ABSTRACT
The role of leadership in new social movements has received surprisingly little attention in the academic literature (Barker et al. 2001), although it remains a central issue for debate amongst social movement activists. In social movement studies attention to theories of leadership has been problematised by the theoretical concentration on movement irrationalism in collective behaviour approaches, the bias towards structuralist explanations within resource mobilisation theory (RMT) and political opportunity structure approaches, and the narrative of spontaneity that persists in some accounts of the new social movements. Taken together with the desire of many social movement scholars to escape the ‘great man’ theories of historical development and their reluctance to give credence to conservative arguments about militant agitators whipping up otherwise peaceful citizens, this has meant that leadership has remained a minority interest despite being a crucial element of building and sustaining movements.
