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History, Strategy And True Believers: Combining Rational Choice Theory And Social Movement Theory To Explain The Effectiveness Of Social Movements, Joanne Sweeny

JoAnne Sweeny

Both Rational Choice Theory and Social Movement Theory attempt to explain how public interest groups can influence political actors to enact progressive legislation or case law. Yet neither of these theories present a clear picture of what must be present for a social movement to succeed nor what must be absent for it to fail. For example, the bill of rights movement in the United Kingdom resulted in the Human Rights Act 1998 while the United States’ gay rights movement, which began to gain momentum around the same time, has had much more inconsistent success. This article addresses this problem …