States & Social Movements - Softcover

Johnston, Hank

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0745646271 ISBN 13: 9780745646275

Publisher: Polity, 2010

Synopsis

Since the late eighteenth century, politics, protest, and the state have evolved together, each shaping the other in significant ways. This engaging and succinct treatment of protest-state interaction shows how the modern national state developed in tandem with social movement mobilization, arguing that to understand the state fully, you cannot ignore the role of political protest.

Today, social movements are an integral part of politics: modern democratic states are, in reality, social movement societies, and protest mobilization permeates how politics is regularly accomplished. States and Social Movements presents a balanced and comprehensive assessment of various theories of social movements, engaging both state-centered approaches, and cultural and agency-based perspectives. Hank Johnston takes a broad view, analyzing democratic transitions and revolutions, how protest occurs in repressive states, and concluding with an exploration of the emerging repertoire of global social movements, where these movements come from, and if they spell the end of the modern state as we know it.

States and Social Movements cuts to the core of how social movements interact with all types of state system to produce variable outcomes such as democracy, policy reform, repression, insurrection, and revolution. As such, it is essential reading for students and scholars of sociology and political science interested in the important research area of contentious politics.

About this title

About the Author:

Hank Johnston is Associate Professor of Sociology at San Diego State University.

Review:

"A thoughtful, concise and engaging account that will serve as an admirable introduction to the field."
Choice

"States & Social Movements is not only timely, but also timeless, as it presents a blueprint of political protest that is equally relevant for the 18th century Western states, as for the globalised world of today."
London School of Economics and Political Science blog

"Globalization has not reduced the importance of the state for social movements as actors of a politics by other means. In this clearly written and well-researched volume, Hank Johnston builds upon the best scholarship on social movements, adding an innovative perspective in particular on the dynamics of protest in non-democratic regimes and democratizing polities."
Donatella Della Porta, European University Institute

"Movements shape states, and states shape movements. Hank Johnston adds depth and nuance to this insight by examining a wide range of state forms and political protest - including revolutionary movements and transnational activism. Along the way, he provides a lucid overview of different theoretical perspectives on movements. The result is an excellent short introduction to social movement studies."
Jeff Goodwin, New York University

"This book is an outstanding synthesis of a diverse and difficult body of work. It is unique among surveys of social movements in balancing coverage of protests in both democratic and authoritarian societies, in its even-handed treatment of the relations between globalization and protest, and in giving substantial and well thought out space to revolutions."
Jack A. Goldstone, George Mason University

About this edition

• Publisher: Polity
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 0745646271
• ISBN 13: 9780745646275
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 240