Poor People’s Movements

Piven and Cloward

Intro and Ch. 1

Main Questions Addressed by Book

Institutional conditions that make movements possible

Institutional conditions that determine forms taken by mass movements

Institutional conditions which determine responses of elites

Did they mention “Institutional Conditions”?

“Protest is also not a matter of free choice” (3)

“The occasions when protest is possible among the poor, the forms that it must take, and the impact it can have are all delimited by the social structure in ways which usually diminish its extent and diminish its force” (3).

P and C’s Definition of Protest Entails a transformation of consciousness

System loses legitimacy

People who are usually fatalistic begin to demand rights

People believe they have some capacity to alter their lot

Entails a change in behaviorMasses of people become defiant (violate

traditions and laws)

Defiance is acted out collectively

Not about formalized organizations

Life-Cycle of a Protest Time of momentous changes in institutional

order (can be a pressures that force eruption or breakdown of regulatory capacity)

Form of protest largely determined by features of social structure

Elites respond (ignore, repress, or concede, Conciliate, Coopt, Undermine sympathy)

Protest gains momentum, institutional accommodation and coercion restore order

May leave residues of reform

“Protesters win, if they win at all, what historical circumstances has already made ready to be conceded” (36)

Mass membership versus mass mobilization

Formal organizations Focus on momentum rather than

organization Where elites fit in (conferred resources) Leaders failed to take into account social

structure and exploit opportunities

Where Marx comes in Critics from the “left” (Interesting: They are

all Marxists), formal orgs Dominant elites are key players in P and C Poor-stratum within working class

Boycott Working class? What does “defiance” look like?