SOCIAL-MOVEMENT RHETORIC AND THE SOCIAL-PSYCHOLOGY OF COLLECTIVE ACTION - A CASE-STUDY OF ANTIABORTION MOBILIZATION

This paper seeks to contribute toward an integrated approach to social movement mobilization. It does so through considering how a social ps ychological account of the determination of collective behavior (self- categorization theory) may be applied to the mobilization rhetoric of social movements. More specifically it argues that as people may defin e themselves and act in terms of social categories, we may usefully co nceive of social movement rhetoric as being organized so as to constru ct social category definitions which allow the activists' preferred co urse of action to be taken on by others as their own. Our theoretical argument is illustrated through the detailed analysis of category cons truction in contemporary U.K. anti-abortion argumentation.