Grassroots Movements

Abstract Much research has recognized the increasing prevalence and importance of grassroots movements, particularly in contemporary struggles over globalization. A number of case studies explore the goals, tactics, and trajectories of specific grassroots mobilizations in such areas as environmental justice, indigenous land struggles, women's rights, and slum dweller movements. While more systematic, comparative examination of such movements is relatively limited, it is possible to identify a set of common elements that broadly characterize grassroots movements. These include status of members, scope of activities, forms of leadership and participation, and global linkages. Grassroots movements also often experience tensions between their role as incubators of innovative, even radical, ideologies and practices and the necessity to further transform themselves into more institutionalized social movement organizations.