A social movement is a loosely organized effort by a large group of people to achieve a particular goal, typically a
social
Social organisms, including human(s), live collectively in interacting populations. This interaction is considered social whether they are aware of it or not, and whether the exchange is voluntary or not.
Etymology
The word "social" derives from ...
or
political
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 studies ...
one. This may be to carry out a
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 sociocult ...
, or to resist or undo one. It is a type of
group action
In mathematics, a group action on a space is a group homomorphism of a given group into the group of transformations of the space. Similarly, a group action on a mathematical structure is a group homomorphism of a group into the automorphism ...
and may involve
individuals
An individual is that which exists as a distinct entity. Individuality (or self-hood) is the state or quality of being an individual; particularly (in the case of humans) of being a person unique from other people and possessing one's own need ...
,
organizations
An organization or organisation (Commonwealth English; see spelling differences), is an entity—such as a company, an institution, or an association—comprising one or more people and having a particular purpose.
The word is derived from ...
, or both. Social movements have been described as "organizational structures and strategies that may empower oppressed populations to mount effective challenges and resist the more powerful and advantaged elites".
They represent a method of social change from the bottom within
nations
A nation is a community of people formed on the basis of a combination of shared features such as language, history, ethnicity, culture and/or society. A nation is thus the collective identity of a group of people understood as defined by those ...
.
Political science
Political science is the scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and power, and the analysis of political activities, political thought, political behavior, and associated constitutions and la ...
and
sociology
Sociology is a social science that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of Interpersonal ties, social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. It uses various methods of Empirical ...
have developed a variety of theories and empirical research on social movements. For example, some research in political science highlights the relation between popular movements and the formation of new
political parties
A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular country's elections. It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics, and parties may promote specific ideological or pol ...
as well as discussing the function of social movements in relation to
agenda setting
Agenda setting describes the "ability (of the news media) to influence the importance placed on the topics of the Political agenda, public agenda". The study of agenda-setting describes the way media attempts to influence viewers, and establish a ...
and influence on politics. Sociologists distinguish between several types of social movement examining things such as scope, type of change, method of work, range, and time frame.
Some scholars have argued that modern Western social movements became possible through education (the wider dissemination of
literature
Literature is any collection of written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially prose fiction, drama, and poetry. In recent centuries, the definition has expanded to include ...
) and increased mobility of labor due to the
industrialization
Industrialisation ( alternatively spelled industrialization) is the period of social and economic change that transforms a human group from an agrarian society into an industrial society. This involves an extensive re-organisation of an econo ...
and
urbanization
Urbanization (or urbanisation) refers to the population shift from rural to urban areas, the corresponding decrease in the proportion of people living in rural areas, and the ways in which societies adapt to this change. It is predominantly t ...
of 19th-century societies.
[Weinberg, 2013] It is sometimes argued that the freedom of expression, education and relative economic independence prevalent in the modern
Western culture
Leonardo da Vinci's ''Vitruvian Man''. Based on the correlations of ideal Body proportions">human proportions with geometry described by the ancient Roman architect Vitruvius in Book III of his treatise ''De architectura''.
image:Plato Pio-Cle ...
are responsible for the unprecedented number and scope of various contemporary social movements. Many of the social movements of the last hundred years grew up, like the
Mau Mau in Kenya, to oppose Western colonialism. Social movements have been and continue to be closely connected with
democratic political system
In political science, a political system means the type of political organization that can be recognized, observed or otherwise declared by a state.
It defines the process for making official government decisions. It usually comprizes the govern ...
s. Occasionally, social movements have been involved in
democratizing nations, but more often they have flourished after democratization. Over the past 200 years, they have become part of a popular and global expression of
dissent
Dissent is an opinion, philosophy or sentiment of non-agreement or opposition to a prevailing idea or policy enforced under the authority of a government, political party or other entity or individual. A dissenting person may be referred to as ...
.
[Tilly, 2004]
Modern movements often use technology and the internet to mobilize people globally. Adapting to communication trends is a common theme among successful movements.
Research is beginning to explore how advocacy organizations linked to social movements in the U.S.
and Canada
use
social media
Social media are interactive media technologies that facilitate the creation and sharing of information, ideas, interests, and other forms of expression through virtual communities and networks. While challenges to the definition of ''social medi ...
to facilitate civic engagement and collective action.
Definitions
Mario Diani argues that nearly all definitions share three criteria: "a network of informal interactions between a plurality of individuals, groups and/or organizations, engaged in a political or cultural conflict, on the basis of a shared collective identity"
Sociologist
Charles Tilly
Charles Tilly (May 27, 1929 – April 29, 2008) was an American sociologist, political scientist, and historian who wrote on the relationship between politics and society. He was a professor of history, sociology, and social science at the Univ ...
defines social movements as a series of contentious performances, displays and campaigns by which ordinary people make collective claims on others.
[ For Tilly, social movements are a major vehicle for ordinary people's participation in public politics.][Tilly, 2004, p.3] He argues that there are three major elements to a social movement:[
# Campaigns: a sustained, organized public effort making collective claims of target authorities;
# Repertoire (]repertoire of contention
Repertoire of contention refers, in social movement theory, to the set of various protest-related tools and actions available to a movement or related organization in a given time frame. The historian Charles Tilly, who brought the concept into ...
): employment of combinations from among the following forms of political action
In sociology, social action, also known as Weberian social action, is an act which takes into account the actions and reactions of individuals (or ' agents'). According to Max Weber, "Action is 'social' insofar as its subjective meaning takes ...
: creation of special-purpose associations and coalitions, public meetings, solemn processions, vigils, rallies, demonstrations, petition drives, statements to and in public media, and pamphleteering; and
# WUNC displays: participants' concerted public representation of worthiness, unity, numbers, and commitments on the part of themselves and/or their constituencies.
Sidney Tarrow
Sidney George Tarrow (born 1938) is an emeritus professor of political science, known for his research in the areas of comparative politics, social movements, political parties, collective action and political sociology.
Biography
B.A. Syracuse U ...
defines a social movement as "collective challenges o elites, authorities, other groups or cultural codes
O, or o, is the fifteenth letter and the fourth vowel letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''o'' (pronounced ), plu ...
by people with common purposes and solidarity in sustained interactions with elites, opponents and authorities." He specifically distinguishes social movements from political parties and advocacy group
Advocacy groups, also known as interest groups, special interest groups, lobbying groups or pressure groups use various forms of advocacy in order to influence public opinion and ultimately policy. They play an important role in the developm ...
s.
The sociologists John McCarthy and Mayer Zald define as a social movement as "a set of opinions and beliefs in a population which represents preferences for changing some elements of the social structure and/or reward distribution of a society."
According to Paul van Seeters and Paul James, defining a social movement entails a few minimal conditions of 'coming together':
History
Beginning
The early growth of social movements was connected to broad economic and political changes in England in the mid-18th century, including political representation
Political representation is the activity of making citizens "present" in public policy-making processes when political actors act in the best interest of citizens. This definition of political representation is consistent with a wide variety of vie ...
, market capitalization
Market capitalization, sometimes referred to as market cap, is the total value of a publicly traded company's outstanding common shares owned by stockholders.
Market capitalization is equal to the market price per common share multiplied by t ...
, and proletarianization
In Marxism, proletarianization is the social process whereby people move from being either an employer, unemployed or self-employed, to being employed as wage labor by an employer. Proletarianization is often seen as the most important form of down ...
.[
The first mass social movement catalyzed around the controversial political figure ]John Wilkes
John Wilkes (17 October 1725 – 26 December 1797) was an English radical journalist and politician, as well as a magistrate, essayist and soldier. He was first elected a Member of Parliament in 1757. In the Middlesex election dispute, he fo ...
. As editor of the paper ''The North Briton
''The North Briton'' was a radical newspaper published in 18th-century London. The North Briton also served as the pseudonym of the newspaper's author, used in advertisements, letters to other publications, and handbills.
Although written anon ...
'', Wilkes vigorously attacked the new administration of Lord Bute
John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute, (; 25 May 1713 – 10 March 1792), styled Lord Mount Stuart between 1713 and 1723, was a British nobleman who served as the 7th Prime Minister of Great Britain from 1762 to 1763 under George III. He was arguabl ...
and the peace terms that the new government accepted at the 1763 Treaty of Paris Treaty of Paris may refer to one of many treaties signed in Paris, France:
Treaties
1200s and 1300s
* Treaty of Paris (1229), which ended the Albigensian Crusade
* Treaty of Paris (1259), between Henry III of England and Louis IX of France
* Trea ...
at the end of the Seven Years' War
The Seven Years' War (1756–1763) was a global conflict that involved most of the European Great Powers, and was fought primarily in Europe, the Americas, and Asia-Pacific. Other concurrent conflicts include the French and Indian War (1754 ...
. Charged with seditious libel
Sedition and seditious libel were criminal offences under English common law, and are still criminal offences in Canada. Sedition is overt conduct, such as speech and organization, that is deemed by the legal authority to tend toward insurrection a ...
, Wilkes was arrested after the issue of a general warrant
A writ of assistance is a written order (a writ) issued by a court instructing a law enforcement official, such as a sheriff or a tax collector, to perform a certain task. Historically, several types of writs have been called "writs of assistance ...
, a move that Wilkes denounced as unlawful – the Lord Chief Justice
Lord is an appellation for a person or deity who has authority, control, or power over others, acting as a master, chief, or ruler. The appellation can also denote certain persons who hold a title of the peerage in the United Kingdom, or are ...
eventually ruled in Wilkes favour. As a result of this, Wilkes became a figurehead to the growing movement for popular sovereignty among the middle classes – people began chanting "Wilkes and Liberty" in the streets.
After a later period of exile brought about by further charges of libel and obscenity
An obscenity is any utterance or act that strongly offends the prevalent morality of the time. It is derived from the Latin ''obscēnus'', ''obscaenus'', "boding ill; disgusting; indecent", of uncertain etymology. Such loaded language can be use ...
, Wilkes stood for the Parliamentary seat at Middlesex
Middlesex (; abbreviation: Middx) is a Historic counties of England, historic county in South East England, southeast England. Its area is almost entirely within the wider urbanised area of London and mostly within the Ceremonial counties of ...
, where most of his support was located. When Wilkes was imprisoned in the King's Bench Prison
The King's Bench Prison was a prison in Southwark, south London, England, from medieval times until it closed in 1880. It took its name from the King's Bench court of law in which cases of defamation, bankruptcy and other misdemeanours were hea ...
on 10 May 1768, a mass movement of support emerged, with large demonstrations in the streets under the slogan "No liberty, no King."
Stripped of the right to sit in Parliament, Wilkes became an Alderman
An alderman is a member of a Municipal government, municipal assembly or council in many Jurisdiction, jurisdictions founded upon English law. The term may be titular, denoting a high-ranking member of a borough or county council, a council membe ...
of London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
in 1769, and an activist group called the ''Society for the Supporters of the Bill of Rights'' began aggressively promoting his policies. This was the first ever sustained social movement: it involved public meetings, demonstrations, the distribution of pamphlets on an unprecedented scale and the mass petition march. However, the movement was careful not to cross the line into open rebellion; it tried to rectify the faults in governance through appeals to existing legal precedents and was conceived of as an extra-Parliamentary form of agitation to arrive at a consensual and constitutional arrangement. The force and influence of this social movement on the streets of London compelled the authorities to concede to the movement's demands. Wilkes was returned to Parliament, general warrant
A writ of assistance is a written order (a writ) issued by a court instructing a law enforcement official, such as a sheriff or a tax collector, to perform a certain task. Historically, several types of writs have been called "writs of assistance ...
s were declared as unconstitutional and press freedom was extended to the coverage of Parliamentary debate
Parliamentary debate (also referred to as "parliamentary" or "parli") is an academic debate event. Many university-level institutions in English-speaking nations sponsor parliamentary debate teams. In addition the format is currently spreading to ...
s.
A much larger movement of anti-Catholic
Anti-Catholicism is hostility towards Catholics or opposition to the Catholic Church, its clergy, and/or its adherents. At various points after the Reformation, some majority Protestant states, including England, Prussia, Scotland, and the Uni ...
protest was triggered by the Papists Act 1778
The Papists Act 1778 is an Act of the Parliament of Great Britain (18 George III c. 60) and was the first Act for Roman Catholic relief. Later in 1778 it was also enacted by the Parliament of Ireland.
Before the Act, a number of "Penal laws" ...
, which eliminated a number of the penalties and disabilities endured by Roman Catholics in England, and formed around Lord George Gordon
Lord George Gordon (26 December 1751 – 1 November 1793) was a British politician best known for lending his name to the Gordon Riots of 1780.
An eccentric and flighty personality, he was born into the Scottish nobility and sat in the Hous ...
, who became the President of the Protestant Association in 1779. The Association had the support of leading Calvinist religious figures, including Rowland Hill
Sir Rowland Hill, KCB, FRS (3 December 1795 – 27 August 1879) was an English teacher, inventor and social reformer. He campaigned for a comprehensive reform of the postal system, based on the concept of Uniform Penny Post and his soluti ...
, Erasmus Middleton
Erasmus Middleton (1739–1805) was an English clergyman, author and editor.
Early life
He was the son of Erasmus Middleton of Horncastle, Lincolnshire. At age 22 he underwent a religion conversion among Wesleyan Methodists in Horncastle. He wa ...
, and John Rippon
John Rippon (29 April 1751 – 17 December 1836) was an English Baptist minister. In 1787 he published an important hymnal, ''A Selection of Hymns from the Best Authors, Intended to Be an Appendix to Dr. Watts’ Psalms and Hymns'', commonly ...
. Gordon was an articulate propagandist and he inflamed the mob with fears of Papism and a return to absolute monarchical rule. The situation deteriorated rapidly, and in 1780, after a meeting of the Protestant Association, its members subsequently marched on the House of Commons
The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. ...
to deliver a petition demanding the repeal of the Act, which the government refused to do. Soon, large riots broke out across London and embassies and Catholic owned businesses were attacked by angry mobs.
Other political movement
A political movement is a collective attempt by a group of people to change government policy or social values. Political movements are usually in opposition to an element of the status quo, and are often associated with a certain ideology. Some t ...
s that emerged in the late 18th century included the British abolitionist
Abolitionism, or the abolitionist movement, is the movement to end slavery. In Western Europe and the Americas, abolitionism was a historic movement that sought to end the Atlantic slave trade and liberate the enslaved people.
The British ...
movement against slavery
Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...
(becoming one between the sugar boycott of 1791 and the second great petition drive of 1806), and possibly the upheaval surrounding the French and American Revolution
The American Revolution was an ideological and political revolution that occurred in British America between 1765 and 1791. The Americans in the Thirteen Colonies formed independent states that defeated the British in the American Revolut ...
s. In the opinion of Eugene Black (1963), "...association made possible the extension of the politically effective public. Modern extra parliamentary political organization is a product of the late eighteenth century ndthe history of the age of reform cannot be written without it.
Growth and spread
From 1815, Britain
Britain most often refers to:
* The United Kingdom, a sovereign state in Europe comprising the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland and many smaller islands
* Great Britain, the largest island in the United King ...
after victory in the Napoleonic Wars
The Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815) were a series of major global conflicts pitting the French Empire and its allies, led by Napoleon I, against a fluctuating array of European states formed into various coalitions. It produced a period of Fren ...
entered a period of social upheaval characterised by the growing maturity of the use of social movements and special-interest associations. Chartism
Chartism was a working-class movement for political reform in the United Kingdom that erupted from 1838 to 1857 and was strongest in 1839, 1842 and 1848. It took its name from the People's Charter of 1838 and was a national protest movement, w ...
was the first mass movement of the growing working-class in the world. It campaigned for political reform between 1838 and 1848 with the People's Charter of 1838
Chartism was a working-class movement for political reform in the United Kingdom that erupted from 1838 to 1857 and was strongest in 1839, 1842 and 1848. It took its name from the People's Charter of 1838 and was a national protest movement, w ...
as its manifesto – this called for universal suffrage
Universal suffrage (also called universal franchise, general suffrage, and common suffrage of the common man) gives the right to vote to all adult citizens, regardless of wealth, income, gender, social status, race, ethnicity, or political stanc ...
and the implementation of the secret ballot
The secret ballot, also known as the Australian ballot, is a voting method in which a voter's identity in an election or a referendum is anonymous. This forestalls attempts to influence the voter by intimidation, blackmailing, and potential vote ...
, amongst other things. The term "social movements" was introduced in 1848 by the German Sociologist Lorenz von Stein
Lorenz von Stein (18 November 1815 – 23 September 1890) was a German economist, sociologist, and public administration scholar from Eckernförde. As an advisor to Meiji period Japan, his liberal political views influenced the wording of the C ...
in his book ''Socialist and Communist Movements since the Third French Revolution (1848)'' in which he introduced the term "social movement" into scholarly discussions – actually depicting in this way political movement
A political movement is a collective attempt by a group of people to change government policy or social values. Political movements are usually in opposition to an element of the status quo, and are often associated with a certain ideology. Some t ...
s fighting for the social rights understood as welfare rights
Welfare rights means the rights of people to be aware of and receive their maximum entitlement to state welfare benefits, and to be treated reasonably well by the welfare system. It has been established in the United Kingdom since 1969 and has als ...
.
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 ...
and socialist movement
The history of socialism has its origins in the 1789 French Revolution and the changes which it brought, although it has precedents in earlier movements and ideas. ''The Communist Manifesto'' was written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in 1847-4 ...
of the late 19th century are seen as the prototypical social movements, leading to the formation of communist
Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a s ...
and social democratic
Social democracy is a political, social, and economic philosophy within socialism that supports political and economic democracy. As a policy regime, it is described by academics as advocating economic and social interventions to promote soci ...
parties and organisations. These tendencies were seen in poorer countries as pressure for reform continued, for example in Russia with the Russian Revolution of 1905
The Russian Revolution of 1905,. also known as the First Russian Revolution,. occurred on 22 January 1905, and was a wave of mass political and social unrest that spread through vast areas of the Russian Empire. The mass unrest was directed again ...
and of 1917, resulting in the collapse of the Czarist regime around the end of the First World War
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
.
In 1945, Britain after victory in the Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
entered a period of radical reform and change. In the post-war period, feminism
Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes. Feminism incorporates the position that society prioritizes the male po ...
, 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 ...
, 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 peac ...
, civil rights movement
The civil rights movement was a nonviolent social and political movement and campaign from 1954 to 1968 in the United States to abolish legalized institutional Racial segregation in the United States, racial segregation, Racial discrimination ...
, 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 ...
and environmental 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 a ...
emerged, often dubbed the new social movements
The term new social movements (NSMs) is a theory of social movements that attempts to explain the plethora of new movements that have come up in various western societies roughly since the mid-1960s (i.e. in a post-industrial economy) which are cl ...
They led, among other things, to the formation of green parties
A green party is a formally organized political party based on the principles of green politics, such as social justice, environmentalism and nonviolence.
Greens believe that these issues are inherently related to one another as a foundation f ...
and organisations influenced by the new left
The New Left was a broad political movement mainly in the 1960s and 1970s consisting of activists in the Western world who campaigned for a broad range of social issues such as civil and political rights, environmentalism, feminism, gay rights, g ...
. Some find in the end of the 1990s the emergence of a new global social movement, the anti-globalization movement
The anti-globalization movement or counter-globalization movement, is a social movement critical of economic globalization. The movement is also commonly referred to as the global justice movement, alter-globalization movement, anti-globalis ...
. Some social movement scholars posit that with the rapid pace of globalization, the potential for the emergence of new ''type'' of social movement is latent—they make the analogy to national movements of the past to describe what has been termed a global citizens movement The global citizens movement is a constellation of organized and overlapping citizens' groups seeking to foster global solidarity in policy and consciousness. The term is often used synonymously with the anti-globalization movement or the global ju ...
.
Key processes
Several key processes lie behind the history of social movements. Urbanization
Urbanization (or urbanisation) refers to the population shift from rural to urban areas, the corresponding decrease in the proportion of people living in rural areas, and the ways in which societies adapt to this change. It is predominantly t ...
led to larger settlements, where people of similar goals could find each other, gather and organize. This facilitated social interaction
A social relation or also described as a social interaction or social experience is the fundamental unit of analysis within the social sciences, and describes any voluntary or involuntary interpersonal relationship between two or more individuals ...
between scores of people, and it was in urban areas that those early social movements first appeared. Similarly, the process of industrialization which gathered large masses of workers in the same region explains why many of those early social movements addressed matters such as economic wellbeing, important to the worker class
The working class (or labouring class) comprises those engaged in manual-labour occupations or industrial work, who are remunerated via waged or salaried contracts. Working-class occupations (see also " Designation of workers by collar colo ...
. Many other social movements were created at universities
A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, t ...
, where the process of mass education
Compulsory education refers to a period of education that is required of all people and is imposed by the government. This education may take place at a registered school or at other places.
Compulsory school attendance or compulsory schooling ...
brought many people together. With the development of communication
Communication (from la, communicare, meaning "to share" or "to be in relation with") is usually defined as the transmission of information. The term may also refer to the message communicated through such transmissions or the field of inquir ...
technologies, creation and activities of social movements became easier – from printed pamphlets circulating in the 18th century coffeehouse
A coffeehouse, coffee shop, or café is an establishment that primarily serves coffee of various types, notably espresso, latte, and cappuccino. Some coffeehouses may serve cold drinks, such as iced coffee and iced tea, as well as other non-ca ...
s to newspaper
A newspaper is a periodical publication containing written information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background.
Newspapers can cover a wide variety of fields such as politics, business, sports a ...
s and Internet
The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...
, all those tools became important factors in the growth of the social movements. Finally, the spread of democracy
Democracy (From grc, δημοκρατία, dēmokratía, ''dēmos'' 'people' and ''kratos'' 'rule') is a form of government in which the people have the authority to deliberate and decide legislation (" direct democracy"), or to choose gov ...
and political rights
Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from infringement by governments, social organizations, and private individuals. They ensure one's entitlement to participate in the civil and political life of ...
like the freedom of speech
Freedom of speech is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or a community to articulate their opinions and ideas without fear of retaliation, censorship, or legal sanction. The right to freedom of expression has been recogni ...
made the creation and functioning of social movements much easier.
Mass mobilization
Nascent social movements often fail to achieve their objectives because they fail to mobilize sufficient numbers of people. Srdja Popovic, author of Blueprint for Revolution, and spokesperson for OTPOR!
Otpor ( sr-Cyrl, Отпор!, en, Resistance!, stylized as Otpor!) was a political organization in Republic of Serbia (1990–2006), Serbia (then part of Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, FR Yugoslavia) from 1998 until 2004.
In its initial period ...
, says that movements succeed when they address issues that people actually care about. "It's unrealistic to expect people to care about more than what they already care about, and any attempt to make them do so is bound to fail." Activists too often make the mistake of trying to convince people to address their issues. A mobilization strategy aimed at large-scale change often begins with action a small issue that concerns many people. For instance, Mahatma Gandhi
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (; ; 2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948), popularly known as Mahatma Gandhi, was an Indian lawyer, anti-colonial nationalist Quote: "... marks Gandhi as a hybrid cosmopolitan figure who transformed ... anti- ...
's successful overthrow of British rule in India began as a small protest focused on the British tax on salt.
Popovic also argues that a social movement has little chance of growing if it relies on boring speeches and the usual placard waving marches. He argues for creating movements that people actually want to join. OTPOR! succeeded because it was fun, funny, and invented graphic ways of ridiculing dictator Slobodan Milosevic
Slobodan ( sr-Cyrl, Слободан) is a Serbo-Croatian masculine given name which means "free" (''sloboda'' / meaning "freedom, liberty") used among other South Slavs as well. It was coined by Serbian liberal politician Vladimir Jovanović w ...
. It turned fatalism and passivity into action by making it easy, even cool, to become a revolutionary, branding itself within hip slogans, rock music and street theatre. Tina Rosenberg
Tina Rosenberg (born April 14, 1960) is an American journalist and the author of three books. For one of them, '' The Haunted Land: Facing Europe's Ghosts After Communism'' (1995), she won the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction and the Nati ...
, in ''Join the Club, How Peer Pressure can Transform the World'', shows how movements grow when there is a core of enthusiastic players who encourage others to join them.
Types
Sociologists distinguish between several types of social movement:
* Scope:
** reform movement
A reform movement or reformism is a type of social movement that aims to bring a social or also a political system closer to the community's ideal. A reform movement is distinguished from more radical social movements such as revolutionary mo ...
- movements advocating changing some norms or law
Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior,Robertson, ''Crimes against humanity'', 90. with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been vario ...
s. Examples of such a movement would include a trade union
A trade union (labor union in American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers intent on "maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment", ch. I such as attaining better wages and benefits ( ...
with a goal of increasing workers rights
Labor rights or workers' rights are both legal rights and human rights relating to labor relations between workers and employers. These rights are codified in national and international labor and employment law. In general, these rights influe ...
, a green movement
Green politics, or ecopolitics, is a political ideology that aims to foster an ecologically sustainable society often, but not always, rooted in environmentalism, nonviolence, social justice and grassroots democracy. Wall 2010. p. 12-13. It be ...
advocating a set of ecological
Ecology () is the study of the relationships between living organisms, including humans, and their physical environment. Ecology considers organisms at the individual, population, community, ecosystem, and biosphere level. Ecology overlaps wi ...
laws, or a movement supporting introduction of a capital punishment
Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that t ...
or the right to abortion
Abortion is the termination of a pregnancy by removal or expulsion of an embryo or fetus. An abortion that occurs without intervention is known as a miscarriage or "spontaneous abortion"; these occur in approximately 30% to 40% of pregn ...
. Some reform movements may aim for a change in custom and moral norms, such as condemnation of pornography
Pornography (often shortened to porn or porno) is the portrayal of sexual subject matter for the exclusive purpose of sexual arousal. Primarily intended for adults, or proliferation of some religion
Religion is usually defined as a social- cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relates humanity to supernatural, ...
.
** radical movement
The Radical Movement (french: Mouvement radical, MR), officially the Radical, Social and Liberal Movement (french: link=no, Mouvement radical, social et libéral), was a social-liberal political party in France.
The party aimed at being an "alter ...
- movements dedicated to changing value system
In ethics and social sciences, value denotes the degree of importance of something or action, with the aim of determining which actions are best to do or what way is best to live (normative ethics in ethics), or to describe the significance of dif ...
s in a fundamental way. Examples would include the Civil Rights Movement
The civil rights movement was a nonviolent social and political movement and campaign from 1954 to 1968 in the United States to abolish legalized institutional Racial segregation in the United States, racial segregation, Racial discrimination ...
which demanded full civil rights
Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from infringement by governments, social organizations, and private individuals. They ensure one's entitlement to participate in the civil and political life of ...
and equality under the law to all Americans, regardless of race
Race, RACE or "The Race" may refer to:
* Race (biology), an informal taxonomic classification within a species, generally within a sub-species
* Race (human categorization), classification of humans into groups based on physical traits, and/or s ...
; the Polish
Polish may refer to:
* Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe
* Polish language
* Poles
Poles,, ; singular masculine: ''Polak'', singular feminine: ''Polka'' or Polish people, are a West Slavic nation and ethnic group, w ...
Solidarity
''Solidarity'' is an awareness of shared interests, objectives, standards, and sympathies creating a psychological sense of unity of groups or classes. It is based on class collaboration.''Merriam Webster'', http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictio ...
(''Solidarność'') movement which demanded the transformation of a Stalinist
Stalinism is the means of governing and Marxist-Leninist policies implemented in the Soviet Union from 1927 to 1953 by Joseph Stalin. It included the creation of a one-party totalitarian police state, rapid industrialization, the theory o ...
political and economic system
An economic system, or economic order, is a system of Production (economics), production, resource allocation and Distribution (economics), distribution of goods and services within a society or a given geographic area. It includes the combinati ...
into a democracy
Democracy (From grc, δημοκρατία, dēmokratía, ''dēmos'' 'people' and ''kratos'' 'rule') is a form of government in which the people have the authority to deliberate and decide legislation (" direct democracy"), or to choose gov ...
; or the South Africa
South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countri ...
n shack dwellers' movement 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 which demands the full inclusion of shack dwellers into the life of cities.
* Type of change:
** innovation movement - movements which want to introduce or change particular norms, values, etc. The singularitarianism
Singularitarianism is a movement defined by the belief that a technological singularity—the creation of superintelligence—will likely happen in the medium future, and that deliberate action ought to be taken to ensure that the singularity ben ...
movement advocating deliberate action to effect and ensure the safety of the technological singularity
The technological singularity—or simply the singularity—is a hypothetical future point in time at which technological growth becomes uncontrollable and irreversible, resulting in unforeseeable changes to human civilization. According to the m ...
is an example of an innovation movement.
** conservative movement - movements which want to preserve existing norms, values, etc. For example, the anti-technology 19th century Luddite
The Luddites were a secret oath-based organisation of English textile workers in the 19th century who formed a radical faction which destroyed textile machinery. The group is believed to have taken its name from Ned Ludd, a legendary weaver s ...
s movement or the modern movement opposing the spread of the genetically modified food
Genetically modified foods (GM foods), also known as genetically engineered foods (GE foods), or bioengineered foods are foods produced from organisms that have had changes introduced into their DNA using the methods of genetic engineering. Gene ...
could be seen as conservative movements in that they aimed to fight specific technological changes.
* Targets:
** group-focus movements - focused on affecting groups or society in general, for example, advocating the change of the political system. Some of these groups transform into or join a political party
A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular country's elections. It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics, and parties may promote specific political ideology ...
, but many remain outside the reformist party political system.
** individual-focused movements - focused on affecting individuals. Most religious movement
Various sociological classifications of religious movements have been proposed by scholars. In the sociology of religion, the most widely used classification is the church-sect typology. The typology is differently construed by different sociologi ...
s would fall under this category.
* Methods of work:
** peaceful movements - various movements which use nonviolent
Nonviolence is the personal practice of not causing harm to others under any condition. It may come from the belief that hurting people, animals and/or the environment is unnecessary to achieve an outcome and it may refer to a general philosoph ...
means of protest as part of a campaign of nonviolent resistance
Nonviolent resistance (NVR), or nonviolent action, sometimes called civil resistance, is the practice of achieving goals such as social change through symbolic protests, civil disobedience, economic or political noncooperation, satyagraha, cons ...
, also often called civil resistance
Civil resistance is political action that relies on the use of nonviolent resistance by ordinary people to challenge a particular power, force, policy or regime. Civil resistance operates through appeals to the adversary, pressure and coercion: i ...
. The American Civil Rights Movement, Polish Solidarity movement or the nonviolent
Nonviolence is the personal practice of not causing harm to others under any condition. It may come from the belief that hurting people, animals and/or the environment is unnecessary to achieve an outcome and it may refer to a general philosoph ...
, civil disobedience
Civil disobedience is the active, professed refusal of a citizen to obey certain laws, demands, orders or commands of a government (or any other authority). By some definitions, civil disobedience has to be nonviolent to be called "civil". Hen ...
-orientated wing of the Indian independence movement
The Indian independence movement was a series of historic events with the ultimate aim of ending British Raj, British rule in India. It lasted from 1857 to 1947.
The first nationalistic revolutionary movement for Indian independence emerged ...
would fall into this category.
** violent movements - various movements which resort to violence; they are usually armed and in extreme cases can take a form of a paramilitary
A paramilitary is an organization whose structure, tactics, training, subculture, and (often) function are similar to those of a professional military, but is not part of a country's official or legitimate armed forces. Paramilitary units carr ...
or terrorist
Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of criminal violence to provoke a state of terror or fear, mostly with the intention to achieve political or religious aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violen ...
organization. Examples: the Rote Armee Fraktion
The Red Army Faction (RAF, ; , ),See the section " Name" also known as the Baader–Meinhof Group or Baader–Meinhof Gang (, , active 1970–1998), was a West German far-left Marxist-Leninist urban guerrilla group founded in 1970.
Th ...
, Al-Qaida
Al-Qaeda (; , ) is an Islamic extremist organization composed of Salafist jihadists. Its members are mostly composed of Arabs, but also include other peoples. Al-Qaeda has mounted attacks on civilian and military targets in various countri ...
.
* Old and new:
** old movements - movements for change have existed for many centuries. Most of the oldest recognized movements, dating to late 18th and 19th centuries, fought for specific social groups, such as the working class, peasants, whites, aristocrats, Protestants, men. They were usually centered around some materialistic goals like improving the standard of living
Standard of living is the level of income, comforts and services available, generally applied to a society or location, rather than to an individual. Standard of living is relevant because it is considered to contribute to an individual's quality ...
or, for example, the political autonomy of the working class.
** new movements - movements which became dominant from the second half of the 20th century. Notable examples include the American civil rights movement
The civil rights movement was a nonviolent social and political movement and campaign from 1954 to 1968 in the United States to abolish legalized institutional racial segregation, discrimination, and disenfranchisement throughout the United ...
, second-wave feminism
Second-wave feminism was a period of feminist activity that began in the early 1960s and lasted roughly two decades. It took place throughout the Western world, and aimed to increase equality for women by building on previous feminist gains.
Wh ...
, 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 ...
, environmentalism and conservation efforts, opposition to mass surveillance, etc. They are usually centered around issues that go beyond but are not separate from class.
* Range:
** global movements - social movements with global ( transnational) objectives and goals. Movements such as the first
First or 1st is the ordinal form of the number one (#1).
First or 1st may also refer to:
*World record, specifically the first instance of a particular achievement
Arts and media Music
* 1$T, American rapper, singer-songwriter, DJ, and rec ...
(where Marx and Bakunin met), second
The second (symbol: s) is the unit of time in the International System of Units (SI), historically defined as of a day – this factor derived from the division of the day first into 24 hours, then to 60 minutes and finally to 60 seconds ...
, third
Third or 3rd may refer to:
Numbers
* 3rd, the ordinal form of the cardinal number 3
* , a fraction of one third
* Second#Sexagesimal divisions of calendar time and day, 1⁄60 of a ''second'', or 1⁄3600 of a ''minute''
Places
* 3rd Street (d ...
and fourth international
The Fourth International (FI) is a revolutionary socialist international organization consisting of followers of Leon Trotsky, also known as Trotskyists, whose declared goal is the overthrowing of global capitalism and the establishment of wor ...
s, the World Social Forum
The World Social Forum (WSF, pt, Fórum Social Mundial ) is an annual meeting of civil society organizations, first held in Brazil, which offers a self-conscious effort to develop an alternative future through the championing of counter-hegemoni ...
, the Peoples' Global Action
Peoples' Global Action (PGA) was the name of a worldwide co-ordination of radical social movements, grassroots campaigns and direct actions in resistance to capitalism and for social and environmental justice. PGA was part of the anti-globalization ...
and the anarchist movement
The history of anarchism is as ambiguous as anarchism itself. Scholars find it hard to define or agree on what anarchism means, which makes outlining its history difficult. There is a range of views on anarchism and its history. Some feel anarc ...
seek to change society at a global level.
** local movements - most of the social movements have a local scope. They are focused on local or regional objectives, such as protecting a specific natural area, lobbying for the lowering of tolls in a certain motorway, or preserving a building about to be demolished for gentrification and turning it into a social center
Community centres, community centers, or community halls are public locations where members of a community tend to gather for group activities, social support, public information, and other purposes. They may sometimes be open for the whole co ...
.
Identification of supporters
A difficulty for scholarship of movements is that for most, neither insiders to a movement nor outsiders apply consistent labels or even descriptive phrases. Unless there is a single leader who does, or a formal system of membership agreements, activists will typically use diverse labels and descriptive phrases that require scholars to discern when they are referring to the same or similar ideas, declare similar goals, adopt similar programs of action, and use similar methods. There can be great differences in the way that is done, to recognize who is and who is not a member or an allied group:
* Insiders: Often exaggerate the level of support by considering people supporters whose level of activity or support is weak, but also reject those that outsiders might consider supporters because they discredit the cause, or are even seen as adversaries
* Outsiders: Those not supporters who may tend to either underestimate or overestimate the level or support or activity of elements of a movement, by including or excluding those that insiders would exclude or include.
It is often outsiders rather than insiders that apply the identifying labels for a movement, which the insiders then may or may not adopt and use to self-identify. For example, the label for the levellers
The Levellers were a political movement active during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms who were committed to popular sovereignty, extended suffrage, equality before the law and religious tolerance. The hallmark of Leveller thought was its populis ...
political movement
A political movement is a collective attempt by a group of people to change government policy or social values. Political movements are usually in opposition to an element of the status quo, and are often associated with a certain ideology. Some t ...
in 17th-century England was applied to them by their antagonists, as a term of disparagement
A pejorative or slur is a word or grammatical form expressing a negative or a disrespectful connotation, a low opinion, or a lack of respect toward someone or something. It is also used to express criticism, hostility, or disregard. Sometimes, a ...
. Yet admirers of the movement and its aims later came to use the term, and it is the term by which they are known to history.
Caution must always be exercised in any discussion of amorphous phenomena such as movements to distinguish between the views of insiders and outsiders, supporters and antagonists, each of whom may have their own purposes and agendas in characterization
Characterization or characterisation is the representation of persons (or other beings or creatures) in narrative and dramatic works. The term character development is sometimes used as a synonym. This representation may include direct methods ...
or mischaracterization of it.
Dynamics
Social movements have a life cycle: they are created, they grow, they achieve successes or failures and eventually, they dissolve and cease to exist.
They are more likely to evolve in the time and place which is friendly to the social movements: hence their evident symbiosis with the 19th century proliferation of ideas like individual rights, freedom of speech and civil disobedience. Social movements occur in liberal and authoritarian societies but in different forms. These new movements are activated by a wish for change in social customs, ethics and values which oppress certain communities. The birth of a social movement needs what sociologist Neil Smelser
Neil Joseph Smelser (1930–2017) was an American sociologist who served as professor of sociology at the University of California, Berkeley. He was an active researcher from 1958 to 1994. His research was on collective behavior, sociological theo ...
calls an ''initiating event'': a particular, individual event that will begin a chain reaction
A chain reaction is a sequence of reactions where a reactive product or by-product causes additional reactions to take place. In a chain reaction, positive feedback leads to a self-amplifying chain of events.
Chain reactions are one way that syst ...
of events in the given society leading to the creation of a social movement. The root of this event must be the result of some common discontent among a community. Hence, making ''emergence'' the first step to a social movement. This discontent will act as the chain that links common people together, as they share the same experiences and feelings of oppression. "Within this stage, social movements are very preliminary and there is little to no organization. Instead this stage can be thought of as widespread discontent (Macionis, 2001; Hopper, 1950)." Emergence is prior to any sort of organized resistance to the condition of society. Jonathan Christiansen's essay on the four stages of social movement dissects further into the historical sociology of how each stage affects the whole movement. The Civil Rights Movement's early stages are an example of the public display of protest that is utilized to push a movement into the next stages. "It was not until after the Brown v. the Board of Education Supreme court decision (1954), which outlawed segregation in Public schools, and following the arrest of Rosa Parks in Montgomery, Alabama for refusing to comply with segregation laws on city buses by giving up her bus seat to a white man, that the American Civil Rights Movement would proceed to the next stage – coalescence." The impact of a black woman, Rosa Parks
Rosa Louise McCauley Parks (February 4, 1913 – October 24, 2005) was an American activist in the civil rights movement best known for her pivotal role in the Montgomery bus boycott. The United States Congress has honored her as "the ...
, riding in the whites-only section of the bus (although she was not acting alone or spontaneously—typically activist leaders lay the groundwork behind the scenes of interventions designed to spark a movement). This leads into coalesce because now the common dilemma and source of oppression is being pinned down, allowing for organizations and appearance to the public eye to be established. The Polish Solidarity movement, which eventually toppled the communist regimes of Eastern Europe, developed after trade union activist Anna Walentynowicz
Anna Walentynowicz (; ; 15 August 1929 – 10 April 2010) was a Polish free trade union activist and co-founder of Solidarity, the first non-communist trade union in the Eastern Bloc. Her firing from her job at the Lenin Shipyard in Gdańsk in Aug ...
was fired from work. The South African shack dwellers' movement 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 grew out of a road blockade in response to the sudden selling off of a small piece of land promised for housing to a developer. Such an event is also described as a ''volcanic model'' – a social movement is often created after a large number of people realize that there are others sharing the same value and desire for a particular social change.
This third stage, bureaucratization, is when movements must become more organized, centered around a more systematic model. The set up and system for going about the construct must be more formal, with people taking on specific roles and responsibilities. "In this phase their political power is greater than in the previous stages in that they may have more regular access to political elites." In this stage, one organization may take over another one in order to obtain a greater status and formal alliance. This 'taking over' may be a positive or negative move for organizations. Ella Baker, an activist who played a role in the NAACP, had proposed to the students of the student movement to start their own organization. This becomes known as the SNCC, the student nonviolent coordinating committee (1960s). The students could have join forces with the SCLC, an already existing organization, but that would have been a poor bureaucratizing decision, as they would succumb to old ideologies. New and progressive ideas that challenge prior authority are crucial to social change.
The declining of a social movement does not necessarily mean failure. There are multiple routes in which a movement may take before proceeding into decline. Success of a movement would result in permanent changes within the society and/or government that would result in a loss of need for protest. Failure is often the result of the incapability to keep a common focus, and work towards the goal in mind. "Failure of social movements due to organizational or strategic failings is common for many organizations." Such a route would result in the gradual breaking up of an organization, and out of the stages of movement. Co-optation results when people or groups are integrated and shift away from the social movement's initial concerns and values. Repression is another example, when the movement is slowly wiped away from the public platform through means of an outside force, usually being the government. The last route into declining is going mainstream, which is generally perceived as an overall success. This is when goals of the movement are taken into society as a part of daily life, making it a 'social norm.' For example, birth control is still a greatly debated topic on a government level, but it has been accepted into social life as a common thing that exists.
It is important to recognize that though movements may disintegrate and cease to be active, the impact that they have in the social realm is success in its own way. It sparks the notion in new generations that the possibility to organize and make change is there.
Theories
Sociologists have developed several theories
A theory is a rational type of abstract thinking about a phenomenon, or the results of such thinking. The process of contemplative and rational thinking is often associated with such processes as observational study or research. Theories may be s ...
related to social movements endall, 2005 Some of the better-known approaches are outlined below. Chronologically they include:
* Marxist theory
Marxist philosophy or Marxist theory are works in philosophy that are strongly influenced by Karl Marx's materialist approach to theory, or works written by Marxists. Marxist philosophy may be broadly divided into Western Marxism, which drew fro ...
(1880s)
* collective behavior
The expression collective behavior was first used by Franklin Henry Giddings and employed later by Robert Park and Ernest Burgess, Herbert Blumer, Ralph H. Turner and Lewis Killian, and Neil Smelser to refer to social processes and events w ...
/collective action
Collective action refers to action taken together by a group of people whose goal is to enhance their condition and achieve a common objective. It is a term that has formulations and theories in many areas of the social sciences including psych ...
theories (1950s)
* relative deprivation theory (1960s)
* value-added theory
Value-added theory (also known as social strain theory) is a sociological theory, first proposed by Neil Smelser in 1962, which posits that certain conditions are needed for the development of a social movement.Kendall, 2005
Overview
Smelser ...
(1960s)
* resource mobilization
Resource mobilization is the process of getting resources from the resource provider, using different mechanisms, to implement an organization's predetermined goals. It is a theory that is used in the study of social movements and argues that the s ...
(1970s)
* political process theory (1980s)
* framing theory (1980s) (closely related to social constructionist theory
Social constructionism is a theory in sociology, social ontology, and communication theory which proposes that certain ideas about physical reality arise from collaborative consensus, instead of pure observation of said reality. The theor ...
)
* new social movement theory
The term new social movements (NSMs) is a theory of social movements that attempts to explain the plethora of new movements that have come up in various western societies roughly since the mid-1960s (i.e. in a post-industrial economy) which are cl ...
(1980s)
Deprivation theory
Deprivation theory argues that social movements have their foundations among people who feel deprived of some good(s) or resource(s). According to this approach, individuals who are lacking some good, service, or comfort are more likely to organize a social movement to improve (or defend) their conditions.
There are two significant problems with this theory. First, since most people feel deprived at one level or another almost all the time, the theory has a hard time explaining why the groups that form social movements do when other people are also deprived. Second, the reasoning behind this theory is circular – often the only evidence for deprivation is the social movement. If deprivation is claimed to be the cause but the only evidence for such is the movement, the reasoning is circular.
Mass society theory
Mass society theory argues that social movements are made up of individuals in large societies who feel insignificant or socially detached. Social movements, according to this theory, provide a sense of empowerment and belonging that the movement members would otherwise not have.
Very little support has been found for this theory. Aho (1990), in his study of Idaho Christian Patriotism, did not find that members of that movement were more likely to have been socially detached. In fact, the key to joining the movement was having a friend or associate who was a member of the movement.
Structural strain theory
Social Strain Theory, is the "proposal that pressure derived from social factors, such as lack of income or lack of quality education, drives individuals to commit crime."
# structural conduciveness - people come to believe their society has problems
# structural strain - people experience deprivation
# growth and spread of a solution - a solution to the problems people are experiencing is proposed and spreads
# precipitating factors - discontent usually requires a catalyst (often a specific event) to turn it into a social movement
# lack of social control - the entity that is to be changed must be at least somewhat open to the change; if the social movement is quickly and powerfully repressed, it may never materialize
# mobilization - this is the actual organizing and active component of the movement; people do what needs to be done
This theory is also subject to circular reasoning as it incorporates, at least in part, deprivation theory and relies upon it, and social/structural strain for the underlying motivation of social movement activism. However, social movement activism is, like in the case of deprivation theory, often the only indication that there was strain or deprivation.
Resource mobilization theory
Resource mobilization theory
Resource mobilization is the process of getting resources from the resource provider, using different mechanisms, to implement an organization's predetermined goals. It is a theory that is used in the study of social movements and argues that the s ...
emphasizes the importance of resources in social movement development and success. Resources are understood here to include: knowledge, money, media, labor, solidarity, legitimacy, and internal and external support from power elite. The theory argues that social movements develop when individuals with grievances are able to mobilize sufficient resources to take action.The emphasis on resources offers an explanation why some discontented/deprived individuals are able to organize while others are not.
In contrast to earlier collective behavior
The expression collective behavior was first used by Franklin Henry Giddings and employed later by Robert Park and Ernest Burgess, Herbert Blumer, Ralph H. Turner and Lewis Killian, and Neil Smelser to refer to social processes and events w ...
perspectives on social movements—which emphasized the role of exceptional levels of deprivation, grievance, or social strain in motivating mass protest—Resource Mobilization perspectives hold "that there is always enough discontent in any society to supply the grass-roots support for a movement if the movement is effectively organized and has at its disposal the power and resources of some established elite group" Movement emergence is contingent upon the aggregation of resources by social movement entrepreneurs and movement organizations, who use these resources to turn collective dissent in to political pressure.[ Members are recruited through networks; commitment is maintained by building a collective identity, and through interpersonal relationships.
Resource Mobilization Theory views social movement activity as "politics by other means": a rational and strategic effort by ordinary people to change society or politics.] The form of the resources shapes the activities of the movement (e.g., access to a TV station will result in the extensive use TV media). Movements develop in contingent ''opportunity structures'' that influence their efforts to mobilize; and each movement's response to the opportunity structures depends on the movement's organization and resources
Critics of this theory argue that there is too much of an emphasis on resources, especially financial resources. Some movements are effective without an influx of money and are more dependent upon the movement members for time and labor (e.g., the civil rights movement in the U.S.).
Political process theory
Political process theory is similar to resource mobilization in many regards, but tends to emphasize a different component of social structure
In the social sciences, social structure is the aggregate of patterned social arrangements in society that are both emergent from and determinant of the actions of individuals. Likewise, society is believed to be grouped into structurally rel ...
that is important for social movement development: political opportunities. Political process theory argues that there are three vital components for movement formation: insurgent consciousness, organizational strength, and political opportunities.
Insurgent consciousness refers back to the ideas of deprivation and grievances. The idea is that certain members of society feel like they are being mistreated or that somehow the system is unjust. The insurgent consciousness is the collective sense of injustice that movement members (or potential movement members) feel and serves as the motivation for movement organization.
Organizational strength falls inline with resource-mobilization theory, arguing that in order for a social movement to organize it must have strong leadership and sufficient resources.
Political opportunity refers to the receptivity or vulnerability of the existing political system to challenge. This vulnerability can be the result of any of the following (or a combination thereof):
* growth of political pluralism
* decline in effectiveness of repression
* elite disunity; the leading factions are internally fragmented
* a broadening of access to institutional participation in political processes
* support of organized opposition by elites
One of the advantages of the political process theory is that it addresses the issue of timing or emergence of social movements. Some groups may have the insurgent consciousness and resources to mobilize, but because political opportunities are closed, they will not have any success. The theory, then, argues that all three of these components are important.
Critics of the political process theory and resource-mobilization theory point out that neither theory discusses movement culture to any great degree. This has presented culture theorists an opportunity to expound on the importance of culture.
One advance on the political process theory is the ''political mediation model,'' which outlines the way in which the political context facing movement actors intersects with the strategic choices that movements make. An additional strength of this model is that it can look at the outcomes of social movements not only in terms of success or failure but also in terms of consequences (whether intentional or unintentional, positive or negative) and in terms of collective benefits
A collective benefit often benefits more than one person at the cost of an individual acting to obtain the benefit. It is common that an individual may benefit from a collective act without contributing to it. Collective benefits can non-competiti ...
.
Framing perspective
Reflecting the cultural turn
The cultural turn is a movement beginning in the early 1970s among scholars in the humanities and social sciences to make culture the focus of contemporary debates; it also describes a shift in emphasis toward ''meaning'' and away from a positiv ...
in the social sciences and humanities more broadly, recent strains of social movement theory and research add to the largely structural concerns seen in the resource mobilization and political process theories by emphasizing the cultural and psychological aspects of social movement processes, such as collectively shared interpretations and beliefs, ideologies, values and other meanings about the world. In doing so, this general cultural approach also attempts to address the free-rider problem
In the social sciences, the free-rider problem is a type of market failure that occurs when those who benefit from resources, public goods (such as public roads or public library), or services of a communal nature do not pay for them or under-p ...
. One particularly successful take on some such cultural dimensions is manifested in the framing perspective on social movements.
While both resource mobilization theory and political process theory include, or at least accept, the idea that certain shared understandings of, for example, perceived unjust societal conditions must exist for mobilization to occur at all, this is not explicitly problematized within those approaches. The framing perspective has brought such shared understandings to the forefront of the attempt to understand movement creation and existence by, e.g., arguing that, in order for social movements to successfully mobilize individuals, they must develop an ''injustice frame''. An injustice frame is a collection of ideas and symbols that illustrate both how significant the problem is as well as what the movement can do to alleviate it,Like a picture frame, an issue frame marks off some part of the world. Like a building frame, it holds things together. It provides coherence to an array of symbols, images, and arguments, linking them through an underlying organizing idea that suggests what is essential – what consequences and values are at stake. We do not see the frame directly, but infer its presence by its characteristic expressions and language. Each frame gives the advantage to certain ways of talking and thinking, while it places others out of the picture.
Important characteristics of the injustice frames include:
* Facts take on their meaning by being embedded in frames, which render them relevant and significant or irrelevant and trivial.
* People carry around multiple frames in their heads.
* Successful reframing involves the ability to enter into the worldview of our adversaries.
* All frames contain implicit or explicit appeals to moral principles.
In emphasizing the injustice frame, culture theory also addresses the free-rider problem. The free-rider problem refers to the idea that people will not be motivated to participate in a social movement that will use up their personal resources (e.g., time, money, etc.) if they can still receive the benefits without participating. In other words, if person X knows that movement Y is working to improve environmental conditions in his neighborhood, he is presented with a choice: join or not join the movement. If he believes the movement will succeed without him, he can avoid participation in the movement, save his resources, and still reap the benefits – this is ''free-riding''. A significant problem for social movement theory has been to explain why people join movements if they believe the movement can/will succeed without their contribution. Culture theory argues that, in conjunction with social networks being an important contact tool, the injustice frame will provide the motivation for people to contribute to the movement.
Framing processes includes three separate components:
* Diagnostic frame: the movement organization frames what is the problem or what they are critiquing
* Prognostic frame: the movement organization frames what is the desirable solution to the problem
* Motivational frame: the movement organization frames a "call to arms" by suggesting and encouraging that people take action to solve the problem
Social networking
For more than ten years, social movement groups have been using the Internet to accomplish organizational goals. It has been argued that the Internet helps to increase the speed, reach and effectiveness of social movement-related communication as well as mobilization efforts, and as a result, it has been suggested that the Internet has had a positive impact on the social movements in general. The systematic literature review of Buettner & Buettner analyzed the role of Twitter during a wide range of social movements (2007 WikiLeaks
WikiLeaks () is an international Nonprofit organization, non-profit organisation that published news leaks and classified media provided by anonymous Source (journalism), sources. Julian Assange, an Australian Internet activism, Internet acti ...
, 2009 Moldova
Moldova ( , ; ), officially the Republic of Moldova ( ro, Republica Moldova), is a Landlocked country, landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Romania to the west and Ukraine to the north, east, and south. The List of states ...
, 2009 Austria student protest, 2009 Israel-Gaza, 2009 Iran green revolution, 2009 Toronto G20, 2010 Venezuela
Venezuela (; ), officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela ( es, link=no, República Bolivariana de Venezuela), is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many islands and islets in th ...
, 2010 Germany Stuttgart21, 2011 Egypt
Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediter ...
, 2011 England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
, 2011 US Occupy movement
The Occupy movement was an international populist socio-political movement that expressed opposition to social and economic inequality and to the perceived lack of "real democracy" around the world. It aimed primarily to advance social and econo ...
, 2011 Spain Indignados, 2011 Greece Aganaktismenoi movements, 2011 Italy
Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...
, 2011 Wisconsin labor protests, 2012 Israel Hamas, 2013 Brazil Vinegar, 2013 Turkey
Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...
).
Many discussions have been generated recently on the topic of social networking and the effect it may play on the formation and mobilization of social movement.[ Shirky, Clay. '' Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations''. Penguin Press HC, The, 2008. Print.] For example, the emergence of the Coffee Party first appeared on the social networking site, Facebook
Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin M ...
. The party has continued to gather membership and support through that site and file sharing sites, such as Flickr
Flickr ( ; ) is an American image hosting and video hosting service, as well as an online community, founded in Canada and headquartered in the United States. It was created by Ludicorp in 2004 and was a popular way for amateur and professional ...
. The 2009–2010 Iranian election protests also demonstrated how social networking sites are making the mobilization of large numbers of people quicker and easier. Iranians were able to organize and speak out against the election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ( fa, محمود احمدینژاد, Mahmūd Ahmadīnežād ), born Mahmoud Sabbaghian ( fa, محمود صباغیان, Mahmoud Sabbāghyān, 28 October 1956), by using sites such as Twitter
Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...
and Facebook
Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin M ...
. This in turn prompted widespread government censorship of the web and social networking sites.
The sociological study of social movements is quite new. The traditional view of movements often perceived them as chaotic and disorganized, treating activism as a threat to the social order
The term social order can be used in two senses: In the first sense, it refers to a particular system of social structures and institutions. Examples are the ancient, the feudal, and the capitalist social order. In the second sense, social order ...
. The activism experienced in the 1960s and 1970s shuffled in a new world opinion about the subject. Models were now introduced to understand the organizational and structural powers embedded in social movements.
See also
* List of social movements
* Civil resistance
Civil resistance is political action that relies on the use of nonviolent resistance by ordinary people to challenge a particular power, force, policy or regime. Civil resistance operates through appeals to the adversary, pressure and coercion: i ...
* Counterculture of the 1960s
The counterculture of the 1960s was an anti-establishment cultural phenomenon that developed throughout much of the Western world in the 1960s and has been ongoing to the present day. The aggregate movement gained momentum as the civil rights mo ...
* Countermovement
A countermovement in sociology means a social movement opposed to another social movement. Whenever one social movement starts up, another group establishes themselves to undermine the previous group. Many social movements start out as an effect ...
* Moral shock
* New social movements
The term new social movements (NSMs) is a theory of social movements that attempts to explain the plethora of new movements that have come up in various western societies roughly since the mid-1960s (i.e. in a post-industrial economy) which are cl ...
* Nonviolent resistance
Nonviolent resistance (NVR), or nonviolent action, sometimes called civil resistance, is the practice of achieving goals such as social change through symbolic protests, civil disobedience, economic or political noncooperation, satyagraha, cons ...
* Political movement
A political movement is a collective attempt by a group of people to change government policy or social values. Political movements are usually in opposition to an element of the status quo, and are often associated with a certain ideology. Some t ...
* Reform movement
A reform movement or reformism is a type of social movement that aims to bring a social or also a political system closer to the community's ideal. A reform movement is distinguished from more radical social movements such as revolutionary mo ...
* Revolutionary movement
A revolutionary movement (or revolutionary social movement) is a specific type of social movement dedicated to carrying out a revolution. Charles Tilly defines it as "a social movement advancing exclusive competing claims to control of the State ( ...
* Social defence Civilian-based defense or social defence describes non-military action by a society or social group, particularly in a context of a sustained campaign against outside attack or dictatorial rule – or preparations for such a campaign in the event of ...
* Social equality
Social equality is a state of affairs in which all individuals within a specific society have equal rights, liberties, and status, possibly including civil rights, freedom of expression, autonomy, and equal access to certain public goods and ...
* Teaching for social justice
Social justice is justice in terms of the distribution of wealth, opportunities, and privileges within a society. In Western and Asian cultures, the concept of social justice has often referred to the process of ensuring that individuals f ...
* Union organizer
A union organizer (or union organiser in Commonwealth spelling) is a specific type of trade union member (often elected) or an appointed union official. A majority of unions appoint rather than elect their organizers.
In some unions, the orga ...
* Online social movements
References
Further reading
* David F. Aberle. 1966. ''The Peyote Religion
The Native American Church (NAC), also known as Peyotism and Peyote Religion, is a Native American religion that teaches a combination of traditional Native Americans in the United States, Native American beliefs and Christianity, with sacrament ...
among the Navaho
The Navajo (; British English: Navaho; nv, Diné or ') are a Native American people of the Southwestern United States.
With more than 399,494 enrolled tribal members , the Navajo Nation is the largest federally recognized tribe in the United ...
''. Chicago: Aldine.
* James Alfred Aho. 1990. ''Politics of Righteousness: Idaho Christian Patriotism''. Washington: University of Washington Press
The University of Washington Press is an American academic publishing house. The organization is a division of the University of Washington, based in Seattle. Although the division functions autonomously, they have worked to assist the universit ...
.
* Paul Almeida. 2019. ''Social Movements: The Structure of Collective Mobilization''. Berkeley: University of California Press.
* Herbert G. Blumer 1969. "Collective Behavior." In Alfred McClung Lee, ed., Principles of Sociology. Third Edition. New York: Barnes & Noble
Barnes & Noble Booksellers is an American bookseller. It is a Fortune 1000 company and the bookseller with the largest number of retail outlets in the United States. As of July 7, 2020, the company operates 614 retail stores across all 50 U. ...
Books, pp. 65–121.
* Mark Chaves. 1997. ''Ordaining Women: Culture and Conflict in Religious Organizations''. Cambridge: Harvard University Press
Harvard University Press (HUP) is a publishing house established on January 13, 1913, as a division of Harvard University, and focused on academic publishing. It is a member of the Association of American University Presses. After the retirem ...
.
*
* Graeme Chesters and Ian Welsh. ''Complexity and Social Movements: Multitudes at the Edge of Chaos'' Routledge
Routledge () is a British multinational publisher. It was founded in 1836 by George Routledge, and specialises in providing academic books, journals and online resources in the fields of the humanities, behavioural science, education, law, and ...
2006.
* Mario Diani and Doug McAdam, ''Social movements and networks'', Oxford University Press, 2003.
* Susan Eckstei, ed. ''Power and Popular Protest: Latin American Social Movements'', Updated Edition, University of California Press
The University of California Press, otherwise known as UC Press, is a publishing house associated with the University of California that engages in academic publishing. It was founded in 1893 to publish scholarly and scientific works by faculty ...
2001.
* Anthony Giddens
Anthony Giddens, Baron Giddens (born 18 January 1938) is an English sociologist who is known for his theory of structuration and his holistic view of modern societies. He is considered to be one of the most prominent modern sociologists and is t ...
. 1985. ''The Nation-State and Violence''. Cambridge, England: Polity Press.
*Jeff Goodwin
Jeffrey Roger Goodwin (born January 28, 1958) is a professor of sociology at New York University. He holds a BA, MA (Sociology) and PhD (Sociology) from Harvard University.
His research interests include social movements, revolutions, poli ...
and James M. Jasper
James Macdonald Jasper (born 1957) is a writer and sociologist who has taught Ph.D. students at the CUNY Graduate Center, Graduate Center of the City University of New York since 2007. He is best known for his research and theories about cultur ...
. 2009. ''The Social Movements Reader''. Malden, Massachusetts: Wiley-Blackwell
Wiley-Blackwell is an international scientific, technical, medical, and scholarly publishing business of John Wiley & Sons. It was formed by the merger of John Wiley & Sons Global Scientific, Technical, and Medical business with Blackwell Publish ...
.
* Angelique Haugerud, ''No Billionaire Left Behind: Satirical Activism in America,'' Stanford University Press
Stanford University Press (SUP) is the publishing house of Stanford University. It is one of the oldest academic presses in the United States and the first university press to be established on the West Coast. It was among the presses officially ...
, 2013.
*
* James M. Jasper
James Macdonald Jasper (born 1957) is a writer and sociologist who has taught Ph.D. students at the CUNY Graduate Center, Graduate Center of the City University of New York since 2007. He is best known for his research and theories about cultur ...
. 1997. ''The Art of Moral Protest: Culture, Biography, and Creativity in Social Movements''. Chicago: University of Chicago Press
The University of Chicago Press is the largest and one of the oldest university presses in the United States. It is operated by the University of Chicago and publishes a wide variety of academic titles, including ''The Chicago Manual of Style'', ...
.
* James M. Jasper
James Macdonald Jasper (born 1957) is a writer and sociologist who has taught Ph.D. students at the CUNY Graduate Center, Graduate Center of the City University of New York since 2007. He is best known for his research and theories about cultur ...
. 2014. ''Protest: A Cultural Introduction to Social Movements''. Polity Press
Polity is an academic publisher in the social sciences and humanities. It was established in 1984 and has offices in Cambridge (UK), Oxford (UK), New York (US) and Boston (US). It specializes in the areas of sociology, media, politics, and soci ...
.
*
* Diana Kendall, ''Sociology In Our Times'', Thomson Wadsworth
Cengage Group is an American educational content, technology, and services company for the higher education, K-12, professional, and library markets. It operates in more than 20 countries around the world.(Jun 27, 2014Global Publishing Leaders ...
, 2005.
* William Kornhauser. 1959. The Politics of Mass Society. New York: Free Press.
* Donna Maurer. 2002. ''Vegetarianism: Movement or Moment?'' Philadelphia: Temple University Press
Temple University Press is a university press founded in 1969 that is part of Temple University (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania). It is one of thirteen publishers to participate in the Knowledge Unlatched pilot, a global library consortium approach t ...
.
* Armand L. Mauss. 1975. ''Social Problems of Social Movements''. Philadelphia: Lippincott.
* Denton E. Morrison. 1978. "Some Notes toward Theory on Relative Deprivation, Social Movements, and Social Change." In Louis E. Genevie, ed., Collective Behavior and Social Movements. Itasca, Ill.: Peacock. pp. 202–209.
*
* Immanuel Ness
Immanuel Ness is a scholar of worker's organisation, migration, mobilisation and politics and labour activist teaching at Brooklyn College of the City University of New York.
His contribution is on worker's movements and party formation in th ...
, ed. ''Encyclopedia of American Social Movements'', 2004. .
Jeff Pugh. 2008. "Vectors of Contestation: Social Movements and Party Systems in Ecuador and Colombia."
''Latin American Essays'' XXI: 46-65.
* Adam Roberts and Timothy Garton Ash
Timothy Garton Ash CMG FRSA (born 12 July 1955) is a British historian, author and commentator. He is Professor of European Studies at Oxford University. Most of his work has been concerned with the contemporary history of Europe, with a spe ...
(eds.), ''Civil Resistance and Power Politics: The Experience of Non-violent Action from Gandhi to the Present'', Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.
*
* Neil J. Smelser
Neil Joseph Smelser (1930–2017) was an American sociologist who served as professor of sociology at the University of California, Berkeley. He was an active researcher from 1958 to 1994. His research was on collective behavior, sociological the ...
. 1962. ''Theory of Collective Behavior''. New York: Free Press.
* David Snow, Sarah A. Soule and Hanspeter Kriesi, ed. ''Blackwell Companion to Social Movements'', Blackwell, 2004.
* Suzanne Staggenborg, ''Social Movements'', Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print books ...
, 2008.
* Sidney Tarrow
Sidney George Tarrow (born 1938) is an emeritus professor of political science, known for his research in the areas of comparative politics, social movements, political parties, collective action and political sociology.
Biography
B.A. Syracuse U ...
, ''Power in Movement: Collective Action, Social Movements and Politics'', Cambridge University Press
Cambridge University Press is the university press of the University of Cambridge. Granted letters patent by Henry VIII of England, King Henry VIII in 1534, it is the oldest university press
A university press is an academic publishing hou ...
, 1994.
*
* Charles Tilly, 1978. ''From Mobilization to Revolution''. Reading, Massachusetts: Addison-Wesley, 1978.
* Charles Tilly
Charles Tilly (May 27, 1929 – April 29, 2008) was an American sociologist, political scientist, and historian who wrote on the relationship between politics and society. He was a professor of history, sociology, and social science at the Univ ...
, ''Social Movements, 1768–2004'', Boulder, CO, Paradigm Publishers, 2004 262 pp. (hardback) / (paperback)
* Leonard Weinberg, 2013. ''Democracy and Terrorism''. New York: Routledge, 2013.
* Quintan Wiktorowicz, ''Islamic Activism: A Social Movement Theory Approach'', Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2004.
* Marco G. Giugni, ''How Social Movements Matter'', University of Minnesota Press
The University of Minnesota Press is a university press that is part of the University of Minnesota. It had annual revenues of just over $8 million in fiscal year 2018.
Founded in 1925, the University of Minnesota Press is best known for its book ...
, 1999,
* Rod Bantjes, ''Social Movements in a Global Context'', CSPI, 2007,
* Michael Barker, ''Conform or Reform? Social Movements and the Mass Media'', Fifth-Estate-Online - International Journal of Radical Mass Media Criticism. February 2007
Fifth-estate-online.co.uk
* Dennis Chong, ''Collective Action and the Civil Rights Movement'', University of Chicago Press
The University of Chicago Press is the largest and one of the oldest university presses in the United States. It is operated by the University of Chicago and publishes a wide variety of academic titles, including ''The Chicago Manual of Style'', ...
, 1991,
External links
*
Mobilization
' - journal
*
Interface: a Journal For and About Social Movements
'
{{DEFAULTSORT:Social Movement
Comparative politics
Social change