Citation

Broadbent J. Int. J. Mass Emerg. Disasters 1986; 4(2): 227-253.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1986, International Sociological Association, International Research Committee on Disasters)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

This paper compares twelve social movements, all supporting or opposing environmental and industrialization issues, which occurred in the Sixties and Seventies in one prefecture in southern Japan. The independent variable is the type of local social fabric they arose within; the dependent variables, their mobilization process and goals. The data were collected through qualitative field work, including interviewing, observation and documents, and later coded into questionnaire form. The local social fabric, associational, mixed, or communal, affected several aspects of their mobilization process: goals, leader and follower motives, rate of success, and relation to dominant elites. In communal movements, the leader had more autonomy in setting goals, and followers were more loyal to him. Such movements were more idealistic. In associational movements, leaders and followers emphasized individualistic and material goals and motives. Elites attempted to co-opt communal leaders more, because of the leaders' more arbitrary power. Communal leaders resisted that if they had strong internalized values. Values penetrate movements through leaders. Communal social fabrics support new social movements in Japan, contrary to the Western experience, where such movements arise in more associational, middle-class fabrics.