I will raise that issue regularly. There is some data on the ways that each round of farm/farm labor struggle has been able to find/draw on veterans from previous stuggles, just as there are many reports of the importance of older ex-Panthers etc. to later urban struggles... but, as you note, good empirical data is brutally hard to find.
Benjy Ben-Baruch:
> Fr all that I can see' the tea party is not a soc mvmnt. Rather' it is a
> "manufactured" chimera of a mvmnt funded and manipulated by some very pwrfl
> and wealthy interests. Presenting it as a soc mvmnt, in my opinion, is bad
> sociology and
>
>
APR: Part of my reason for including it is to raise/explore just exactly
that issue... just 'cuz we're told it is a movement, is it actually a
movement... this issue came up in the context of the Wise Use "Mov't" as
well but the discussions were really generative. I know most of my
students believe the Tea Party is grass rootsy and I want to show them that
it is some and isn't a lot.
[WS:] I think it would be useful to start with the definition of what is social movements and how it is different from other forms of social action e.g. participation in organized forms of activity
APR: I have intentionally rejected the literature on the sociology of social movements. My feeling is that 1) the typologies cause more problems than they provide clarity and 2) nothing in the world is more boring than reading about relative deprivation, resource mobilization, framing, and political opportunity structures.... All of these perpectives will be presented but on the fly, in hand-outs, etc. but when I think about the difference between things like Habermas' Legitimation Crisis, O'Connor's Fiscal Crisis of the State, and Beck's Risk Society compared to RD/RM/F/POS, I can't imagine why the richness of the former (which will also be presented) should be trumped by the latter... the key, of course, is that my students would be bored by the latter and flummoxed bu the former.