and Trial Lawyers of America—each contributed more than $2 million to selected can-
didates and committees (Federal Election Commission, 2006).Political Change
Political life is not merely a matter of orthodox social institutions: political parties,
voting, and elections. History shows us that some groups find their objectives or ideals
cannot be achieved with this framework—or are actively blocked by it. They need to
develop “unorthodox” political action. Some types of efforts for political change,
social movements and revolutions, are internal; others, like war and terrorism, are
attempted from outside the society.Social Movements
When people seek to effect change, they may engage in political revolutions, but more
commonly they start social movements—collective attempts to further a common
interest or secure a common goal through action outside the sphere of established insti-
tutions. They may try to influence public opinion with advertising campaigns or by
convincing a celebrity to act as their spokesperson. They may try to get legislators’
attention through marches, sit-ins, media “zaps” (invasions of televised media events),
Internet protests, boycotts, or work stoppages. Or they may try more colorful (and
illegal) methods of getting their points across, like animal-rights activists who splash
blood on actors wearing fur coats (McAdam, 1996; Meyer, Whittier, and Robnett,
2002; Morris and Mueller, 1992; Tarrow, 1998).
Like representative democracy, social movements require an educated populace
and adequate communication and transportation technology to get the word out, so
they did not appear in any great numbers until the nineteenth century. But today there
are thousands of social movements, dedicated to supporting every imaginable polit-
ical agenda. Many social movements are international and rely heavily on use of infor-
mation technology to link local campaigners to global issues. They are as evident a
feature of the contemporary world as the formal, bureaucratic political system they
often oppose.
Social movements vary by the types of issues around which
they mobilize, their level of organization, and their persistence
over time. They can be arrayed on a variety of continua: For
example, they range from the most militant and doctrinaire,
which demand strict adherence to a fully developed party line,
to those that are more expansive and inclusive, absorbing peo-
ple from a wide variety of backgrounds and with different polit-
ical positions. Or movements may range from broadly messianic
movements involving total social transformation to locally based
and extremely locally focused movements.
Some social movements change over the course of their lives.
Some become more limited in focus, others more expansive.
Some morph into political parties to sustain themselves over
time. Movements such as the labor movement or the Civil Rights
movement began as more limited in focus, trying to better work-
ing conditions, raise the minimum wage, or ensure the right to
vote, but both became broad-based movements that have been
sustained over time by large organizations and a wide variety474 CHAPTER 14POLITICS AND GOVERNMENTSocial movements often
innovate new tactics to get
attention for their positions.
Members of People for the
Ethical Treatment of Animals
protest against killing animals
to make fur coats. n