Protest and Change: Studies in Social Movements

The analysis of protest movements as sources of social change has been largely neglected in the social sciences. Oommen argues that until now the basic sources of change have been taken to be the economy or those watersheds in human history labelled as agrarian, industrial or information revolutions. By contrast, political revolutions have been accorded too little attention. In the first part of this book, the author explores the theoretical, conceptual and methodological issues in the study of social movements. He then goes on to examine specific methodological problems faced by analysts of on-going movements and explores the relationship between movements and institutions. In Part Two, he examines social movements in the macro-context of the nation-state while the final part considers the micro dimensions of social movements focusing on protest by specific social categories.