THE STRUCTURE OF SOCIAL MOVEMENTS: ENVIRONMENTAL ACTIVISM AND ITS OPPONENTS

Editors’ abstract. Get ready for the “SPIN cycle.” Gerlach (University of Minnesota) provides an excellent summary on the organizational and strategic dynamics that characterize all manner of “segmented, polycentric, integrated networks” found in American social movements. This is one of the few studies that discusses social movements from a thoroughgoing network perspective. We believe that many of his observations also apply across the range of “uncivil-society” actors. This chapter stems from his contribution1 to Jo Freeman’s and Victoria Johnson’s edited volume, Waves of Protest (1999), Lanham, Mass.: Rowman and Littlefield, a study of social movements since the 1960s. Reprinted by permission.