Description Political scientists often focus on how power and politics operate from “above,” namely through political institutions such as Congress, the presidency, the bureaucracy, and the courts. However, throughout the nation’s history, social and political change has often come from “below,” through the mass mobilization of ordinary people. In fact, the United States was a social movement nation from the start, when colonists rebelled against British rule in the 18th century. Today, social movements still abound in the United States, including the Black Lives Matter movement, the immigrant rights movement, the #Me Too movement, the Tea Party movement, and the anti-gun violence movement. In this capstone seminar, we will examine various dynamics of social movements in the United States, with a focus on the contemporary period. We will address why people protest and how protest matters to the political system. We will investigate how social movements emerge and spread, as well as how social movements frame their claims, recruit participants, and press their claims using different tactics. We will consider the roles of identities and political ideologies in motivating people to participate in social movements, and the outcomes social movements can produce. Finally, we analyze social movement interactions with opponents and the state, how the U.S. government has sought to suppress especially progressive social movements, and reasons for why social movements decline. We will learn about social movements using different materials: academic texts, newspaper articles, video clips, guest speakers, and a visit to the Museum of the City of New York. Students will also conduct empirical research on one social movement in the United States, either contemporary or more historical. They will build a website to visually represent the social movement, they will present their research in class during the final weeks of the semester, and they will write a focused research paper based on their findings.
Learning Objectives The successful student will learn to:
Explain and critically assess the various factors that contribute to the formation, endurance, decline, and effects of social movements in the United States.
Interpret, asses, and evaluate information from a variety of sources and points of view, including feedback from fellow students.
Conduct empirical research on social movements in the United States using primary and secondary sources.
Communicate ideas effectively and persuasively in written, spoken, and visual formats.
Get a better sense of how to practice social justice activism.