ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the application of the theory of collective action, outlined and discussed in the previous chapter, to explain protest and social movements. It is clear that the theory can be applied: political protest is a contribution to public goods, and the major goal of social movements is to provide public goods. There is meanwhile a burgeoning literature where the theory is applied. Two early examples are Oberschall’s (1980) detailed explanation of the events around the Davis Cup matches at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, on March 17-19, 1978 (see also Oberschall 1979), and Hechter, Friedman, and Appelbaum’s explanation of collective ethnic action (1982). More recent applications are the explanation of the rise and decline of the civil rights movement (Chong 1991), the explanation of mobilization in a mining village in Spain (Linares 2004) (this study will be discussed in detail below), the explanation of the protests and revolutionary events in Eastern Europe and East Germany (Goldstone 1994; Karklins and Petersen 1993; Kuran 1995; Lohmann 1993, 1994; Olson 1990; Opp, Voss, and Gern 1995; Pfaff 2006), and the explanation of insurgent collective action during the civil war in El Salvador (Wood 2000, 2003). General critical reviews are rare (see Marwell and Oliver 1984; Moore 1995 who focuses on rebellion, i.e. violent collective action). Further, there are applications of the theory to explain rebellion (Leites and Wolf 1970; Muller 1979; Opp 1989),1 revolutions (Salert 1976: chapter 2; see also Taylor 1988, and Goldstone 2001, 2002 for a review of the literature)2 and many other phenomena (see, e.g., the work of Oberschall such as 1979, 1980 and 1994).
