Social Movement

A social movement is a loosely organized effort by a large group of people to achieve a particular goal, typically a social or

political

one. This may be to carry out, resist or undo a social change. It is a type of group action and may involve individuals, organizations or both. Definitions of the term are slightly varied. 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

.

Political science and sociology 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 as well as discussing the function of social movements in relation to agenda setting 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

) and increased mobility of labor due to the industrialization and urbanization 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 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 systems. 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

.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

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 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): employment of combinations from among the following forms of political action: 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 defines a social movement as "collective challenges o elites, authorities, other groups or cultural codesby people with common purposes and solidarity in sustained interactions with elites, opponents and authorities." He specifically distinguishes social movements from political parties and advocacy groups.

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, market capitalization, and proletarianization.

The first mass social movement catalyzed around the controversial political figure John Wilkes. As editor of the paper ''The North Briton'', Wilkes vigorously attacked the new administration of

Lord Bute

and the peace terms that the new government accepted at the 1763 Treaty of Paris at the end of the Seven Years' War. Charged with seditious libel, Wilkes was arrested after the issue of a general warrant, a move that Wilkes denounced as unlawful - the Lord Chief Justice 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, Wilkes stood for the Parliamentary seat at Middlesex, where most of his support was located. When Wilkes was imprisoned in the King's Bench Prison 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 of

London

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 warrants were declared as unconstitutional and press freedom was extended to the coverage of Parliamentary debates.

A much larger movement of anti-Catholic protest was triggered by the Papists Act 1778, which eliminated a number of the penalties and disabilities endured by Roman Catholics in England, and formed around Lord George Gordon, who became the President of the Protestant Association in 1779. The Association had the support of leading Calvinist religious figures, including Rowland Hill, Erasmus Middleton, and

John Rippon

. 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 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 movements that emerged in the late 18th century included the British abolitionist movement against slavery (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 Revolutions. 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

nd

the history of the age of reform cannot be written without it.

Growth and spread

From 1815,

Britain

after victory in the Napoleonic Wars entered a period of social upheaval characterised by the growing maturity of the use of social movements and special-interest associations. Chartism 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 as its manifesto – this called for universal suffrage and the implementation of the secret ballot, amongst other things. The term "social movements" was introduced in 1848 by the German Sociologist

Lorenz von Stein

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 movements fighting for the social rights understood as welfare rights.

The labor movement and socialist movement of the late 19th century are seen as the prototypical social movements, leading to the formation of

communist

and social democratic 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 and of 1917, resulting in the collapse of the Czarist regime around the end of the

First World War

.

In 1945, Britain after victory in the Second World War entered a period of radical reform and change. In the post-war period,

Feminism

, gay rights movement, peace movement, Civil Rights Movement, anti-nuclear movement and environmental movement emerged, often dubbed the New Social Movements They led, among other things, to the formation of green parties and organisations influenced by the new left. Some find in the end of the 1990s the emergence of a new global social movement, the anti-globalization movement. 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.

Key processes

Several key processes lie behind the history of social movements. Urbanization led to larger settlements, where people of similar goals could find each other, gather and organize. This facilitated social interaction 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. Many other social movements were created at

universities

, where the process of mass education brought many people together. With the development of

communication

technologies, creation and activities of social movements became easier – from printed pamphlets circulating in the 18th century

coffeehouse

s to

newspaper

s and

Internet

, all those tools became important factors in the growth of the social movements. Finally, the spread of

democracy

and political rights like the

freedom of speech

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!, 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

'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. 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, 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 of social movement

Sociologists distinguish between several types of social movement:
* Scope:
** reform movement - movements advocating changing some norms or laws. Examples of such a movement would include a trade union with a goal of increasing workers rights, a green movement advocating a set of ecological laws, or a movement supporting introduction of a

capital punishment

or the right to

abortion

. Some reform movements may aim for a change in custom and moral norms, such as condemnation of pornography or proliferation of some

religion

.
** radical movement - movements dedicated to changing value systems in a fundamental way. Examples would include the Civil Rights Movement which demanded full civil rights and equality under the law to all Americans, regardless of race; the

Polish

Solidarity (''Solidarność'') movement which demanded the transformation of a Stalinist political and economic system into a

democracy

; or the

South Africa

n shack dwellers' movement Abahlali baseMjondolo 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 movement advocating deliberate action to effect and ensure the safety of the technological singularity 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

s movement or the modern movement opposing the spread of the genetically modified food 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, but many remain outside the reformist party political system.
** individual-focused movements - focused on affecting individuals. Most religious movements would fall under this category.
* Methods of work:
** peaceful movements - various movements which use nonviolent means of protest as part of a campaign of nonviolent resistance, also often called civil resistance. The American Civil Rights Movement, Polish Solidarity movement or the nonviolent, civil disobedience-orientated wing of the Indian independence movement 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 or

terrorist

organization. Examples: the Rote Armee Fraktion, Al-Qaida.
* 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 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

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