Page 144 - Contemporary Political Sociology Globalization Politics and Power

130 Social Movements

party politics in the US has been much less dominated by the labor movement
than European politics; government has been characterized by a more open,
non - corporatist style of politics in which movements tend to try to adapt to
and influence the political process through organized lobbying. It has also

been preoccupied with constitutional interpretation and litigation so that
social movements have been very much concerned with legal contestation. In
contrast, Western European politics has been characterized by a more rigid
corporatism to which movements have tended to respond in a more radical,
anti - systemic way. In some part, these differences account for the emphasis
of US - based RMT on social movement mobilization through professional
organizations, and European - based NMST which emphasizes mobilization in
civil society.
2 Diani ’ s schema actually includes four main trends which he sees as important

within social movement analyses since the 1960s: collective behavior (Turner
and Killian), RMT (Zald and McCarthy), political process (Tilly), and new
social movements (Touraine, Melucci). The collective behavior approach has

not been considered here because it has not been very influential in recent
years, and the “ political process ” approach has been categorized with RMT,
as is more usually the case. These differences do not affect our assessment of
Diani ’ s synthesis.