Hostname: page-component-5c6d5d7d68-wp2c8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-08-07T05:00:49.789Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The Success of Poor People's Movements: Empirical Tests and the More Elaborate Model

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 May 2004

Joel Lefkowitz
Affiliation:
Teaches political science at the State University of New York at New Paltz (lefkowij@newpaltz.edu). He is the author of “Students, Sweatshops, and Local Power” in From ACT-UP to the WTO and, with Christine Kelly, “Radical and Pragmatic: United Students Against Sweatshops” in Teamsters and Turtles? U.S. Progressive Political Movements in the 21st Century. He is grateful to Frances Fox Piven and Richard A. Cloward for their encouragement; to the Caucus for a New Political Science for sponsoring the APSA roundtable in which this symposium originated; to Lisa Burrell and Jennifer Hochschild; and to Fred Block, Margaret Groarke, Margaret Levi, David Meyer, Sandy Schram, and anonymous reviewers for critical comments on an earlier draft.

Abstract

Poor People's Movements: Why They Succeed, How They Fail. By Frances Fox Piven and Richard A. Cloward. New York: Pantheon Books, 1977. 381 pages.

Type
Symposium: Poor People's Movements
Copyright
© 2003 by the American Political Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Albritton Robert. 1979 Social amelioration through mass insurgency? A reexamination of the Piven and Cloward thesis. American Political Science Review 73: 4, 1,00311.Google Scholar
Biggert Robert. 1997 Why labor wins, why labor loses: A test of two theories. The Sociological Quarterly 38: 1, 20524.Google Scholar
Colby David C. 1982 A test of the relative efficacy of political tactics. American Journal of Political Science 26: 4, 74153.Google Scholar
Dylan Bob. 1981 The groom's still waiting at the altar. Shot of Love. Lyrics available at www.bobdylan.com. Accessed 14 April 2003.
Fording Richard C. 1997 The conditional effect of violence as a political tactic: Mass insurgency, welfare generosity, and electoral context in the American states. American Journal of Political Science 41: 1, 129.Google Scholar
Fording Richard C. 2001 The political response to black insurgency: A critical test of competing theories of the state. American Political Science Review 95: 1, 11530.Google Scholar
Gamson William A. 1992 The social psychology of collective action. In Frontiers in Social Movement Theory, eds. Aldon D. Morris and Carol McClurg Mueller. New Haven: Yale University Press, 5376.
Gamson William A., and Emilie Schmeidler. 1997 [1984] Organizing the poor: An argument with Frances Fox Piven and Richard A. Cloward's Poor People's Movements. In The Breaking of the American Social Compact, by Frances Fox Piven and Richard A. Cloward. New York: New Press, 30727.
Hickssn Alexander, and Duane H. Swank. 1983 Civil disorder, relief mobilization, and AFDC caseloads: A reexamination of the Piven and Cloward thesis. American Journal of Political Science 27: 4, 695716.Google Scholar
Isaac Larry, and William R. Kelly. 1981 Racial insurgency, the state, and welfare expansion: Local and national level evidence from the postwar United States. American Journal of Sociology 86: 6, 1,34886.Google Scholar
Jackson George L. 1985 [1970] Constraints of the Negro civil rights movement on American military effectiveness. In Vietnam and America: A Documented History, eds. Marvin E. Gettleman, Jane Franklin, Marilyn B. Young, and H. Bruce Franklin. New York: Grove Weidenfeld, 31722.
Jennings Edward T., Jr. 1983 Racial insurgency, the state, and welfare expansion: A critical comment and reanalysis. American Journal of Sociology 88: 6, 1,22036.Google Scholar
Kerbo Harold R., and Richard Shaffer. 1992 Lower class insurgency and the political process: The response of the U.S.unemployed, 1890–1940. Social Problems 39: 2, 13954.Google Scholar
Klandermans Bert. 1992 The social construction of protest and multiorganizational fields. In Frontiers in Social Movement Theory, eds. Aldon D. Morris and Carol McClurg Mueller. New Haven: Yale University Press, 77103.
Lipsky Michael. 1979 Review of Poor People's Movements: Why They Succeed, How They Fail. American Political Science Review 73: 2, 5978.Google Scholar
McAdam Doug. 1982 Political Process and the Development of Black Insurgency, 1930–1970 Chicago: University of Chicago Press
Morris Aldon D. 1984 The Origins of the Civil Rights Movement: Black Communities Organizing for Change. New York: Free Press
Ragin Charles C. 1987 The Comparative Method: Moving beyond Qualitative and Quantitative Strategies. Berkeley: University of California Press
Schram Sanford F. 2002 Praxis for the Poor: Piven and Cloward and the Future of Social Science in Social Welfare. New York: NYU Press
Schram Sanford F., and J.Patrick Turbett. 1983 Civil disorder and the welfare explosion: A two-step process. American Sociological Review 48: 3, 40814.Google Scholar
Sharp Elaine, and Steven Maynard-Moody. 1991 Theories of the local welfare role. American Journal of Political Science 35: 4, 93450.Google Scholar
Snow David A., and Robert D.Benford. 1992 Master frames and cycles of protest. In Frontiers in Social Movement Theory, eds. Aldon D.Morris and Carol McClurg Mueller. New Haven: Yale University Press, 13355.
Snow David A., E. Burke Rochford Jr. Steven K. Worden, and Robert D. Benford. 1986 Frame alignment processes, micromobilization, and movement participation. American Sociological Review 51: 4, 46481.Google Scholar
Swank Duane H. 1988 The political economy of government domestic expenditure in the affluent democracies, 1960–80. American Journal of Political Science 32: 4, 1,12050.Google Scholar
Taft Philip, and Philip Ross. 1969 American labor violence: Its causes, character, and outcome. In The History of Violence in America: Historical and Comparative Perspectives, eds. Hugh Davis Graham and Ted Robert Gurr. New York: Praeger, 281395.
Tarrow Sidney. 1998 Power in Movement: Social Movements and Contentious Politics. 2d ed. New York: Cambridge University Press
Valocchi Steve. 1990 The unemployed workers movement of the 1930s: A reexamination of the Piven and Cloward thesis. Social Problems 37: 2, 191205.Google Scholar