Elizabeth Boynton Harbert and the Woman Suffrage Movement, 1870-1896

Beyond Resource Mobilization? Emerging Trends in Social Movement Theory

“…Whereas established, special-interest groups have routine, low-cost access to powerful decision-makers, social movements must pay higher costs to gain a comparable degree of influence within the polity. RM theory thereby redefined the study of collective action from an example of deviance and social disorganization to a case study in political and organizational sociology (Buechler 1990).…”

“…This logic has been criticized as economistic by those who argue that collective, moral, purposive or solidary incentives often motivate people to join movements even if they could theoretically "ride free" on the efforts of others (Fireman and Gamson 1979). The role of different incentives remains a subject of debate, but the debate assumes rational actors on the individual level just as it assumes the normality of movements on the collective level (Buechler 1990).…”

“…organizational records, movement publications, newspaper accounts and the like. These efforts were complemented by selective primary research into the national suffrage movement and extensive reading of secondary sources (Buechler 1986). In the second phase of this work, I again undertook detailed archival research into the organizational records of the National Organization for Women and the Chicago Women's Liberation Union, complemented by extensive reading of the rapidly growing literature on the contemporary women's movement.…”

“…In the second phase of this work, I again undertook detailed archival research into the organizational records of the National Organization for Women and the Chicago Women's Liberation Union, complemented by extensive reading of the rapidly growing literature on the contemporary women's movement. These two phases of research culminated in a comparative analysis of women's movements in the United States (Buechler 1990). This article builds on this research, as well as the work of others, to identify emerging new directions in social movement theory.…”

“…In this essay, I describe some problematic issues that have emerged from this fruitful period of work and that collectively pose a significant challenge to the theoretical dominance of the RM framework. Most of these issues can be exemplified by my own research into women's movements in the United States (Buechler 1986(Buechler , 1990. My argument is that while there is no clearly defined contender for theoretical dominance, we are nonetheless entering a period of sustained debate and theoretical turmoil which may well lead to such an alternative.…”