Recent developments in social movement research have evidenced a greater underlying consensus in the field than one might have assumed. Efforts have been made to bridge different perspectives and merge them into a new synthesis. Yet, comparative discussion of the concept of 'social movement' has been largely neglected so far. This article reviews and contrasts systematically the definitions of 'social movement' formulated by some of the most influential authors in the field. A substantial convergence may be detected between otherwise very different approaches on three points at least. Social movements are defined as networks of informal interactions between a plurality of individuals, groups andor organizations, engaged in political or cultural conflicts, on the basis of shared collective identities. It is argued that the concept is sharp enough a) to differentiate social movements from related concepts such as interest groups, political parties, protest events and coalitions; b) to identify a specific area of investigation and theorking for social movement research.

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Abstract. This article uses empirical evidence on networks of voluntary organizations mobilizing on ethnic minority, environmental, and social exclusion issues in two British cities, to differentiate between social movement processes and other, cognate collective action dynamics. Social movement processes are identified as the building and reproducing of dense informal networks between a multiplicity of actors, sharing a collective identity, and engaged in social and/or political conflict. They are contrasted to coalitional processes, where alliances to achieve specific goals are not backed by significant identity links, and organizational processes, where collective action takes place mostly in reference to specific organizations rather than broader, looser networks.Among his innumerable contributions to the study of social movements, Charles Tilly has provided practitioners with what is probably the most popular definition of their object of analysis: "a sustained series of interactions between power-holders and persons successfully claiming to speak on behalf of a constituency lacking formal representation, in the course of which those persons make publicly visible demands for change in the distribution or exercise of power, and back those demands with public demonstrations of support."1 Recently, however, the reference to "social movements" has lost centrality in his analytical scheme. The "Dynamics of contention" program (henceforth "Doc") invokes a reorientation of the social movement research agenda toward the identification of mechanisms, which may be found to operate across highly different episodes and forms of contentious politics.2 Its advocates regard social movements as a particular form of political participation 3 or, interchangeably, as broad episodes of contention -along with democratization, nationalism, and revolution -from the analysis of which we can extract specific social mechanisms. 4 There are very good reasons not to treat "social movements" as a distinct set of phenomena, or to posit that there should be specific intellectual sub-fields devoted to their exclusive study. Indeed, the whole development of the field reflects recurrent cross-fertilization