Blackwell Reference Online

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Strain and breakdown theories seek to explain the causes of collective behavior and social movements. They implicitly presume that when social institutions are stable, collective behavior is unlikely. It is when institutions undergo strain or breakdown that the resulting social disorganization and decreased social control are more likely to foster collective behavior in the form of fads, crazes, riots, rebellions, movements, and revolutions. The classical sociological spokesperson for this approach is Émile Durkheim, who diagnosed modern society as insufficiently integrated and subject to grave dangers of anomie and egoism. Put differently, chronic strains and acute breakdowns in social order could foster many types of antisocial behavior, including suicide ( Durkheim 1951 [1897]). European crowd theorists then seized on notions of strain and breakdown to explain both the emergence and the stereotypically excessive and irrational nature of crowd behavior. Robert Park transplanted this perspective to the United States in the early twentieth century and laid the foundation for the collective behavior tradition. Herbert Blumer definitively established collective behavior as a major subfield in US sociology. His work ( Blumer 1951 ) posited strong links between strain or breakdown and a distinctive conception of collective behavior (including crowds, masses, publics, and movements) ... log in or subscribe to read full text