Social movement activity and institutionalized politics: A study of the relationship between political party strength and social movement activity in the United States.

Abstract

The relationship between social movement activity and conventional politics has received little systematic attention from the sociological social movements literature. In this dissertation I bring together diverse literatures (i.e., the social movement literature in Sociology and the interest group and political party literature in Political Science) to broaden our conceptualization of social movement activity and to understand more adequately the changing nature of that activity. The central premise of this dissertation is that variation in the openness or accessibility of the political opportunity structure is shaped, in part, by the strength of the political parties. The central proposition is that an erosion of political party strength is associated with an increase in social movement activity within institutionalized politics. Without the centrist demands of a traditional two-party political system, the system is vulnerable to a more diverse set of demands as well as a more extreme set of demands. A second proposition suggests that the degree to which a given party has been in or out of power at the presidential level shapes party vulnerability to social movement interests. This may reflect a natural tendency for parties to become increasingly vulnerable to more radical interests over their period of dominance. To address these questions, an historical analysis of party conventions and party platform battles is utilized. The analysis is designed to yield an empirical description of the tensions between the centrist interests of a traditional two-party system and more radical interests associated with an erosion of party strength in such a system. The significance of these arguments rests upon their demonstration of a faulty conceptualization of institutional versus noninstitutional strategies of collective action that permeates much of the sociological social movements literature. I argue that the distinction should not follow an either/or mentality. Rather, under varying historical circumstances the embeddedness of movement interests within institutional structures should be and is variable as well.