Awards

Updated August 2022

Aldon Morris Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Scholarship of Social Movements

With this newly established award, the CBSM section “seeks to honor eminent senior scholars who have offered sustained contributions to social movement research and illuminated ways in which people in the United States and throughout the world have worked collectively to promote equality and justice.” The award committee is delighted to award the inaugural CBSM Aldon Morris Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Scholarship of Social Movements to the scholar for whom this award is named: Aldon D. Morris, Leon Forrest Professor of Sociology and African American Studies at Northwestern University and former ASA President.

Professor Morris’ career is notable for the way that his scholarship has transformed the way we think about social movements. His path-breaking 1984 book, Origins of the Civil Rights Movement (winner of multiple awards including the ASA Book Award and the Gustuvus Myers Award) and related articles in prestigious outlets such as the American Sociological Review developed the “indigenous perspective” and showed how Southern Black communities were not resource-poor and reliant upon Northern elites but instead drew on their own cultural, material, and infrastructural resources to generate resistance. His keen theoretical insights, grounded in careful empirical research, are the hallmark of his work. Indeed, just as Origins of the Civil Rights Movement rewrote the history of the civil rights movement for social movement scholars, Professor Morris’ 2015 book, The Scholar Denied (also the winner of numerous awards, including the Oliver Cromwell Cox Book Award in 2016) tells the much overlooked story of W.E.B. DuBois and his central contributions to the field of sociology. Similarly, Professor Morris’ theoretical and empirical work on topics such as leadership and oppositional consciousness expanded our notions of the factors that give rise to collective action. These themes are present both in his sole-authored work and in his influential edited volumes, the 1992 Frontiers in Social Movement Theory (co-edited with Carol Mueller) and the 2001 Oppositional Consciousness (co-edited with Jane Mansbridge). These works continue to shape and inspire research on movements of marginalized peoples, both in the U.S. and world-wide. Finally, Professor Morris is a dedicated and impactful mentor who has shaped the field by guiding the careers of generations of scholars.

Through a vote of its membership, the CBSM section has named its career award after Aldon Morris, thereby recognizing Professor Morris’ significant contributions to the field of social movements over the course of his illustrious career. It is only fitting that the inaugural award goes to its namesake.

Charles Tilly Distinguished Contribution to Scholarship Book Award

Established in 1986 to honor a significant contribution, the award recognizes a publication that has added to the field. In 1990, the Section gave this award as the Best Study of 1988-1989 Award.

Previous winners:

  • 2021: Eleonora Pasotti. 2020. Resisting Redevelopment: Protest in Aspiring Global Cities (Cambridge University Press)
  • 2020: Co-Winners: Jen Schradie, The Revolution That Wasn’t: How Digital Activism Favors Conservatives. Harvard University Press. 2019. Robert Braun, Protectors of Pluralism: Religious Minorities and the Rescue of Jews in the Low Countries during the Holocaust. Cambridge University Press. 2019.
  • 2019: Co-Winners: Diana Fu, Mobilizing without the Masses: Control and Contention in China, Cambridge University Press. 2018. Tamara Kay and R.L. Evans, Trade Battles: Activism and the Politicization of International Trade Policy, Oxford University Press. 2018.
  • 2018: Co-Winners: Ketchley, Neil. Egypt in a Time of Revolution: Contentious Politics and the Arab Spring. (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2017).
    Zepeda-Millán, Chris. Latino Mass Mobilization: Immigration, Radicalization and Activism. (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2018).
  • 2017: Erica Simmons. Meaningful Resistance: Market Reforms and the Roots of Social Protest in Latin America. (Cambridge University Press, 2016).
  • 2016: Daniel Schlozman. When Movements Anchor Parties (Princeton University Press, 2015).
    Honorable Mention: Christopher Bail, How Anti-Muslim Fringe Organizations Became Mainstream (Princeton University Press, 2015).
  • 2015: Co-winners: Katrina Kimport, Queering Marriage. Rutgers University Press & Edward T. Walker, Grassroots for Hire.  Cambridge University Press.
  • 2014: Isaac William Martin. Rich People’s Movements: Grassroots Campaigns to Untax the One Percent (Oxford University Press, 2013).
    Honorable Mention: David Cunningham. Klansville, U.S.A.: The Rise and Fall of the Civil Rights-Era Ku Klux Klan (Oxford University Press, 2013).
  • 2013: Kathleen Blee, Democracy in the Making. (Committee report). 
    Honorable Mention: Guillermo Trejo, Popular Movements in Autocracies: Religion, Repression and Indigenous Collective Action in Mexico.
  • 2012: Drew Halfmann. Doctors and Demonstrators: How Political Institutions Shape Abortion Law in the United States, Britain, and Canada.
  • 2011: William Roy. Reds, Whites and Blues: Social Movements, Folk Music, and Race in the United States (Princeton University Press, 2010)
  • 2010: Javier Auyero and Débora Alejandra Swistun, Flammable: Environmental Suffering in an Argentine Shantytown. and Nancy Whittier, The Politics of Child Sexual Abuse: Emotion, Social Movements, and the State.
  • 2009: Maren Klawiter, The Biopolitics of Breast Cancer: Changing Cultures of Disease and Activism.
  • 2008: Roger Karapin, Protest Politics in Germany: Movements on the Left and Right Since the 1960s.
  • 2007: Francesca Polletta, It Was Like a Fever: Storytelling in Protest and Politics.
  • 2006: Gene Burns, The Moral Veto: Framing Contraception, Abortion, and Cultural Pluralism in the United States.
  • 2005: Kenneth T. Andrews. 2004. ‘Freedom is a Constant Struggle’: The Mississippi Civil Rights Movement and Its Legacy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
  • 2004: Myra Marx Ferree, William Anthony Gamson, Jürgen Gerhards, and Dieter Rucht. Shaping Abortion Discourse: Democracy and the Public Sphere in Germany and the United States.
  • 2003: Francesca Polletta, Freedom is an Endless Meeting.
  • 2002: Jeff Goodwin, No Other Way Out: States and Revoluntionary Movements, 1945-1991 and Dingxin Zhao, The Power of Tiananmen: State-Sociecty Relations and the 1989 Beijing Student Movement.
  • 2001: Not given.
  • 2000: Rebecca Klatch, A Generation Divided.
  • 1999: Not listed.
  • 1998: Nicola Beisel, Imperiled Innocents: Anthony Comstock and Family Reproduction in Victorian America.
  • 1996: Charles Tilly, Popular Contention in Great Britain: 1754-1837.
  • 1994: Clark McPhail, The Myth of the Madding Crowd.
  • 1992: Sidney Tarrow, Democracy & Disorder: Protest & Politics in Italy, 1965-1975.
  • 1990: Rick Fantasia, Cultures of Solidarity: Consciousness, Action, & Contemporary American Workers and Doug McAdam, Freedom Summer.
  • 1988: John Lofland, Protest: Studies of Collective Behavior and Social Movements.

Mayer N. Zald Distinguished Contribution to Scholarship Student Paper Award

This award was established in 1992. The section initially chose to present one award each year, giving the Graduate Student Award in odd-numbered years and the Book Award in even-numbered years. Later, nominations were opened up to include papers by any student who had not yet secured a PhD.

  • 2022 Winner: Simone Durham. University of Maryland. “Not in this Lifetime”: The Black Millennial Imagination and Impacts of Black Lives Matter on Racial Dynamics in the U.S.”
  • 2022 Honorable Mention: Stephen Wulff. University of Minnesota. “’Entrepreneurs of Punishment’: Police Misconduct Insurance, Grassroots Activism, and the Limits of Linguistic Capital.”

Previous winners:

  • 2021: Apoorva Ghosh. “The Politics of Alignment and the ‘Quiet Transgender Revolution’ in Fortune 500 Corporations, 2008 to 2017.” Honorable mention: Rui Jie Peng. “Rightful Bargaining: Rural Women Making Claims for Social Provisions in China’s Targeted Poverty Alleviation Program.”
  • 2020: Anna Zhelnina, CUNY Grad Center. “The Apathy Syndrome: How We Are Trained Not to Care About Politics.” Honorable mention: Alejandro Marquez, University of Texas – Austin. “Detached Attachments: Dealing with and Preventing Burnout among Caregivers in the Immigrant Rights Movement.” 
  • 2019: Jennifer E. Cossyleon, Loyola University Chicago, “‘Coming Out of My Shell:’ Motherleaders Contesting Fear, Vulnerability, and Despair through Family-focused Community Organizing.” And 2019 Honorable mention: Yewon Lee, University of California – Los Angeles, “Reframing Gentrification: How Tenant Shopkeepers’ Activism in Seoul Radically Reframed Gentrification.”
  • 2018: Haimson, Chloe. 2018. “Interactional Resistance During Black Lives Matter Protests: The Political Stakes of Rebelling Against the Public Order.” Honorable Mention: Türkoğlu, Didem. 2018. “As Tuition Rises: Opposition to the Neoliberalization of Higher Education.”
  • 2017: Anya M. Galli. 2016. “How Glitter Bombing Lost Its Sparkle: The Emergence and Decline of a Novel Social Movement Tactic.” Mobilization 21(3):259-281.
  • 2016 Co-Winners: Marcos Emilio Perez “Becoming a Piquetero: Past, Novel and Current Routines in the Development of Activist Dispositions” & Han Zhang “Causal Impact of Witnessing Political Protest on Civic Engagement.”
  • 2015: Robert Braun, “Religious Minorities and Resistance to Genocide: The Collective Rescue of Jews in the Netherlands during the Holocaust.” Honorable mention: Aliza Rebecca Luft, “Toward a Dynamic Theory of Action at the Micro-Level of Genocide: Killing, Desistance, and Saving in 1994 Rwanda.”
  • 2014: Jonathan Horowitz. “Oh, the Places I’ll Go! Possible Selves, Persistence Narratives, and Activist Identity.”
  • 2013: Mohammad Ali Kadivar, “Opportunities, Perception Profiles, and Alliances in the Iranian Reform Movement, 1997-2005.” Honorable Mention: Tarun Banerjee, “Media, Movements, and Mobilization: Tea Party Protests in the U.S., 2009-2010” and Daniel S. Blocq, “Formation of Armed Self-Defense Groups during Civil Wars.” (Committee report)
  • 2012: Hiroe Saruya, “The Rise of Japan’s First New Left: Bourdieusian Field Dynamics and the Emergence of Movement Organizations.”
  • 2011: Joshua Bloom, UCLA. “Insurgent Influence on Truman’s Civil Rights Policy: A Theoretically Informed Event Structure Analysis.”
  • 2010: Lauren Joseph, “From the ‘Gayborhood’ to the Small Town: LGBT Pride Organizations and the Mobilization of Resources, Culture, and Symbolic Capital.”
  • 2009: Matthew S. Williams, “Strategizing against Sweatshops: Ideology, Strategic Models, and Innovation in the U.S. Anti-Sweatshop Movement.”
  • 2008: Rachel Kutz-Flamenbaum, “Strategic Dilemmas in Organizational Frame Selection and Audience Frame Preference in Women’s Peace Organizing”
  • 2007: Dan Lainer-Vos, “Social Movements and Citizenship: Conscientious Objection in France, the United States, and Israel.” Mobilization 11(3): 277-295.
  • 2006: Rachel Meyer, “Constituency and Emotion in Collective Action: Sources of Working-Class Identity and Activism.”
  • 2005: Erich Steinman.
  • 2004: Robert S. Jansen, “Resurrection and Reappropriation: Political Uses of Historical Figures in Comparative Perspective.” Honorable mention: Vanessa Barker, “Politics of Pain: State Governance, Moral Protest, and the Varied Impacts of Social Movements.”
  • 2003: Julie Stewart, “When Local Troubles Become Transnational Issues: A Study of an Indigenous Rights Movement in Guatemala.”
  • 2002: Deana A. Rohlinger, “Movement-Countermovement Dynamics in the Abortion Debate: An Examination of Media Coverage Outcome”
  • 2001: John Krinsky, “The Relational Dynamics of Claim-Making in New York City’s Workfare Politics.”
  • 2000: Gary Bologh, “Learning from Populism: Narrative Analysis and Social Movement Consciousness.”
  • 1999: Not given.
  • 1998: Ira Silver, “Buying and Activist Identity: Reproducing Class through Social Movement Philanthropy.”
  • 1997: Mary Bernstein, “Celebration and Suppression: The Strategic Uses of Identity by the Lesbian and Gay Movement.”
  • 1996: Kenneth T. Andrews, “The Civil Rights Movement and Black Electoral Politics in Mississippi, 1960-1984.”
  • 1993: Jackie Smith, “Transnational Political Processes and the Human Rights Movement.”

Distinguished Contribution to Scholarship Article Award (Best Published Article Award)

Previous winners:

  • 2021: Joshua Bloom. 2020. “The Dynamics of Repression and Insurgent Practice in the Black Liberation Struggle.” American Journal of Sociology 126(2): 195-259.
  • 2020: Yao Lu, Columbia University, “Empowerment or Disintegration? Migration, Social Institutions, and Collective Action in Rural China” American Journal of Sociology, 125(3): 683-729. 2019.
  • 2019: Yan Long, “The Contradictory Impact of Transnational AIDS Institutions on State Repression in China, 1989–2013.” American Journal of Sociology 124(2): 309-366, 2018.
  • 2018: Yao Lu and Ran Tao. 2017. “Organizational Structure and Collective Action: Lineage Networks, Semiautonomous Civic Associations, and Collective Resistance in Rural China.” American Journal of Sociology 122:1726-1774. Honorable Mention: Kiyoteru Tsutsui. 2017. “Human Rights and Minority Activism in Japan: Transformation of Movement Actorhood and Local-Global Feedback Loop.” American Journal of Sociology 122:1050-1103.
  • 2017: Paul Ingram and Brian S. Silverman. 2016. “The Cultural Contingency of Structure: Evidence from Entry to the Slave Trade In and Around the Abolition Movement,” American Journal of Sociology. 122:755–97. Honorable Mention: Michael Hechter, Steven Pfaff, and Patrick Underwood. 2016. “Grievances and the Genesis of Rebellion: Mutiny in the Royal Navy, 1740 to 1820,” American Sociological Review. 81:165–189.
  • 2016: Ion Bogdan Vasu and Edward Walker. 2015. ““No Fracking Way!” Documentary Film, Discursive Opportunity, and Local Opposition against Hydraulic Fracturing in the United States, 2010 to 2013.” American Sociological Review 80(5): 934- 959. Honorable Mention: Joshua Bloom. 2015. “The Dynamics of Opportunity and Insurgent Practice: How Black Anti-colonialists Compelled Truman to Advocate Civil Rights” American Sociological Review 80(2):391-415, 2015.
  • 2015: Rory McVeigh, David Cunningham, and Justin Farrell. 2014.  “Political Polarization as a Social Movement Outcome: 1960s Klan Activism and Its Enduring Impact on Political Realignment in Southern Counties, 1960 to 2000.” American Sociological Review. Honorable Mention: Guillermo Trejo. 2014. “The Ballot and the Street: An Electoral Theory of Social Protest in Autocracies.”  Perspectives on Politics.
  • 2014: Doron Shultziner. “The Social-Psychological Origins of the Montgomery Bus Boycott: Social Interaction and Humiliation in the Emergence of Social Movements.” Mobilization 18(2).
    Honorable Mention: Genevieve Zubrzycki. “Aesthetic Revolt and the Remaking of National Identity in Québec.” Theory and Society 42: 423-475.
  • 2013: Kevan Harris. 2012. “The Brokered Exuberance of the Middle Class: An Ethnographic Analysis of Iran’s 2009 Green Movement,” Mobilization 17(4): 435-55.
    Honorable Mention:     Hyojoung Kim and Steven Pfaff. 2012. “Structure and Dynamics of Religious Insurgency: Students and the Spread of the Reformation,” American Sociological Review 77(2): 188-215. (Committee Report)
  • 2012: Amin Ghaziani and Delia Baldassarri. 2011. “Cultural Anchors and the Organization of Differences: A Multi-method Analysis of LGBT Marches on Washington,” American Sociological Review 76(2): 179-206.
  • 2011: Robert W. White: 2010. “Structural Identity Theory and the Post-Recruitment Activism of Irish Republicans: Persistence, Disengagement, Splits, and Dissidents in Social Movement Organizations.” Social Problems 57(3): 341-370.
  • 2010: Verta Taylor, Katrina Kimport, Nella VanDyke, and Ellen Andersen. 2009. “Culture and Mobilization: Tactical Repertoires, Same-Sex Weddings, and the Impact on Gay Activism,”  American Sociological Review 74:865-890.
  • 2009: Elizabeth A. Armstrong and Mary Bernstein. 2008. “Culture, Power, and Institutions: A Multi-Institutional Politics Approach to Social Movements.” Sociological Theory 26(1): 74-99.
  • 2008: Caroline Lee. 2007. “Is There a Place for Private Conversation in Public Dialogue?” American Journal of Sociology 113(1): 41-96.
  • 2007: Elizabeth A. Armstrong and Suzanna M. Crage. 2006. “Movements and Memory: The Making of the Stonewall Myth.” American Sociological Review 71: 724-751.
  • 2006: Edwin Amenta, Neal Caren, and Sheera Joy Olasky. 2005. “Age for leisure? Political Mediation and the Impact of the Pension Movement on US Old-Age Policy.” American Sociological Review 70: 516-538.
  • 2005: Not given.
  • 2004: Paul Almeida. 2003. “Opportunity Organizations and Threat-Induced Contention: Protest Waves in Authoritarian Settings.” American Journal of Sociology 109(2): 345-400.
  • 2003. Bert Useem and Jack A. Goldstone. 2002. “Forging Social Order and Its Breakdown: Riot and Reform in U.S. Prisons.” 67: 499-525.
  • 2002: Steven Pfaff and Guobin Yang. 2001. “Double-edged Rituals and the Symbolic Resources of Collective Action: Political Commemorations and the Mobilization of Protest in 1989.” Theory and Society 30: 539-589.

Distinguished Contribution to Scholarship Dissertation Award

  • 2022 Winner: Minwoo Jung. Ph.D. University of Southern California, 2021 (current position, assistant professor at Loyola University, Chicago). Rights Projects in a Globalized World.

Previous winners:

  • 2021 Co-winners: Benjamin H. Bradlow. “Urban Origins of Democracy and Inequality: Governing São Paulo and Johannesburg, 1985-2016”
  • Anna Zhelnina. “Engaging Neighbors: Housing Strategies and Political Mobilization in Moscow’s Renovation”
  • 2020: Tyson Patros, University of California, Irvine, “The Links on the Chain: Popular Uprisings and Political Re-constitutions in the Global Middle East and North Africa”
  • 2019: Anjuli Fahlberg , Northeastern University, “Activism Under Fire: Violence, Poverty, and Collective Action in Rio de Janeiro.” And honorable mention: Heidi Reynolds-Stenson, University of Arizona, “‘Building a Wall of Resistance:’ Collective Action and Rationality in the Anti-Terror Age.” 
  • 2018: Oyakawa, Michelle. “Building a Movement in the Non-profit Industrial Complex.”
  • 2017: Yang Zhang. “Insurgent Dynamics: The Coming of the Chinese Rebellions,1850-1873.”
  • 2016: Daniel Escher. “Unmoving People, Removing Mountains: Coal Mining, Cultural Matching, and Mobilization in Central Appalachia.”

Exceptional Service Award

  • 2003: Hank Johnston