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Utilizing recent research and monographs from participants and observers, this paper reports on the underanalyzed Vietnam antiwar movement. Key events are placed in a historical context that help to explain the origins of the movement. Particular attention is given to the various responses of the state to the challengers and the complex interrelationships with the media. As the antiwar movement grew and developed, there were multiple factors that contributed to solidarity and factionalism within the movement. Despite state repressive actions and internal factionalism, the movement was successful in helping to end the war. The effects on U.S. policies were more indirect than direct. The antiwar movement mobilized millions of citizens to public protest. The demonstrations helped to shift public opinion away from supporting the war and activated third parties to question and demand an end to war policies. The political system did respond to the antiwar movement’s demands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Differential participation after recruitment remains a black box in the social-movement and voluntary-association literatures. This paper identifies several dimensions of membership participation in a professional social-movement organization (SMO) with a national membership and analyzes the determinants of differential involvement in these forms. In general, members’ ideological beliefs, social and organizational ties, perceptions about their SMO, and communication with SMO officials all predict participation across the various forms. Our findings extend previous work on differential participation in three ways. First, we statistically isolate cultural dimensions of postrecruitment participation and, in so doing, complement recent ethnographic research. Second, our findings suggest that the distinct dimensions of external and internal participation found by Knoke (1988) in a national sample of voluntary associations may not generalize to national SMOs studied individually. Third, our results indicate that models combining ideological and microstructural factors should explain the multiple forms of participation in SMOs lacking these distinct dimensions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers elaborations on current knowledge about social-movement framing processes and cognitive liberation, especially regarding technical controversies and not-in-my-backyard (NIMBY) protest. The social-constructionist lens of the framing perspective also allows refinements in conventional explanations of NIMBY conflicts. Attention is given to the dynamics of emergence, continuity, and change in framing strategies over time in controversy regarding the U.S. Army's chemical-weapons disposal program. I focus specifically on dynamics involved in the development of cognitive liberation, particularly the framing difficulties that occur in the context of cognitive ambiguities produced by an "information haze." These ambiguities create problems for developing and linking the diagnostic, prognostic, and motivational elements of collective-action frames. I also attend to frame transformation, explaining how transformation may be both animated and constrained by a movement's opponent. I conclude that NIMBY is only one possible framing and can be transformed as the context of the dispute shifts. Moreover, framing activities in technical disputes may be particularly difficult due to the role of scientific rhetoric and experts in interpreting risks and shaping understandings of the situation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines ‘alternative institutions’ in a variety of institutional domains as participatory-democratic modes of organization. Grounded in comparative data, it posits structural conditions, both internal to an organization and in its environment, which support or undermine the achievement of its collectivist-democratic ideals. While the literature on social movement organizations well demonstrates the fragility of democratic systems and their tendency toward oligarchization, goal displacement, and organizational maintenance, this work suggests, in propositional form, conditions which militate against these all-too-common transformation patterns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]