ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book refers to the state as the subject of actions or initiator of behaviors based on the assumption that there is a single leader of the state who makes important decisions. Unintended Outcomes of Social Movements is based on Coleman's sociological perspective. Sociologists' responsibility as scientists and policymakers makes the study of the unintended outcome of the Chinese student movement, and the puzzle lying at its center, extremely important. Numerous works on the 1989 Tiananmen tragedy have been published, but none has presented the event as an unintended outcome of the student movement. In the literature of social movements, there are many studies about interaction between movement and countermovement, or state. The emergence of the 1989 student movement generates a new social system composed of two groups: a movement and the state.
