by Arjan P. Aguirre
For decades, scholars in social movements have been struggling to know why and how movements mobilize. Their earlier works have been useful in informing us about the importance of social problems and how and what type of “collective behavior” and calculated “collective action” would emerge to address them. Subsequent scholars have also looked at the relevance of “resources,” “opportunities” to intervene, and the existing “political processes” for the emergence, changes, and decline of movements. Later on, a new breed of theorists offered claims and theories that focus on the role of “identities,” schema of ideas or “framings” and their alignments, “emotions,” among other things, in understanding contemporary social movements.
In terms of demobilizing movements, many social scientists have already informed us of how “state repression,” patronage politics, and “resource curse,” to name a few, tend to counter the growth and expansion of movements through sheer physical violence, unequal political access, control of resources, etc. These works were valuable in telling us of how contemporary movements struggle to survive or remain relevant especially in facing a powerful government, counter movements, and other stakeholders in the society.