About

Douglas McAdam is The Ray Lyman Wilbur Professor of Sociology at Stanford University and an Emeritus Faculty member. He has served as the former Director of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences. His research focuses on political sociology, with a special emphasis on race in the U.S., American politics, and the study of social movements and contentious politics. He is the author or co-author of 18 books and approximately 85 other publications in these areas. Among his most well-known works are 'Political Process and the Development of Black Insurgency, 1930-1970,' which was published in a new edition in 1999, 'Freedom Summer' (1988), which received the 1990 C. Wright Mills Award and was a finalist for the American Sociological Association’s best book prize in 1991, and 'Dynamics of Contention' (2001), co-authored with Sid Tarrow and Charles Tilly. He also authored 'A Theory of Fields' (2012) with Neil Fligstein, and a forthcoming book titled 'The Origins of Our Fractured Society: Racial Politics and Social Movements in Post-War America' with Karina Kloos. McAdam was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2003.

Research topics

• Social Science
• Political Science
• Sociology
• Law
• Economics
• Philosophy
• Economic growth
• Political economy
• Epistemology
• Aesthetics

Selected publications

• To Map Contentious Politics*

  Routledge eBooks · 2024 · 18 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Political Science
  • Sociology
  • Political Science

  Different forms of contentious politics such as social movements, revolutions, ethnic mobilizations, and cycles of protest share a number of causal properties, but disciplinary fragmentation has obscured their similarities. Recent work and this new journal provide opportunities for comparison and synthesis. A network of researchers is undertaking a broad survey of contentious politics in hopes of producing an intelligible map of the field, a synthesis of recent inquiries, a specification of scope conditions for the validity of available theories, and an exploration of worldwide changes in the character of contention. Discussions of 1) social movements, cycles, and revolutions, 2) collective identities and social networks, 3) social movements and institutional politics, 4) globalization and transnational contention illustrate the promise and perils of the enterprise.

  PublisherDOI

• Montgomery Bus Boycott

  The Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Social and Political Movements · 2022-09-27 · 1 citations

  other1st authorCorresponding

  On 1 December 1955 Rosa Parks was arrested for violating the city's ordinance regulating racial seating on city buses. Parks's arrest was hardly the first of its kind under Montgomery's ordinance. So why did Rosa Parks's actions set in motion the community response it did, when other such incidents had failed to do so? No doubt part of the answer has to do with Parks's deep ties to both the city's civil rights and middle‐class black church communities, the two institutional arenas that would form the nucleus of the subsequent boycott. After briefly describing the origins, development, conclusion, and enduring legacies of the campaign, the entry closes by using Montgomery to illustrate four central concepts in social movement theory.

  PublisherDOI

• High‐ and Low‐Risk/Cost Activism

  The Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Social and Political Movements · 2022-09-27 · 1 citations

  other1st authorCorresponding

  Lost in the generic concept “social movement” is the extraordinary diversity of types of movements (e.g. revolution, terrorism, religious revivals, peasant insurrections, cults, etc.). Similarly, movement activism comes in a dizzying variety of forms. While the term “movement activist” tends to conjure up images of marchers in the street or maybe even suicide bombers, the concept applies equally well to someone who signs an online petition in support of a movement initiative or makes a $10 donation to the Sierra Club.

  PublisherDOI

• Initiator and Spin‐Off Movements

  The Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Social and Political Movements · 2022-09-27

  other1st authorCorresponding

  Most theories of movement emergence treat movements as independent of one another. The popular convention of naming individual movements reflects this view as well. So we refer to movements – for example, the women's movement, the civil rights movement, the environmental movement – as separate and discrete phenomena.

  PublisherDOI

• PREDICTING THE ONSET, EVOLUTION, AND POSTGRADUATE IMPACT OF COLLEGE ACTIVISM*

  Mobilization An International Quarterly · 2022-06-01 · 5 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  The topics of differential recruitment to activism and its longer-term impacts have generated substantial empirical research. Yet, the lack of longitudinal studies of movement participation have limited our understanding of individual activism’s dynamics over time. Here, we use six years of longitudinal survey data and two waves of interview data from a class of college students before, throughout, and after college to examine predictors of variation in college activism, the ebb and flow of activism over the course of college, and the effect of college activism on activism two years post-graduation. Our findings dispute one consistent empirical claim in social movement studies and confirm another. Counter to the scholarly finding on the weak impact of predisposition on recruitment, we find that predisposition powerfully predicts variation in college activism. Consistent with the claim that significant early activism is linked with future activism, we find that students’ activism at the end of college significantly predicts their engagement in activism after graduation.

  PublisherDOI

• Political Process Theory

  The Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Social and Political Movements · 2022-09-27 · 3 citations

  other1st authorCorresponding

  McAdam used the term “political process model” to designate the theory of movement emergence sketched in his 1982 book, Political Process and the Development of Black Insurgency, 1930–1970 . In the book, he posed the theory as an alternative to two other perspectives. The first was what he referred to as the “classical strain model,” at the time best exemplified by the “collective behavior” perspective. But McAdam also critiqued and sought to distinguish his model from the newer resource mobilization framework. Over time the distinction between these two perspectives has been blurred by incorporating elements of both into a more general theoretical synthesis that emphasizes the simultaneous importance of “political opportunities,” “mobilizing,” and “framing processes.”

  PublisherDOI

• Bringing Morality Back in: Three Interviews

  Nonprofit and civil society studies · 2022-11-07 · 1 citations

  book-chapterOpen access

  Abstract This chapter presents three interviews with three influential voices in the field of social movement and civil society studies, namely, those of Doug McAdam, Jeffrey Alexander, and Nina Eliasoph. They all share their perspectives on social movements’ role in society’s moral development, the role of morality internally in social movements, and the role of morality for social science as a practice. In addition, they each discuss the moral foundations and implications of three global contentious struggles: Doug McAdam discusses the background and implications of the 2021 riot at Capitol Hill as related to a global right-wing backlash protest cycle. Jeffrey Alexander discusses the cultural and moral significance of the #MeeToo movement and how it demonstrates the potentials of a global civil sphere. Finally, Nina Eliasoph discusses how the climate crisis presents itself as unimaginable in the sense that it will change everyone’s way of life so profoundly that we cannot imagine what the future may be like and suggests that prefigurative communities is one way activists can approach such a political issue.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• A Theory of Fields (Excerpt)

  Journal of Economic Sociology · 2022 · 11 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding
  • Economics
  • Economic growth

  Э лектронный журнал «Экономическая социология» издаётся с 2000 г.Учредителями являются Национальный исследовательский университет «Высшая школа экономики» (с 2007 г.) и Вадим Валерьевич Радаев (главный редактор).Цель журнала -утверждать международные стандарты экономико-социологических исследований в России, представлять современные работы российских и зарубежных авторов в области экономической социологии, информировать профессиональное сообщество о новых актуальных публикациях и исследовательских проектах, а также вовлекать в профессиональное сообщество молодых коллег.Журнал представляет собой специализированное академическое издание.В нём публикуются материалы, отражающие современное состояние экономической социологии и способствующие развитию данной области в её современном понимании.В числе приоритетных тем: теоретические направления экономической социологии, социологические исследования рынков и организаций, социально-экономические стратегии индивидов и домашних хозяйств, неформальная экономика.Также публикуются тексты из смежных дисциплин -неоинституциональной экономической теории, антропологии, экономической психологии и других областей, которые могут представлять интерес для экономсоциологов

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Cognitive Liberation

  The Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Social and Political Movements · 2022-09-27 · 3 citations

  other1st authorCorresponding

  The concept of cognitive liberation was introduced by McAdam as one of the three central causal factors in his formulation of “political process theory.” The term refers to the process by which members of some aggrieved group fashion the specific combination of shared understandings that are thought to undergird emergent collective action. In particular, McAdam argues that before collective action can get under way, people must collectively define their situations as unjust and subject to change through group action. Thus it is the combination of perceived injustice and collective efficacy that is held to be the subjective linchpin of movement activity. Indeed, McAdam suggests that, notwithstanding the importance of the two more structural components of the model (e.g. political opportunities and established organizations), it is these shared understandings that are the key to movement emergence. While important, expanding political opportunities and indigenous organizations do not, in any simple sense, produce a social movement. Together they only offer insurgents a certain objective “structural potential” for collective political action. Mediating between opportunity and action are people and the subjective meanings they attach to their situations. So while the political process model has been roundly criticized for its “structural bias,” in its original formulation, McAdam assigned central causal importance to processes of social construction and collective attribution. On the other hand, in using the term “ cognitive liberation” to describe these processes, McAdam was clearly ignoring the emotional dimensions of collective action.

  PublisherDOI

• Tactical Interaction and Innovation

  The Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Social and Political Movements · 2022-09-27 · 1 citations

  other1st authorCorresponding

  The concepts of tactical interaction, tactical innovation , and tactical adaptation were introduced by McAdam in a 1983 article in American Sociological Review. Tactical innovation refers to the introduction of new and novel tactics by movement actors. Tactical adaptation can be defined as the ability of movement opponents to neutralize innovative movement tactics by means of effective tactical responses. Taken together these two actions constitute an ongoing process of tactical interaction in which insurgents and opponents seek, in chess‐like fashion, to offset the moves of the other. How well each succeeds at this task crucially affects the pace and outcome of movement activity. In the aforementioned article, McAdam demonstrates the utility of these concepts by showing empirically that the pace of insurgency in the US civil rights movement waxed and waned in accordance with these two processes. Peaks in protest activity correspond to the introduction and spread of tactical innovations (e.g. bus boycott, sit‐in, Freedom Rides, etc.), while valleys reflect the gradual development of effective tactical counters by social control forces.

  PublisherDOI

Recent grants

• Collaborative Research: REU: Community Reactions to Extreme Weather Events

  NSF · $65k · 2014–2017

Frequent coauthors

• Sidney Tarrow

  Cornell University

  47 shared

• Charles Tilly

  New School

  33 shared

• John D. McCarthy

  Swansea University

  25 shared

• Mayer N. Zald

  24 shared

• Neil Fligstein

  University of California, Berkeley

  17 shared

• W. Richard Scott

  14 shared

• Hilary Boudet

  11 shared

• Jack Α. Goldstone

  George Mason University

  10 shared

Awards & honors

• 1990 C. Wright Mills Award for Freedom Summer