Department of Sociology

Victoria Johnson
Associate Professor

I completed my Ph.D. at the University of California, Davis with a Designated Emphasis in the Social Theory and Comparative History (STCH) Program sponsored by the Center for Comparative Research in History, Society and Culture.

Research Interests

My research is characterized by the empirical analysis of power relations, culture and political organizations and institutions. Specifically, through my empirical research, I explore theoretical questions about the interrelationship of organizational structures, cultural forms and collective agency to the processes of social change. Research projects, reflective of these interests, include my book titled How Many Machine Guns Does it Take to Cook One Meal?:The Seattle and San Francisco General Strikes (2008), which focuses on the instrumentality of political culture in the emergence, dynamics and outcomes of American general strikes. The analysis of the impact of political culture during collective action is also apparent in my earlier article explaining general strike outcomes (2000). My current research takes up topics that range from the role of state policy in the emergence and disappearance of American general strikes, to the appropriation of cultural belief systems and rituals involving animals to “dehumanize” and exploit human groups (2008). My recent article that compared television coverage in the prelude to the Iraq invasion on the BBC’s Newsnight and NBC’s Nightline programs (2006) inspired my latest book project which is a comparative and historical analysis of media institutions, the state, and political cultures in the United States and Great Britain to explain their divergent coverage of the Iraq invasion in 2003. My early research compared tactics and movement framing among classic nonviolent social movements (those of Gandhi and King) with a Religious Right countermovement (1997). I also co-edited a social movement anthology with Jo Freeman (1999) and have a chapter in it analyzing the strategic determinants of a countermovement.


Courses Taught

Collective Behavior and Social Movements

Politics of the Media

Senior Capstone Seminar

Historical Methods Graduate Seminar

Selected Publications

"Changing Repertoires of Collective Action: American General Strikes 1877-1946."
     2008. In Research in Political Sociology, Harland Prechel, ed., Volume 17.

“How Many Machine Guns Will It Take to Cook One Meal?”: The Seattle
     and San Francisco General Strikes. 2008. Seattle: University of Washington
     Press.

“Everyday Practices of the Master Race: Fascist Stratification and the Fluidity of
     ‘Animal’ Domination.” 2008. In Critical Theory and Animal Liberation, ed.,
     John Sambonmatsu. Albany: State University of New York Press.

“Assessing Media Coverage on the Necessity of Going to War: A British and American
     Comparison.” 2006. Peace Studies Review, Volume 2 (1): 43-59.

 "The Cultural Foundation of Resources, the Resource Foundation of Political Cultures:
     An Explanation for the Outcomes of Two General Strikes.” 2000. Politics and
     Society, 28, (3) (September): 238-272.

“The Strategic Determinants of a Countermovement: The Emergence and Impact of
     Operation Rescue Blockades.” 1999. Pp. 241-165 in Waves of Protest: Social
     Movements Since the Sixties. Jo Freeman and Victoria Johnson, eds. Lanham:
     Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.

"Operation Rescue, Vocabularies of Motive and Tactical Action: A Study of Movement
      Framing in the Practice of Quasi-nonviolence.” 1997. Pp. 103-150in Research in
     Social Movements, Conflict and Change, ed. Kriesberg, et al., volume 20.
      Greenwich, CN: JAI Press.

312 Middlebush Hall
University of Missouri
Columbia, MO 65211-6100
(573) 882-8331
Fax: (573) 884-6430