Masters Theses

Date of Award

5-1992

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts

Major

Sociology

Major Professor

Sherry Cable

Committee Members

Donald Clelland, Robert Gorman

Abstract

This thesis is an examination of social movement continuity using a refined resource mobilization perspective. This refined perspective, while emphasizing traditional resource mobilization emphasis on the movement organization, incorporates historical analysis - historical resource mobilization. The theory is grounded in both primary and secondary data collected on the American peace movement, 1900-1990. According to the historical resource mobilization approach, a large-scale social movement such as the peace movement can only be understood through historical analysis combined with traditional resource mobilization theory.

This analysis challenges collective behavior approaches and popular media portrayals which focus on the emergent nature of social movements. According to this refined perspective, periods commonly considered to be deaths of a movement are actually periods of abeyance. Periods of abeyance refer to times in which a movement sustains itself in nonreceptive political environments. Thus, abeyance periods provide continuity from one period of activity to another.

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