"Kleidman's conclusion that such campaigns increasingly stress grass-roots organization is of major empirical and theoretical importance. It contradicts widely held understandings of the patterns of modern social mobilization."—John D. McCarthy, Catholic University of America
Description
Kleidman shows how the campaigns’ organizational dynamics shaped their rise, course, fall, and impact both on public policy and on the peace movement itself. But as Kleidman points out, the three groups failed despite widespread mobilization and intense activism.
Combining careful historical research with insights from contemporary social movement theory, this book sheds new light on the campaigns and the peace movement, as well as on key aspects of social movement organizations, cycles, and trends. Particularly valuable for policy and analysis is Kleidman’s framework of organizational tensions.
Social scientists and historians, particularly students and scholars of social movements and peace movements, will value the policy implications and analytical rigor of this book.
About the Author
Robert Kleidman is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Cleveland State University and was assisting author of The American Peace Movement: Ideals and Political Action. He has participated in the nuclear freeze movement at the local and national levels and worked extensively with the Wisconsin Freeze.
August 1993