The Strange Career of an Idea and its Resurrection

Abstract

Partly a memoir, this article traces the history of an article (Zald & Berger, 1978) the author published in the American Journal of Sociology on social movements in organizations. The article originated in events observed while a graduate student in 1957-1958. It showed the value of a political sociology approach to organizational conflict and analyzed coup d’etat, bureaucratic insurgencies, and mass insurrections in organizations. Although published in a leading journal, the article had little impact in the years immediately following its publication. Recently, working with Calvin Morrill and Hayagreeva Rao, the author revisited the topic. Moreover, there has been an upsurge of interest from other scholars, leading to conferences and publications. Recent work includes proactive, applied work attempting to use social movement approaches to promote organizational change. This article examines how the author’s work in this area intersected with his career and attempts to explain why there was so little interest originally but much more interest recently.