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Collective behavior has been a long standing focal point of sociological interest. From its earliest use by Robert E. Park, the concept has been an expression of the sociologist's concern with various dramatic processes of social control, especially those manifesting rapid social change. While the work of specialists in collective behavior has emphasized the study of very specific and delimited events such as crowds, fashions, and fads, the subject matter of collective behavior has come to include the most crucial society-wide movements and upheavals. Moreover, empirical work in this field has reflected a sophisticated understanding of the difficulties of observing and recording complex aspects of social reality which envelop the observer and resist simplified coding and data-reduction techniques. By contrast, the theoretical relevance of the collective behavior framework has been problematic until recently and open to extensive debate. In fact, there was a period of time, after the initial contributions by Robert E. Park, in which the theoretical disputations about the nature of collective behavior appeared to divert creative energies. As a specialized orientation collective behavior became encapsulated and immune to the theoretical developments in other aspects of sociological thinking. In recent years, say the last five years, there has been a renewed interest in the collective behavior approach. The following papers by Neil Smelser and Ralph Turner, which provided the basis for an American Sociological Association panel, give expression to the search for a new balance between theory and empirical enterprise. These papers and the immediate discussion they provoked indicate that some sociologists are using the rubric to focus on crucial substantive issues of contemporary social change. In part, the dramatic events of the civil rights movement in the United States and the equally dramatic transformation of social structure in the new nations have contributed to this renaissance. In part, the response is defensive against the persistent criticism from outside disciplines concerning the excessive expenditure of intellectual energies on trivial processes of social control. What is important in any case is that collective behavior, although strictly sociological in its approach, supplies a link to the interests of political scientists and historians who have long been concerned with revolutions and mass movements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I shall set down a few ideas that I consider central in the study of collective behavior and conflict, and indicate a few similarities and differences between my views on these subjects and the views of others. I shall organize my remarks around the following questions. (1) What are the defining characteristics of collective behavior? In addressing this question I shall simultaneously be talking about what I consider to be the scope of the field. (2) What are the central problems in this field? (3) What are the ways in which these problems can be most adequately handled? Here I shall outline the "value-added" approach to explaining collective outbursts and movements. (4) To conclude, I shall focus on social movements with political aims, and ask two questions: When is a movement likely to become revolutionary? When is a revolutionary movement likely to become violent? In discussing these final questions, I shall apply some of the variables of the value-added scheme, and introduce the subject of conflict explicitly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]