政治社会学与社会运动

上世纪70年代，社会运动的研究一直处在一个多样化的探索社会结构和政治行为之间关系的社会学传统中，并专注于解释运动的意识形态、目的、动机、或暴力倾向等政治取向变量。随后，一个摆脱传统的观点重新定义了核心问题，它从根本上缩小了研究动员过程的兴趣范围：无论他们是谁，无论他们的目标是什么，为了成长和成功，社会团体怎么样调动资源，招募追随者并驾御政治环境。批评者后来坚持认为，意义的建构、集体身份的形成、情绪的刺激和放大在动员中会发挥重要却被忽视的作用，他们这些可选方案对已经缩小的问题建构本身也没有构成挑战，由此产生的子领域在很大程度上放弃了寻求解释运动的政治取向的变化。在革命、工会和民族动员相关领域的研究人员保留了解释政治取向的兴趣，尽管他们常常认为这主要是动员的副产品。正在复苏的关于社会结构对运动政治取向影响的理论将需要整合来自相关研究主题广泛而分散的洞见。

Political Sociology and Social Movements

Until the 1970s,the study of social movements was firmly within a diverse sociological tradition that explored the relationship between social structure and political behavior,and was preoccupied with explaining variation in the political orienta?tion of movements:their ideologies,aims,motivations or propensities for violence. Subsequently,a breakaway tradition rede fi ned the central problem,radically narrowing the scope of interest to the process of mobilization—how social groups, whoever they are and whatever their aims,marshal resources,recruit adherents,and navigate political envi?ronments in order to grow and succeed. Critics would later insist that the construction of meaning,the forma?tion of collective identities,and the stimulation and amplification of emotions play vital and neglected roles in mobilization,but these alternatives did not challenge the narrowed construction of the problem itself. The re?sulting sub fi eld has largely abandoned the quest to explain variation in the political orientation of movements. Researchers in related fields— on revolution,unions,and ethnic mobilization—have retained an interest in ex?plaining political orientation,although they often view it primarily as a by-product of mobilization. Reviving theories about the impact of social structure on movement political orientation will require integrating insights from research on related but widely scattered subjects.