Revised August 1991, August 1994, June 2001, June 2006, May 2008, June 2012; June 2014; August 2016; August 2017

Article I. Name

The Section shall be known as the Section on Collective Behavior and Social Movements.

Article II. Purpose

The purpose of the Section on Collective Behavior and Social Movements shall be to foster the study of emergent and extra-institutional social forms and behavior, particularly crowds and social movements. This includes but is not limited to disasters, riots, protests, rumors, panics, fads, fashions, popular culture, strikes and reform, revival and revolutionary movements.

Article III. Membership and Dues

Section 1. Membership in the Section shall be open to all members of the Association.

Section 2. Dues shall be set by the Section Council to cover the operation of the Section in accord with the requirements of the Association.

Article IV. Officers

Section 1. The Officers of the Section shall be a Chair, Chair-Elect, Secretary-Treasurer, and six members of the council.

Section 2. The Chair-Elect, Secretary-Treasurer, and six members of the Council shall be elected directly by the voting membership.

Section 3. The Chair-Elect shall serve for one year and shall automatically become chair.

Section 4. The Chair shall preside at all business meetings of the Council and the Section and perform all duties assigned by the Council, the Section, and the Association, including working to maintain the Section membership and recruit new members to the Section. S/he shall serve a term of one year and shall not be eligible for re-election for a period of seven years. In the event of death, resignation, absence or inability to serve, the office of Chair shall devolve successively upon the Chair-Elect and one of the Council members selected by majority vote of the Council until the next election is held.

Section 5. The Secretary-treasurer shall be elected for a three-year term. S/he shall record transactions of the Section and perform such other duties as the Council may assign. IN the event of death, resignation or inability to serve, the office of Secretary/Treasurer will temporarily be filled by a person selected by vote of Council until the next election is held.

Section 6. The Council shall consist of nine voting members: three ex-officio and six elected at-large. The ex-officio members shall be the Chair, Chair-Elect and the Secretary-Treasurer. The members-at-large shall be elected for staggered three-year terms with two elected each year. In the first election of the members-at-large, the terms of office, whether for one, two or three years, shall be designated by the chair.

Section 7. No member shall be eligible for re-election to the Council until one year after the expiration of his or her term, and no individual shall be eligible for election to the Council after having served two terms on the Council. No member shall hold two Section offices simultaneously.

Section 8. The Council shall be responsible for the formation of policy and the general direction of affairs of the Section, acting as the representative of the membership of the Section. The Council shall take decisions by the majority vote of its attending members. It shall have the power to fill vacancies in its elected membership occasioned by death, resignation, absence, inability to serve or failure to elect, such appointees to hold office until replaced by officers elected at the next annual election.

Section 9. A majority of the members shall constitute a quorum of the Council.

Section 10. Any action of the Section may be brought to the vote of the Section by the Council, by petition of ten percent of the members of the Section or by twenty-five members of the Section, whichever is less.

Article V: Publications

Section 1. There shall be a section newsletter issued under a title and at intervals recommended by the Publication Committee and approved by Council.

Section 2. The editor of the newsletter shall be selected by the Publications Committee subject to approval by the Council. The editor of the newsletter’s term shall be three years, with the option to extend the term for one additional year.

Section 3. The editor of the newsletter shall have authority to appoint special purpose editors as s/he deems necessary.

Section 4. There shall be a Website Coordinator who is responsible for putting materials on the section website and keeping the site updated. The Website Coordinator will be selected by the Publications Committee subject to approval by the Council and will serve a three-year term, with the option to extend the term for one additional year.

Article VI. Committees

Section 1. For purposes of cooperating with the Association’s Program Committee in planning the Section’s sessions at the Annual Meeting, the Council shall be constituted the Section’s Program Committee.

Section 2. There shall be a Workshop Committee and a Publications Committee, and Mentoring Committee, each consisting of three members elected by the membership. Members shall serve three year staggered terms with one person elected each year. Each Committee shall meet at least one during the Annual Meeting to elect a new chair and to conduct such business as it may deem appropriate. The purpose of the Workshop Committee shall be to develop plans for and to participate in conducting instructional seminars and research workshops. The Publications Committee shall be responsible for periodic updating of the Section’s Teaching Syllabi Collection, other periodic reports and publications projects. It shall comprise an editorial board for the Section newsletter and as such will assist in compiling material for this publication. The Mentoring Committee shall serve as a “matchmaking service,” pairing assistant professors (as well as ABD candidates) with more senior colleagues who can provide advice and support during the early years of a mentee’s career.

Section 3. There shall be a Nominations Committee consisting of the immediate past Section Chair, serving ex-officio as the Chair without vote, and three members elected at-large by the entire voting membership of the Section. Members shall serve three year staggered terms with one person elected each year. One elected member shall retire each year. Each year the Nominations Committee shall develop a slate of two nominees for Chair-Elect, two Council seats, and one Nominations Committee seat. Every three years the Nominations Committee shall develop a slate of two nominees for Secretary-Treasurer. The slate of nominees shall be placed on the ballot of the Section’s annual Election.

Section 4. In the event of the death, resignation, absence or the inability to serve of any members elected or appointed to a committee, the Section Chair may appoint a member of the Section to fill the vacancy during the Chair’s term of office.

Section 5. The Council may create such temporary committees not provided for in the By-Laws as may seem useful for promoting the work of the Section.

Section 6. There shall be constituted each year a Charles Tilly Distinguished Contribution to Scholarship Book Award Committee to select the best book with a publication date in the calendar year prior to the year of the award. The committee shall consist of the Chair, who shall serve as the committee’s chair, third-year council member B, second-year council member A, and an appointee of the section Chair, whose first choice shall be the winner of the previous year’s award. For the purposes of committee formation, council member A shall be the member elected in a given year whose name is first in alphabetical order and council member B shall be the member elected that year whose name is second in alphabetical order. If one or more of these persons is unable to serve or if the committee requires supplementation for other reasons, the section Chair will appoint a new member or new members to the committee. The committee may decide against making an award in a particular year, and in that event the next committee will consider books with publication dates in the two calendar years prior to the year of the award.

Section 7. There shall be constituted each year a Distinguished Contribution to Scholarship Article Award Committee to select the best article with a publication date in the calendar year prior to the year of the award. The committee shall consist of the Past Chair, who shall serve as the committee’s chair, first-year council member A, second-year council member B, and an appointee of the section chair, whose first choice shall be the winner of the previous year’s award. For the purposes of committee formation, council member A shall be the member elected in a given year whose name is first in alphabetical order and council member B shall be the member elected that year whose name is second in alphabetical order. If one or more of these persons is unable to serve or if the committee requires supplementation for other reasons, the section Chair will appoint a new member or new members to the committee. The committee may decide against making an award in a particular year, and in that event the next committee will consider articles with publication dates in the two calendar years prior to the year of the award.

Section 8. There shall be constituted each year a Mayer N. Zald Distinguished Contribution to Scholarship Student Paper Award Committee to select the best student paper written in the calendar year prior to the year of the award. Anyone without a PhD in the calendar year prior to the year of the award (a student) or any group of students is eligible to submit a paper; a previously submitted paper may be resubmitted only if significantly revised. The committee shall consist of the Chair-Elect, who shall serve as the committee’s chair, third-year council member A, first-year council member B, and an appointee of the section Chair, whose first choice shall be the winner of the previous year’s award. For the purposes of committee formation, council member A shall be the member elected in a given year whose name is first in alphabetical order and council member B shall be the member elected that year whose name is second in alphabetical order. If one or more of these persons is unable to serve or if the committee requires supplementation for other reasons, the section Chair will appoint a new member or new members to the committee. The committee may decide against making an award in a particular year, and in that event the next committee will consider papers written in the two calendar years prior to the year of the award.

Section 9. There shall be a Membership, Diversity, and Inclusion Committee consisting of three elected members who have demonstrated a strong commitment to diversity. Members shall serve three year staggered terms with one new member elected each year. The committee may also solicit volunteers as elected members find useful. Volunteers may serve for one or two years, to be determined by elected committee. This committee would hold as its objective a commitment to supporting membership and strongly encouraging diverse representation. This committee would include among its aims: (1) Implementation, organization and oversight of an annual membership drive; (2) Responsibility for welcoming roundtable participants at the annual meeting into the section and section reception; (3) Development of “Best Practices” to promote diverse representation within the section leadership and recruitment and retention of a diverse section membership; and, (4) Facilitation and Maintenance of relationships with sections and associations to encourage intellectual cross-fertilization across sub-disciplines within sociology.

Section 10. There shall be constituted each year a Distinguished Contribution to Scholarship Dissertation Award Committee to select the best dissertation completed (i.e. successfully submitted, defended, and approved) in the calendar year prior to the year of the award. Only nominations from the student’s dissertation chair or co-chair will be accepted. The Chair will appoint three members from the Workshop, Mentoring, and Publications Committees for the award committee. The fourth member will be an appointee of the section Chair, whose first choice shall be the winner of the previous year’s award. If one or more of these persons is unable to serve or if the committee requires supplementation for other reasons, the section Chair will appoint a new member or new members to the committee. The committee may decide against making an award in a particular year, and in that event the next committee will consider dissertations completed in the two calendar years prior to the year of the award.

Article VII. Meetings

Section 1. At each Annual Meeting of the Association, there shall be at least one Business Meeting of the Section at which the Officers and the Council shall respond to questions from the membership.

Section 2. The Chair shall convene the Council at each Annual Meeting in order to perform the duties specified in the By-Laws.

Article VIII. Elections and Voting

Section 1. The Chair-Elect, Secretary-Treasurer, members of the Council and members of the Workshop Committee, Nominations Committee, and Publications Committee shall be elected by mail ballot to the members qualified to vote. The elections of the Section shall be carried out in cooperation with the Association and coordinated to its schedule. The exception to this shall be the first election which shall be carried out concomitantly with the formation of the Section.

Section 2. All Section Offices filled by voting of the membership at large shall be conducted by mail ballot under the following procedure.

(a) As soon as practical after the ASA Annual Meeting, the Secretary Treasurer shall place in the hands of the Nominations Committee a list of those who have occupied office in the Section since its founding, a list of the membership eligible to hold office, and a copy of the Section’s By-Laws.

(b) Coordinated with the schedule and requirements of ASA election procedures, the Nominations Committee shall select two nominees for each elective position to be filled. All nominees must give prior approval for placing their names on the ballot.

Section 3. The term of office shall begin one day prior to the date announced for the close of the Annual Meeting of the Association in the year which they are elected.

Article IX. Amendments

Section 1. The By-Laws may be amended by a majority affirmative vote of those voting in a referendum submitted by mail to the voting members of the Section.

Section 2. Amendments may be proposed by a majority vote of the Council or by petition of at least ten percent of the voting members of the Section of at least ten percent of the voting members of the Section or by twenty-five members of the Section, whichever is less.