Why is it difficult to define a “new social movement”?

When one thinks of spic-and-span hearty movements (NSMs) it is sensible to say that a number of images may spring into peoples minds. To nearly, Swampy chaining himself to a tree pull up stakes automatically be imagined, for some others, they may think of the anti-globalisation protests in Seattle or on the streets of London. The concomitant is that some(prenominal) of these ideas come low this broad title and it is for that reason that it can de difficult to define exactly what is meant by an NSM. This essay will attempt to address why NSMs establish come into surviveence, which sections of parliamentary procedure favour to become involved and how these gatherings operate.Having do this, the essay will then attempt to show why define an NSM is problematic. It is fair to say that to the highest degree people who direct to leave-takingicipate in NSMs do so because they feel that received politics does non or has non dealt with the final payments that they feel ar measurable. It is, thitherfore, the aim of the NSMs to highlight these issues and bring them to the attention of either the politicians or the general public in the hope that government policy will adopt a various strategy.It has been said that one repeated motif in the discussion of tonic social movements is the view that they ar, in contrast to older movements, primarily social or cultural in nature and only secondary, if at all, semi policy-making. (Scott, 199016). What Alan Scott is saying here is that the main ideas behind social movements be the attempts to change the way society go as a unanimous and not necessarily the way people view their politics. Being part of a social movement is not just a way of thinking it is a teaching in a certain ideal that transcends all aspects of your life.In this way, it can be said that NSMs be expressive in their views as opposed to political parties, who are instrumental. An NSM is not necessarily motivated by achieving a pr e-set goal just by the belief itself. This is one reason that can explain why members or adherents of social movements are fully prepared to make self-sacrifices, such(prenominal) as imprisonment, for their cause. One important ramification of this is that the adherents to social movements are prepared to step outside the legality to achieve their goals.This creates a really serious dilemma for governments because if people are prepared to act il ratifiedly then the threat of legal treat will not act as a deterrent. In other words, if people direct a strong enough will then in the end, there is nothing to stop them. As Russell Dalton and Manfred Kuechler wrote the new social movement approach claims that many NSMs intentionally remain outside the institutionalized modelling of government. (Dalton et al. , 199014). The NSMs prefer to remain in this position to avoid being forced to compromise their goals.What this suggests is that NSMs actively gain ground criminal behaviour and rationalize it by saying that it is for a good cause. However, in a assess conducted by Alan Marsh in 1977, it was found that 55 per cent of the people questioned gestated that it is confirm to break the law to protest about something you feel may be truly unjust or harmful. (Byrne, 19974). Although these activities are illegal, the volume of people are prepared to act as such anyway.This illustrates the complications that arise when one tries to define NSMs. On the one hand, you could say that they choose to be troublemakers, committing crimes and illegal protests, but on the other hand, you confabulate that in item a substantial proportion of the population shares their views on the appropriate course of action. A major(ip) encumbrance with trying to define NSMs is to distinguish with what exactly we are dealing. What is meant by this is what sort or group of people or section of society do we shape as a new social movement?For arche reference, we would program fem inists and green activists as social movements but this likewise leads to difficulty in defining what an NSM actually is. In basis of ideology, feminists and green activists pay little in common yet they would both fall into the category of NSMs. A very extreme example of this is the Al Queida terrorist net subject and the Campaign for Nuclear disarmament (CND). These two groups could not be more different if they tried but to a certain cessation they can both be classed as social movements.On the one hand, you have the CND, an boldness at the heart of the Peace Movement, whose supporters have employed tactics which extend from serious academic piss on the probable effects of nuclear war furthermoste, to mass demonstrations, and to a wide variety of non-violent direct action. (Byrne, 199711). On the other hand, you have the Al Queida terrorist network, the alliance responsible for the September 11th attack upon New Yorks World Trade mettle and the Pentagon.This group is resp onsible for the deaths of thousands of innocent people the CND, however, call for an end to weapons of mass destruction. How then can you class the Al Queida terrorist network as a social movement? Its members are willing to step outside the conventional channels to achieve their goals. They are prepared to sputter and die for their cause as long as by their death they have advanced towards their end goal the destruction of the US.The Al Queida is one extreme example of how an NSM can be described as irrational and unreasonable. Their adherents are not motivated by self-concern but by their unbreakable belief in the cause. They also seem to think that they are justified in breaking the law or ignoring any kind of conventional methods. Here we can see how defining a NSM can be made difficult. The spectrum when it comes to social movements is so diversified that it leads to problems in monetary value of what can and cannot be included.It is difficult to comprehend that two such d ifferent groups can be sort out under the same heading. The Al Queida terrorist network is, to a certain extent, an example of how NSMs choose to follow in terms of their structure. The Al Queida exists with more recognizable members, such as Osama Bin Laden, but the fact remains that if he were to be captured or killed then that would have little effect on the remainder of the group. The adherents will still believe in their cause and they will still do all they can to realize their vision.Of course, this is a very extreme example of a NSM and when we look at more mainstream groups the structure is less militant but the basic ideas remain the same. On a whole, NSMs attempt to avoid the hierarchical approach of the conventional political parties and instead choose to opt for a more co-operative system. The CND is actually an example of how a structured organisation can exist within the informally organized Peace Movement. It is difficult to describe the structure of an NSM as even the word structure suggests some kind of organisation.Referring to NSMs as groups also causes problems as this suggests that there would be some kind of hierarchy when in fact, as Brand et al. suggest New social movement theorists detect that these groups prefer a decentralized, open, and democratic structure that is more in tune with the participatory tendencies of their supporters. (Dalton et al. , 199013). It is clear that NSMs choose to steer away from creating any formal structure as to avoid becoming the political parties that they are attempting to influence. The structure of NSMs has strong links with their ideology.NSMs are inclined to believe more in a co-operative society where every person has his or her own personal space in which they have the right to exist and the right to choose how they wish to live their lives. This means that NSMs have no leaders as such due to the adherents wish to honour a sense of autonomy. To many adherents of social movements it is impor tant for them as individuals to maintain their rights to exist as they see fitting. The idea of autonomy is of great importance when trying to discuss NSMs and the fact that they demand various aspects of this autonomy adds weight to the arguments for difficulty with definition.The first aspect is personal autonomy. The idea that adherents have the social space to grow as individuals and develop their own views and ideas, as opposed to being limited by constraints placed upon them by society. An example of this sort of autonomy can be found when we look at the Womens movement of the early seventies. Here women were not only fighting for their sex as a whole but for their own personal right to equality within the male dominated system. The Womens movement is also a good example of the second aspect of autonomy that of group autonomy.Here we can cut into the issue of abortion and the rights of women. This issue can be evaluated on both levels personal and as a group. On a personal le vel, the efforts of the movement mean that the select is there and whichever path is chosen is not dictated by anyone other than the parties involved. The womens movement fought for the rights of all women to choose whether or not to have abortions so that no matter what background you come from or what religion you are, every woman has the right to choose.The tertiary aspect of autonomy is described as the autonomy of struggle, which is to say the insistence that the movement and those it represents be allowed to fight their own corner without interference from other movements, and without subordinating their demands to other external priorities. (Scott, 199020). We now see that this issue of autonomy is very important to NSMs. A social movement sees itself through its own rights and the rights of its adherents to live their lives in a certain fashion.This leads on to the idea of a social movement helping people to define themselves in terms of their place in society. This is pr ime example of how adherents differ to members of conventional political parties. A Conservative does not really have to make any concessions upon his or her lifestyle in severalise to be a member of the Conservative party but being an environmentalist is about a change in how one acts in general. What this illustrates is the argument that NSMs do not necessarily take action towards political reform but in fact towards social reform.One of the main elements that makes defining NSMs so difficult is who makes up the adherents of these movements. Over the last thirty years, there has been an increase in the so-called new politics but can this all being attributed to the uprising of the student movement or are the adherents far more diversified? As has already been mentioned, different people have different views on what they consider to be an NSM. Are we supposed to believe that all adherents are in fact longhaired, lowborn students who have nothing better to do with their time that form squatter camps and disrupt building work?The classical approach to NSMs suggests that most adherents turn to social movements due to relative deprivation. The idea that they are in some way incapable of participating in conventional politics so they choose NSMs as an alternative. However, when classicalists looked at the type of people involved in the civil rights movement in the US during the fifties and sixties, they found that it was not only the alienated black population that was involved but also the white middle class. The possible action of resource mobilization was put forward as an alternative to the classical theory.Here, the authors of the theory believed that participation in NSMs was to do with resources. What resources mean is the availability of finances, office space and other intangible assets such as time and education. It suggests that there has been an evolution of the middle class to include people such as teachers and lecturers who have created a class not through economic wealth but through their knowledge and intelligence. The common adherent to NSMs is far from the image of a tree-hugging extremist but is, in fact, a member of this new middle class, a technocrat.What are the reasons behind this? That is a hard question to answer but Ronald Inglehart suggested the theory of post- literalism. Inglehart argues that the post-war generation have been socialized into such higher order or post-material values, and its this which motivates their support for social movements. (Byrne, 199755). Here, the argument is that the people who choose to become involved in NSMs are those who feel that they have achieved all the material possessions that they can and are therefore, looking for some other kind of personal fulfillment.This theory holds a number of flaws, for example, how can Inglehart be sure that people would choose to become involved in social movements instead of charity work in their quest for personal fulfillment? Another prob lem arises when you try to quantify the level of material wealth that constitutes satisfaction and at which point the person decides to give up the search for more money. However, the fact remains that it has become more apparent over the years that it is this new middle class that is the typical adherents to the NSMs but it has not become clear why it is this group.The fact is that these new social movements choose to exist outside the conventional channels of politics. They do not have the same structure as the mainstream political parties as they are not supposed to be as such. They are an ideology that is followed through choice and lead to more extreme measures than usual politics to the extent that adherents make a lifestyle decision. The difficulty in defining NSMs comes from all aspects of their existence.The title of a social movement covers such a divers(prenominal) range of beliefs and ideas that any kind of set rules will ultimately fail as no averment can be truly all -inclusive. Neither would NSMs want to be able to be defined as it goes against all the ideals for which they stand the ideals of a hierarchy free alliance where the emphasis is on co-operation and not leadership. This mastery itself causes problems, as it is a sweeping generalization of the group of social movements as a whole. The difficulties of defining new social movements appear because of the fact that no two movements or beliefs are exactly the same.