Social Movements

Abstract

This chapter will develop the following theses:11. The “new” social movements are not new, even if they have some new features and the “classical” ones are relatively new and perhaps temporary. 2. Social movements display much variety and changeability but have in common individual mobilization through a sense of morality and injustice and social power through social mobilization against deprivation and for survival and identity. 3. The strength and importance of social movements is cyclical and related to long political economic and (perhaps associated) ideological cycles. When the conditions that give rise to the movements change (through the action of the movements themselves and/or more usually because of changing circumstances), the movements tend to disappear. 4. It is important to distinguish the class composition of social movements, which are mostly middle class in the West, popular/working class in the South, and some of each in the East. 5. There are many different kinds of social movements. The majority seeks more autonomy rather than state power and the latter tends to negate themselves as social movements.