James M. Jasper

Book ReviewThe Social Psychology of Protest.By Bert Klandermans. Oxford: Black‐well Publishers, 1997. Pp. ix+257.

Bert Klandermans has probably done more than anyone else to bridge American and European traditions of research on social movements. He addresses both approaches in his work, in which he has gone out and measured all sorts of things that no one else has. As important are the personal networks he has built through regular visits to the United States from his base in Amsterdam. As a sign of his influence here, he last year headed the American Sociological Association section on collective behavior and social movements. As the title of his new book suggests, Klandermans also aspires to integrate the fields of social psychology and social movements by applying the former to the latter. In the first of two parts, he examines what draws individuals into participation, as well as the less studied issue of what causes them to end their participation. Drawing heavily but gracefully on his own (numerous) previously published articles, he integrates wellstudied concepts such as the generation of collective action frames and the use of personal networks in recruitment with more rationalistic concepts such as costs and benefits and expectations of success. Klandermans’s empirical cases deftly alternate with conceptual discussions. In part 2, concerning the organizational and political contexts of participation, the balance tilts toward reviewing the existing literature. Social movement organizations have been well studied (so much that they have their own acronym, SMOs), but less attention has been given to the fields of conflict within which they maneuver and seek out opportunities for action. A thorough outline of the social psychology of protest would be a good idea and indeed Klandermans’s title leads us to believe he will supply this. After all, the field of social movements has moved rapidly toward a social psychological perspective, usually under the strikingly similar banner of culture. Although these developments are directly relevant to most of his concerns, Klandermans takes little note of them, let alone integrate them into his models. He does not deliver on the promise of his title. For instance, in the first part of his book, Klandermans says he is examining individuals, but we meet only one individual protester, described in a brief paragraph taken from an obscure, unpublished work by another scholar. Instead we have aggregates of opinion polls, hardly the way I would go about getting at the social psychology of individual protesters. We have no in-depth interviews or life histories, no smallgroup dynamics, experimental evidence, psychological or emotional factors, cognitive biases in decision making, no moral sensibilities or principles. Assertions that individuals weigh costs and benefits are a way of avoiding social psychology, which offers the means to investigate why,

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ever, it seems clear that the militarization of the border can only hinder economic development and economic integration in the region, as stepped-up enforcement of border crossings is likely to harm merchants and commerce on both sides of the border. In light of the immigration enforcement issues posed in this monograph, the key question becomes how can U.S. policymakers reconcile a continued policy of paramilitary immigration enforcement given the economic integration of the region as a result of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). This book brings to the forefront the conflict between militarization of the border and globalization and between contending outdated bureaucratic state structures in the world-economic system. In the wake of the anti-immigrant political climate, the Clinton administration, consistent with the immigration enforcement style of past administrations, has opted for stepped-up border enforcement and the appointment of a military retiree to the post of border czar rather than the pursuit of alternative policy measures. I consider this monograph an invaluable tool for anyone interested in understanding the complexity and implications of contemporary immigration enforcement practices in the United States.