Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Publisher:
Cambridge University Press
Online publication date:
May 2025
Print publication year:
2025
Online ISBN:
9781009640275
Series:
Elements in Contentious Politics

Book description

This Element addresses questions about social movement effectiveness and the strategies and methods that are most likely to achieve policy change. It examines the nature of peace movements through a comparative analysis of three major movements, focusing on their policy impacts. It assesses social movement dynamics and the mechanisms through which movements gain influence. The purpose is to mine campaign experiences from the past to develop action guidelines for more effective citizen activism against war and nuclear weapons in the future. The Element examines non-institutional and institutional forms of politics and the relationship between the two, and how they can be mutually reinforcing. It traces examples of inside-outside approaches within the three peace movements and their effects. Lessons from the analysis and case studies are applied in the final section to proposals for a new global freeze movement to stop the emerging international arms race.

References

Ackerman, S. (2021). Reign of terror: How the 9/11 era destabilized America and produced Trump. Viking.
Ackerman, P. & Kruegler, C. (1994). Strategic nonviolent conflict: The dynamics of people power in the twentieth century. Praeger.
Angle, M. (2007, July 12). Defying Bush, House passes new deadline for withdrawal from Iraq. The New York Times. https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/cq/2007/07/12/cq_3069.html.
Back from the brink. (2025, April). Who’s on board. https://preventnuclearwar.org/whos-on-board/.
Bailey, B. (2009). America’s army: Creating the all-volunteer force. Harvard University Press.
Baker, P. (2014). Days of fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House. Anchor Books.
Baskir, L. M. & Strauss, W.A. (1978). Chance and circumstance: The draft, the war and the Vietnam generation. Alfred Knopf.
Belasco, A. (2007, January 6). Congressional restrictions on U.S. military operations in Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Somalia, and Kosovo: Funding and non-funding approaches. (CRS Report No. RL 33803). https://sgp.fas.org/crs/natsec/RL33803.pdf.
Broad, W. (2024, July 5). Trump advisers call for U.S. nuclear weapons testing if he is elected. The New York Times. www.nytimes.com/2024/07/05/science/nuclear-testing-trump.html.
Calhoun, J. (1980, October). The Vietnam war and the Vietnam generation [Review of the book Chance and circumstance: The draft, the war, and the Vietnam generation, by Baskir, L. M. and Strauss, W.A. ]. Peace and Change, 6(3). 7177. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0130.1980.tb00421.x.
Cameron, J. (1970, November). The armed forces’ reluctant retrenchment. Fortune, 82(5), 6973, 166, 173174.
Carver, R., Cortright, D., & Doherty, B. (2019). Waging peace in Vietnam: Soldiers and veterans who opposed the war. New Village Press.
Chenoweth, E. (2021). Civil resistance: What everyone needs to know. Oxford University Press.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. (1981, May 5). First presidency statement on the basing of the MX missile.
Congressional Quarterly Almanac. (1986). 99th Congress, 2nd Session. August 28, 2024 from https://library.cqpress.com/cqalmanac/toc.php?mode=cqalmanac-toc&level=2&values=1986+-+99th+Congress%2C+2nd+Session.
Cortright, D. (1993). Peace works: The citizen’s role in ending the Cold War. Westview Press.
Cortright, D. (2005). Soldiers in revolt: GI resistance during the Vietnam War. Haymarket Publishers.
Cortright, D. (2023). A peaceful superpower: Lessons from the world’s largest antiwar movement. New Village Press.
Cramer, J.K. (2007). Militarized patriotism: Why the U.S. marketplace of ideas failed before the Iraq War. Security Studies, 16(3). 489524. https://doi.org/10.1080/09636410701547949.
Crawford, N. C. (2022). The Pentagon, climate change and war: Charting the rise and fall of U.S. military emissions. MIT Press.
Daddis, G. A. (2017). Withdrawal: Reassessing America’s final years in Vietnam. Oxford University Press.
Davis, M. (2007, January–February). The Democrats after November. New Left Review, 43. 531.
DeBenedetti, C. (1980). The peace reform in American history. Indiana University Press.
Early, S. (2020, April 24). Fifty years ago this spring, millions of students struck to end the war in Vietnam. Jacobin. www.jacobinmag.com/2020/04/kent-state-shooting-vietnam-war-protest-student-organizing.
Eisenberg, C. W. (2023). Fire and rain: Nixon, Kissinger, and the wars in Southeast Asia. Oxford University Press.
Elsea, J., Garcia, M., & Nicola, T. (2008, February 27). Congressional authority to limit U.S. military operations in Iraq. (CRS Report No. RL33837).
Everts, P.P. (1989). Where the peace movement goes when it disappears. Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, 45(9), 2630. www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00963402.1989.11459746.
Finney, J. W. (1974, May 7). Senate rejects rise in arms aid to South Vietnam. The New York Times. www.nytimes.com/1974/05/07/archives/senate-rejects-rise-in-arms-aid-to-south-vietnam-action-led-by.html.
Foley, M.S. (2003). Confronting the war machine: Draft resistance during the Vietnam War. University of North Carolina Press.
Gamson, W. (1990). The strategy of social protest. (2nd ed.). Wadsworth.
Gitlin, T. (1987). The sixties: Years of hope, days of rage. Bantam Press.
Godfroy, J. F., Powell, J. S., Morton, M. D., & Zais, M. M. (2019). Surge and withdrawal 2007–2011. In Rayburn, J. & Sobchak, F. (Eds.), The U.S. Army in the Iraq War (pp. 619641) (Vol. 2). U.S. Army War College Press.
Gordan, Philip H. (2020). Losing the long game: The false promise of regime change in the Middle East. St. Martin’s Press.
Haldeman, H. R. (1978). The ends of power. Times Books.
Hayden, T. (2007). Ending the war in Iraq. Akashic Books.
Hayden, T. (2017). Hell no: The forgotten power of the Vietnam peace movement. Yale University Press.
Hays, C. (2008, July 16). MoveOn.Org is not as radical as conservatives think. The Nation. www.thenation.com/article/archive/moveonorg-not-radical-conservatives-think/.
Healy, P. (2006, August 8). Lamont defeats Lieberman in primary. The New York Times. www.nytimes.com/2006/08/08/nyregion/08cnd-campaign.html.
Heaney, M. T., & Rojas, F. (2015). Party in the street: The antiwar movement and the Democratic Party after 9/11. Cambridge University Press.
Holsti, O. (2011). American public opinion on the Iraq War. University of Michigan Press.
Hunt, A. E. (1999). The turning: A history of Vietnam veterans against the war. New York University Press.
Hutto, J. (2008). Antiwar soldier: How to dissent within the ranks of the military. Nation Books.
Jeralyn, . (2008, May 27). Caucuses vs. primaries: A report. Talk Left: The Politics of Crime. www.talkleft.com/story/2008/5/27/92144/7994/elections2008/Caucuses-vs-Primaries-A-Report-.
Johnson, H. & Wilson, G. C. (1972). Army in anguish. The Washington Post. Pocket Books.
Joseph, P. (1987). Cracks in the Empire: State Politics in the Vietnam War. Columbia University Press.
Kahl, C. (2014, June 15). No, Obama didn’t lose Iraq. Politico Magazine. www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/06/no-obama-didnt-lose-iraq-107874/.
Karpf, D. (2012). The MoveOn effect: The unexpected transformation of American political advocacy. Oxford University Press.
Kennan, G. F. (1983, May). The bishops’ letter. New York Times. www.nytimes.com/1983/05/01/opinion/the-bishops-letter.html.
Kershner, S. (2023). “A constant surveillance” the New York State Police and the student peace movement, 1965–1973. The Global Sixties, 16(1), 2252. www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/27708888.2023.2165781.
Kimball, D. (2023, September). Defending the de facto nuclear test ban. Arms Control Today. www.armscontrol.org/act/2023-09/focus/defending-de-facto-nuclear-test-ban.
Kissinger, H. (1979). The White House years. Little, Brown.
Kissinger, H. (2003). Ending the Vietnam War: A history of America’s involvement in and extraction from the Vietnam War. Simon and Schuster.
Knickerbocker, B. (2007, January 19). Whither all the war protesters? Christian Science Monitor. www.csmonitor.com/2007/0119/p01s03-ussc.html.
Knopf, J. W. (1998). Domestic society and international cooperation: The impact of protest on US arms control policy. Cambridge University Press.
Koncewicz, M. (2024). The Vietnam moratorium and the limits of Cold War congressional peace politics. In Bessner, D. and Brenes, M. (Eds.), Rethinking U.S. world power: Domestic histories of U.S. foreign relations (pp. 185208). Palgrave Macmillan.
Kull, S., Ramsay, C. & Lewis, E. (2003/2004). Misperceptions, the media, and the Iraq War. Political Science Quarterly, 118(4), 569598. www.jstor.org/stable/30035697.
Lepre, G. (2011). Fragging: Why US soldiers assaulted their officers in Vietnam. Texas Tech University Press.
Lutz, M. (2009, March 29). The social pulpit: Barack Obama’s social media toolkit. Edelman. https://issuu.com/edelman_pr/docs/social_pulpit__barack_obamas_social_media_toolkit/12.
Maar, H. R.III. (2021). Freeze! The grassroots movement to halt the arms race and end the Cold War. Cornell University Press.
Mazarr, M. (2019). Leap of faith: Hubris, negligence, and America’s greatest foreign policy tragedy. PublicAffairs.
McAdam, D., & Tarrow, S. G. (2010). Ballots and barricades: On the reciprocal relationship between elections and social movements. Perspectives on Politics, 8(2), 529542. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1537592710001234.
McWethy, J. (1972). The power of the Pentagon. Congressional Quarterly.
Meyer, D. S., & Corrigall-Brown, C. (2005). Coalitions and political context: U.S. movements against wars in Iraq. Mobilization: An International Journal, 10(3), 327344. https://doi.org/10.17813/maiq.10.3.f8u6t4u2708kw442.
Moore, D. (2002, August 23). Majority of Americans favor attacking Iraq to oust Saddam Hussein. Gallup News. https://news.gallup.com/poll/6658/majority-americans-favor-attacking-iraq-oust-saddam-hussein.aspx.
Morton, T. [Presenter]. (2006, May 28). The Vietnam War and Richard Nixon’s secret nuclear alert. (Episode 3) [Radio broadcast episode]. In Torn Curtain. ABC Radio National. www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/specialbroadcasts/vietnam-war-and-richard-nixons-secret-nuclear-alert/11807120.
Moser, B. (2006). Virginia’s rumbling rebels. The Nation. October 26, 2006. www.thenation.com/article/archive/virginias-rumbling-rebels/.
Moser, R. (1996). The new winter soldiers: GI and veteran dissent during the Vietnam era. Rutgers University Press.
Moyer, B., McAllister, J., Finley, M., & Soifer, S. (2001). Doing democracy: The MAP model for organizing social movements. New Society.
Naval History and Heritage Command (1973). Report by the Special Subcommittee on Disciplinary Problems in the US Navy. U.S. Congress. House. Committee on Armed Forces. Report by the Special Subcommittee on Disciplinary Problems in the US Navy. 92nd Cong., 2d sess., 1973, H.A.S.C. 92–81. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1973. www.history.navy.mil/research/library/online-reading-room/title-list-alphabetically/r/report-by-special-subcommittee-disciplinary-problems-us-navy.html.
Nixon, R. (1978). RN: The memoirs of Richard Nixon. Grosset & Dunlap.
Nuclear Threat Initiative. (n.d.). NTI launches “make nukes history” campaign to spotlight nuclear weapons risks ahead of academy awards. www.nti.org/news/nuclear-threat-initiative-launches-make-nukes-history-campaign-to-spotlight-nuclear-weapon-risks-ahead-of-academy-awards/.
Obama, B. (2020). Promised Land. Penguin Random House.
O’Hanlon, M. (2005, January 1). Iraq without a plan. Brookings Institution.
O’Sullivan, S. (2019, May 9). A Watergate burglar’s account of his crimes – and what it tells us about the Mueller probe. The Washington Post. www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2019/05/09/watergate-burglars-account-his-crimes-and-what-it-tells-us-about-mueller-indictments/.
Overy, R. (2024, June 23). Why it’s too late to stop World War III. The Telegraph. www.telegraph.co.uk/books/authors/world-war-three-too-late-history-violence/.
Parsons, D. L. (2017). Dangerous grounds: Antiwar coffeehouses and military dissent in the Vietnam era. University of North Carolina Press.
Pew Global Attitudes Project. (2003, March 18). America’s image further erodes, Europeans want weaker ties: A nine-country survey. The Pew Research Center for the People & the Press. www.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/pdf/175.pdf.
President’s Commission on an all-volunteer armed force. (1970, February). The report of the President’s Commission on an all-volunteer armed force. Collier-McMillan. https://archive.org/details/reportofpresiden1970unse.
Prochnau, B. (1981, May 6). Mormon Church joins opposition to MX program. The Washington Post. www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1981/05/06/mormon-church-joins-opposition-to-mx-program/d1402f0c-b9aa-435e-8c91-499d43bdf9a2/.
Reich, K. (1997, June 23). The bloody march that shook L.A. Los Angeles Times. www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1997-06-23-mn-6188-story.html.
Ricks, T. E. (2006). Fiasco: The American military adventure in Iraq, 2003 to 2005. Penguin Books.
Riedel, B. (2021, September 11). 9/11 and Iraq: The making of a tragedy. Lawfare.
Robinson, J. (2023, March 29). American experience: The movement and the “madman.” KPBS. www.kpbs.org/news/2023/03/24/american-experience-the-movement-and-the-madman.
Rose, T. (2022, December 12). America’s nuclear sponge: Opposition to militarization in Nevada. American Historical Association. www.historians.org/research-and-publications/perspectives-on-history/december-2022/americas-nuclear-sponge-opposition-to-militarization-in-nevada.
Rumsfeld, D. (2012). Known and unknown: A memoir. Sentinel.
Sagan, S. & Suri, J. (2003). The madman nuclear alert. International Security 27(4), 150183.
Savitsky, Z. (2022, August 15). Nuclear war could cause years long global famine. Science. www.science.org/content/article/nuclear-war-would-cause-yearslong-global-famine.
Schell, J. (2007). The seventh decade: The new shape of nuclear danger. Metropolitan Books.
Scoles, S. (2023, December 1). Behind the scenes at a U.S. factory building new nuclear bombs. Scientific American, 329(5), 3945. www.scientificamerican.com/article/behind-the-scenes-at-a-u-s-factory-building-new-nuclear-bombs/.
Sharp, G. (2005). Waging nonviolent struggle: 20th century practice and 21st century potential. Porter Sargent.
Singer, P. (2013, September 1). Opposition to Syria attack emerges in Congress. USA Today. www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2013/09/01/congress-syria-rand-paul-kerry/2752965/.
Small, M. (2010, June). Bring the boys home now! Antiwar activism and withdrawal from Vietnam – and Iraq. Diplomatic History 34(3), 543553. www.jstor.org/stable/24915900.
Small, M. (1988). Johnson, Nixon, and the doves. Rutgers University Press.
Smith, R. M. (1970, September 2). Vote in Senate. The New York Times. www.nytimes.com/1970/09/02/archives/vote-in-senate.html.
Solnit, R. (2005, June 14). Acts of hope: Challenging empire on the world stage. Mother Jones. www.motherjones.com/politics/2005/06/acts-hope-challenging-empire-world-stage/.
Solo, P. (1988). From protest to policy: Beyond the freeze to common security. Ballinger.
Sorley, L. (1999). A better war: The unexamined victories and final tragedy of America’s last years in Vietnam. Harcourt Brace.
Stacewicz, R. (1997). Winter soldiers: An oral history of the war. Twayne.
Stanton, S. L. (1985). The rise and fall of an American Army: U.S. ground forces in Vietnam, 1965–1973. Presidio Press.
Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. (2024). SIPRI yearbook 2024: Armaments, disarmament and international security. Oxford University Press.
Strong, J. (2017). Public opinion, legitimacy and Tony Blair’s War in Iraq. Routledge.
Talbot, S. (Producer and director). (2023, March 28). The movement and the madman. PBS. www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/movement-and-madman/.
Talbott, S. (1984). Buildup and breakdown. Foreign Affairs, 62, 3, 587615.
Talbott, S. (1985). Deadly gambits: The Reagan Administration and nuclear arms control. Vintage Books.
Tarrow, S. (1998). Power in Movements: Social Movements and Contentious Politics. 2nd ed. Cambridge University Press.
Tarrow, S. (2012). Strangers at the gates: Movements and states in contentious politics. Cambridge University Press.
Tilly, C. (2004). Social movements, 1768–2004. Boulder. Paradigm Press.
Tilly, C. & Tarrow, S.G. (2015). Contentious politics. Oxford University Press.
Tollefson, J. (1994, March 1). Conscientious objection to the Vietnam War. OAH Magazine of History (3), 7582. https://doi.org/10.1093/maghis/8.3.75.
Tollefson, J. W. (1990). Draft resistance and evasion. In Chambers, J. W. II (Ed.), The Oxford companion to American military history (pp. 236238). Oxford University Press.
Union of Concerned Scientists. (2021, December 16). Nobel laureates call on Biden to reduce risk of nuclear war, calm arms race with Russia, China. www.ucsusa.org/about/news/nobel-laureates-call-biden-reduce-nuclear-risk.
United States State Department. (2021, October 5). Fact sheet: Transparency in the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile. www.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Fact-Sheet_Unclass_2021_final-v2-002.pdf.
UPI. (2008, November 21). Obama raised half-billion online. UPI. www.upi.com/Top_News/2008/11/21/Obama-raised-half-billion-online/30681227273978/.
Van Atta, D. (2008). With honor: Melvin Laird in war, peace, and politics. University of Wisconsin Press.
Veith, G. J. (2013). Black April: The fall of South Vietnam, 1973–1975. Encounter Books.
Walker, M. (2008). The year of the insurgents: The 2008 US presidential campaign. International Affairs 84(6), 10951107. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2346.2008.00759.x.
Waller, D. C. (1987). Congress and the nuclear freeze. University of Massachusetts Press.
Wallerstein, I. (2003, July-August). U.S. weakness and the struggle for hegemony. Monthly Review, 55(3), 2329. https://doi.org/10.14452/MR-055-03-2003-07_3.
Wells, T. (1994). The war within: America’s battle over Vietnam. University of California Press.
The White House. (2022, January 3). Joint statement by the leaders of the five nuclear weapons states on preventing nuclear war and avoiding arms races. www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/01/03/p5-statement-on-preventing-nuclear-war-and-avoiding-arms-races/.
The White House. (2022, November 15–17). G20 Bali leaders’ declaration. www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/11/16/g20-bali-leaders-declaration/.
Wittner, L. S. (2003). Toward nuclear abolition: A history of the world disarmament movement, 1971-present. Stanford University Press.
Woodward, B. (2004). Plan of attack: The definitive account of the decision to invade Iraq. Simon & Schuster.
Yankelovich, D. & Doble, J. (1984, October). The public mood: Nuclear weapons and the USSR. Foreign Affairs, 63(1), 3346. https://doi.org/10.2307/20042083.

Metrics

Altmetric attention score

Full text views

Total number of HTML views: 0
Total number of PDF views: 0 *
Loading metrics...

Book summary page views

Total views: 0 *
Loading metrics...

* Views captured on Cambridge Core between #date#. This data will be updated every 24 hours.

Usage data cannot currently be displayed.

Accessibility standard: Unknown

Accessibility compliance for the PDF of this book is currently unknown and may be updated in the future.