POLI 1091 Final: Theory Class Notes 1.20-2.22 (All Lecture Notes)

• School: Boston College
• Department: Political Science
• Course: POLI 1091
• Professor: Paul Christensen

Document Summary

Readings covered: tarrow, power in movement, intro and ch. Social movements politics vs revolutionary politics = different dynamics. This fundamentally is what we are trying to understand, because in many ways trotsky is right. If people rebelled when they were depressed, they would revolt all the time but they are not. The theory of social movement politics is what leads people to take the opportunity, or undertake the struggle, of this kind of politics. Because we have to begin with the notion that the contentious politics are difficult, time consuming, and often times dangerous and hard to do. So there has to be an explanation, or series of explanations, as to why people move from one state of affairs to another. Now when we think of social movements, its kind of interesting because until the 1950s or 60s, social movements were almost always discussed in a very negative way.