Ryan Zhang

Thesis title and description:
“The Anatomy of Social Movements: What Causes American Social Movements to Succeed and Fail”

My thesis will study what causes American social movements to succeed and fail. Through interviews and archives, I will first examine four case studies to identify what the factors are that cause social movements (specifically those surrounding school gun violence and police shootings) to succeed and fail. To generalize my findings, I will then conduct a large-n analysis of all instances of school gun violence and police shootings in the United States, coding them on the aforementioned factors.