AN INSIDERS CRITIQUE OF THE SOCIAL-MOVEMENT FRAMING PERSPECTIVE

In the last decade the framing perspective has gained increasing popul arity among social movement researchers and theorists. Surprisingly, t here has been no critical assessment of this growing body of literatur e. Though the perspective has made significant contributions to the mo vements literature. it suffers from several shortcomings. These includ e neglect of systematic empirical studies, descriptive bias, static te ndencies, reification, reductionism, elite bias, and monolithic tenden cies. In addition to a critique of extant movement framing literature, I offer several remedies and illustrate them with recent work. The ar ticles by Francesca Polletta, John H. Evans, Sharon Erickson Nepstad, and Ira Silver in this special section address several of the concerns raised in this critique and, in so doing, contribute to the integrati on of structural and cultural approaches to social movements.