In your final paper you first have to select what you would like to write about. The only requirement is that it fits the course—if must focus on social movements or collective behavior. I define social movements and social movement organizations broadly, largely in line with McCarthy and Zald’s (1977) “preference structures for change” (or continuity or any collective good, I would add). Defined this way, articles on attitudes about collective goods and bads would qualify as social movements (though not organizations). Social Movement organizations need not be political, they can be religious or cultural. You may want to focus your paper on a specific substantive issue that you are interested in—the politics of cults and new religious movements, Hindu-Buddhist conflict in Sri Lanka, shifting political identification in the US., factionalism in the LGBT movement, etc.
Within any substantive issue you should focus on a particular level of analysis—individual (micro level), group (mezzo level), or societal-cross-societal-global (macro level). Hence, if you want to study something about Catholicism and abortion, at the macro level you could look at conflicts between the church hierarchy and the state on the abortion issue in Ireland. At the mezzo level you could look at competing pro-life and pro-choice Catholic movements. At the micro-level you could look at the influence of Catholic affiliation and church participation on abortion attitudes at the individual level.
The paper should be structured in four parts, and it is very helpful if you use subheadings to differentiate the sections.
1. The focal question of the study both in terms of substantive issue and level of analysis, a brief outline of the theories that are pertinent to explaining the issue, and the methodologies that have been used to assess the issue. This should be about 1-1.5 pages double spaced.
2. The theoretical issues involved to either elaborate a substantive example, or to test a causal relationship. Some papers will use theories to help elaborate a historical, or ethnographic case, or to provide a broader explanation to complex quantitative interrelationships (like in my elaboration of a rational structuration perspective to explain influences on religious preferences and choices). Other papers will test competing theories against one another. In this section you systematically define all of your theoretical concepts, how they have been used in previous research, and how they pertain to your substantive question. If you are examining issues where there are many competing or contributing explanations, then you need to discuss each. This section should be about 6-8 pages.
3. Describe the way the issue has been studied, and which studies you are going to focus on for reviewing the findings regarding your topic. What methods were used to operationalize the concepts (Historical-comparative, survey, quantitative cross national, ethnographic participant observation, multiple)? Using a few of the most recent and high quality studies (or the only few you can find that directly address your issue, depending on the topic you choose, resources may be limited), what were the key findings? This should be 6-8 pages.
4. What do the findings suggest regarding the adequacy of the theories for explaining the substantive issue? What do these substantive findings suggest for future examinations of research in this area? Are there methodological or theoretical improvements that might provide better explanations? 2-4 pages.
