Cracking Under Pressure

What goes up must come down, and social movements are not immune to this rule. Yet most academic studies have focused almost exclusively on the emergence of movements, paying less attention to decline. But decline is an important, and active, period for any mobilisation, as all activists know. This book broadens and enriches social movement theory through a close investigation of the fate of the squatters' movement in Amsterdam. Responding to the housing shortage of the 1960s, the movement emerged in the late 1970s, peaked in the early 1980s, before falling into a period of prolonged decline. Owens explores how the movement declines, focusing on the subjective experience and culture of decline.