SMT Responses

1.     The objective of the Social Movement Theory is to explain when, how, and why people act collectively and succeed in achieving their goals.

2.     No, I don’t think there is any reason as to why we couldn’t use the same analytical framework to study the Civil Rights Movement. Political constraints, resource mobilization, and the countering of the hegemonic discourse were all present during the Civil Rights Movement. Which means, we can apply those ideas to analyzing American social movements effectively.

3.     The Social Movement Theory can help us understand the success of the Islamist movements by analyzing their resource mobilization. How effect was the movement at acquiring funding and creating strategies? Additionally, how did the movement handle discursive opportunities. We also can look at the actors involved in the movement in order to see how wide and effective the movement became. Did big actors like the UN get involved or was it mainly civil society actors in MENA who were involved? Based on these characteristics of the SMT can see how successful the Islamist movements were in MENA.