Customer Reviews

The Politics of Protest: Social Movements in America

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Meyer has written a clear, sensible, engaging book on a topic too often obscured by academic code. Meyer is good at showing what the connections are between institutional and non-institutional politics, and goes well beyond the simple assertion that these connections exist. Where others often lament these connections or use them to shed doubt on the actual accomplishments of social movements (i.e., "the system was adjusting anyway"), Meyer shows both that American political structures tend toward incremental change and that action outside of these structures sometimes brings more rapid and systemic change, but that this extra-institutional action is also limited by the durability of our constitutional system. Meyer takes policy change seriously, too, but unlike the change-would-have-happened-anyway crowd, he also calls our attention to the dynamics by which movements and authorities attempt to claim credit for change. Thus, in the end, however pessimistic Meyer can be about the prospects for radical change driven by social movements, he cautions against those who downplay the importance of social movements and protest in contemporary American life. This is a perfect introductory text for a class, and one that is usable at both graduate and undergraduate levels.

This a good introductory text and I am using it as my text for an intro undergrad class. My only negative comment is that much of academics is a progression from previous theories. It would have helped if he had provided more background on previous theories and shown how his perspective is a progression from these earlier models. While his points are comprehensible without prior knowledge of the social movements literature, my novice students find it diffult to fully understand without at least a little background.