Prelims

Half Title Page

Methodological Advances in Research on Social Movements, Conflict, and Change

Series Title Page

Research in Social Movements, Conflicts and Change

Series Editor: Lisa Leitz

Recent Volumes:

Editorial Advisory Board

• Lisa Leitz, PhD

• Editor-in-Chief

• Delp-Wilkinson Endowed Chair in Peace Studies, Chapman University

• Eitan Alimi, PhD

• Associate Professor, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

• Patrick Coy, PhD

• Editor Emeritus

• Professor, School of Peace and Conflict Studies, Kent State University

• Darren Kew, PhD

• Chair of the Department of Conflict Resolution, Human Security, and Global Governance; McCormack Graduate School and Executive Director of the Center for Peace, Democracy, and Development, University of Massachusetts Boston

• Cécile Mouly, PhD

• Professor and Coordinator of the Research Group in Peace and Conflict at FLACSO (Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales) Ecuador

Title Page

Research in Social Movements, Conflicts and Change Volume 47

Methodological Advances in Research on Social Movements, Conflict, and Change

Edited by

Thomas V. Maher

Clemson University, USA

And

Eric W. Schoon

The Ohio State University, USA

United Kingdom – North America – Japan – India – Malaysia – China

Copyright Page

Emerald Publishing Limited

Howard House, Wagon Lane, Bingley BD16 1WA, UK

First edition 2023

Editorial matter and selection © 2023 Thomas V. Maher and Eric W. Schoon.

Individual chapters © 2023 The authors.

Published under exclusive licence by Emerald Publishing Limited.

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No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without either the prior written permission of the publisher or a licence permitting restricted copying issued in the UK by The Copyright Licensing Agency and in the USA by The Copyright Clearance Center. Any opinions expressed in the chapters are those of the authors. Whilst Emerald makes every effort to ensure the quality and accuracy of its content, Emerald makes no representation implied or otherwise, as to the chapters' suitability and application and disclaims any warranties, express or implied, to their use.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978-1-80117-887-7 (Print)

ISBN: 978-1-80117-886-0 (Online)

ISBN: 978-1-80117-888-4 (Epub)

ISSN: 0163-786X (Series)

About the Contributors

Edwin Amenta is a Professor of Sociology and Political Science at the University of California, Irvine. He is the author of Bold Relief: Institutional Politics and the Origins of Modern American Social Policy (Princeton, 1998) and When Movements Matter: The Townsend Plan and the Rise of Social Security (Princeton, 2006) and the coauthor (with Neal Caren) of Rough Draft of History: A Century of US Social Movements in the News (Princeton, 2022).

Tianji Cai is a Professor at the Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Macau. His research interests include computational social sciences, crime and deviance, health, and youth studies. His works have appeared in the American Sociological Review, American Journal of Sociology, Demography, and Sociological Methods & Research among others.

Neal Caren is an Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. His current research is on contemporary US social movements and the uses of media data for understanding movement processes.

Rachel L. Einwohner is Professor of Sociology and (by courtesy) Political Science at Purdue University, where she is also affiliated with the Jewish Studies program. Her interests include mobilization under repressive conditions and solidarity-building in social movements. She is the author of Hope and Honor: Jewish Resistance During the Holocaust (Oxford University Press).

Michelle D. Fabiani is an Assistant Professor of Criminal Justice at the University of New Haven. Her interdisciplinary research examines patterns of behavior in international and transnational crime with a focus on cultural heritage and cultural property crimes. She is the codirector of the Cultural Resilience Informatics and Analysis (CURIA) Lab.

Fiona Rose Greenland is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Virginia. She studies art restitution, nationalism, and cultural violence. She codirects the CURIA Lab (Cultural Resilience Informatics and Analysis), which prioritizes mixed-methods analysis of cultural destruction and recovery. Greenland's research is funded by the National Science Foundation, and has been published in Sociological Science, Sociological Theory, and Theory and Society.

Laura J. Heideman is an Associate Professor in Sociology and Nonprofit and NGO Studies at Northern Illinois University. Her research examines peacebuilding, humanitarianism, international interventions, and the long-term effects of war. Her research has been published in outlets including Mobilization, Sociological Forum, and Voluntas.

Baylee Hudgens is a PhD student in Sociology at Purdue University. Her research interests include social movements, political sociology, and law and society, with an emphasis on the use of law and policy to repress protest.

Sahan Savas Karatasli is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro. He examines the dynamics of historical capitalism, social movements, and nationalism from a global and long-historical perspective. He uses quantitative and comparative-historical methods to examine serious challenges facing the world in the twenty-first century.

Brayden G King is the Max McGraw Chair of Management and the Environment and a Professor of Management and Organizations at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. His research focusses on social movements' influence on organizational, political, and social change. Some of his recent publications have appeared in Administrative Science Quarterly, Organization Science, and Mobilization.

Thomas V. Maher is an Assistant Professor in the Sociology, Anthropology, and Criminal Justice Department at Clemson University. His primary interests include how institutions and organizations perceive and respond to social movements, and who participates (or does not participate) in protest and contention efforts. He has published work on these issues in outlets such as Mobilization, American Sociological Review, and Science Advances.

Laura K. Nelson is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of British Columbia. She uses computational methods to study social movements, gender, culture, and institutions. Her work has appeared in outlets such as the American Journal of Sociology, Mobilization, and Sociological Methods & Research.

Kathleen A. Ragon, PhD, is a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Augustana College. Their research uses qualitative methods to study social movements and change-making processes in US higher education.

Jo Reger is Professor of Sociology at Oakland University in Michigan. Her work on the US women's movement examines continuity, generations, and iterations of feminism. She is a past editor of Gender & Society. Her latest research project examines music and the women's movement of the 1960s–1980s.

Daisy Verduzco Reyes, PhD, is Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of California Merced. In her research she is primarily interested in how race and ethnicity are constructed and mobilized within institutions, with particular focus on sites critical for social mobility, like colleges and universities. She is the author of Learning to be Latino: How Colleges Shape Identity Politics.

Elle Rochford is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Delaware's Center for the Study and Prevention of Gender-Based Violence. Rochford studies political sociology, digital sociology, reproductive health, and inequalities. Her research examines how the state controls and values bodies. She also produces two social science podcasts, Proofing & Lies and Measuring Violence.

Eric W. Schoon is Associate Professor of Sociology at The Ohio State University. His research interests include methodology, sociological theory, and cultural dimensions of contentious politics. His work has been published in outlets including American Sociological Review, Journal of Politics, International Studies Quarterly, Social Forces, Social Problems, and Sociological Methods & Research.

Weijun Yuan is a PhD Candidate in Sociology at the University of California, Irvine. Her research interests include social movements, networks, and organization.

Tony Huiquan Zhang is an Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Macau. His research interests include social movements, political culture, social media, and Asian politics. He has published articles in the British Journal of Sociology, Chinese Sociological Review, and Social Indicators Research among others.

Foreword

During the politicized debates of the 2010s over National Science Foundation (NSF) funding for political science (and to a lesser extent sociology and psychology), many argued against popular branding of the social sciences as “soft” and the natural sciences as “hard.” Going further, the Nature Editorial Board (2012) wrote, “Because they deal with systems that are highly complex, adaptive and not rigorously rule-bound, the social sciences are among the most difficult of disciplines, both methodologically and intellectually.” Biomedical and physical sciences can be reasonably assured that there are fewer variables involved in mass-produced mice or isotopes and that their subjects' biases, lack of self-awareness, etc. do not influence findings. Conflict and activism add additional layers of difficulty to our work, adding potential intent to subjects' participation and substantial bias in records and governmental funding. As this volume makes clear, nearly all of the potential sources of data within studies of social change, conflict, and movements have a vested and/or political interest in our topics, with which scholars must contend.

I marvel at the inventiveness of RSMCC scholars, who use drones, satellite imagery, recently uncovered archives, the latest computer programs and mathematical models, sheer tenacity, and so much more to get their sources. Technology has rapidly opened possibilities for new research methods since the classic volumes on scholarly practices within social movements by Klandermans and Staggenborg (2002) and della Porta (2014), and those about research in peace and conflict (Druckman, 2005; Höglund & Öberg, 2011; Mazurana et al., 2013). As new methods are developed, though, their potential, ethical application, and limitations must be examined. The process of “how” intellectuals determine what is real or what the data suggest must always be under scrutiny. This entire book offers a great deal of insight into the epistemology of social change, movements, and conflict. It has been my pleasure to support Eric Schoon and Thomas Maher as they produced this important volume.

Lisa Leitz

Chapman University