Theories Of New Social Movements Research Articles

Fragmented Community Action or New Social Movement?

Environmentalism is usually regarded as a `First World' phenomenon associated with economic prosperity and rising living standards. This article examines environmentalism in the context of a `Third World' country, Jamaica. While the tourist industry successfully promotes Jamaica as an unspoiled tropical holiday destination, the country faces serious environmental threats from industry, agriculture and from tourism itself. Structural adjustment and stabilization programmes have cut deeply into government expenditure with a consequence that environmental protection has low priority. However, in Jamaica social action has emerged in response to environmental problems. Groups have begun to organize at national, parish and community level and have become vehicles for citizens to lobby, protest and campaign on a number of pressing ecological issues. This article seeks to establish if the emerging social action is most accurately categorized as fragmented community action or whether it amounts to a new social movement. The factors which have shaped and influenced the development of the `movement' are explored in the context of local, national and global processes which have given rise to the social action. The applicability of theories of new social movements in accounting for environmentalism in the `Third World' is discussed.

Users as Citizens: Collective Action and the Local Governance of Welfare

Self‐organization amongst users of community care services preceded the consumerist developments of the 1980s and early 1990s, but can be considered to have been “legitimized” by top‐down objectives relating to “user involvement”. Nevertheless, the objectives and value bases of disabled people’s organizations and organizations of users (or survivors) of mental health services have not always been consistent with those of consumerism, and user groups have experienced tensions in determining the extent to which they should respond to official agendas. Drawing on theories of new social movements and of citizenship, this paper considers the developing place of user organizations within systems of local governance. It looks at the way in which groups have sought to assert the legitimacy both of experiential knowledge and of their position as citizens in the face of official responses which have constructed them as self‐interested pressure groups. It draws on empirical research investigating local groups of disabled people and of mental health service users conducted in the first part of the 1990s. It discusses the significance of shared identity as a basis for collective action alongside more pragmatic motivations to influence the nature of health and social care services. In the context of appeals to “community” and “partnership” which are starting to replace the discourse of markets and contracts as the key metaphor for both policy‐making and service delivery, the article considers likely future roles for groups comprising people often excluded from community.

Generational Differences Amongst New Age Travellers

Previous studies of ‘New Age’ travellers have paid no attention to generational differences within the travellers' scene. This paper looks at these differences to reflect upon the new social movement (NSM) literature. It is argued that NSM theory only analyses those movements with ‘post-material’ concerns about culture, identity and symbolic challenges. It thus ignores less privileged movements which are concerned with apparently ‘traditional’ issues, such as survival, political opposition and citizenship rights. A number of such movements have emerged during the past few years in the wake of economic and social restructuring under post-Fordist conditions and the dismantling of a Keynesian-style welfare state that is associated with these processes. While the older generation of travellers was tied to the NSM movements and chose to move onto the road, the younger travellers have been forced to do so for lack of any reasonable alternative, having faced unemployment and homelessness in a post-Fordist/Keynesian era. They are, therefore, part of the contemporary movement scene to which ‘old’ issues are seemingly still applicable. The article concludes by showing how both the older and the younger travellers are now struggling to survive in the face of legislation which effectively criminalises their way of life.

The Theory of Heroic Defeats: A Mixed Motivation Approach

The category of heroic action is important in both everyday life and the wider social context. This article argues that interest in the notion of heroic actions and heroic defeats also brings out an important set of sociological problems, such as disagreements on identity, norms, and rational choice explanations. Illustrations are provided from recent analyses of union militancy in Britain and Italy, and of the student movement in Beijing. Different versions of the critique of rational choice theory often take norm-guided action as a point of departure. Another version of this critique is represented by theories of new social movements and identity maintenance. The article suggests that rational choice theory is more useful than some of its opponents would have it; yet the general argument favors a mixed motivation approach. The discussion points out some of the strengths and limitations of different explanatory perspectives, and some of the links between them.

The New Politics of Class: Social Movements and Cultural Dynamics in Advanced Societies.

INTRODUCTION CLASS AND SOCIAL MOVEMENTS Bringing Classes Back into the Theory of Society Culture as the Missing Link Between Class and Collective Action PART ONE: MODERNIZING THE NOTION OF CLASS Contradictions and Social Evolution A Theory of the Role of Class in the Production of Modernity Beyond Class as a Historical Subject Towards a Theoretical Construction of Collective Actors PART TWO: RECONNECTING CULTURE AND CLASS Culture and Class Bourdieu's Culturalist Refraction of the Traditional Theory of Class The Cognitive Representations of Social Inequality A Sociological Account of the Cultural Basis of Modern Class Society PART THREE: THE THEORY OF NEW SOCIAL MOVEMENTS: A CHALLENGE TO CLASS THEORY? A New Social Movement? The Continuing Vitality of the Theory of the 'New Social Movements' Counterculture Movements against Modernity Nature as a New Field of Class Struggle? PART FOUR: NEW CLASS CONFLICTS? THE THEORY OF MIDDLE CLASS RADICALISM The 'New Social Movements' Moral Crusades, Political Pressure Groups, or a Social Movement? Does Social Class Matter in the Study of Social Movements? A New Theory of Middle Class Radicalism CONCLUSION: BEYOND TRADITIONAL CLASS THEORY From the Crisis of Class Politics to the Critique of Class Politics Reflecting the Role of 'Crisis Discourses' in Modern Society

The Theory and Politics of Contemporary Social Movements

Social movements of the 1960s have given rise to new theoretical perspectives such as Resource Mobilization Theory and theories of New Social Movements. Resource Mobilization Theory analyses the dynamics of mobilization: the effective organisation of social movements and their influence on mainstream political institutions. By contrast, New Social Movement theories seek to explain the anti-institutional nature of contemporary movements which are said to pursue radical social transformation through mainly cultural means. In this article, both theoretical approaches are examined but found to be inadequate explanations of the complexities of contemporary movements and their relationship with the political environment.

Left Popular Politics in Canadian Feminist Abortion Organizing, 1982-1991

A political analysis of Canadas pro-choice campaign from 1982 to the present illustrates the inadequacy of current theories of new social movements. These movements are constructed as focused on cultural and identify politics rather than the state and class politics of socialist and labor organizing campaigns. However feminist organizing around the abortion issues has been directly related to two class issues: the class structuring of access to abortion and the salience of social class for political campaigns. Crucial to the success of the pro-choice movement in Canada has been a form of Left-popular politics able to unite both working class and middle-class women with a range of positions on the concept of reproductive freedom. The abortion campaigns mobilizations were closely linked to legal battles to decriminalize and later recriminalize the procedure. In the process Left-popular alliances were made with political parties trade unions and minority groups. The pro-choice movement was able to endure efforts by sectarian socialists to splinter organizations across class lines by emphasizing the systemic character of gender oppression. In addition outreach campaigns targeted groups with multiple class locations but a shared vulnerability to state regulation and oppression including rural women women of color the disabled and women with AIDS. As a result of such alliances multiple movements and organizations have become educated about feminism. The adherence to the socialist principles of popular participation and movement building has enabled the pro-choice movement to sustain class politics while crossing class lines.

Challenging the Political Order: New Social and Political Movements in Western Democracies.

Part 1 Introduction: the challenge of new movements, Russell Dalton et al. Part 2 The origins of new movements: cyclical aspects of new social movements, Karl-Werner Brand cultural change and new movements, Ronald Inglehart neo-corporatism and the rise of new social movements, Frank Wilson social movements and political innovation, Max Kaase. Part 3 Networks of action: the West European peace movement and the theory of new social movements, Thomas Rochon linking the Old and movement networks in the Netherlands, P.Bert feminism and political action, Joyce Gelb the strategies and action repertoires of new movements, Dieter Rucht. Part 4 New movements and political parties: new social movements and the decline of party organizations, Herbert Kitscheld new political movements and new politics parties in Western europe, Ferdinand Muller-Rommel reflections on the institutional self-transformation of movement politics, Claus Offe the phantom at the opera, Sidney Tarrow. Part 5 New social movements in perspective: new social movements and the political order, Manfred Kuechler.