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The issue of climate change poses something of a puzzle. For all the attention accorded the issue, climate change/global warming has spawned surprisingly little grassroots activism in the contemporary United States. Drawing on social movement theory, the author seeks to explain this puzzle. The prevailing consensus among movement scholars is that the prospect for movement emergence is facilitated by the confluence of three factors: the expansion of political opportunities, the availability of mobilizing structures, and cognitive and affective mobilization through framing processes. The author then applies each of these factors to the case of climate change, arguing that (a) awareness of the issue developed during an especially inopportune period in American politics, (b) the organizations that arose to address the issue were ill suited to the kind of grassroots mobilization characteristic of successful movements, and (c) the amorphous nature of the issue played havoc with efforts at strategic framing.

Rational choice theory has achieved widespread influence in a number of social science disciplines, most notably economics and political science. Given its prominent position within economics, it is not surprising that rational choice theory (and other rationalist perspectives) dominates theory and research on the corporation and decision-making by corporate actors. By contrast, however, the theory has failed to gain more than a toehold in sociology. Indeed, most sociologists are downright hostile to rational choice theory. When pressed to explain why, those in the discipline are very likely to complain that the perspective is "asociological"; that the theory posits an atomized conception of the individual that does not accord with the "sociological perspective." But when it comes to human sociability, what exactly is the "sociological perspective?" Beyond the rather facile assertion that humans are profoundly "social creatures," sociologists have done little to fashion a distinctive account of what that actually means. After all, lots of species are intensely social, perhaps none more so than ants. Surely we are not so-cial in the same sense that ants are. Our closest evolutionary relatives—gorillas and chimpanzees—are also very social species, and social in many ways that mirror human sociability. But there are also myriad ways in which human social life is qualitatively different from that of even our closest evolutionary cousins. Bottom line: to dismiss rational choice theory for its failure to honor the extent to which we are "social creatures" is to evade the real question: what is the distinctive essence of human sociability? I will not pretend to offer anything like a complete answer to that question here, but believing that social life—including economic behavior and corporation decision making—is shaped by far more than rational calculus and narrow material motives, I want to use my contribution to the volume to call your attention to an evolutionary puzzle that has fascinated and perplexed me for at ...

Discusses the developments in social movement studies, namely, the inadequacies of purely structural considerations & the impact of social networks. A sociology of knowledge approach to the embrace of "structure" in the discipline & the scholarly advances due to structure are explored. Three processes are analyzed: individual recruitment, emergent mobilization, & scale shift. The need to supplement the structural approach in social movement studies with a more culturally oriented approach is advocated. 3 Figures. L. Collins Leigh

Responds to comments made in a review symposium on a book by Doug McAdam, Sidney Tarrow, & Charles Tilly, Dynamics of Contention (New York: Cambridge U Press, 2001). This book's arguments regarding the numerous biases in current social movement theory are reiterated. Specific criticisms regarding three areas -- the authors' "overly narrow" definition of contention, lack of theoretical support for their identification of the mechanisms & processes of contentious politics, & abandonment of the "classical model" of social movements -- are addressed. Directions are offered for future elaboration of the model offered here to improve its utility in the study of social movements, focusing on suggestions for ethnographic research. 1 Figure, 25 References. K. Hyatt Stewart

Explores how social movements can bring about changes in demographic patterns unrelated to their stated goals. Focus is on biographical consequences that seem to result from sustained individual activism & aggregate-level changes in life-course patterns, drawing on mail questionnaire data from 1,187 US residents, born 1943-1964, to address baby boomer demographic changes. Results of simple bivariate comparison, logistic regression, & hazard-rate analysis suggest that many baby boomer demographic changes, eg, the dramatic rise in nonmarital cohabitation & avoidance of childbearing, were prompted by 1960s political/cultural movements. 8 Tables. J. Lindroth

Concludes a text on the potential of social movements to act as agents of social & political change by identifying four recent trends in social movements: (1) establishment of the social movement as a routine institutionalized feature of Western democratic politics; (2) spread of modern social movements in nondemocratic, non-Western settings; (3) creation of a transnational advocacy network in the form of nongovernmental organizations; & (4) development of multiple levels of political authority other than the nation-state to confront & confound protest groups. This last trend obliges protest groups to mobilize at multiple levels, thereby stretching their already scarce resources. The result may be a gradual diminution of the capacity of social movements to transform society & politics. While this conclusion is merely conjecture, it ought to serve as a sobering reminder that social movements must work very hard to maintain their ability to influence social & political life. D. Ryfe

Argues that existing work on strategic framing efforts in the literature on social movements suffers from an ideational bias, & proposes an alternative analysis of the framing function illustrated via case studies of the US civil rights movement. The extant literature is indicted for both its failure to conduct empirical work & its tendency to view framing as a formal ideological expression rather than an outcome of specific tactics & actions by movements. It is shown in a brief analysis of the early civil rights movement, in particular, the actions of Martin Luther King, Jr., that tactics & strategies are central to understanding the success of its framing activities. It is suggested that the movement's success was due to its ability to invoke a set of predictable responses from four different reference publics: segregationists, the media, the public, & the federal government. It is argued that the general lesson to be learned from this episode is that movement scholarship must transcend its conventional movement-centric bias to consider the relation of movements to other social dynamics & publics. 2 Figures. D. M. Smith

Introduces a section (see abstracts of related Chpts) of an edited Vol on the role of political opportunities as a variable in social movement explanation by addressing three principal analytic concerns: (1) the difference between political vs other types of opportunities; (2) dimensions of a political opportunity structure; & (3) application of relevant dependent variables. New avenues of research & theory on political opportunities are described, including the nature of protest cycles & political opportunities, the international context of political opportunities, & how political opportunity structures may serve as dependent variables. If conceptual confusion is to be avoided, it is argued that scholars must be explicit about which dependent variable they are seeking to explain & which dimensions of political opportunity are germane to this explanation. Section themes are briefly discussed. 1 Table. D. M. Smith