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People protest to try to change the world, because they think they can help change the world, and sometimes they do. But not by themselves, and generally not just how and when they want.This incisive book explains how groups of ordinary individuals can affect the world, what makes it possible when it works, and why it sometimes doesn't go to plan. Digging into previous scholarship on social movements, David S. Meyer looks at the origins of social movements, how they contrast with revolutionary campaigns, and assesses the periodic influence of activists on politics, policy, culture, and the way people live their lives. He concludes by stressing the narratives about political change that activists construct and the power that lies in these stories.With sharp insight and a wealth of intriguing cases, this book offers a fuller understanding of the politics and potential payoffs of protest politics.​

. . . This is essential reading for anyone who wants to make sense of the freeze movement or make nuclear policy more responsive to democratic processes. Pam Solo, Co-director, Institute for Peace and International Security ||A rare achievement, combining impeccable scholarly research with lively, readable prose. . . . It is at the same time a careful, thoughtful history of the recent nuclear freeze movement, and a sophisticated analysis of the problem of social change in this country, using that movement as a test. The synthesis of theory and history is accomplished with great skill, making t

Disciplined academic study of social movements should help us make sense of the movements and politics of our time, but social science often leads us astray. Particularly, the ideal of limiting the frame of analysis in terms of independent and dependent variables and in terms of time routinely neglects the disparate causes and effects of social protest. These challenges are particularly acute when considering contemporaneous campaigns, that is, analysis on the fly. Using the case of the first Women's March, staged the day after Donald Trump became president of the United States, I elaborate the false steps that social science analysis encourages by identifying patterned errors of exclusion: applying misplaced models; producing unduly narrow fields of action; the difficulty of evaluating practical possibilities; the challenge of assessing institutionalization; and the necessity of truncating time. I conclude with suggestions for continuing to engage in analysis of contemporary movements and ways to avoid egregious errors while doing so.