Movimientos sociales y cambio social. ¿Una lógica o varias lógicas de acción colectiva?

Abstract

This article questions an idea that tends to be taken for granted by many social theorists, namely, the supposed status of social movements as the most oustanding agents of social change. The article suggests a conceptual reformulation regarding research on coUective action; more specifically, that reformulation regards the study of informal collective action, a category which includes social movements. In order to do so, firstly, the notion of "collective mass action" is proposed as a conceptually more precise (and normatively more neutral) alternative to established concepts as used by social historians and sociologists of history, such as "mob" or "crowd". Secondly, the contribution of post-Olsonian sociological theory of action to our current knowledge of collective action is assessed. The article intends to demónstrate that a substantial such contribution indeed exists and that it leads to a clear conclusión, namely: contrary to received wisdom, which assumes that collective action is governed by one unitarian logic of action, there actually is a plurality of logics of collective action.