Marxism and Social Movements is the first sustained engagement between social movement theory and Marxist approaches to collective action. The chapters collected here, by leading figures in both fields, discuss the potential for a Marxist theory of social movements; explore the developmental processes and political tensions within movements; set the question in a long historical perspective; and analyse contemporary movements against neo-liberalism and austerity. Exploring struggles on six continents over 150 years, this collection shows the power of Marxist analysis in relation not only to class politics, labour movements and revolutions but also anti-colonial and anti-racist struggles, community activism and environmental justice, indigenous struggles and anti-austerity protest. It sets a new agenda both for Marxist theory and for movement research. Contributors include: Paul Blackledge, Marc Blecher, Patrick Bond,Chik Collins, Ralph Darlington, Neil Davidson, Ashwin Desai, Jeff Goodwin, Chris Hesketh, Gabriel Hetland, Elizabeth Humphrys, Christian Høgsbjerg, David McNally, Trevor Ngwane, Heike Schaumberg and Hira Singh.

This book makes a relevant contribution to a Marxist critical explanation of social conflicts, social movements and protests. There is abundant literature on social conflict and social movements from Marxist perspectives. However, rigorous criticism, both theoretical and methodological, is scarce. The objective of this volume is the collection of works developing a critical reflection on the categories of theories about contentious collective action and social movements from a Marxist perspective. In order to better understand these phenomena and go beyond their mere case description, the theory needs to be improved. To that end, the book also promotes the debate between Marxisms and the collective action and new social movements in a renewed way. Here different Marxist arguments consider not only their methodological and ideological bias, but also the specific conceptual contributions of those theories.

This book explores the relationship between diverse social movements and Marxist historical cultures during the second half of the twentieth century in Western Europe, with special emphasis on the Federal Republic of Germany and Italy. During the Cold War, Marxist ideas and understandings of history informed not only the traditional Communist Parties in Western Europe, but also influenced a range of new social movements that emerged in the 1970s in the wake of the 1968 student rebellions. The generation of 1968 was strongly influenced by neo-Marxist ideas that they subsequently carried into the new social movements. The volume asks how Marxist historical cultures influenced third world movements, anti-fascist movements, the peace movement and a whole host of other new social movements that signaled a new vibrancy of civil society in Western Europe from the 1970s onwards.

This book explores the evolution of social movements in South Korea by focusing on how they have become institutionalized and diffused in the democratic period. The contributors explore the transformation of Korean social movements from the democracy campaigns of the 1970s and 1980s to the rise of civil society struggles after 1987. South Korea was ruled by successive authoritarian regimes from 1948 to 1987 when the government decided to re-establish direct presidential elections. The book contends that the transition to a democratic government was motivated, in part, by the pressure from social movement groups that fought the state to bring about such democracy. After the transition, however, the movement groups found themselves in a qualitatively different political context which in turn galvanized the evolution of the social movement sector. Including an impressive array of case studies ranging from the women's movement, to environmental NGOs, and from cultural production to law, the contributors to this book enrich our understanding of the democratization process in Korea, and show that the social movement sector remains an important player in Korean politics today. This book will appeal to students and scholars of Korean studies, Asian politics, political history and social movements.

Searching for Marx in the Occupy Movement is a critical, participant observation study of the Philadelphia branch of the Occupy Wall Street movement. John Leveille spent over nine months with Occupy Philadelphia as the members organized and carried out their protests. This book describes and analyzes the rise, the organization, and the demise of this group. The important events and activities of Occupy Philadelphia are discussed and dissected, with specific attention given to the confusions and chaos that permeated this group, and Occupy Wall Street more generally, which contributed to its rather rapid decline. A revisionist Marxism, informed loosely by the critical theory of the Frankfurt school, is used here to understand and explain the happenings of this protest group. The theory provides an epistemological and methodological framework for this study, and it is also used to account for the observed behaviors. Leveille argues that an essential conflict between humanism and the forces of rational capitalism lies at the heart of this protest movement. This conflict contributed both to the rise of Occupy and to its operations. It was manifested in two intersecting ways. One of these concerns the destabilization of the self in contemporary capitalism, which provided fuel for the movement. The second revolves around the limited abilities of existing institutional arrangements to manage or channel the essential conflicts related to values that are produced by rational capitalism. Ultimately, Searching for Marx in the Occupy Movement makes a controversial claim that the movement was as much, if not more, about democracy, morality, and the organization and experience of the self and of social life as it was about economic matters. The argument is made that Occupy was as much an expressive movement as it was an instrumental one. It was expressing contradictions produced by capitalism through extra-institutional means because the existing institutional arrangements have been and continue to be unable to manage or contain them.

Covered All 8 Chapters as Per Updated Syllabus Theory Cover in Detail Elaborate Each & Every Topic Use Digram to Explain Design by Expert Faculties

Chapter 1 Introduction: U.S. Sociology, the American Dream, and the Specter of Karl Marx Part 2 Part I: Social Structure and Processes Chapter 3 Class Structure: Class, Not Strata: It's Not Just Where You Stand, But What You Stand For Chapter 4 Social Movements: An Argument for Understanding Social Movements as Class Movements Chapter 5 Gender: Marxist Theory and the Oppression of Women Chapter 6 Race: Classical and Recent Theoretical Developments in the Marxist Analysis of Race and Ethnicity Chapter 7 Social Change and Development: "A World After Its Own Image" The Marxist Paradigm and Theories of Capitalist Development on a World Scale Chapter 8 Labor: Labor's Crisis and the Crisis of Labor Studies: Toward a Retheorized Sociology of Labor Chapter 9 State and Politics: From the King of Prussia to the New World Order: Marxist Theories of State and Power Chapter 10 Corporations and the Economy: Marxist Scholarship and the Corporate Economy Chapter 11 Education and Knowledge: Reading Class: Marxist Theories of Education Chapter 12 Medicine and Public Health: The Study of the Health Care System: The Marxist Critique of a Dominant Paradigm Chapter 13 Religion: Marxist-Christian Dialogues: The Liberation of Theology Chapter 14 Crime and Law: Rediscovering Criminology: Lessons from the Marxist Tradition Chapter 15 Urban and Regional Development: Views of the City: Urban and Regional Sociology

Drawing from a wide selection of classic and contemporary works, the editors have chosen readings that reflect the major approaches and central debates in the field of social movement.