No abstract

Why does public opinion change over time? Much debate on this question centers on whether it is caused by the replacement of people or by individuals changing how they think. Theoretical approaches to this question have emphasized the importance of birth cohort succession, generational differences, and changing macro-economic conditions. In this article, we consider the extent to which these processes can account for changing attitudes towards immigration and immigrants. We use a new approach to the study of time trends in public opinion to analyze over 20 years of data on attitudes in Canada. This approach uses multi-level analysis to split attitudinal change into its cohort and period components. We find that most attitude change is the result of changing macro-economic conditions. In contrast, birth cohort succession has little effect. While there is modest evidence of generational differences in attitudes, these differences do not comprise a major part of the overall trend.

Although social movements in the United States are staged by coalitions, the politics of movement coalitions and the internal and external factors that affect their formation, maintenance, and dissolution are understudied. Here, we use the 2002-2003 movement against the impending war in Iraq to refocus analytical attention and sharpen theory on social movement coalitions. We contend that external circumstances, or political opportunities, are critically important factors that affect the propensity of social movement organizations to cooperate in common cause. Further, we contend that cooperation among groups can best be seen as variable, rather than dichotomous, and argue that political context affects the extent of cooperation among cooperating groups. We examine the importance of political context through a comparison of the first and second Gulf Wars. The decision of social movement organizations to join a coalition is akin to the process whereby individuals join social movements, involving an assessment of costs, benefits, and identity. As the political context changes, the costs and benefits are assessed differently and, for this reason, actively engaged coalitions are difficult to sustain over a long period as circumstances change. By looking at the antiwar movement generally, and the Win Without War coalition in particular, we show that cooperation was born in the second Gulf War out of the political opportunities presented by the George W. Bush's administration. We conclude with a call for more research on social movements as coalitions.

for assistance and advice. We also thank three anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments.

In this article, the authors examine participation in protests about homelessness by an unlikely set of participants-the homeless themselves. Through an analysis of data derived from 400 structured interviews with homeless individuals in Detroit, Philadelphia, and Tucson, the authors examine why and to what extent some homeless individuals, and not others, participate in movement-sponsored protest activities. In addition, the authors assess the degree to which the factors that affect participation in this population align with previous research on participation in social movements generally. They find that certain characteristics of the homeless population reduce the importance of social ties with other homeless individuals in the recruitment process and that, contrary to what much past work would lead one to expect, homeless individuals who are less biographically available are more likely to engage in protest activity. In addition, strain, which is often not a significant predictor of engagement in other populations, is an important predictor of differential participation among the homeless. This study highlights features of the homeless population that yield somewhat different correlates of participation than found in most movement participation studies and, in turn, cautions against presuming an overall model of participation that explains the engagement of all groups in the same way.