ABSTRACT
The study of "collective behavior" has always had a curious place in sociology. No one has ever been happy with the state of the field; much effort is spent periodically in trying to define its boundaries and to pin down its elusive subject matter. Granted that classificatory schemes always have elements of arbitrariness, and that he recognizes that events in the real world may be more complex than his categories, there remains a more fundamental difficulty with Smelser's variant of the "structural-functional" approach to social theory. Harshness and rigidity provide the participants with "evidence" of the vicious character of the authority, and thus justify extreme and militant tactics; weakness or collapse in the face of threats provides "evidence" that these extreme tactics are in fact effective, and encourages participants in protest movements to give credence to their own fantasies of omnipotence.
