My impression of the academic social movement studies is that a decent chunk is interested in how movements mobilise their resources, recruit, etc, but often more from a theoretical perspective (e.g. why do people do this, given rational choice theory) rather than statistical/empirical. I don’t have a comprehensive knowledge by any means though, so could be wrong.
(I generally think that if you have specific questions in mind like this, you have to either draw qualitative, indirect insights from case studies and adjacent materials, or design a systematic/comparative methodology and do the research!)
I do not know if anything like this.
I agree that “Luke Muehlhauser’s work on early-movement growth and field-building comes closest.” Animal Ethics’ case studies are also helpful for academic fields https://www.animal-ethics.org/establishing-new-field-natural-sciences/
My impression of the academic social movement studies is that a decent chunk is interested in how movements mobilise their resources, recruit, etc, but often more from a theoretical perspective (e.g. why do people do this, given rational choice theory) rather than statistical/empirical. I don’t have a comprehensive knowledge by any means though, so could be wrong.
(I generally think that if you have specific questions in mind like this, you have to either draw qualitative, indirect insights from case studies and adjacent materials, or design a systematic/comparative methodology and do the research!)
Thanks, Jamie! Indeed quite helpful to know that there’s nothing obvious I am missing.
Yes, agree on the last point—I am just surprised this has not been done as EA grant makers frequently face the decision, I think.