Third ISA Forum of Sociology (July 10-14, 2016)

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Beyond Stated Goals: Unanticipated and Unintended Outcomes of Social Movements.

RC48 Social Movements, Collective Actions and Social Change (host committee)

Language: English and Spanish

Studies of social movements stem from the belief that movements represent an important force for social change. Thus, after devoting decades to understanding the mix of factors that give rise to a movement, research on movement outcomes has lately burgeoned. Nevertheless, the unanticipated and unintended consequences of movements remain largely unaddressed. And yet, movements often have the greatest effect not by meeting their stated goals, but by bringing about other, unintended outcomes. This session invites papers that reflect upon the potential changes that movements can provoke unintentionally. Some of the issues and questions we would like to address are: 

• The methodological and theoretical challenges of studying the unintended and unanticipated outcomes of social movements. Is the established conceptual and methodological apparatus sufficient to analyze the unintended and unanticipated outcomes of movements?
• The political conditions under which the outcomes of social movements are more likely to be unintended. Do movements have their greatest effects by bringing about unintended outcomes where residues of a less democratic past persist? 
• The processes and mechanisms under which movements are more likely to bring about unintended and unanticipated outcomes. 
• The role of the media in bringing about movement outcomes beyond their stated goals.

Posters: