ABSTRACT
Sociology analyzes collective behavior as an apolitical phenomenon, and political science studies politics as an institutional system; neither was conceptually predisposed to examine the politics of social movements. Barrington Moore's work is an example of the political sociology approach to social movements and revolution. The renewed interest in political movements was also sparked by movements and challenges on the domestic and global scene. The Great Depression sparked both revolutionary and reactionary movements in the United States while fascism abroad helped trigger World War II. The commercialization of agriculture also played a crucial role in fostering democracy, especially when it strengthened the urban bourgeoisie and weakened the landed aristocracy. The transformation of the spontaneous social groups of a pluralistic society into the totalitarian mass state is the real background of Fascism. Proclamations about the affluent society and the end of ideology reinforced a sense that major social conflicts and struggles over material redistribution were rapidly becoming a thing of the past.
