Opis: Pathways to Prohibition - Ann-Marie E. Szymanski, Szymanski

Strategies for gradually affecting social change are often dismissed as too accommodating of the status quo. Ann-Marie E. Szymanski challenges this assumption, arguing that moderation is sometimes the most effective way to achieve change. "Pathways to Prohibition" examines the strategic choices of social movements through a focus on the fates of the two waves of temperance campaigns. The prohibitionists of the 1880s gained limited success, while their Progressive Era counterparts achieved a remarkable - albeit temporary - accomplishment in American politics: the passage of an amendment to the U.S. constitution.Szymanski accounts for these divergent outcomes by asserting that choice of strategy (how a social movement defines and pursues its goals) is a significant and, until now, under appreciated element in the success or failure of social movements. Her emphasis on strategy represents a sharp departure from approaches that prioritize political opportunity as the most consequential factor in campaigns for social change. Combining the insights of social movement theory with historical research, "Pathways to Prohibition" shows how a locally based, moderate strategy allowed the early-twentieth-century prohibition crusade to develop both a potent grassroots component and the capacity to transcend the limited scope of local politics.Szymanski describes how the prohibition movement's strategic shift toward moderate goals after 1900 reflected the devolution of the state legislatures' liquor licensing power to the localities, the judiciary's growing acceptance of these licensing regimes, and the collective belief that local electorates, rather than the state legislatures, were best situated to resolve controversial issues like the liquor question. 'Local gradualism' is well-suited to the porous, federal structure of the American state, Szymanski contends, and it has been effectively used by a number of social movements including the civil rights and Christian Right movements. "Pathways to Prohibition develops an interesting and convincing analysis that any student of movements and American political history would find useful to explore."--Kent Reading, Mobilization "In an era when structuralist models still largely dominate social movement theories, Szymanski's study of the role of political strategies in determining outcomes of social movements is especially interesting and valuable... [T]his is a well-written and very insightful book. It is not only a valuable addition to the study of temperance movements, but also an important contribution to the expanding literature of American political development and the study of social movements."--Xi Chen, American Journal of Sociology "Outstanding research and superior conceptualization of variables mark this unusually specific study of group and movements success in the attainment of tangible public policy goals... Highly recommended."--W.P. Brown, CHOICE "[T]his book has much to recommend it. Pathways to Prohibition is a fresh look at the Temperance Movement and brings to light key factors that influenced the outcome of the cause. It offers much to those interested specifically in the anti-liquor cause as well as those who study the dynamics of social movements."--Robert Allen Goldberg, Contemporary Sociology "[The book's] theoretical and interdisciplinary approach, coupled with Szymanski's thoughtful theoretical summary and application, helpful to even the most inexperienced social theorist. In the end, the anti-liquor movement, as Szymanski convincingly presents, offers a valuable lens into the shape and character of American reform and her conclusions force us to rethink paradigms of radicalism within social movements."--Jeffery A. Johnson, American Studies International "[A] rigorously analytical survey of national Prohibition's strategic and tactical origins."--Ian Tyrell, Journal of American History "Drawing extensively on the vast array of primary sources, and integrating much from the extensive secondary literature, Szymanski compares the relative successes of the prohibition movement in two periods... Szymanski's work melds the insights of scholars who explained the successes of social movements by their internal dynamics and those who explained them by the external factors of political environments."--Richard F. Hamm, Journal of Interdisciplinary History "Pathways to Prohibition addresses an important problem: why the prohibitionists attracted widespread support in the statewide referenda of the Progressive Era... Prohibition in the United States was a densely woven fabric, and Anne-Marie Szymanski deserves a toast with something stronger than cold water for her pro.cient tracing of one of its prominent, but previously overlooked, threads."--Jack S. Blocker, The Social History of Alcohol and Drugs

Szczegóły: Pathways to Prohibition - Ann-Marie E. Szymanski, Szymanski

Tytuł: Pathways to Prohibition
Autor: Ann-Marie E. Szymanski, Szymanski
Producent: Duke University Press
ISBN: 9780822331698
Rok produkcji: 2003
Ilość stron: 384
Oprawa: Miękka
Waga: 0.47 kg

Recenzje: Pathways to Prohibition - Ann-Marie E. Szymanski, Szymanski