The term new social movements (NSMs) is a theory of

social movement A social movement is a loosely organized effort by a large group of people to achieve a particular goal, typically a social or political one. This may be to carry out a social change, or to resist or undo one. It is a type of group action and m ...

s that attempts to explain the plethora of new movements that have come up in various

western Western may refer to: Places *Western, Nebraska, a village in the US * Western, New York, a town in the US *Western Creek, Tasmania, a locality in Australia *Western Junction, Tasmania, a locality in Australia *Western world, countries that i ...

societies roughly since the mid-1960s (i.e. in a

post-industrial economy A post-industrial economy is a period of growth within an industrialized economy or nation in which the relative importance of manufacturing reduces and that of services, information, and research grows. Such economies are often marked by a declin ...

) which are claimed to depart significantly from the conventional social movement paradigm.Pichardo 1997 There are two central claims of the NSM theory. First, that the rise of the post-industrial economy is responsible for a new wave of social movement and second, that those movements are significantly different from previous social movements of the industrial economy. The primary difference is in their goals, as the new movements focus not on issues of materialistic qualities such as economic wellbeing, but on issues related to

human rights Human rights are moral principles or normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for certain standards of hu ...

(such as

gay rights Rights affecting lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people vary greatly by country or jurisdiction—encompassing everything from the legal recognition of same-sex marriage to the death penalty for homosexuality. Notably, , ...

pacifism Pacifism is the opposition or resistance to war, militarism (including conscription and mandatory military service) or violence. Pacifists generally reject theories of Just War. The word ''pacifism'' was coined by the French peace campaig ...

). Thinkers have related these movements with the

postmaterialism In sociology, postmaterialism is the transformation of individual values from materialist, physical, and economic to new individual values of autonomy and self-expression. The term was popularized by the political scientist Ronald Inglehart in ...

hypothesis and New Class Model as put forth by

Ronald Inglehart Ronald F. Inglehart (September 5, 1934 – May 8, 2021) was an American political scientist specializing in comparative politics. He was director of the World Values Survey, a global network of social scientists who have carried out representati ...

The new movements

Numerous social movements from mid-1960s differed from their precursors, such as the

labor movement The labour movement or labor movement consists of two main wings: the trade union movement (British English) or labor union movement (American English) on the one hand, and the political labour movement on the other. * The trade union movement ...

, which had previously been seen as focused on economic concerns. The 1960s were a period of transformation in collective action, the

French May Beginning in May 1968, a period of civil unrest occurred throughout France, lasting some seven weeks and punctuated by demonstrations, general strikes, as well as the occupation of universities and factories. At the height of events, which ha ...

(1968) probably being its most determinant moment. It is important to highlight, however, that it is currently being discussed whether this phenomenon was the first example of a new social movement or as Staricco has stated: "It did not so much open an era as close a one. It was not the beginning of a paradigm, but the end of another one. What comes after – the growing importance of new social movements both empirically and theoretically – can be understood as a consequence, but not as a continuation or progression". The new movements instead of pushing for specific changes in public policy emphasize

social change Social change is the alteration of the social order of a society which may include changes in social institutions, social behaviours or social relations. Definition Social change may not refer to the notion of social progress or socio ...

s in identity, lifestyle and culture. Thus the social aspect is seen by the NSM as more important than the economic or political aspects. Some NSM theorists, like F. Parkin (''Middle Class Radicalism'', 1968), argue that the key actors in these movements are different as well, as they are more likely to come from the "new

middle class The middle class refers to a class of people in the middle of a social hierarchy, often defined by occupation, income, education, or social status. The term has historically been associated with modernity, capitalism and political debate. Co ...

" rather than the lower classes. Unlike pressure groups that have a formal organisation and 'members', NSMs consist of an informal, loosely organised

social network A social network is a social structure made up of a set of social actors (such as individuals or organizations), sets of dyadic ties, and other social interactions between actors. The social network perspective provides a set of methods for ...

of 'supporters' rather than members. British sociologist Paul Byrne (

1997 File:1997 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The movie set of ''Titanic'', the highest-grossing movie in history at the time; ''Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'', is published; Comet Hale-Bopp passes by Earth and becomes one of ...

) described New Social Movements as 'relatively disorganised'. Protest groups tend to be single issue based and are often local in terms of the scope of change they wish to effect. In contrast, NSMs last longer than single issue campaigns and wish to see change on an (inter)national level on various issues in relation to their set of beliefs and ideals. A NSM may, however adopt the tactic of a protest campaign as part of its strategy for achieving wider-ranging change. Examples of those new movements include the

women's movement The feminist movement (also known as the women's movement, or feminism) refers to a series of social movements and political campaigns for radical and liberal reforms on women's issues created by the inequality between men and women. Such i ...

, the

ecology movement The environmental movement (sometimes referred to as the ecology movement), also including conservation and green politics, is a diverse philosophical, social, and political movement for addressing environmental issues. Environmentalists adv ...

gay rights movement Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) movements are social movements that advocate for LGBT people in society. Some focus on equal rights, such as the ongoing movement for same-sex marriage, while others focus on liberation, as in the ...

and various

peace movement A peace movement is a social movement which seeks to achieve ideals, such as the ending of a particular war (or wars) or minimizing inter-human violence in a particular place or situation. They are often linked to the goal of achieving world pea ...

s, among others.

The theory

Buechler argues that there is in fact no single new social movement theory, but a set of new social movement theories, each a variant on a general approach to "something called the new social movement", which he cautiously defines as a "diverse array of collective actions that has presumably displaced the old social movement of

proletarian revolution A proletarian revolution or proletariat revolution is a social revolution in which the working class attempts to overthrow the bourgeoisie and change the previous political system. Proletarian revolutions are generally advocated by socialis ...

".Buechler 1999 According to Kendall, the new social movement theory focuses on

movement culture A cultural movement is a change in the way a number of different disciplines approach their work. This embodies all art forms, the sciences, and philosophies. Historically, different nations or regions of the world have gone through their own ...

; it also pays attention to their identity and on their relations to

culture Culture () is an umbrella term which encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, customs, capabilities, and habits of the individuals in these grou ...

, ideology, and

politics Politics (from , ) is the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of resources or status. The branch of social science that stud ...

.Kendall 2005 Important contributors in the field include sociologists such as

Alain Touraine Alain Touraine (; born 3 August 1925) is a French sociologist. He is research director at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, where he founded the ''Centre d'étude des mouvements sociaux''. Touraine was an important figure in ...

Ernesto Laclau Ernesto Laclau (; 6 October 1935 – 13 April 2014) was an Argentine political theorist and philosopher. He is often described as an 'inventor' of post-Marxist political theory. He is well known for his collaborations with his long-term partner ...

Chantal Mouffe Chantal Mouffe (; born 17 June 1943) is a Belgian political theorist, formerly teaching at University of Westminster. She is best known for her contribution to the development—jointly with Ernesto Laclau, with whom she co-authored her most fre ...

Claus Offe Claus Offe (born 16 March 1940 in Berlin) is a political sociologist of Marxist orientation. He received his PhD from the University of Frankfurt and his Habilitation at the University of Konstanz. In Germany, he has held chairs for Political S ...

Immanuel Wallerstein Immanuel Maurice Wallerstein (; September 28, 1930 – August 31, 2019) was an American sociologist and economic historian. He is perhaps best known for his development of the general approach in sociology which led to the emergence of his wor ...

Manuel Castells Manuel Castells Oliván (; ; born 9 February 1942) is a Spanish sociologist. He is well known for his authorship of a trilogy of works, entitled The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture. He is a scholar of the information society, com ...

or philosophers such as

Michel Foucault Paul-Michel Foucault (, ; ; 15 October 192625 June 1984) was a French philosopher, historian of ideas, writer, political activist, and literary critic. Foucault's theories primarily address the relationship between power and knowledge, and ho ...

Jürgen Habermas Jürgen Habermas (, ; ; born 18 June 1929) is a German social theorist in the tradition of critical theory and pragmatism. His work addresses communicative rationality and the public sphere. Associated with the Frankfurt School, Habermas's ...

and

Félix Guattari Pierre-Félix Guattari ( , ; 30 April 1930 – 29 August 1992) was a French psychoanalyst, political philosopher, semiotician, social activist, and screenwriter. He co-founded schizoanalysis with Gilles Deleuze, and ecosophy with Arne Næs ...

Characteristics

The most noticeable feature of new social movements is that they are primarily social and cultural and only secondarily political, if at all.Scott 1990 Departing from the worker's movement, which was central to the political aim of gaining access for the working class with the extension of citizenship and representation, new social movements such as youth culture movement concentrate on bringing about social mobilization through cultural innovations, development of new life-styles and transformation of identities. It is clearly elaborated by Habermas that new social movements are the ‘new politics’ which is about quality of life, individual self-realisation and human rights whereas the ‘old politics’ focus on economic, political, and military security.Charles 2002 This can be exemplified in the gay liberation, the focus of which broadens out from political issue to social and cultural realization and acceptance of homosexuality. Hence, new social movements are understood as new because they are first and foremost social. New social movements also give rise to a great emphasis on the role of post-material values in contemporary and

post-industrial society In sociology, the post-industrial society is the stage of society's development when the service sector generates more wealth than the manufacturing sector of the economy. The term was originated by Alain Touraine and is closely related to sim ...

as opposed to conflicts over material resources. According to Melucci, one of the leading new social movement theorists, these movements arise not from relations of production and distribution of resources but within the sphere of reproduction and the life world, as a result of which, the concern has shifted from the sole production of economic resources directly connected to the needs for survival or for reproduction to cultural production of social relations, symbols and identities. In other words, the contemporary social movements are rejections of the materialistic orientation of consumerism in capitalist societies by questioning the modern idea that links the pursuit of happiness and success closely to growth, progress, and increased productivity and by promoting alternative values and understandings in relation to the social world. As an example, the environmental movement that has appeared since the late 1960s throughout the world, with its strong points in the United States and Northern Europe, has significantly brought about a ‘dramatic reversal’ in the ways we consider the relationship between economy, society and nature.Castells 2004 Further, new social movements are located in civil society or the cultural sphere as a major arena for collective action rather than instrumental action in the state, which Claus Offe characterises as ‘bypass the state’.Scott 1990 Moreover, with its little concern to directly challenge the state, new movements are regarded as anti-authoritarian and resisted incorporation in institutional levels. They tend to focus on single issue, or a limited range of issues connected to a single broad theme such as peace and environment. Without the attempt to develop a total politics under a single focus, new social movements set their stress on grass-roots in the aim of representing the interests of marginal or excluded groups. Paralleled with this ideology, the organization form of new collective actions is also locally based, centred on small social groups and loosely held by personal or informational networks such as radios, newspapers, and posters. This ‘local- and issue-centred’ characteristic which does not necessarily require a highly agreed ideology or agreement on ultimate ends makes these new movements distinctive from the ‘old’ labour movement with a high degree of tolerance of political and ideological difference appealing to broader sections of population. Additionally, if old social movements namely the worker's movement presupposed a working–class base and ideology, the new social movements are presumed to draw from a different social class base, that is, ‘the new class’, as a complex contemporary class structure that Claus Offe identifies as ‘threefold’: the new middle class, elements of the old middle class and peripheral groups outside the labour market.Buechler 1995 As stated by Offe,Charles 2002 the new middle class in association with the old one is evolved in the new social movements because of their high levels of education and their access to information and resources that lead to the questions of the way society is valued; the group of people that are marginal in terms of labour market such as students, housewives and the unemployed participate in the collective actions as a consequence of their disposable resource of time, their position in the receiving end of bureaucratic control and disability to be fully engaged in the society based on employment and consumption. The main character in old social movements, the industrial working class, nonetheless, is absent here in the class base of new social mobilizations.

Criticism

Some sociologists, like

Paul Bagguley Paul may refer to: * Paul (given name), a given name (includes a list of people with that name) * Paul (surname), a list of people People Christianity *Paul the Apostle (AD c.5–c.64/65), also known as Saul of Tarsus or Saint Paul, early Chr ...

and Nelson Pichardo, criticize NSM theory for a number of reasons, including: # the movements concerned with non-materialistic issues existed (in one extent or another) during the industrial period and traditional movements, concerned with economic well-being, still exist today, # there are few unique characteristics of the new social movements, when compared to the traditional movements, # differences between older and newer movements have been explained by older theories, # there is doubt in terms of whether contemporary movements are specifically a product of postindustrial society, # NSM focuses almost exclusively on

left-wing Left-wing politics describes the range of political ideologies that support and seek to achieve social equality and egalitarianism, often in opposition to social hierarchy. Left-wing politics typically involve a concern for those in so ...

movements and does not consider

right-wing Right-wing politics describes the range of political ideologies that view certain social orders and hierarchies as inevitable, natural, normal, or desirable, typically supporting this position on the basis of natural law, economics, autho ...

, # the term "new middle class" is amorphous and not consistently defined, and # might be better viewed as a certain instance of social movement theory rather than a brand new one.. # NSM is largely an extension of 1960s counterculture and built more around protest than any common (internal) unity, # newer movements are exceptionalist, where members or proponents see older movements as ineffective or insignificant # recent NSMs are fueled by social media and meme culture, often diminishing their seriousness and meaning

List of new social movements

Abahlali baseMjondolo Abahlali baseMjondolo (AbM, , in English: "the residents of the shacks") is a socialist shack dwellers' movement in South Africa which organises land occupations, builds communes

(South Africa) *

Animal rights movement The animal rights (AR) movement, sometimes called the animal liberation, animal personhood, or animal advocacy movement, is a social movement that seeks an end to the rigid moral and legal distinction drawn between human and non-human animals, ...

Anti-nuclear movement The anti-nuclear movement is a social movement that opposes various nuclear technologies. Some direct action groups, environmental movements, and professional organisations have identified themselves with the movement at the local, nationa ...

Anti-War movement An anti-war movement (also ''antiwar'') is a social movement, usually in opposition to a particular nation's decision to start or carry on an armed conflict, unconditional of a maybe-existing just cause. The term anti-war can also refer to pa ...

Disability rights movement The disability rights movement is a global social movement that seeks to secure equal opportunities and equal rights for all people with disabilities. It is made up of organizations of disability activists, also known as disability advoca ...

Effective altruism Effective altruism is a philosophical and social movement that advocates "using evidence and reason to figure out how to benefit others as much as possible, and taking action on that basis". People who pursue the goals of effective altruism, cal ...

(An international network which uses evidence and reason to identify the most effective ways to improve the world.) *

Extinction Rebellion Extinction Rebellion (abbreviated as XR) is a global environmental movement, with the stated aim of using nonviolent civil disobedience to compel government action to avoid tipping points in the climate system, biodiversity loss, and the risk o ...

Free software movement The free software movement is a social movement with the goal of obtaining and guaranteeing certain freedoms for software users, namely the freedoms to run the software, to study the software, to modify the software, and to share copies of the s ...

Occupy Movement The Occupy movement was an international populist Social movement, socio-political movement that expressed opposition to Social equality, social and economic inequality and to the perceived lack of "real democracy" around the world. It aimed prim ...

(A global

anti-capitalist Anti-capitalism is a political ideology and movement encompassing a variety of attitudes and ideas that oppose capitalism. In this sense, anti-capitalists are those who wish to replace capitalism with another type of economic system, such as ...

movement) *

Rastafari Rastafari, sometimes called Rastafarianism, is a religion that developed in Jamaica during the 1930s. It is classified as both a new religious movement and a social movement by scholars of religion. There is no central authority in control ...

Shahbag Movement On 5 February 2013, protests began in Shahbag, Bangladesh, following demands for the execution of Abdul Quader Mollah, who had been sentenced to life imprisonment and convicted on five of six counts of war crimes by the International Cri ...

(A mass movement demanding trial of crimes against humanity) (Bangladesh) *

Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign The Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign was a non-racial popular movement made up of poor and oppressed communities in Cape Town, South Africa.

(South Africa) *

The Zeitgeist Movement The Zeitgeist Movement is an activist movement established in the United States in 2008 by Peter Joseph. The group is critical of market capitalism, describing it as structurally corrupt and wasteful of resources. The group dismisses historic ...

(A global sustainability advocacy movement which spreads awareness about the perceived roots of social problems.)

Notes

Citations

References

* * Steven M. Buechler, ''Social Movements in Advanced Capitalism'', Oxford University Press, 1999,
Google Print, p.46
* * Diana Kendall, ''Sociology In Our Times'', Thomson Wadsworth, 2005,
Google Print, p.533
* Nelson A. Pichardo, ''New Social Movements: A Critical Review'', Annual Review of Sociology, Vol. 23: 411–430, 1997

* * Scott, A. (1990) Ideology and the New Social Movements London: Unwin Hyman * Staricco (2012) The French May and the Roots of Postmodern Politics. https://www.scribd.com/doc/112409042/The-French-May-and-the-Roots-of-Postmodern-Politics * Charles, N. (2002) Feminism, the State and Social Policy London: Macmillan * Buechler, S, M. (1995) ‘New Social Movement Theories’ in The Sociological Quarterly, 36 (3): 441-64 * Castells, M. (2004) The Power of Identity (Second Edition) London: Blackwell * Laclau, E. & Mouffe, C. (2001) ''Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic Politics'' (Second Edition). London: Verso