What are the structural conditions under which movements emerge? Discuss with reference to any one theory of genesis of social movements. (1998)
Grievance is constant in every society; mobilisation is rare. Resource mobilisation theory, set out by John D. McCarthy and Mayer N. Zald in “Resource Mobilization and Social Movements: A Partial Theory” (American Journal of Sociology, 1977), begins there. Against strain and deprivation theories it holds that discontent is ubiquitous and therefore explains nothing; what varies structurally is the capacity to act.
The theory’s logic
Mancur Olson (The Logic of Collective Action, 1965) had shown the obstacle: since the benefits of a movement are collective, the rational individual free-rides. Emergence therefore requires structures that solve this problem — selective incentives, dense interpersonal ties and entrepreneurs willing to bear start-up costs. Anthony Oberschall (Social Conflict and Social Movements, 1973) added that mobilisation is fastest where pre-existing communal or associational networks allow bloc recruitment rather than recruitment one person at a time.
The structural conditions specified
- Discretionary resources in the wider society. Money, time, professional skills and media access must exist in surplus somewhere and be transferable to the movement.
- Pre-existing organisational infrastructure. Unions, caste associations, literacy groups, churches, cooperatives and student bodies supply ready-made networks, trust and leadership.
- Movement entrepreneurs and a cadre. McCarthy and Zald describe the social movement organisation, the social movement industry of bodies sharing a goal, and the wider social movement sector; professional organisers make movements possible even where the aggrieved are poor.
- Conscience constituents. Supporters who supply resources without sharing the grievance — lawyers, academics, journalists, funders.
- Communication infrastructure, which lowers the cost of coordination.
- Political opportunity and tolerance. Charles Tilly‘s polity model adds that emergence depends on the balance between mobilisation and the costs the state can impose.
Indian illustration
The right to information movement fits the model closely. The Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan, founded on 1 May 1990 at Devdungri in Rajasthan by Aruna Roy, Nikhil Dey and Shankar Singh, began from a minimum-wage struggle among rural labourers. Its resource was not money but a full-time cadre living at village wages and a device — the jan sunwai, at which muster rolls and bills were read aloud — that produced evidence and publicity at once. A forty-day dharna at Beawar in 1996 linked it to a national transparency campaign, and conscience constituents in law, media and academia carried the demand upward: Rajasthan legislated a right to information in 2000, and the Right to Information Act, 2005 followed.
Limits of the explanation
- Frances Fox Piven and Richard A. Cloward argue that the organisation resource mobilisation celebrates also blunts disruptive power — a warning borne out by the institutionalised aftermath, with 4,13,972 appeals and complaints pending before 29 information commissions as on 30 June 2025.
- Ghanshyam Shah and T. K. Oommen hold that the approach underplays consciousness and ideology, which Indian movements cannot do without.
- Alberto Melucci adds that identity, not resources, is what new movements chiefly produce.
Conclusion
Resource mobilisation converts a question about anger into a question about organisation, and thereby explains why the equally deprived do not equally rebel. It is strongest on emergence and weakest on meaning, and so is best read alongside the political process and identity approaches, not instead of them.