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PLEASE DO NOT SEND PA YMENT UNTIL YOU RECEIVE AN INVOICEI RUUD KOOPMANS 41'1 . PhD d e and the Study of Politics. Amer;· f'len4lfl. l'.lultlOOO) l",ruslng Returns, at epen ene, ,.I" l'u/IlI'oJl .'K'ma RI'I'II'UI, 94, 251-67. . R.lmm.trJl. '}tt~tn ,1978) Sozwle Bewegung. Frankfurt am Mam: Suhrkamp. R.... h"f1. Ih"mJ\ R. IIIIMN) Mobilizing for Peace: The Antinuclear Movements in Western t JI'''/rt' I'nn..cton. NJ: Princeton University Press. Rule. I.lme,....nJ (h.lrl~ Tilly (1972) 1830 and the Unnatural History of Revolution. Journal "I'" .. ,.dlu"",. 2ll. 49-76. ,h..ftcl. hlurJ• .And Ch.ub Tilly (1974) Strikes in France, 1830-1968. Cambridge: Cam l-tf..JJtr t )rllH'f,!t\ Preu. \nw!Wf. ~d J. \1%21 fhtory of Collective Behavior. New York: Free Press. 'now. n.mJ A..and RoOtn D. Brnford (1999) Alternative Types of Cross-National Diffusion 111 the' '-"\AI ",,'emfnt Arena. In Donatella della Porta, Hanspeter Kriesi, and Dieter Rt"hr 1M 1.\;,,1.11 MOl't'mt"1ftS in a Globalizing World. Houndmills: Macmillan, 23-39. '-,ul... '-tr.lh \,...... ) The D\ffusion of an Unsuccessful Innovation. Annals of the American ".~ 01 f'oiltu.J/ .",d .StlClal Science, 566, 120-31. \tr.a~. n..,tJ...oJ John W. Meyer (1993) Institutional Conditions for Diffusion. Theory and "' .....h. H. ·ur'-H I. ,",,,n«. \)"~IJ. AoJ \.auh Soule (1998) Diffusion in Organizations and Social Movements: trum t htwtd ( om til POlion Spills. Annual Review ofSociology, 24, 265-90. t.."..... ~r tl~~~) I>""o(1acy and Disorder: Protest and Politics in Italy 1965-1975. (htOfJ. (t.art'nd
STEVEN M. BUECHLER
Since the 1970s, social movement theory has changed dramatically. One reason is that "the study of social movements is volatile hecause the phenomena under consideration change so rapidly" (Garner 1997: 1). In this imagery, theory changes to reflect changes in its subject matter. However, theoretical change often has less to do with faithful reflections of a changing suhject matter than with rapid shifts in assumptions, perspectives, and questions (Kuhn 1962). A hroader sociology of knowledge suggests that theories also change in response to altered sociohistorical Contexts and new generations of theorists who bring different experiences to their theoretical work and to the very definition of their subject matter. Within sociology as a whole, all these factors prompted the paradigm shifts of the post-World War II period. The functionalist orthodoxy of the 1950s gave way to several alternatives in the 1960s because social phenomena changed, social and political currents also changed, and new generations of sociologists hrought differ ent experiences to their work. The theoretical disputes between functionalism, conflict theory, critical theory, phenomenology, feminist theory, and other alterna tives defined the broader context in which paradigm shifts occurred in subfields like collective behavior and social movements. The story of social movement theory is not just a function of movements themselves, but also of the social and intellectual histories of the countries and disciplines in which the theories evolve. The major paradigm shift in social movement theory is indexed hy the inelegant but revealing nomenclature of "collective behavior/social movements"; the forward slash testifies to the conceptual confusion and disagreement that characterizes this area. It was not always so. For much of the twentieth century, there was a consensu ally designated subfie1d called "collective behavior," and social movements were seen as one subtype of collective behavior along with panics, crazes, crowds, rumors, and riots. During this time, a major explanation for the emergence of all kinds of 48 STEVEN M. BUECHLER . . h . ds of strain and breakdown gcncrate collective collectIve behavIOr was t at peno .' II .' . . behavior because the social controls and morallmperatlves that norma J l
THE CLASSICAL ERA OF STRAIN AND BREAKDOWN THEORIES
The concepts of strain and breakdown imply a social order whose normal condition is one of integration. If the social order remains sufficiently integrated, strain and hreakdown may be avoided altogether and collective behavior may be precluded. In this logic, all roads lead to Durkheim's overriding concern with social integration and the problematic consequences of insufficient integration in modern societies (Ourkheim [1893] 1964). Premodern societies were less problematic as the con science collective and mechanical solidarity underwrote social integration and min imized strain and breakdown. With the decline of the conscience collective and increases in dynamic density and social differentiation, modern societies became more prone to such problems. In theory, the emergent division of labor would provide the functional integration and organic solidarity to bind modern societies together. In reality, Durkheim was well aware that modern societies did not conform to the theoretical expectation. His classic analyses of anomie and egoism identified breaches in the social order that could lead to chronic strains or acute breakdowns. One indication of such problems was elevated suicide rates, but suicide was merely one example of a range of antisocial, dysfunctional behaviors that could result from strain and breakdown (Durkheim [1897] 1951). The remedy was increased social integration through more explicit normative regulation to guide conduct and srrengthened social bonds to contain excessive individualism. While Durkheim said relatively little about collective behavior as the term came to be understood in the ~entieth ~entury, his analysis provided a major foundation for subsequent theones of stram and breakdown as explanations of such behavior. STRAIN AND BREAKDOWN THEORIES 49 A more direct link between social breakdown and collective behavior was forged by European theorists of crowd behavior who were Durkheim's contemporaries. In their view, "The cause of civil violence ... was the breakdown of rational con trol over human behavior through the spread of what one might call 'crowd mentality'" (Rule 1988: 83). Crowds were theorized to act under the sway of intense emotional states generated by physical proximity; such behavior was in marked contrast to the rational and orderly behavior that prevailed in conventional social settings. It was Robert Park (Park and Burgess 1921; Park 1972) who introduced this tradition into US sociology by positing a fundamental distinction between social integration and control on the one hand and innovative forms of collective behavior that emerge with the breakdown of social control on the other hand. Park broadened the theory beyond crowds to include other forms of collective behavior, and - unlike the European crowd theorists - he recognized that collective behavior could be a positive, healthy element in social life (Rule 1988: 97). Park's work laid the foundation for what would become the classical collective behavior tradition in US sociology. Herbert Blumer built on this foundation to definitively establish collective behav ior as a recognizable subfield in sociology. For Blumer (1951), collective behavior involves group activity that is largely spontaneous, unregulated, and unstructured. It is triggered by some disruption in standard routines of everyday life that promotes circular reaction or interstimulation with the qualities of contagion, randomness, excitability, and suggestibility. It is this social unrest that provides the crucible out of which all forms of collective behavior emerge, including crowds, masses, publics, and social movements. Turner and Killian (1987) codified Blumer's approach to collective behavior, while emphasizing how initially unstructured collective behavior may promote emergent norms and incipient forms of order through symbolic communication and interaction. Despite the modifications introduced by subse quent theorists, several assumptions define this tradition. First, collective behavior is triggered by some breakdown, strain, or disruption in normal social routines. Second, as such, collective behavior is sharply set off from conventional behavior, with elements of contagion, excitability, spontaneity, and emotionality as prevalent themes. In some versions of the theory, these assumptions frame collective behavior as irrational, disruptive, dangerous, and excessive. This image has persisted despite Park's recognition of the positive consequences of collective behavior, Turner and Killian's emphasis on the rational processes of communication in many crowd settings, and the emergence of a "second Chicago school" more concerned with processual dynamics than with structural strain (Snow and Davis 1995). Rightly or wrongly, the negative image of collective behavior that has been attributed to collective behavior theorists played a major role in the subsequent decline of strain and breakdown theories of collective action. Another variation in the collective behavior tradition involves theories of relative deprivation (Davies 1962; Geschwender 1968; Gurr 1970). In this case, the strain is most evident on the social-psychological level of how people assess their current situation against various reference groups or past or anticipated future situations. Whenever they find a benchmark that implies they could or should be better off than they are, a condition of relative deprivation exists and this psychological strain triggers participation in collective behavior. In Geschwender's (1968) synthesis around the concept of cognitive dissonance and Gurr's (1970) invoking of 50 STEVEN M. BUECHLER frustration-aggression mechanisms, the concept of strain bee.omes a p,syehologi,cal mechanism invoked to explain people's propensity to engage m co~leetlve be~avlOr. The collective behavior tradition also includes a structural versIOn of stram and breakdown theories of collective behavior. Structural-functionalism provides the link between Durkheim's ([1893] 1964) concerns with social integration, Parsons' (1951) theory of functionally integrated social systems, and Smelser's (1962) theory of collective behavior. Smelser proposed a value-added scheme of six factors that are individually necessary and collectively sufficient to cause an episode of collective behavior. The forms of collective behavior range from panics, crazes, and fads to riots and reform and revolutionary movements. In all cases, the behavior emerges from a sequence of structural conduciveness, structural strain, generalized beliefs, precipitating factors, mobilization for action, and the breakdown of social control. Structural strain is loosely defined as ambiguities, deprivations, conflicts, and dis crepancies in social structure. When strain does provoke collective behavior in the context of the other determinants, such behavior involves a short-circuiting of levels of social action that gives it a crude, excessive, eccentric, or impatient quality. This quality is amplified by the generalized beliefs that accompany the behavior and are inherently irrational cognitive responses. If effective social controls are in place, any one of these stages can be prevented and the sequential development of collective behavior can be aborted; hence the breakdown of such controls is a crucial determin ant. Smelser thus manages to combine the concepts of strain and breakdown into a macrostructural theory of collective behavior. Mass society theory is an important variant on functionalist approaches to col lective behavior that evokes Durkheim's classical concerns with the dangers of anomie and egoism in modern society. For this perspective, modernity is distin ~uished by the emergence of large-scale social structures but the disappearance of mid-level groups that provide social anchors for individuals (Kornhauser 1959). With the demise of small social groups, modern society becomes a mass society in which isolation, depersonalization, and alienation prevail. Mass society theory predicted that the most isolated and alienated individuals would gravitate toward participation in collective behavior because it offered one of the few available social anchors. Although this prediction proved spectacularly unsuccessful (because isol ated actors are no more likely to join collective behavior than any other collective undertaking), the assumptions reiterated structural-functionalism's premise: that social order normally precludes collective behavior which must be explained in terms of social strain or breakdown that leads to psychological discontent, irrational ideation, and deviant behavior. The concepts of strain and breakdown are the threads that connect an otherwise diverse group of social thinkers. From Durkheim and the European crowd theorists through the early Chicago School to the structural-functionalists, sociologists have regularly invoked strain and breakdown as explanations for collective behavior. One crudt measure of this approach's predominance is an overview of the field published by Marx.and ~ood (1975) ~n the first Annual Review of Sociology. They offer a lengthy dISCUSSIon of the strams underlying collective behavior and a detailed review of the theorists discussed at:o~e. While criticizing specific versions of the theory, they nonetheless argue for retammg the concept of strain as a generalized and central explanation for collective behavior. Moreover, the section of their article devoted to social strain is the only discussion of causal factors underlying collective behavior. STRAIN AND BREAKDOWN THEORIES 51 To judge from this history and summary, strain and breakdown theories enjoyed a preeminent position and a bright future. Less than ten years later, J. Craig Jenkins (1983) published a similar overview in the ninth Annual Review ofSociology. There is a brief discussion of movement formation that assesses the relative causal weight of various factors, but there is no mention of strain or breakdown in precipitating social movements. The contrast between these two assessments hints at the para digm shift that occurred from the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s in the study of collective action. Like all such shifts, this one raised new questions and marginalized old ones; in the process, the role of strain and breakdown theories were effectively driven underground.
THE DEMISE OF STRAIN AND BREAKDOWN THEORIES
Strain and breakdown theories virtually disappeared because they were seen rightly or wrongly - as inextricably linked to a collective behavior paradigm that came under relentless criticism from resource mobilization theorists. Like most paradigm shifts, this one involved a blend of scientific and extra-scientific elements. There were serious problems with the collective behavior tradition. But this shift also followed larger disciplinary trends as approaches stressing values, integration, and consensus gave way to those emphasizing conflict, domination, and resistance. And these larger trends were themselves linked to social changes and political challenges beginning with the civil rights movement and expanding into the myriad social movements and legitimation challenges of the 1960s. Hence this paradigm shift had something to do with inherent weaknesses of the collective behavior tradition and everything to do with a rapidly changing sociohistorical context and the ways in which a new generation of sociologists imported those changes into the discipline (Buechler 2000). McAdam's (1982) critique of the collective behavior tradition highlights several problems. For example, the claim that social movements are a response to social strain is deeply problematic. It ignores the larger political context in which move ments arise, and it assumes a mechanistic and linear relationship between macrolevel strain and microlevel behavior. The identification of individual discontent as the proximate cause of social movements constitutes a second problem. In at least some versions of the theory, this presumes an abnormal psychological profile that sharply distinguishes participants from nonparticipants in collective behavior. But aside from this difficulty, the individual level of analysis invoked here ignores how individual mental states are translated into genuinely collective phenomena. Finally, the individualistic emphasis denies the political dimension of collective behavior by implying that it is nothing more than a "convenient justification for what is at root a psychological phenomenon" (McAdam 1982: 17). When such assumptions guide the analysis, collective behavior is more likely to be perceived as deviant behavior than political action. The resource mobilization alternative challenged the accepted wisdom about collective behavior in at least four ways. First, it rejected the subsumption of social movements under collective behavior and suggested that the former were different enough from the latter to warrant their own mode of analysis. Second, social movements were seen as exhibiting enduring, patterned, institutionalized elements, 52 STEVEN M. BUECHLER thereby challenging the traditional cla~s~fication of them as _noninstitutlo~lal behavior. Third, newer approaches expltCltly argued that partlu~ants in soual movements were "at least as rational as those who study them" (Schwartz 1976: 135), and this premise of the rational actor became a cornerst~~e of s.ocial move ment analysis. Finally, newer approaches accentuated the political dlOlenslo~ of movement challenges by conceptualizing them as rooted in collective understandmgs of group interests; this political interpretation largely displaced the :arlier psycho logical interpretation of collective behavior. Having disentangled sOCIal movem.ents from other forms of collective behavior (and assumptions about that hehavlOr), resource mobilization theory proceeded to analyze movements as political struggles over conflicting interests that share many organizational dynamics with more insti tutionalized forms of action (McCarthy and Zald 1973, 1977; Oberschall 1973; Tilly 1978). In sharp contrast to the collective behavior tradition, resource mobiliza tion theory thus viewed social movements as normal, rational, political challenges by aggrieved groups. Resource mobilization theory thereby redefined the study of collective action from an example of deviance and social disorganization to a case study in political and organizational sociology. In addition to broad critiques of the collective behavior tradition, there were several direct challenges to the role of strain and breakdown in explainingcollective behavior. One predated the emergence of the resource mobilization perspective, but it antici pated that perspective's critique of the collective behavior tradition and its alternative conceptualization of collective behavior. The topic was the urban race riots of the 1960s, and the challenge came in Skolnick's (1969) report to a national commission on violence. Skolnick identified the two prevailing explanations of collective behavior as focusing on either the social strain and tension that produce frustration and hostility, or the breakdown of normal systems of social control that otherwise pre clude collective behavior. In both cases, the resulting collective behavior is conceived as nonconforming or even deviant behavior that is unstable, disorderly, and ir rational. Moreover, participants are portrayed as destructive and irrational while authorities are seen as normal and reasonable. Having reviewed the available evi dence. Skolnick concluded that such explanations are deeply flawed. First, the con cepts of frustration and tension are too vague and psychologistic to adequately explain the urban riots of the 1960s. Moreover, such explanations obscure the political nature of those riots and the fact that otherwise normal and presumably rational people participated in them. Finally, Skolnick concluded that the violence was less a quality of the rioters than an emergent product of the interactions berween protesters and authorities. Skolnick's critique thus challenged many assumptions of the collective behavior paradigm, including strain and breakdown explanations. The second challenge came from Tilly (Tilly et al. 1975), and it was part of the rise of the resource mobilization alternative. Tilly traced the development of strain and breakdown theories from Durkheim through Smelser, but questioned whether strain and breakdown consistently produce anomie and whether anomie consistently produces either individual or collective disorder. Tilly's alternative explanation argued that group solidarity is the key factor in explaining collective action. Tilly sought to under~ine any sharp disti~~tion between routine political struggle and VIolence b~ argumg ~hat the same pohttcal dynamics and solidarity processes under lay both. LIke Skolmck, when violence occurs it is best seen as an interactive product that emerges between protesters and authorities rather than a quality of protesters ,TRAIN AND BREAKDOWN THEORIES 53 themselves. \lon:over, Till~' claims tlut when collective violence does occur, partici pants do nor act impulsively or unreflectively but rather with a clear grasp of their actions. finally, protesters rarely choose between violence or nonviolence directly; they rather choose different taerics and strategies that, in conjunction with the response of authorities, 11<1\'e differential chances of leading to violence. While Tilly's specific target here was stereotypical views of violent and irrational mass behavior, his broader ambition was to shift explanations of such incidents from strain and breakdown (and all their related assumptions about collective behavior) to solidarity and organization (and an alternative set of related assumptions). Tilly's conclusion heralded a major paradigm shift:
Breakdown theories of collective action ... suffer from irreparable logical and empirical difficulties. Some sort of solidarity theory should work better everywhere. No matter where we look, we should rarely find uprooted, marginal, disorganized people heavily involved in collective violence. All over the world we should expect collective violence to flow out of routine collective action and continuing struggles for power. (Tilly et a1. 1975: 290)
Within a short time, the major debates were within the resource mobilization paradigm rather than between rival paradigms. As these debates unfolded, it became clear that this paradigm implicitly marginalized strain and breakdown while pursu ing other questions. The broadest example was the shift from a deterministic collective behavior paradigm (with strain and breakdown as major determinants) to an agency-oriented resource mobilization paradigm in which actors' purposes, interests, and goals displace deterministic factors. The insistence that collective action was political and not psychological foreclosed questions about the subjective states of movement actors and the possible role of strain. The promotion of the rational actor model dismissed issues of emotion, frustration, and strain. The emphasis on resources downplayed grievances and their relationship to social strains. The focus on internal movement dynamics displaced questions of external causal mechanisms. The narrowing of the boundary between routine and nonroutine forms of collective action eclipsed the role of strain and breakdown explanations. The privileging of formal organization obscured spontaneous forms of protest more amenable to analysis via strain and breakdown theories. In every case, the salience of strain and breakdown was marginalized by the new concerns associated with the resource mobilization framework. These were the circumstances that allowed an authoritative review article pub lished during the height of resource mobilization's predominance (Jenkins 1983) to avoid any reference to strain and breakdown theories as explanations of collective action. Such explanations were driven underground in three ways. First, direct critiques of strain and breakdown theories challenged them on their own terms. Second, the rise of the resource mobilization paradigm undermined the collective behavior tradition within which strain and breakdown theories had been embedded. And third, the research program launched by resource mobilization theory pursued questions and sought answers that rendered strain and breakdown marginal to social movement theory. By the mid-1980s, it appeared that strain and breakdown theories were completely moribund. Nonetheless, such theories persisted despite these challenges. 54 STEVEN M. BUECHLER
THE PERSISTENCE OF STRAIN AND BREAKDOWN THEORIES
Although resource mobilization theory successful~y wrested social.mov~ment.s from the grab bag of collective behavior, they were qUlckly co~ce~tuahzed I.n an msul~r way that privileged reform movements and formal orgamzatlOn. One Irony of thiS development is that until very recently (e.g., ~cAdam et a1.. 2001) theory and research into revolutionary movements has remalOed largely divorced from much of the work done in the resource mobilization paradigm despite Tilly's (1978) claim that revolutionary movements involve the same dynamics as more limited. social protest. In any case, the study of revolution became ?ne place w~ere st~am and breakdown theories retained a foothold in the explanatIOn of collective action. Not surprisingly, some breakdown theories of revolution were derived fr~m the sa~e functionalist tradition that spawned Smelser's (1962) theory of collective behaVIOr. Johnson's (1966) theory of revolutionary change echoed Smelser's emphasis on system disequilibrium as a trigger of rapid change. In classic functionalist style, such disruption could be avoided if various social subsystems grew in tandem. If and when some subsystems develop more rapidly or independently of others, the resulting strain and imbalance will foster anomie and predispose people to look for alternative social arrangements. Huntington (1968) built on this tradition to argue that it is when educational and economic growth outstrip political development that such institutional imbalances foster revolutionary change. Like Smelser's classic 'lpproach, these theories point to a combination of structural strain and social breakdown to explain collective action. In the more recent work of Goldstone (1986, 1991a, 1991b), the concept of state breakdown looms large in the explanation of revolution. Goldstone (1991a) argues that revolutions follow similar causal processes involving state breakdown, revolu tionary contention, and state rebuilding. The origin of state breakdown involves a conjunction of state fiscal distress, elite alienation and conflict, and high mobiliza tion potential among the general populace. In this interactive model, all three clements must be present if a full revolutionary challenge is to unfold. The back ground causes of this conjunctural model of state breakdown are historically spe cific, though they often involve demographic growth and population shifts that put new pressure on state resources (Goldstone 1991b). Ideological and cultural factors enter into the revolutionary process, but more as supporting actors than lead performers. Ideologies are not created de novo as much as preexisting ideologies are reinterpreted in revolutionary circumstances. Thus cultural factors do not account for the collapse of existing social structures, but they do shape the political order that follows (Goldstone 1991b). In his most definitive statement, Goldstone concludes that stat.e breakdowns from 1500 to 1850 resulted from a single basic process of populatIOn growth that overwhelmed agrarian bureaucratic states and prompted fi~al instabili~, intra-elite conflicts, popular unrest, and revolutionary Ideology. nll~ pattern triggered state breakdown in the sixteenth and early seven teenth cent~C1es as well as the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries when the populatl~n grew significantly in th~ ea~ly modern world (Goldstone 199ib). Goldstone s ,,:ork developed In relative isolation from the resource mobilization approach to SOCial movements and vice versa. This isolation has reinforced the split STRAIN AND BREAKDOWN THEORIES 55 between the resource mobilization paradigm and any serious consideration of strain and breakdown variables in the emergence of collective action. The lack of reson ance between these approaches is perhaps overdetermined. Where resource mobil ization theory tends to favor actor-centered, purposive, and goal-oriented efforts at social change, Goldstone's model emphasizes deterministic background factors like demographic changes. Where resource mobilization theory tends to favor internal variables like resource control and micromobilization efforts, Goldstone's model cites external variables like fiscal instability and elite divisions. And where resource mobilization approaches credit the strength of challenging groups as the determining factor in movement success, Goldstone's approach underscores regime weakness and state breakdown as determining factors. In all these ways, the causal imagery of Goldstone's theory is more reminiscent of the classical collective behavior tradition than of the newer approaches to social movements, and hence it is not surprising that there has been little cross-fertilization of these perspectives. One notable exception involves Goldstone's (1980) critique of Gamson's (1975) The Strategy ofSocial Protest. In that work, Gamson analyzed a historical sample of challenging groups to identify factors that contributed to movement success or failure. Gamson outlined two types of success in the form of acceptance or new advantages, yielding a fourfold set of possibilities ranging from complete success to co-optation to preemption to failure. Gamson concluded that a movement's choice of goals, tactics, and organization all significantly affected the probability ofsuccess. Goldstone challenged these findings by claiming that Gamson overstated the role of organization and other movement variables on movement success. The specific critique concerns Gamson's operationalization of success versus failure and his decision to lump together groups that won partial advantages and no advantages as failures for the sake of analysis. Goldstone claims that if groups that won partial advantages are redefined as successes, then the only variable that is important is whether groups seek to displace powerholders. All of the nondisplacing groups were successful by Goldstone's more generous definition of success, while fully 75 percent of the displacing groups failed in this reinterpretation. Goldstone offered an alterna tive explanation in which the timing of movement success is correlated with larger systemic shocks like wars or political and economic crises when elites are more willing to make concessions. Having undermined the role of internal factors like movement organization and tactics, Goldstone's critique thus sought to underscore the importance of external factors like societal strain and breakdown as accounting for movement success. Gamson's response focused on how success is defined. He pointed out that Gold stone oversimplified the issue of success by dealing only with new advantages and not acceptance, and he defended his exclusion ofgroups that won only peripheral or equivocal advantages from the success category. Indeed, where Goldstone claimed the original analysis was too stringent in its operationalization of success and excluded groups that should have been seen as successes, Gamson argued that the original analysis was too lax in using a definition of success that included "shadow successes" and "tag-a-long" successes that would be better coded as nonsuccesses (Gamson 1980). Gamson's defense stressed more complex combinations of move ment successes and failures that in turn required analysis of variables like organiza tion, goals, and tactics to differentially explain movement outcomes. Gamson also noted that his original argument acknowledged the importance of crisis periods in 56 STEVEN M. BUECHLER influencing movement success or failure, but did not assign it the overwhelming importance it assumed in Goldstone's critical revision. Whil~ this debate IS complex and the positions may be incommensurable, the most telling comment was trom Gamson's conclusion which stated his "personal preference ... to pursue arguments that rely on manipulable variables" such as mobilization and organization "because these are things that challenging groups can controL Hence, the argument has immediate relevance for practice" (Gamson 1980: 1058). Gamson acknowledged that Goldstone had a different perspective on the issues and that the data are subject to multiple interpretations. Thus one of the few direct exchanges between a break down theorist and a resource mobilization theorist ends with a metatheoretical reflection acknowledging foundational differences between agency-centered re source mobilization approaches and deterministic breakdown theories. The persistence of breakdown theories may also be seen in Piven and Cloward's (1977) work on poor people's movements. It is telling that, like Goldstone, they defend the importance of breakdown processes while criticizing the role of organization in protest. While Goldstone questioned the explanatory relevance of organization to differential outcomes, Piven and Cloward challenged it on stra tegic grounds. For them, it is not possible for formal organizations to compel concessions from elites that can sustain those organizations over time; organizations rather endure by abandoning their oppositional politics. In an argument reminiscent of Michels (1961), they see formal organization as unwittingly providing elites with a mechanism for containing and channeling protest. Moreover, the emphasis on formal organization has obscured the efficacy of unorganized protest and mass defiance, which they claim has been responsible for the limited but important gains of poor people's movements. In this view, resource mobilization's emphasis on formal organization amounts to conceptual blinders that preclude analysts from considering other forms of protest. Piven and Cloward emphasize the extent to which social structures limit opportunities for protest and diminish its force when it does occur. If social insti tutions typically preclude opportunities for protest, then it is only under rare and exceptional circumstances that deprived groups will be in a position to pursue their grievances. Thus major social dislocations are necessary before longstanding grievances can find expression in collective defiance. It is here that they point to social breakdowns in society's regulatory capacity and everyday routines as provid ing rare but potent opportunities for mass defiance. But breakdown is not enough; people must also see their deprivations and problems as unjust, mutable, and subject to their a~tion. S~ch. ins~ghts are likely.only when the scale of distress is high or when the dominant institutIOns are obVIOusly malfunctioning. Societal breakdown thus .n~t only d~srupt~ regulatory capacity and everyday routines; it also opens a cogmtlve space In which people can begin to consider and pursue alternative social arrangements. When protest happens, it is shaped by the institutional structures in which it occurs as people choose targets, strategies, and tactics. Mass defiance will be effe~tive ~o the extent that it disrupts institutions that are important to elites. Def1anc~ IS thus best seen as a negative sanction imposed by protesters to extract concesslon~. Whereas the logi~ of strikes or boycotts involves withholding valuable reso~rces hk~ labo~ or purchasmg power, the only thing deprived groups may be able to Withhold IS theu acquiescence to the social order. Mass defiance thus provides STRAIN AND BREAKDOWN THEORIES 57 the only true leverage they have, and it is precisely such defiance that is likely to be tamed by formal protest organizations. In an interesting twist, breakdown is not just a background causal factor in protest but is also a deliberate strategy as protesters seek to exacerbate institutional disruption to the point where they win concessions they would not otherwise realize. While mass defiance may be able to win only limited victories that are subsequently overturned, Piven and Cloward argue that these may be the only meaningful victories that are possible for poor people's movements. This argument achieved considerable notoriety and sparked sharp debate over the role of formal organization in protest. One issue concerns the generalizability of the argument. Piven and Cloward's experience in the welfare rights movement of the 1960s may have colored their interpretations of the civil rights movement and the poor people's movements of the 1930s; if so, their argument may not fully apply to all the cases in their book. Others have challenged the applicability of the argument to other poor people's movements (Cress and Snow 1996), as well as to movements with different constituencies. For groups with a resource base, formal organization may not necessarily spell the death of effective protest. In any event, their advocacy of breakdown theories of protest fits a larger pattern that includes a critical stance toward the efficacy of formal organization in protest and toward the resource mobilization paradigm that has championed the role of organization in movement success. There is one other element that fits the pattern. Even though Piven and Cloward write as advocates of the movements they analyze (unlike classical theorists of strain and breakdown), there is a decidedly deterministic and pessimistic cast to their conclusions about the probabilities that such movements will achieve significant and lasting results. In a subsequent programmatic statement, Piven and Cloward (1992) offer an explicit defense of breakdown theories - what they call the malintegration (MI) approach - and a sharp critique of the resource mobilization perspective. They argue that resource mobilization advocates sought to normalize protest by emphasizing the similarities between conventional action and protest behavior. In so doing, the distinction between normative and non-normative forms of protest was seriously blurred, and the role of organization in protest was exaggerated. Piven and Cloward note that non-normative protest is a more basic challenge to power since it not only pursues a specific agenda but does so in a way that challenges elite power and rule making. The distinction is critical to the debate: "MI analysts do not claim that breakdown is a necessary precondition of normative forms of group action. What they emphasize instead is that breakdown is a precondition of collective protest and violence, of riot and rebellion ... In effect, the MI tradition is being dismissed for an argument it never made" (Piven and Cloward 1992: 306). They proceed to challenge the role of organization - what they call lateral integration - in facilitating protest by arguing that such organization is often present over long periods of time and in circumstances that don't generate protest. If true, the "variable" of protest cannot be explained by the "constant" of organization. For Piven and Cloward, it is vertical integration that is crucial. Hierarchical social structures normally constrain opportunities for protest, but it is when those linkages are weakened through social breakdown and when grievances intensify that defiance is likely to emerge. In all these ways, they chastise the resource mobilization approach for marginalizing lower-stratum protest. The normalization of protest by S8 STEVEN M. BUECHLER . d' h' h' t .'t was part of an effort to the resource mobilization para Igm as tts own IS ory, 1 .' disentangle the equation of protest with d.eviant, sp~ntaneous" contag~~us, Ir rational, and dangerous action in the classiCal collective behavIOr tradmon..In winning that battle, however, the distinction between normative and non-norm~tlve protest was indeed blurred, and the wholesale rejection of breakdown theorIes recall Tilly's sweeping statement quoted above - was an ill-considered and prema ture conclusion. In support of their position, Piven and Cloward note that malinte gration ideas are returning to some resource mobilization arguments as analyst~ try to square theoretical assumptions with empirical realities. Even so, they do so WIth a different conceptual language that obscures similarities to breakdown arguments. Along with Goldstone's work on revolution, the contributions of Piven and Cloward illustrate the persistence of strain and breakdown theories during the predominance of the resource mobilization paradigm. Another example of the persistence of breakdown theories is provided by a well known study of the Boston antibusing movement. Useem (1980) distinguished be tween two versions of breakdown theory. The mass society version predicted that socially isolated individuals are more likely to become involved in collective action, while the discontent version said that discontent increases along with disorganization and that increasing discontent motivates protest. Both versions have been criticized by solidarity theorists. In the Boston antibusing movement, Useem found that high ,"ommunity attachment and secondary group participation were correlated with movement participation. He concluded that these findings validate the solidarity model and refuted the mass society variant of breakdown theory. However, he also found that high levels of discontent were correlated with movement participation. With further analysis, Useem argued that while disorganization did not increase dlS4:ontent, an increase in discontent nonetheless occurred and it contributed to movement participation. Useem concludes that "solidarity increases discontent by multiplying the effects of grievance-producing events" (Useem 1980: 366). The partial validity of one version of the breakdown model is taken to reveal a flaw in the ~()lidarity model's assumption that grievances and discontent are constant factors for aggrieved groups. In the antibusing movement, the discontent identified by break down theory made an independent contribution alongside solidarity processes in motivating participation. Useem's conclusion that "both the breakdown and solidar Ity theories help to explain protest" (1980: 368) is a rare example of a more nuanced and interactive understanding of how breakdown and solidarity may be related. A more recent reformulation of breakdown theories extends this effort to overcome what may be a false dichotomy between breakdown and solidarity ap proaches. Snow et al. (1998) suggest that although the terms "strain" and "break down" are often used interchangeably, breakdown is a specific form of the broader concept of strain. Traditional breakdown theories viewed collective action as rooted 10 rapid social change and disintegration, which weakens social cohesion and exacerbates.tensions and frustrations. Snow et a1. (1998) acknowledge that break down theOries fell out of favor in the last third of the twentieth century because of ,onccptual vagueness, empirical weakness, and theoretical fads. However they argue that the rejection of breakdown approaches was premature, and that a r~vised vefilOo. of,breakdown theory can be formulated that is compatible with the role of ~hdanty 10 generating collective action and that empirically fits with a wide range 01 collective action. STRAIN AND BREAKDOWN THEORIES 59 The core of their argument is that the link between social breakdown and collective action is the disruption of the quotidian nature of social life. The latter refers to all the taken-for-granted aspects of everyday life; more specifically, the quotidian consists of daily practices and routines that comprise habitual social action, alongside the natural attitude of routinized expectations and the suspension of doubt about the organization of the social world and one's role within it. "When the quotidian is disrupted, then, routinized patterns of action are rendered problem atic and the natural attitude is fractured" (Snow et al. 1998: 5). In this way, a specific type of breakdown is seen as the impetus to collective action. As with all forms of breakdown theory, there are many ways in which people might respond to disrup tions of the quotidian, so it remains to specify which disruptions are most likely to provoke collective action rather than social withdrawal, individual coping, or anti social behavior. At a minimum, the disruption must be experienced collectively and it must not have a normal, institutional resolution if it is to provoke collective action (Snow et al. 1998: 6). Four categories of events fit these guidelines. First, accidents that disrupt a com munity's routines or threaten its existence through "suddenly imposed grievances" are likely to spark collective action; Walsh's (1981) study of the community response to the nuclear accident at Three Mile Island is the classic example. Second, intru sions into or violations of community space by strangers or outsiders can provoke such responses: the cases of anti-drunk driving movements, antibusing movements, or neighborhood movements that resist halfway houses, group homes, or toxic waste dumps provide examples here. Third, changes in taken-for-granted subsist ence routines can provoke collective action: the response of homeless people to disruptions in habituated survival routines provides examples of this type. Finally, and perhaps most evidently, dramatic changes in structures of social control can disrupt quotidian routines and provoke collective action: research on prison riots provide examples here. Several implications of this reformulated version of breakdown theory are worth emphasis. First, this formulation resonates with both theory and intuition suggesting that people respond more rapidly to threats to existing resources and routines than to opportunities for changing them. Second, quotidian disruption may thereby substitute - within limits - for factors like framing, resources, and organization because actors motivated by threatened losses will have higher levels of motivation that may reduce the need for other resources. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, Snow and his associates challenge the presumed dichotomy between breakdown and solidarity by specifying that breakdown involves patterns and expectancies of every day life rather than associational ties between individuals. Thus the breakdown of everyday routines can occur alongside strong ties within groups, and it is this combination that may be most likely to promote collective action. This more sophisticated treatment of the classic breakdown hypothesis thereby rescues a pre maturely abandoned concept, removes the taint of irrationality, undermines the dichotomy between breakdown and solidarity, and fits a wide range of collective phenomena. As such, it suggests the utility of a more carefully specified breakdown theory. Earlier I cited review articles to illustrate the prevalence of strain and breakdown theories until 1975 and their decline by the mid-1980s. Despite the decline, their persistence is documented in Useem's (1998) recent review of breakdown theories. 60 STEVEN M. BUECHLER Useem reiterates that while breakdown theories were the classical explanation for riots, rebellion\and civil violence, their popularity eroded in the 1970s with the rise 1 of resource mobilization approaches and the corresponding argument that solidarity rather than breakdown is crucial to explaining collective action. Useem's review The thesis makes several helpful observations about this paradigm shift. First, he argues that returned to breakdown theories and resource mobilization theories analyze different phenom never reall) ena, and the field needs to be open to both types of explanation. While this seems My conten' almost self-evident, it is remarkable how rarely the debate has paused to make sical theOl'i distinctions between different types of collective action that may indeed require ists mean b different explanations. Second, one such distinction is between routine and non is the valua routine collective action. Whereas Tilly (1978) and others sought to erode this down" int distinction and thereby reject breakdown theories, the distinction should be pre avoided, OJ served and the role of breakdown in explaining nonroutine collective action should paradigm, 1 be examined more closely. Third, the same distinction would specify the role of value judgl organization, which is admittedly crucial to routine forms of collective action but (1998) has may be less important to nonroutine collective action. Fourth, Useem cites a range of see social c evidence that provides at least partial support for breakdown theories, including further con reassessments of the urban riots of the 1960s, factors promoting criminal activity mechanism among youth, the dynamics of poor people's movements, spirals of ethnic conflict, halo of neg and disruptions of the quotidian. The cone Perhaps Useem's most interesting observations concern the implicit value biases of provided t these paradigms. At some risk of oversimplification, he suggests that resource allowed th, mobilization theorists interpret all government response as repression that raises context, th costs for protesters, whereas breakdown theorists recognize that this can be a moral desired, sei response expressing widely held societal views. This is really a subterranean debate way of tall about the legitimacy of dissent versus social order that appears inextricably inter facilitate CI twined with the concepts of the two paradigms. In a similar vein, Useem argues that breakdown resource mobilization theorists emphasize the positive aspects of aggression, collective a whereas breakdown theorists are more likely to see its negative aspects. As noted many diffel earliel; this is a longstanding tension that originated in the classical collective on breakdc behavior paradigm's negative view of collective behavior and was self-consciously review. Ho challenged by resource mobilization's valorization of collective action. It would has becomi appear that such valuations remain deeply embedded in the theoretical concepts The coni used to analyze collective action. In any event, Useem concludes that the breakdown Tilly's (197 perspective warrants further investigation with particular emphasis on the emer as the inCl'l gence of nonroutine forms of collective action that result from faltering social contender J control or disrupted cultural routines. which oth( The contributions of Goldstone, Piven and Cloward, Snow et aI., and Useem interests. C illustrate how strain and breakdown have persisted as explanations of at least of governn some forms of collective action despite the predominance of a paradigm that has Opportunil been relentlessly hostile to such ideas. More broadly, this history illustrates how of contendl classical concepts and theories never completely disappear from the discipline, it seems ev though they may undergo significant revision. Indeed, if there is any cumulative tures woul, progression in the development of sociological explanation, it may arise from a latter's dialectic whereby classical notions are thoroughly challenged but persist in revised minirnal stl and more carefully specified forms. This process seems evident in the persistence and perhaps, even the return of strain and breakdown approaches in social movement theory. STRAIN AND BREAKDOWN THEORIES 61 nation for ith the rise THE RETURN OF STRAIN AND BREAKDOWN THEORIES t solidarity n's review The thesis of this brief section is that strain and breakdown theories have already lrgues that returned to mainstream social movement theory. Indeed, it can be argued that they t phenom never really left, eVfn during the ascendancy of the resource mobilization approach. this seems My contention is that there is considerable conceptual overlap between what clas :l to make sical theorists mean by strain or breakdown and what resource mobilization theor ed require ists mean by opportunity. What separates the approaches and obscures this equation : and non is the valuational bias of each set of concepts. The very terms "strain" and "break erode this down" inherently connote negative, problematic conditions to be prevented, tid be pre avoided, or repaired. As these terms functioned in the classical collective behavior ion should paradigm, there can be little argument that they conveyed deeply embedded negative the role of value judgments about the appropriateness of collective behavior. And as Useem action but (1998) has recently reminded us, breakdown theorists to this day are more likely to ; a range of see social control in a positive light and protester aggression in a negative light. My , including further contention is that it was not just the notion of breakdown as a neutral causal lal activity mechanism that provoked the ire of resource mobilization theorists; it was also the jc conflict, halo of negative value judgments surrounding the concept that drew their fire. The concept of opportunity was tailor-made for this debate. On the one hand, it le biases of provided the transvaluation sought by resource mobilization proponents that It resource allowed them to paint collective action in a positive light. Particularly in the US that raises context, the concept of "opportunity" inherently signifies something to be sought, be a moral desired, seized, enjoyed, valued, and maximized. On the other hand, it preserved a .ean debate way of talking about changes in structural conditions and cultural contexts that ~ably inter facilitate collective action. By substituting the concept of opportunity for that of argues that breakdown, resource mobilization theorists retained a powerful explanation for aggressIOn, collective action while reversing the valuations placed on that action. There are as ;. As noted many different versions of opportunity in recent approaches as there are variations 1 collective on breakdown in the classical tradition, and this is not the place for an exhaustive :onsciously review. However, a brief overview will illustrate some ways in which "opportunity" I. It would has become a substitute for "breakdown." al concepts The concept of opportunity has been there from the beginning as an element in breakdown Tilly's (1978) mobilization model of collective action. Most basically, it was defined 1 the emer as the increased vulnerability of other groups and governments to the actions of a ~ring social contender pursuing its interests. The flip side of opportunity is threat: the extent to which other groups are able to make claims that would damage a contender's and Useem interests. Closely related are repression or facilitation; these are usually the province of at least of governments whose actions may raise or lower the costs of collective action. ;m that has Opportunities emerge when the established order becomes vulnerable to the actions ;trates how of contenders and when their costs of acting are reduced. While not the same thing, discipline, it seems evident that strains and breakdowns in existing social and cultural struc cumulative tures would precisely increase their vulnerability to contender's claims and reduce rise from a the latter's costs of acting. Conversely, a strongly integrated social order with it in revised minimal strain or tendencies toward breakdown would be one in which contenders ;istence and are more vulnerable than authorities and the costs of acting collectively are consider . movement ably higher. Increases or decreases in strain or breakdown thus mirror increases or decreases in movement opportunity, including the costs of acting. Both sets of 62 STEVEN M. BUECHLER concepts refer to external factors typically beyon~ th: control of c1aima~ts, ~n~ both function as variables suited to explaining the eplsodlC nature of collec,tlve actIOn. McAdam's (1982) well-established political process model recogmzes a central role for opportunity in the emergence of collective action. Alongside organizational readiness and insurgent consciousness, political opportunities constitute the third essential ingredient in this recipe for insurgency. Alterations in political opportunity structures reduce power discrepancies between authorities and challengers and increase the cost of repressing protest. While phrased somewhat differently, this is Tilly's logic reiterated; once again, increasing strain or breakdown is mirrored in increased power for challengers relative to authorities and increased costs of social control for authorities. In a more recent synthetic statement by Tarrow (1994), opportunity is also recognized as a crucial variable in the emergence of social protest. While some types of opportunity are relatively consistent features of the political environment that correspond to a notion of social strain, others are more variable (unstable alignments, divided elites) and correspond to a notion of break down. Tarrow also underscores the. ways in which movements not only seize preexisting opportunities but strategize to create opportunities in which to act. A parallel in breakdown theory may be found in Piven and Cloward's argument that social disorganization is not just a cause of defiance but also a goal of that defiance because heightened disorganization is a means of extracting concessions from authorities. In all these ways, where a classical theorist sees strain or break down, a resource mobilization theorist sees opportunity. While the valuations placed on these concepts are diametrically opposed, they do essentially the same work in each theory as external, variable conditions that alter the balance of power between authorities and contenders, and hence the likelihood of collective action itself. European new social movement theory provides another example where the concept of opportunity looms large as an understudy for what might otherwise be considered strain and breakdown. The work of Kriesi et al. (1995) provides an impressive example in which different types of political opportunity structures are defined and explored cross-nationally. In addition to this recognition of opportunity as a stand-in for breakdown, new social movement theory has always been more comfortable with notions of strain or breakdown as explanations for collective action. This may well be because recent European social movement theory is more politicized and resistant to the negative image of protest that plagued US versions of breakdown theory; hence the European versions were less likely to toss the baby out with the bath water. As a result, notions of strain and breakdown feature promin ently in several new social movement theories (Buechler 1995). The most global version may be found in Habermas's arguments that political instability and anomie situations constitute legitimation and motivation crises (1975) or the colonization of the Iifeworld by systemic imperatives (1987) that in turn spur collective action. This image of a social system under strain that provokes collective action is very similar to ~Iassical strain and breakdown theories. What obscures the similarity is the political subtext of the theory. Classical breakdown theory valued social order and integration over collective behavior, whereas new social movement theorists typic ally write as critics of social systems who champion efforts to transform them. The concept of political opportunity has become a well-established element in a theoretic~l.synthesi~ ~n,social movement theory built around the concepts of political opportumttes, mobllizmg structures, and framing processes (McAdam et al. 1996). STRAIN AND BREAKDOWN THEORIES 63 While I have not claimed that opportunity and breakdown are the same thing, I have suggested that they do the same work in each respective theoretical tradition. Both concepts refer to external, variable processes that increase the likelihood of collect ive behavior. Put more polemically, a political process theorist might argue that to whatever extent strain and breakdown are causally relevant, that relevance is captured in the notion of opportunity structures. What is jettisoned are the negative connotations of traditional strain and breakdown theories. To the extent that opportunity has become a stand-in for strain and breakdown, it can be concluded that the latter never really disappeared from social movement theory.
CONCLUSION
Strain and breakdown theories have indeed had a strange career in the sociological explanation of collective action. From the classical era of sociology until well into the twentieth century, they were the central mechanisms for analyzing collective behavior. Then, in the 1970s, such theories were unceremoniously displaced by a ferocious barrage of criticism that ushered in the resource mobilization perspective. Such criticism was directed at the logical and empirical flaws of those approaches as well as the negative imagery of collective behavior implicit in them. Alongside this antagonism to breakdown explanations, resource mobilization theory's assumptions about agency, rationality, politics, and organization led it to ask different questions and pursue different answers than the classical collective behavior tradition. Never theless, strain and breakdown approaches persisted at the margins of the resource mobilization perspective and in the work of critics of that tradition who still saw a role for them. Finally, it can be argued that the concepts of strain and breakdown never really disappeared from social movement theory as much as they went under ground and reappeared in the guise of a new conceptual language about opportun ity. Given recent pronouncements about new syntheses emerging in social movement theory, perhaps it is time for a reconsideration of the role of strain and breakdown in any such synthesis. Any successful effort in this direction will require three levels of specification. Most obviously, we need greater specificity about what it is that undergoes strain or breakdown. The candidates include formal authority structures, informal normative understandings, institutional patterns and processes, and quotidian life. The only obviously nonviable candidate is social ties among potential participants in collect ive action; this is the one instance in which breakdown (of such ties) will reduce rather than increase the chances of collective action. Second, we need greater specificity about the mechanisms by which any type of strain or breakdown is translated into collective action. Even when specified more carefully, strain and breakdown remain broad background factors that could pro mote an equally wide range of responses. We need to tease out the conditions under which strain and breakdown will lead to collective action rather than social isol ation, criminal activity, or antisocial behavior. There is a start in the suggestion that the breakdown must be experienced collectively and that there must not be a ready made institutional response (Snow et a1. 1998), but we still need to understand more clearly under what circumstances breakdown leads to collective action rather than to something else. 64 STEVEN M. BUECHLER
Third, we need greater specificity about what types of collective ac~ion are m?st likely to emerge from specific types of breakdown and strain. The cla~slcal collective behavior approach presumed an extremely broad spectrum, from pames, crazes, and fads to riots, movements, and revolutions. Recent social movement theory has fractured the spectrum and claimed movements as its domain while paying less attention to other forms of collective action. This is precisely where a revised breakdown theory may have its greatest relevance. Hence, the distinction between routine forms of collective action that are more amenable to resource mobilization explanations and nonroutine forms that may derive from strain and breakdown needs to be further explored if we are to specify which types of collective action are most likely to be associated with social strain and breakdown. Finally, while we introduce greater specificity to notions of strain and breakdown, we must do the same with the concept of opportunity (McAdam 1996) so we can then explore the relationships between strain, breakdown, and opportunity more carefully. To do so promises to advance social movement theory while also providing a fascinating test of the extent to which concepts embedded in antithetical theoret ical traditions are capable of genuine synthesis.
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