Martin W. Bauer

This volume brings together the full range of modalities of social influence - from crowding, leadership, and norm formation to resistance and mass mediation - to set out a challenge-and-response 'cyclone' model. The authors use real-world examples to ground this model and review each modality of social influence in depth. A 'periodic table of social influence' is constructed that characterises and compares exercises of influence in practical terms. The wider implications of social influence are considered, such as how each exercise of a single modality stimulates responses from other modalities and how any everyday process is likely to arise from a mix of influences. The book demonstrates that different modalities of social influence are tactics that defend, question, and develop 'common sense' over time and offers advice to those studying in political and social movements, social change, and management.

This volume brings together the full range of modalities of social influence - from crowding, leadership, and norm formation to resistance and mass mediation - to set out a challenge-and-response 'cyclone' model. The authors use real-world examples to ground this model and review each modality of social influence in depth. A 'periodic table of social influence' is constructed that characterises and compares exercises of influence in practical terms. The wider implications of social influence are considered, such as how each exercise of a single modality stimulates responses from other modalities and how any everyday process is likely to arise from a mix of influences. The book demonstrates that different modalities of social influence are tactics that defend, question, and develop 'common sense' over time and offers advice to those studying in political and social movements, social change, and management.

"Atom," "byte" and "gene" are metonymies for techno-scientific developments of the 20th century: nuclear power, computing and genetic engineering. Resistance continues to challenge these developments in public opinion. This book traces historical debates over atoms, bytes and genes which raised controversy with consequences, and argues that public opinion is a factor of the development of modern techno-science. The level and scope of public controversy is an index of resistance, examined here with a "pain analogy" which shows that just as pain impacts movement, resistance impacts techno-scientific mobilization: it signals that something is wrong, and this requires attention, elaboration and a response to the challenge. This analysis shows how different fields of enquiry deal with the resistance of social-psychological mentalities in the face of industrial, scientific and political activities inspired by projected futures.

"Atom," "byte" and "gene" are metonymies for techno-scientific developments of the 20th century: nuclear power, computing and genetic engineering. Resistance continues to challenge these developments in public opinion. This book traces historical debates over atoms, bytes and genes which raised controversy with consequences, and argues that public opinion is a factor of the development of modern techno-science. The level and scope of public controversy is an index of resistance, examined here with a "pain analogy" which shows that just as pain impacts movement, resistance impacts techno-scientific mobilization: it signals that something is wrong, and this requires attention, elaboration and a response to the challenge. This analysis shows how different fields of enquiry deal with the resistance of social-psychological mentalities in the face of industrial, scientific and political activities inspired by projected futures.

Resistance used to mean irrational and reactionary behaviour, assuming that rationality resides on the side of progress and its parties. The end of the Cold War allows us to drop ideological and prejudicial analysis. Indeed, we recognise that resistance is a historical constant, and its relation to rationality or irrationality is not predetermined. This volume asks: to what extent are social scientific conceptions of 'resistances' sui generis, or borrowed from natural sciences by metaphor and analogy? To what extent do the social sciences continue to be a 'social tribology' lubricating a process of strategic changes? Fifteen authors explore these questions from the point of view of different disciplines including physics, biology, social psychology, history of science, history of medicine, legal theory, political science, history, police studies, psychotherapy research and art theory. The book offers a unique panorama of concepts of 'resistance' and examines the potential of a general 'resistology' across diverse practices of rationality.