Some social movements bring in quick, radical political and social changes while others get incorporated into existing systems or subjected to harsh repression. This book examines why social movements elicit different policy responses and their varying impact on the societies in which they occur. It also seeks to understand why seemingly inconsequential movements can nonetheless have enduring effects.

These issues are explored through the comparative historical analysis of four labor movements, in the UK and the U.S. in the late 1800s -early 1900s, in Japan from 1945 to 1960, and in Turkey during the mid to late 1900s, which is the book's primary case study. Turkey's labor movement, although often seen as a failure, greatly influenced state-society relations and contemporary Turkish politics.

This significant study offers a new framework of analysis by focusing on social movement impacts rather than successes or failures. This leads to having to reconsider the enduring effects of repressed or failed movements. By doing so, it will help researchers study the likely impact of social movements in today's politics.