Four Eras of Studies of Politics and Social Movements in Social Forces

Bibliographic Data

ID18972700
AuthorsNeal Caren (0000-0003-1704-5494, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Department of Sociology, , North Carolina 27516, USA, corresponding author)
Year2023
Volume101
Issue4
Pages1623-1632
Publication date2023-04-15
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueSocial Forces (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0037-7732 • E-ISSN: 1534-7605
PublisherOxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1093/sf/soad034
OpenAlexW4366124519
LanguageEN
References cited80

Over the last hundred years, there have been approximately four eras of studies of collective political mobilizations in the pages of Social Forces.While each of the four periods contains a diversity of topics, each also has a central tendency influenced by the sociology of the era, the journal's focus, and current events.In this essay, I describe the different eras and identify some notable areas of continuity across the century.In its first decade, Social Forces articles primarily discussed collective action in reports on current political organizations or analysis of ongoing racist violence, particularly lynching and the Klan.From the 1930s to WWII, the focus of articles expanded to a wider variety of movements and activities and were more likely to incorporate sociological theory.The social movements of the 1950s and 1960s were closely examined in the next phase, and articles continue to evolve to include both theory and analysis in the same pieces.Finally, the contemporary era saw a vast increase in the movements studied, methods employed, and a more granular examination of movement processes.Throughout all the periods, two major themes, examining anti-Black collective violence and the role of organizations in politics, were consistently fruitful research areas. Against Mob Violence (1920s)Early readers would have encountered articles that discussed the role of political organizations within communities and repeated references to mob violence.These early pieces seldom focused on understanding social movements as vehicles for political change, however, which has not been a prominent genre in

Action (physics) · Aesthetics · Collective action · Diversity (politics) · Movement (music) · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Resource mobilization · Social force · Social movement · Social movement theory · Social science · Sociology · Variety (cybernetics) · American Political and Social Dynamics · Anthropology · Electoral Systems and Political Participation · Law · Race, History, and American Society

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