Paul Almeida - Social Movements: The Structure of Collective Mobilization

This book derives from my fifteen years of teaching social movement courses at the undergraduate and graduate levels along with my research on collective action. I owe gratitude to dozens of individuals (and hundreds of students in the classroom). Rogelio Saenz, Harland Prechel, and Sam Cohn of Texas A&M University encouraged me to offer courses in social movements early in my career. Nella Van Dyke at the University of California, Merced, did the same. An army of student research assistants at UC Merced also made this manuscript possible, including Anna Schoendorfer, Joselyn Delgado, Maria Mora, Miriam Mosqueda, Sarai Velasquez, Carolina Molina, Valezka Murillo, Karen Gomez, and Rocio Murillo. I also benefited from the technical expertise of Andrew Zumkehr and Samuel Alvarez. I received valuable feedback on social movement dynamics when coteaching courses abroad (at the University of Costa Rica and at the National Autonomous University of Honduras) and while presenting my work in universities throughout Central America. I owe enormous debts to the activists I have interviewed over the years, mobilizing over issues varying from state repression to privatization, free trade, and environmental contamination. Two Fulbright Fellowships in 2008 and 2015 allowed me the time and resources to participate in international field research and to coteach courses on social movements.

My thinking about social movements has also evolved from collaborations with Mark Lichbach, Nella Van Dyke, Roxana Delgado, Allen Cordero, Chris Chase-Dunn, Eugenio Sosa, Mara Incln, Maria Mora, Alejandro Zermeo, and Rodolfo Rodriguez. I am eternally grateful for my original collaborator and mentor, Linda Stearns. I would never have advanced as a scholar without Lindas guidance and time. I appreciate the hospitable environment of my sociology department and colleagues at UC Merced, which include Laura Hamilton, Nella Van Dyke, Zulema Valdez, Sharla Alegria, Whitney Pirtle, Kyle Dodson, Tanya Golash Boza, Ed Flores, Irenee Beattie, Charlie Eaton, Marjorie Zatz, and Elizabeth Whitt. I appreciate the extra time Ed Flores took to look over parts of the manuscript and provide new insights.

UC Press representatives have been supportive from day one. I was thrilled when former acquisitions editor Seth Dobrin invited me to produce a work on social movements. Maura Rausner provided the perfect level of encouragement to finish the final manuscript. Sabrina Robleh offered constant technical advice in preparing the work. My copy editor, Jeff Wyneken, nicely cleaned up my prose and patiently awaited my corrections. In a world with such limited availability, I deeply appreciate the time the eleven anonymous external reviewers devoted to reading entire drafts of the manuscript and providing critical feedback. It is rare in sociology to have the opportunity to receive so much constructive commentary on ones work. The final product, undoubtedly, is vastly improved by having so many readers. I am also very much indebted to the hundreds of social movement scholars found in the bibliography, whose work I draw on throughout the book. An introductory social movement text would be impossible without the community of scholars that has produced a vast amount of literature to build upon. All misinterpretations of the work of others bears my responsibility.

Most important, I thank Andrea, for her constant support.