ABSTRACT
The question of the relation between social movements and social problems is perhaps the most hotly debated theme in the social movement literature. Conventional wisdom has it that the explanation for protest behavior lies in intolerable circumstances, unbearable deprivations, and intense grievances. Classical theories of collective behavior have generally followed this line of argumentation, and saw social movements as a direct result of the frustrations and anomie caused by large-scale social-structural change. Adherents of the resource mobilization model have taken a diametrically opposed position, arguing that “there is always enough discontent in any society to supply grass-roots support for a movement if the movement is effectively organized and has at its disposal the power and resources of some established group” (McCarthy and Zald 1977:1215). This position is generally shared by adherents of political process models, although their alternative to the grievance model emphasizes external political opportunities for mobilization rather than the internal resources that are central to the resource mobilization approach (for instance, McAdam 1982).
