The civil rights movement and the logic of social change

Abstract

Over the last decade there has been an increased focus on social movement outcomes. This increased attention has led to calls for the improvement of our theoretical and conceptual arguments, the more effective implementation of methodological tools, and more empirical examples based on broader comparisons of issues and contexts (Giugni 1998; Earl 2000; Burstein and Linton 2002; Meyer 2005; Giugni 2008). With this special issue of Mobilization, our aim is to take some steps toward meeting these calls. Each of the contributors in this issue adds an important aspect to the current literature and introduces themes that we hope will be developed further in future research. We have included articles emphasizing several issues, including incremental outcomes, novel empirical factors for studying the contextual dependence of the outcomes of mobilization, different methods for strengthening and testing the robustness of our theoretical arguments, and new ways of thinking about the role of public opinion. Our introduction develops a foundation for the contributions contained in this special issue by stressing the connection between the five articles and laying out a few important achievements and problems in studying the outcomes of social movements. Finally, we briefly sketch several directions for future research.