Original scientific paper
CROATIAN STUDENT MOVEMENT – AN ATTEMPT AT THEORETICAL ANALYSIS
Milan Mesić
; Department of Sociology, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
There are various assessments, occasion-related and partial analyses, and even
empirical evaluations of the recent collective protest of Croatian students, but
there is hardly any attempt of a theoretical clarification and comprehension
thereof. Having in mind the largely disparate definitions of social movement,
the author is of the opinion that, from the standpoint of theory, the demands of
rebelled students, the blockade of the faculty, the plenum decision-making and
other forms of collective student activity can best be perceived as a form of
student movement. For this reason, he first presents various theories of social
movements: the classic American theory of collective behaviour (i.e. its two
versions – the breakdown theory and the theory of relative deprivation), the
theory of resource mobilization, the theory of new social movements (especially
Touraine’s model of understanding new social movements), the theory
of networks, the theory of solidarity, and the political-process analysis.
Second, the author attempts to apply each of the enumerated conceptual perspectives
to the Croatian student movement for charge-free education. Although
the presented theories of social movements are critical of one another,
this article points out their complementarity. It goes on to show that not all of
them are equally adequate for clarification and comprehension of the central
issue. In the author’s judgement, one of the key reasons why a multi-perspective
approach is necessary is the exceptional, hybrid character of the Croatian
student movement, as a mixture of old and new social movements.
Keywords
social movement; student movement; theories of social movements; collective action
Hrčak ID:
55118
URI
Publication date:
12.4.2010.
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