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Doowon Suh, Review of Movements and Parties: Critical Connections in American Political Development, Social Forces, Volume 100, Issue 4, June 2022, Page e29, https://doi.org/10.1093/sf/soac017
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Extract
Democratic backsliding has been a main theme of research and many scholars have identified its prime causes. Sidney Tarrow, in a recently published book, Movements and Parties, underscores the relationship between social movements and political parties and elucidates how the interaction has influenced political configuration and changed focusing on democratic progress and meltdown in America, of which subject, according to Tarrow, has been understudied in the literature. Tarrow raises and investigates several, interrelated, research questions. What are the causes of movement/party convergence, the consequences of its encounter, and the prospects for democratic revitalization in America? How do the consequences germinate and through what mechanisms? Movement/party interaction has begun since the nineteenth century and has been routine and becomes constant in recent years. Based on rich historical evidence and referring to main social movements and their connections with the Democratic and Republican Parties, Tarrow examines how American politics has waned and waxed contingent upon the patterns and characteristics of movement/party linkage. To confirm the validity of the theoretical conclusion drawn from his historical analysis, the author compares with three other cases outside America: Italy in the early twentieth century, Chile in the post-Pinochet regime, and South Korea in the 1980s.
