ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews the existing literature on social movements, and in doing so brings out the main theoretical issues concerning the analysis of urban movements. It explores and examines two recent theoretical models, that is, the political process model and the social construction of protests, and shows that these two models are complementary to the resource mobilization perspective. The chapter links up the resource mobilization perspective with the political process and social construction models, and illustrates a possible way of using their conceptual and analytical elements in our analysis of social movements. It argues that the articulation of the objectives and goals of social movements, and the choices of strategies, are the result of the interaction between leaders and participants. For the purpose of studying the means and extent of resource mobilization, the chapter identifies in the literature of the resource mobilization perspective three different modes of resource acquisition, namely market-managerial, interorganizational linkage and communal modes.
