 1984).
Members of these bureaucracies may also aid challengers whose goals dovetail
with the cause of the bureau, and the greater the administrative powers
of the bureau, the more support they might be able to provide (Amenta and
Zylan 1991). Hypothesis 9: An under-professionalized bureaucracy will discourage
challengers, as it makes less likely the provision of collective benefits
to them. Hypothesis 10: Coherent state bureaucracies with social policy
missions will encourage challengers targeting those issues and encourage
challengers to target those issues.  

 Like Kitschelt (1986), Kriesi (1995) estimates the postwar United States
bureaucracy as "weak," along with Switzerland's and, to a lesser extent,
Germany's. It is agreed that U.S. bureaucracies are more open to influence
- less professional, more subject to political control, and with higher
turnover rates - than their European counterparts. In addition, the United
States and Switzerland score low on one key measure of policy-making abilities
- the amount of the nation's income spent on social spending programs (Hicks
and Misra 1993). Though comparatively weak and unprofessional, U.S. executive
branches across the American governments have become more powerful and
professional over time (Skowronek 1982), and state-level bureaucracies
vary considerably among themselves. For these reasons, we would expect
that U.S. bureaucracies probably discourage social mobilization overall
and discourage social spending mobilizations as compared to current European
state bureaucracies. All the same, their impact would likely be more variegated
and depend on the coherence of bureaucracies in specific policy areas.

 Exploring the implications of these hypotheses would require examining,
categorizing, and comparing the extent, autonomy, and nature of state bureaucracies
across time and place with the different possible mobilizations of the
politically disadvantaged. Those tasks, unfortunately, are well beyond
our abilities here. It should be noted, though, that our hypotheses are
consistent with postwar European bureaucracies, coherent as they are, discouraging
the sorts of "new" social movements examined by Kriesi (1995). The missions
of these bureaucracies do not seem to favor the issues expressed by these
movements.  

 There is also evidence for our claims across U.S. states in the 1930s.
In some states social bureaucracies were well established by 1930. Industrial
commissions, for instance, generally oversaw labor legislation and ran
workmen's compensation. States with more powerful industrial commissions
tended to have larger Townsend Movement mobilizations, despite the fact
that other influences, such as the power of the labor movement, were controlled
for (Amenta and Zylan 1991). Moreover, Walton (1992:293-294) argues that
sustained and successful mobilization over water rights by Owens Valley,
California residents could not occur until after the 1930s when coherent
state agencies began to provide the tools for efficacious political action.

 State Policies  

 We also argue that state policies and programs can encourage, discourage,
shape, or transform challengers because policies themselves influence the
future flow of collective benefits to the constituencies of challengers.
The effects work in the following ways. Policies and programs developed
prior to challenges can influence the formation and geographical pattern
of national and international challenges. Moreover, an existing challenger
may be encouraged inadvertently by programs - developed for other reasons
- that benefit its followers. To achieve their own aims state actors and
politicians may also devise public policy to promote challengers. State
actors might do so to increase the power of bureaus in charge of such programs.
Politicians might do so to increase their electoral prospects. New programs
may also aid potential activists by freeing their time for movement work
or by providing resources for movement organizations. Hypothesis 11: New
programs aiding a challenger will help to sustain its mobilization, and
new programs aiding a potential challenger will encourage its mobilization.

 In addition, by designating officially sanctioned and legitimated beneficiaries,
policies also help to define and redefine social groups. Hypothesis 12:
Programs will influence forms of challengers by inducing a closer correspondence
between programs and challengers. Thus, to the degree that policies are
relatively inclusive they will likely lead to more inclusive challenges,
and policies that are fragmented will lead to more fragmented challenges.

 Delineating the entire configuration of policies across time or countries
and their relationships to specific challenges is a daunting task similar
in scope to detailing the configuration of bureaucracies. All the same,
U.S. public policies are probably on the whole relatively disadvantageous
to politically underprivileged groups, especially workers and poor people.
As mentioned, the United States spends less of its income on programs to
redress inequality than most other capitalist democracies. Thus, mobilizations
on these issues would be expected to be relatively muted. Moreover, American
social policy tends to run on two tracks. "Welfare" programs designed explicitly
to aid poor people are separated programmatically and ideologically from
"social security" programs that support poorer people and the middle classes
(Weir, Orloff and Skocpol 1988). For that reason these policies encourage
more dispersed mobilizations, as groups focus on the one or the other of
these lines of activity, but seldom both.  

 Some cross-national and historical evidence supports our hypotheses. Across
capitalist democracies, labor movements have been able to better resist
the recent capitalist initiatives to demobilize them where state policy
supports a Ghent-type unemployment insurance system, one in which unions
control unemployment funds (Western 1993). A number of policies of Franklin
Roosevelt's Second New Deal, created partly in response to social mobilizations,
also appear to have encouraged U.S. social mobilization afterwards. The
Townsend Movement saw its greatest growth after the passage of the Social
Security Act in 1935 (Amenta and Zylan 1991). Share Our Wealth also took
off after the adoption of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) that
year. The various labor policies of that Administration, notably the National
Labor Relations Act of 1935, also spurred the further organization and
collective action of labor (Skocpol 1980).  
 The "water wars" in California between communities in Owens Valley and
Los Angeles (Walton 1992) began in earnest with the 1902 Reclamation Act,
which provided for government participation in western water projects and
established the Reclamation Service. Residents of Owens Valley organized
around this act, hoping to influence the development of hydraulic power
for their agricultural interests. In the wake of the National Environmental
Protection. Act and California's counterpart to it, Owens Valley's struggle
with Los Angeles over water centered on action through the state courts
"under the mantle of environmentalism" (Walton 1992:276, 304-305).  

 Other evidence from American history suggests that policies can help to
transform the struggles and focus of challengers. The unemployed workers
movement of the early 1930s was a wide-ranging assortment of groups and
individuals connected to various political organizations and was in decline
by 1935. By the late 1930s, after the adoption of the WPA, the movement
was confined almost exclusively to WPA workers (Valocchi 1990). In California,
the Townsend Movement, which had dominated old-age politics since its inception
in the middle 1930s, was replaced as the main old-age organization in late
1940s by a group consisting of those receiving Old-Age Assistance - the
main form of aid to the aged in that decade (Pinner, Jacobs and Selznick
1959; Putnam 1970). The influence of this group faded as Old-Age Assistance
was overshadowed by old-age insurance, or "social security." In turn, the
American Association for Retired Persons mobilized beneficiaries of that
program. Although there was no politically disadvantaged group demanding
Aid to Dependent Children when it was created in 1935 (Cauthen and Amenta
1996), after a generation of operation the National Welfare Rights Organization
mobilized the program's recipients to struggle to liberalize it (Piven
and Cloward 1977).  

 Conclusion  

 Scholars of social movements have argued that states considered "weak
- "understood as decentralized, divided in authority, with direct democratic
procedures, and with less powerful bureaucracies - spur social mobilization
(Kitschelt 1986; Kriesi 1995; Kriesi et al. 1995). We suggest, however,
that scholars need to go beyond the distinction between weak and strong
states and instead examine different important aspects of states. Also,
it is worth going beyond issues of overall mobilization to address more
variegated issues about form of challenges. Indeed, many of the features
of supposedly weak states may dampen movement mobilization; notably, polities
with divided political authority seem to make it more difficult for the
collective action of relatively excluded groups to succeed, because it
is easier for members of the polity to block initiatives in such political
systems. Moreover, if state bureaucracies are weak, in the sense of under-professionalized,
they are open to the influence of members of the polity - probably to their
advantage, given their greater access and resources. Although strong bureaucracies
that oppose the missions of challengers are likely to dampen social mobilization,
state bureaucracies with missions that are consistent with those of challengers
are likely to encourage challengers.  

 More important, the social movement literature often fails to address
key aspects of states - especially the degree and extent to which political
processes are inspired by democratic principles and state policies. We
argue that when large numbers of people cannot vote or meaningfully participate
in an otherwise democratic political system they can be safely ignored
by political leaders and state officials, thus dampening movement mobilization.
Policies also matter. The more that policies support a challenging group,
the greater the spur to mobilization - up to the point that the challenger's
interests are realized.  

 States also influence the form of mobilization and often in ways different
from the literature suggests. A profusion of polities with authority to
legislate, spend, and regulate - as in federal political systems - are
likely to produce social mobilization that is varied and smaller in scale
and scope. When many groups are excluded from electoral processes, challenger
mobilization will be more likely to take non-institutional forms. Moreover,
if groups are excluded from representation as groups, they are likely to
mobilize politically in such a form to gain the franchise. What is more,
winner-take-all electoral systems prevent challengers from forming political
parties - an important means to realize state-related goals. In such circumstances,
institutional action is likelier to take different forms, including lobbying
and influencing elections. Specific policies can channel challengers. Disparities
in the form, administration, and justifications of social spending policies
may induce fragmented mobilizations in support of them and may have repercussions
for the forms that new challengers might take.  

 Our hypotheses imply that the American state has an impact on challengers
that differs from the conventional understandings. For the most part, other
scholars have argued that the American state has typically encouraged the
mobilization of challengers and assimilative or institutional forms of
collective action. If one focuses on whether aspects of state support the
collective action of challengers, however, the American state has likely
been discouraging to challengers throughout its history. The many checks
and balances across the American polity harm challengers' prospects by
facilitating the ability of the politically powerful to veto new policies.
The American experience with democratic rights, an important spur to the
mobilization of the disadvantaged, has not been one of comparative advantage
in the last century. In the twentieth century the United States has been
a democratic laggard; even since the breakthroughs of the 1960s and 1970s,
the United States remains somewhat democratically backward, as institutional
restrictions on exercising the franchise limit the political voice of the
relatively poor. The winner-take-all electoral system discourages the formation
of new political parties. U.S. state bureaucracies have not been and are
not as professionalized as their European counterparts and have controlled
fewer resources. Probably they aid polity members more than they do challengers.
Similarly, U.S. social policies have typically spent less and do not likely
favor the mobilization of the politically disadvantaged.  

 The U.S. polity also has had significant influences on the form of challenger
mobilization. The greater decentralization in the U.S. polity leads to
more fragmented and locally based forms of action. American challengers
are more likely both to think and act locally. The fragmentation of powers
in the national polity also should promote a diversity of forms of action
- focused on claims through courts as well as lobbying legislatures and
bureaucracies. The winner-take-all electoral system most likely makes institutional
action center more on influencing parties, legislators, courts, and bureaucracies
rather than on forming and creating new parties. The existence of the initiative
in some states most likely makes American politics more centered on issues.
Finally, the uneven extension of voting rights most likely influenced the
group-wise formation of challengers - encouraging their development along
racial and gender lines, rather than class ones.  

 It is worth theorizing further about the impact of state political institutions,
processes, bureaucracies, and policies on social mobilization. One line
of thinking that is likely to prove productive is the consideration of
the potentially reciprocal impacts of state characteristics on the system
of political representation (Jenkins and Klandermans 1995). Also needed
is research to appraise claims. There have been a number of important small-N
research projects on anti-nuclear mobilizations (Jasper 1990; Kitschelt
1986), unconventional political activity Dalton (1988), women's suffrage
(Banaszak 1996), and new social movement mobilizations (Koopmans and Rucht
1995; Kriesi 1995). Further cross-national work of greater scope, however,
will be needed to sort out the various influences of states on social movements,
with greater controls over other macro-social influences on social mobilization.
Attention is also needed to periods other than the current one, because
of the great historical variation in state structures and activities over
time (Tarrow 1994; Tilly 1986). Even case studies - the us ual form in
scholarship on challengers - would shed light on these hypotheses if data
on them were collected systematically over time and across different polities.

 A previous version of this paper was presented at the Annual Meeting of
the American Political Science Association, Chicago, 1995, and parts were
presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association,
1995, Washington, DC. For comments and criticisms, we thank Jeff Goodwin,
David F. Greenberg, Kelly Moore, Sidney Tarrow, Rhys Williams, anonymous
reviewers, and the NYU Workshop on Power, Politics, and Protest. This research
was supported in part by National Science Foundation Grants SES-9210663
and SBR-9709618. Direct correspondence to: Edwin Amenta, Department of
Sociology, New York University, 269 Mercer Street, New York, New York 10003.
E-mail: amenta@sociology1.soc.nyu.edu  

 1. It should be noted that Kitschelt (1986) makes claims concerning only
the form of mobilization and the impact of mobilization - not about overall
mobilization. Moreover, Kitschelt generally sees the U.S. state as having
"weak" implementation capacities, or the abilities to effect new policy,
and thus U.S. social movements are less likely to have substantive impacts.
We agree, but argue that the potential for a successful impact influences
the forms and amount of mobilization.  

 2. With regard to variations in levels of mobilization, however, there
exists little comparative research relevant to our arguments. For this
reason, we conclude with suggestions of the direction research should take
to appraise hypothesis dealing with overall levels of social mobilization.

 3. This is a problem that runs through most of the illustrative evidence
we provide. Systematic evidence for this hypothesis and some others would,
of course, require examining all major social mobilizations across countries
and all potential determinants in a detailed way never attempted.  

 4. Recent studies analyzing the World Values Survey have compared Western
nations on levels of unconventional participation (Halman and Nevitte 1996).
Unfortunately, unconventional participation and social mobilization are
not equivalent so this survey data cannot be used to compare overall levels
of mobilization across nations. Respondents to the survey were asked "whether
you have actually done any of these things, whether you might do it or
would never, under any circumstances, do it: signing a petition, joining
in boycotts, attending lawful demonstrations, joining unofficial strikes,
occupying buildings or factories" (Halman and Nevitte 1996: appendix 8).
Studies comparing protest (Gabriel 1996) or unconventional political participation
(Heunks 1996) measures derived from this question do not compare actual
levels of overall mobilization, but differences in values about protest
and (potential) individual participation.  

 References  

 Amenta, Edwin, Kathleen Dunleavy, and Mary Bernstein 1994 "Stolen thunder?
Huey Long's share our wealth, political mediation, and the second new deal."
American Sociological Review 59:678-702.  
 Amenta, Edwin, Drew Halfmann, and Michael P. Young 1999 "The strategies
and contexts of social protest: Political mediation and the impact of the
Townsend movement in California." Mobilization 4:1-25.  

 Amenta, Edwin, and Yvonne Zylan 1991 "It happened here: Political opportunity,
the new institutionalism, and the Townsend movement." American Sociological
Review 56:250-265.  

 Banaszak, Lee Ann 1996 Why Movements Succeed or Fail: Opportunity, Culture,
and the Struggle for Woman Suffrage. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University
Press.  

 Burnham, Walter D. 1970 Critical Elections and the Mainsprings of American
Politics. New York: W.W. Norton.  

 Burstein, Paul 1985 Discrimination, Jobs, and Politics. Chicago, Ill.:
University of Chicago Press.  

 Cauthen, Nancy K., and Edwin Amenta 1996 "Not for widows only: Institutional
politics and the formative years of Aid to Dependent Children." American
Sociological Review 60:427-448.  

 Clemens, Elisabeth S. 1997 The People's Lobby: Organizational Innovation
and the Rise of Interest Group Politics in the United States, 1890-1925.
Chicago, Ill.: University of Chicago Press.  

 Costain, Anne N., and W. Douglas Costain 1987 "Strategy and tactics of
the women's movement in the United States: The role of political parties."
In The Women's Movements of the United States and Western Europe: Consciousness,
Political Opportunity, and Public Policy, eds. Mary Fainsod Katzenstein
and Carol McClurg Mueller, 196-214. Philadelphia, Penn.: Temple University
Press.  

 Dahl, Robert 1971 Polyarchy: Participation and Opposition. New Haven,
Conn. and London: Yale University Press.  

 Dalton, Russell 1988 Citizen Politics in Western Democracies: Public Opinion
and Political Parties in the United States, Great Britain, West Germany,
and France. Chatham, N.J.: Chatham House.  

 Eisinger, Peter K. 1973 "The conditions of protest behavior in American
cities." American Political Science Review 67:11-28.  

 Gabriel, Oscar 1996 "Distrust, involvement, and political protest in Western
democracies." In Political Value Change in Western Democracies, eds. Loek
Halman and Neil Nevitte, 193-219. Tilburg, The Netherlands: Tilburg University
Press.  

 Gamson, William A. 1990 The Strategy of Social Protest. 2d ed. Belmont,
Calif.: Wadsworth.  

 Gamson, William A., and David S. Meyer 1996 "Framing political opportunity."
In Comparative Perspectives on Social Movements: Political Opportunities,
Mobilizing Structures, and Cultural Framings, eds. Doug McAdam, John D.
McCarthy and Mayer N. Zald, 275-290. New York: Cambridge University Press.

 Goodwin, Jeff 1995 "State-centered approaches to social revolutions: Strengths
and limitations of a theoretical tradition." In Theorizing Revolutions,
ed. John Foran, 11-37. London: Routledge.  

 Goodwin, Jeff, and James M. Jasper 1999 "Caught in a winding, snarling
vine: The structural bias of political process theory." Sociological Forum
14: Forthcoming.  

 Goodwyn, Lawrence 1978 The Populist Moment: A Short History of the Agrarian
Revolt in America. Oxford: Oxford University Press.  

 Halman, Loek, and Neil Nevitte (eds.) 1996 Political Value Change in Western
Democracies. Tilburg, The Netherlands: Tilburg University Press.  

 Heunks, Felix 1996 "Varieties of political participation." In Political
Value Change in Western Democracies: Integration, Values, Identification,
and Participation, eds. Loek Halman and Neil Nevitte, 221-234. Tilburg,
The Netherlands: Tillburg University.  

 Hicks, Alexander, and Joya Misra 1993 "Political resources and the growth
of welfare effort: The case of affluent capitalist democracies, 1960-1982."
American Journal of Sociology 99:668-710.  

 Holtzman, Abraham 1963 The Townsend Movement: A Political Study. New York:
Bookman.  

 Huber, Evelyn, Charles Ragin, and John D. Stephens 1993 "Social democracy,
Christian democracy, constitutional structure and the welfare state: Towards
a resolution of quantitative studies." American Journal of Sociology 99:711-749.

 Jasper, James M. 1990 Nuclear Politics. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University
Press.  
 Jenkins, J. Craig 1995 "Social movements, political representation, and
the state: An agenda and comparative framework." In The Politics of Social
Protest: Comparative Perspectives on States and Social Movements, eds.
J. Craig Jenkins and Bert Klandermans, 14-35. Minneapolis, Minn.: University
of Minnesota Press.  

 Jenkins, J. Craig, and Bert Klandermans 1995 "The politics of social protest."
In The Politics of Social Protest, eds. J. Craig Jenkins and Bert Klandermans,
3-13. Minneapolis, Minn.: University of Minnesota Press.  

 Katzenstein, Mary Fainsod 1987 "Comparing the feminist movements of the
United States and Western Europe: An overview." In The Women's Movements
of the United States and Western Europe: Consciousness, Political Opportunity,
and Public Policy, eds. Mary Fainsod Katzenstein and Carrol McClurg Mueller,
3-20. Philadelphia, Penn.: Temple University Press.  

 Katznelson, Ira 1981 City Trenches. New York: Pantheon.  

 Kitschelt, Herbert P. 1986 "Political opportunity structures and political
protest: Anti-nuclear movements in four democracies." British Journal of
Political Science 16:57-85.  

 1988 "Left-libertarian parties: Explaining innovation in competitive party
systems." World Politics 40:195-234.  

 Koopmans, Ruud, and Dieter Rucht 1995 "Social movement mobilization under
right and left governments: A look at four West European countries." Paper
presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association,
Washington, D.C. (August)  

 Kousser, J. Morgan 1974 The Shaping of Southern Politics: Suffrage Restriction
and the Establishment of the One-Party South, 1880-1910. New Haven, Conn.
and London: Yale University Press.  

 Kriesi, Hanspeter 1995 "The political opportunity structure of new social
movements: Its impact on their mobilization." In The Politics of Social
Protest, eds. J. Craig Jenkins and Bert Klandermans, 167-198. Minneapolis,
Minn.: University of Minnesota Press.  

 Kriesi, Hanspeter, Ruud Koopmans, Jan Willem Duyvendak, and Marco G. Guigni
1995 New Social Movements in Western Europe: A Comparative Analysis. Minneapolis,
Minn.: University of Minnesota Press.  

 Lijphart, Arend 1997 "Unequal protection: Democracy's unresolved dilemma."
American Political Science Review 91:1-14.  
 Lipset, Seymour M., and Stein Rokkan 1967 "Cleavage structures, party
systems, and voter alignments." In Party Systems and Voter Alignments,
eds. Seymour M. Lipset and Stein Rokkan, 1-66. New York: The Free Press.

 Lo, Clarence Y. H. 1990 Small Property Versus Big Government: The Social
Origins of the Property Tax Revolt. Berkeley, Calif.: University of California
Press.  

 Marshall, T. H. 1963 Class, Citizenship, and Social Development. Chicago,
Ill.: University of Chicago Press.  

 McAdam, Doug 1982 Political Process and the Development of Black Insurgency,
1930-1970. Chicago, Ill.: University of Chicago Press.  

 McAdam, Doug, John D. McCarthy, and Mayer N. Zald 1988 "Social movements."
In The Handbook of Sociology, ed. Neil J. Smelser, 695-737. Beverly Hills,
Calif.: Sage.  

 1996 "Opportunities, mobilizing structures, and framing processes - toward
a synthetic, comparative perspective on social movements." In Comparative
Perspectives on Social Movements: Political Opportunities, Mobilizing Structures,
and Cultural Framings, eds. Doug McAdam, John D. McCarthy and Mayer N.
Zald, 1-20. New York: Cambridge University Press.  

 McCarthy John D., David W. Britt, and Mark Wolfson 1991 "The institutional
channeling of social movements by the state in the United States." Research
in Social Movements, Conflict and Change 14:45-76.  

 Meyer, David S. 1993 "Institutionalizing dissent: The United States structure
of political opportunity and the end of the nuclear freeze." Sociological
Forum 8:157-179.  

 Meyer, David S., and Suzanne Staggenborg 1996 "Movements, countermovements,
and the structure of political opportunities." American Journal of Sociology
101:1628-1660.  

 Nagel, Joane, and Susan Olzak 1982 "Ethnic mobilization in new and old
states: An extension of the competition model." Social Problems 30:127-143.

 Oestreicher, Richard 1988 "Urban working-class political behavior and
theories of American electoral politics, 1870-1940." Journal of American
History 74:1257-1286.  

 Orloff, Ann Shola 1993 The Politics of Pensions: A Comparative Analysis
of Britain, Canada, and the United States, 1880-1940. Madison, Wisc.: University
of Wisconsin Press.  

 Orloff, Ann Shola, and Theda Skocpol 1984 "Why not equal protection? Explaining
the politics of public social welfare in Britain and the United States,
1880s-1920s." American Sociological Review 49:726-750.  

 Pierson, Paul 1994 Dismantling the Welfare State? Reagan, Thatcher, and
the Politics of Retrenchment. New York: Cambridge University Press.  

 Pinner, Frank A., Paul Jacobs, and Phillip Selznick 1959 Old Age and Political
Behavior: A Case Study. Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press.

 Piven, Francis Fox, and Richard A. Cloward 1977 Poor People's Movements:
Why They Succeed, How They Fail. New York: Random House.  

 1989 Why Americans Don't Vote. New York: Pantheon.  

 Putnam, Jackson K. 1970 Old-Age Politics in California: From Richardson
to Reagan. Stanford: Stanford University Press.  

 Rucht, Dieter 1989 "Environmental movement organizations in West Germany
and France." In Organizing for Change: Social Movement Organizations in
Europe and the United States, ed. Bert Klandermans, 69-94. Greenwich, Conn.:
JAI Press.  

 Shelter, Martin 1986 "Trade unions and political machines: The organization
and disorganization of the American working class in the late nineteenth
century." In Working-Class Formation: Nineteenth-Century Patterns in Western
Europe and the United States, eds. Ira Katznelson and Aristide Zolberg,
197-278. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.  

 Skocpol, Theda 1980 "Political response to capitalist crisis: Neo-Marxist
theories of the state and the case of the new deal." Politics and Society
10:155-201.  

 1992 Protecting Soldiers and Mothers: The Political Origins of Social
Policy in the United States. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.

 Skocpol, Theda, and Edwin Amenta 1986 "States and social policies." Annual
Review of Sociology 12:131-157.  
 Skowronek, Stephen 1982 Building a New American State. Cambridge, Mass.:
Cambridge University Press.  

 Staggenborg, Suzanne 1991 The Pro-Choice Movement: Organization and Activism
in the Abortion Conflict. Oxford: Oxford University Press.  

 Tarrow, Sidney 1994 Power in Movement. New York: Cambridge University
Press.  

 1996 "States and opportunities: The political structuring of social movements."
In Comparative Perspectives on Social Movements: Political Opportunities,
Mobilizing Structures, and Cultural Framings, eds. Doug McAdam, John D.
McCarthy and Mayer N. Zald, 41-61. New York: Cambridge.  

 Tilly, Charles 1978 From Mobilization to Revolution. Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley.

 1986 The Contentious French. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.

 Valelly, Richard M. 1989 Radicalism in the States: The Minnesota Farmer-Labor
Party and the American Political Economy. Chicago, Ill.: University of
Chicago Press.  

 Valocchi, Steve 1990 "The unemployed workers' movement: A reexamination
of the Piven and Cloward thesis." Social Problems 37:191-205.  

 Walton, John 1992 Western Times and Water Wars: State, Culture, and Rebellion
in California. Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press.  

 Western, Bruce 1993 "Postwar unionization in eighteen advanced capitalist
countries." American Sociological Review 58:266-282.  

 Weir, Margaret, Ann Shola Orloff, and Theda Skocpol (eds.) 1988 "Introduction:
Understanding American social politics." In The Politics of Social Policy
in the United States, 3-29. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.
  
Record Number:  A55397521 

  

 

 

This information is not a tool for self-diagnosis or a substitute for professional
care.

Copyright (c) 2002 by Gale Group . All rights reserved. 
Gale Group is a Thomson Corporation Company.