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Book Reviews

would preclude finding that the causal sequence might run the other wayaround.

Nevertheless, Rochon has written an important book that is a verywelcome contribution to the scholarly discourse on movements and cul-ture, particularly because it focuses on the cultural effects of movementactivities, a topic that deserves more attention than it has received sincethe cultural turn of movement studies. This book is a must for scholarsin the field of cultural studies and social movements and will be veryhelpful to students of these subjects.

The Art of Moral Protest: Culture, Biography, and Creativity in SocialMovements. By James Jasper. Chicago: University of Chicago Press,1998. Pp. xv514. $35.00.

Robert D. BenfordUniversity of Nebraska, Lincoln

Once in a great while a book comes along that fundamentally changes theways we think about a topic. I am confident that James Jaspers deeplytheoretical and richly illustrated The Art of Moral Protest will have suchan impact on social movements scholars. Indeed, its impact could extend

well beyond a single substantive area to influence the way sociologistsview structure, culture, and agency and the relationships among them.Few writers since C. Wright Mills have so cogently articulated the inter-section of social forces and biography.

Perhaps the greatest single contribution Jasper makes is to bring full-fledged human actors back into the spotlight of social movement analysis.These are not the irrational and apprehensive individuals of the crowdtheories who mill about mimicking one another or who are occasionallywhipped into a collective frenzy by the vicissitudes of rapid socialchanges. Nor are they the hedonistic, mostly self-interested, profit max-

imizers of the rationalist and mobilization theorists. And Jaspers move-ment actors are certainly not relatively helpless pawns of their politicaland economic environments as the process theorists often imply. Nor aremovement actors suffering, as some new social movement theorists sug-gest, from a postindustrial-induced identity crisis. And finally, they arenot simply the dispassionate, strategic manipulators of public discourseand meanings, as often implied by framing theorists. While Jasper ac-knowledges that under some conditions movement actors may in fact re-spond in one or more of the foregoing ways, they tend to be much morecomplicated and multifaceted than classical and contemporary move-

ment theorists depict them.Movement actors, according to Jasper, are thinking, artfully creating,

f li li i h b i Th thi ki t h b h

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American Journal of Sociology

developing projects, and innovating in trying to achieve new goals, allthe while learning from their mistakes as well as from the mistakes oftheir opponents. But they are also feeling beings, whose protests are moti-vated by anger, fear, dread, suspicion, indignation, outrage, and hope,among other emotions. Far from rendering their actions irrational, emo-tions supply much of the motivational impetus for individual and collec-tive action.

And most of all, movement actors are moral beings. Their protestsare frequently inspired by moral outrage sometimes from experiencinga moral shock such as news of the catastrophe at Three Mile Island.Protesters subsequent actions are typically predicated upon moral princi-ples as are their critiques of the conditions they wish to alter and theirvisions and hopes for a better society. In one of many provocative pas-sages, Jasper asserts that moral protest provides individuals with a rarechance to probe their moral intuitions and articulate their principles(p. 367). He observes that contemporary institutions provide few opportu-nities for exploring, voicing, and pursuing moral visions. Indeed, for Jas-per, the importance of protesters . . . lies more in their moral visionsthan in their practical accomplishments (p. 379).

The second significant contribution Jasper makes is to synthesize vari-ous concepts associated with cultural/constructionist perspectives, whileselectively drawing on constructs from the more established resource mo-

bilization, political process, and new social movements perspectives aswell as literature from psychology, philosophy, anthropology, history, po-litical science, and communication studies to creatively fashion a holistic,compelling approach to analyzing protest dynamics. In constructing thissynthesis, Jasper critically assesses the major theoretical approaches, be-ginning with classical theories and ending with various contemporaryparadigms. This is not the ritualistic exercise in theory bashing consum-ers of social movement monographs and articles have grown accustomedto reading. Rather, for each theory, Jasper carefully identifies not onlythe problematic dimensions but also its enduring contributions. A recur-

rent theme in this critique is the idea that many of the fields core con-cepts suffer from theoretical and empirical overextension (p. 41) due inpart to the fact that our main paradigms are surprisingly metaphorical(p. 17). Resources, political opportunity structures, collective identities,and framing are all asked to do more work than is warranted. Jasperinsightfully specifies each constructs limitations and the contexts inwhich each would seem to be applicable.

Jasper then identifies four basic, that is analytically autonomous, di-mensions of protest: resources, strategies, culture, and biography. Afterdemonstrating the essentiality of these four constructs, he explains why

one contender, structure, is analytically reducible to culture and re-sources. Once the four dimensions are fused with artfulness (agency),th b l d d i ll th th t ti ll M t f th

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Book Reviews

nuclear power, animal rights, and environmental movements Jasper andvarious collaborators have spent the past two decades studying.

The Art of Moral Protest defies adequate description in such limitedspace. Readers will find something of interest on almost every page ofthis well-written monographcogent observations, theoretical insights,provocative assertions, original research hypotheses, and pearls of wis-dom. Serious students of social movements should place it at the top oftheir reading list. Beyond that, I highly recommend that all scholars inter-ested in the human condition partake in this artful scholarly creation.

Agrarian Reform and Class Consciousness in Nicaragua. By Laura J.Enrquez. Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1997. Pp. x206.$49.95.

Carlos M. VilasCEIICH-UNAM

Agrarian reform was a most relevant ingredient in the Sandinista strategyfor revolutionary change. With regard to the peasantry, it was addressedto the fulfillment of three basic, interrelated objectives: furthering eco-nomic development through both productive differentiation and the pro-

motion of cooperative organization; improvement of peasants well-beingby means of access to credit, productive inputs, technical services, andso on; strengthening peasants political support to Sandinismo. Enriquezdiscusses the performance of the reform along these three avenues. Shefocuses on the shifts in the Sandinista regimes approach to the role ofpeasants in economic development and the impact of these shifts uponpeasants attitudes toward both the government and the opposition. Twoadditional ingredients played a decisive role in the development of thepeasantrys political attitudes toward Sandinismo, which Enriquez alsodeals with in detail: the class origins of specific segments of the peasantry

(i.e., poor and landless peasants, minifundista peasants, and others) andthe type of productive organization (collective ownership of land as wellas of production; individual/family ownership of land together with coop-erative management of credit, commercialization, or specific inputs; andso on) promoted by the revolutionary government.

Through two case studies, Enriquez concludes that, despite the agrar-ian reforms economic success (output growth and differentiation, techni-cal improvements, and so on), its ability to feed political support towardSandinismo was mostly confined to former poor and former landless peas-ants, while small producers, enjoying some access to land prior to the

reform, tended to be less politically enthusiastic. In turn, the specific typesof peasant organization, pushed forward by policy makers, acted in dif-f t t f th t l t f ith i d liti l

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