ABSTRACT
Social movements research has been subject to a growing body of criticism for being generally too movement-centric (Walder, 2009; McAdam and Boudet, 2012; Fligstein and McAdam, 2012), and, when scholarship does examine the role of external context in shaping movement practices and strategies, it focuses too heavily on the state (Armstrong and Bernstein, 2008; Walker, Martin, and McCarthy, 2008). Similarly, social movement outcomes research has been challenged for selecting on the dependent variable in the sense of searching for successful cases of collective mobilization (for critiques, see McAdam and Boudet, 2012; Burstein and Sausner, 2005). However, the turn toward new approaches to movements research – reflected in the diverse contributions to this volume – that highlight how contentious claims-makers are only one player among many pressing forward their interests in myriad societal arenas, helps to remedy this limitation and to widen our focus to the place of social movements in civil society, the state, and the marketplace.
