1800s: Martineau · Tocqueville · Marx · Spencer · Le Bon · Ward · Pareto · Tönnies · Veblen · Simmel · Durkheim · Addams · Mead · Weber · Du Bois · Mannheim · Elias Social movement impact theory (otherwise known as outcome theory) is a subcategory of social movement theory, and focuses on assessing the impacts that social movements have on society, as well as what factors might have led to those effects.
For this reason scholars have tended to use the Collective Goods Criterion (see below) after Gamson originally published his work and garnered criticism.
[29][30] In "How Social Movements Matter",[31] Giugni recommends that in order to combat problems of causality, scholars should conduct studies with large sample sizes, that address a diversity of time periods and places, that examine with equal rigor movement successes and failures, and which control for other societal factors which affect the change being studied.
This is confirmed by other historical events, which show that violence generally give an advantage to the side that is already ahead, whether it is used by the movement,[35][36][37] or by the state.
[40] Scholars have also debated whether social movement organizations ultimately play a significant role in their victories, or whether success is more determined by outside factors.
[44][45] Ultimately, it is hard to avoid a context-dependent answer to this controversy, and scholars are now encouraging an approach which synthesizes organizational influence with others.
[48][49] Non-state institutions can also be targeted and changed by social movements, as is the case for any boycott or divestment campaign.
[51] Scholars have begun analysis of institution-specific campaigns, and have theorized that there are four institutional characteristics which make it vulnerable to change: 1) Rapid growth in terms of money or members, 2) diffuseness or decentralization of organization, 3) strength of links between clients and professionals, and 4) ties to the state.
Such was the case with the feminist movement, in which organizations put a large amount of resources to books, magazines, art, and other channels of culture; this has been shown to contribute to the shift in family dynamics and institutional structures.
[54] Some have argued that because democratic governments are completely permeable to the public, social movements can only create inequality in representation;[55] however, this view has been discredited.