Jeff Goodwin

Who is Jeff Goodwin?

Jeff Goodwin is a professor of sociology at New York University. He holds a BA, MA and PhD from Harvard University.

His research interests include visual sociology, social movements, revolutions, political violence, and terrorism. He is a past chair of the Comparative and Historical Sociology Section of the American Sociological Association.

The underlying argument of his most known book, No Other Way Out: States and Revolutionary Movements, 1945-1991, is that revolutionary movements are not only a response to economic inequality or exploitation, but are also a response to political repression and violence.

Goodwin has written and edited a number of works with his friend and former NYU colleague James M. Jasper. They wrote a famous critique of the political-opportunity theory developed by Charles Tilly and Doug McAdam, republished in Rethinking Social Movements, which Goodwin and Jasper edited. They also edited The Contexts Reader, Social Movements, The Social Movements Reader, and Passionate Politics, a leading work in the sociology of emotions.