ABSTRACT
In addition to periods of violent political dissent and social revolution, history is replete with examples of non-violent political dissent in the form of social movements. Ever since the emergence of the modern state (Tilly et al. 1975; Tilly 1978; Tarrow 1994), various forms of direct political action and political protest activities at the national level have challenged dominant political institutions in both the advanced industrial democracies the lesser-developed countries. Movements led by workers, students, women, peace activists, gays and lesbians, environmentalists and greens, as well as those led by religious fundamentalists, extreme radical right adherents, and ethnic minorities increasingly bring new issues to the political agenda through protests, demonstrations, marches, petitions, and lobbying efforts, all of which fall outside traditional institutional channels of interest inter-mediation. Comparative research sees these movements as different from those that espouse violent political dissent in terms of the groups they mobilize, the demands they make, and the goals they seek to achieve. Many of the insights from the literature on violent political dissent, however, continue to inform the study of social movements, including relative deprivation, economic transformation, state power and repression, and identity construction. As in the previous chapter, this chapter assesses key developments in the study of social movements by comparing many, few, and singlecountry studies in an effort to assess their methodological trade-offs and the answers that they provide to the substantive questions they raise.
