Rise of the New Social Movements and Their Effect on Contemporary Society
What factors account for the rise of new social movements and what effect have they had on contemporary society?
We are all familiar with the stories of suffragettes burning their bras, and environmental enthusiasts breaking into labs and liberating rats back to the wild. But what caused women to abruptly rip of their pinnies, tell dad dinner's in the dog and start running around without appropriate underwear? What caused contented homemakers to leave the cosy warmth of their gas fires in favour of chaining themselves to trees?
And are such people an eccentric minority, or have they profoundly affected the way we live and think in the western world today?
To address these questions I will begin by defining New Social Movements (or NSMs). To follow I will break down a few movements in more detail, first discussing what they stand for, and then examining how they originated and matured.
In the latter section I will try to determine the scope and boundaries of their influence on contemporary society.
Quite strict guidelines have emerged as to what a New Social Movement is, and the kind of characteristics a political movement must have to classify as an NSM.
Dalton and Kuechler suggest:
A set of opinions and beliefs in a population that represents preferences for changing some elements of the social structure and/or the reward distribution of society'.
However, by this definition anyone with any concern for any aspect of pollution, nuclear power, the quality of life and many other issues is a member of the social movement.
Most writers agree there are more definitive ways of identifying an NSM. They have ideological, organisational and tactical aspects.'
(Lovenduski and Norris, 1996)
The ideological side is the most ambitious and romantic:
. . . social movements are challengers which seek to change the agenda of the system in which they work. They advance ideas which, to be realised, would require fundamental and widespread change
We are all familiar with the stories of suffragettes burning their bras, and environmental enthusiasts breaking into labs and liberating rats back to the wild. But what caused women to abruptly rip of their pinnies, tell dad dinner's in the dog and start running around without appropriate underwear? What caused contented homemakers to leave the cosy warmth of their gas fires in favour of chaining themselves to trees?
And are such people an eccentric minority, or have they profoundly affected the way we live and think in the western world today?
To address these questions I will begin by defining New Social Movements (or NSMs). To follow I will break down a few movements in more detail, first discussing what they stand for, and then examining how they originated and matured.
In the latter section I will try to determine the scope and boundaries of their influence on contemporary society.
Quite strict guidelines have emerged as to what a New Social Movement is, and the kind of characteristics a political movement must have to classify as an NSM.
Dalton and Kuechler suggest:
A set of opinions and beliefs in a population that represents preferences for changing some elements of the social structure and/or the reward distribution of society'.
However, by this definition anyone with any concern for any aspect of pollution, nuclear power, the quality of life and many other issues is a member of the social movement.
Most writers agree there are more definitive ways of identifying an NSM. They have ideological, organisational and tactical aspects.'
(Lovenduski and Norris, 1996)
The ideological side is the most ambitious and romantic:
. . . social movements are challengers which seek to change the agenda of the system in which they work. They advance ideas which, to be realised, would require fundamental and widespread change