Old and New Social Movements

Social movements have arisen during the last a couple of centuries in response to actual and perceived injustices to groups of people. There are lots of instances exactly where big numbers of persons have more than time bonded together inside a well-known belief and occur together to jointly press for their cause, sometimes with startling results. In most cases these movements have been geographically localised and have taken substantial time to evolve into cohesive and powerful social change agents. Nevertheless, they have been instrumental in bringing about significant and typical adjust and were used to reduce inequality, diminish oppression and radically improve the social problems of unfortunate people. Charismatic leaders have always played key roles in organizing many of these movements, though others have been collectively led and had been in a position to extra their objectives, even with changing leadership. Many of these movements, which originated inside the second half with the nineteenth century, dealt with contemporary difficulties like the working conditions of labor, and freedom from colonial rule.

The Indian independence movement, which commenced inside late 1800s consolidated itself only after Mahatma Gandhi returned from South Africa in 1910 and took more than its control. The non violent movement for India’s independence took nearly forty many years to achieve its objective of freeing India inside the British. To a particular extent, the labor movement as well as the socialist movement on the late nineteenth century served to act as prototypes of social movements and set the trend for several this sort of collective claim based campaigns; which had been to flourish later, in the early twentieth century.
Post war industrialisation as well as the advent of capitalism, in addition to additional efficient long distance communication nearly freed social movements from geographic localisation. Several of these movements, e.g., the numerous ecology movements, the feminist movement, and of course the Islamic movement which arose after the mid sixties, became pan global in their spread and appeal, The emergence of new social movements also initiated a debate among social scientists over a different facets of old and new social movements, as also their spread and effectiveness as vehicles of social and political change.
It will be the objective of this essay to examine the tenets in the old and new social movements, try to understand the points of difference and also the challenges which the new movements are placing upon the old. The researcher has tried to access the lot of literature accessible on a subject using on the internet libraries like Questia along with other obtainable sources.
2. Social Movements, Sorts and Theories
A social movement can also be described as being a combination of shared ideas, visions and thoughts which bring about collective and democratized action to result in change in patterns of social life, additional often through informal and non-governmental methods. Charles Tilly, (2004) in his book contends that a social movement must have three important elements.
• Campaigns, which consist of sustained and organised public effort and make collective claims on specified authorities
• Social Movement Repertoire, which include a combination of several sorts of confrontative political action like public meetings, processions, rallies, demonstrations, media awareness and others
• WUNC Displays, namely the public portrayal from the participants’ worthiness, unity, numbers and commitment
Most social movements do have a tendency for getting all the around items in ample measure. Social movements are of comparatively recent origin and also a scouring on the histories in the world doesn't give evidence of these kinds of movements even in late medieval or article medieval times. Probably the peasants revolution in England of 1384 could qualify being named a social movement, particularly as a result of its trigger of social justice.
The principal call from the peasant rebels was for the abolition of serfdom. This was because, simply because the middle from the century, their lords had prevented them from generating probably the most from the changing economic conditions. Visitations with the plague due to the fact 1348/9 had reduced the population by in between a third plus a half. As a result, labour became more scarce, wages rose and the economy started out to suit the peasant over it suited the landowner. However, the landowners of Parliament legislated to hold wages low and to restrict the free movement of serfs. (Hobbs, 2000)

Nevertheless, social movements started globally only inside late nineteenth century as the program of urbanisation led to social interaction on really big scales among those who had similar objectives and goals, which in turn led to company and also the genesis of collective effort. The spread of education as well as the creation of universities brought several young folks together and enabled them to meet and collectively type opinion groups, which helped inside the creation of social movements. The procedure of democratization provided an environment of freedom of expression, and contentious difficulties have been taken up for discussion and action, as men and women observed that they could preserve their very own opinions and speak about them without the need of fear.

Social scientists speak of several varieties of social movement. Movements can differ in scope and the sort of transform they need to usher in, have different target audiences as well as numerous ways of work. Each reform and radical movements have ushered in change, and whilst some movements have tried to bring in innovation, others have tried to maintain old value systems intact. Some movements like Mohandas Gandhi’s movement for Indian independence, despite being totally non-violent, have achieved tremendous success, whereas violent movements like the ones sponsored by Hezbollah have little to show right after years of effort, apart from heavy casualties.

Social scientists also refer to various theories for social movements. In this respect Sergey Mamay specified four crucial ones, which even now seem being very relevant. They're the collective behaviour theory, the resource mobilisation theory, the action identity process as well as the new social movement.

The collective behaviour theory works on the uncomplicated premise that social movements arise only in sick societies. “In general, according to the collective behaviour approach, social movements are the symptom and manifestation of a sick society. A healthy society does not have social movements; it includes a conditional type of political and social participation. (Mamay, 1990) The theory of collective behaviour treats social responses as strains arising out of semi rational responses to abnormal situations, which arise from unhealthy societies. The supporters of this theory consider that healthy societies will not result in problems that will foster social movements; instead they will jobs out mechanisms for participation and corrective action to remove social problems. In such societies, powerful class or group solidarities prevent manipulation of people.

The resource mobilisation theory is quite sure in its method and postulates that social movements are component of the political method and are “rational and novel responses to new situations and new opportunities in society” (Mamay, 1990) and arise from new opportunities and political resources offered in democratic societies. The Action-Identity theory propounded by Touraine suggests that social movements are natural occurrences and will always serve to renew society, destroy social stagnation and cause social emancipation. Action-Identity theorists propound that “class-related social varieties of domination are challenged by social movements, which are the main class counter-actors” (Mamay, 1990)

The theory and method of new and social movements requirements much more detailed discussion, becoming central towards the principal theme of this essay, and is thus taken up separately.

3. New and Old Social Movements

The old social movements arose many years back, extended previous to the modernization of communication as well as the invention with the internet, as well as previous to the idea on the global village took place. These movements had been commonly limited geographically and focused on local issues. Some of these issues, of course, arose from more universal concerns and it is more than probably that similar movements, unknown to each other have been growing in various parts with the world. These movements worked via forging local alliances that would result in political advantage and had collective political objectives. Examples of old social movements are the trade unions, the suffragists as well as the like.

Reverting for the Indian war of independence, a single in the best examples from the old social movement, it's evident that all 3 of Tilly’s elements, campaigns, social movement repertoire and WUNC displays were there in full measure. The movement was in a position to gather enormous support, due in large measure towards the charisma of Gandhi and grew into a pan Indian movement. It is critical to maintain in mind that India, then, was an enormously fragmented society with poor communication, numerous languages, several religions and a number of political affiliations on the centuries old caste procedure keeping 25 % in the population out in the pale of humanity.

Despite all these constraints, Gandhi was in a position to build a movement, which drew all these a variety of peoples into a single collective force, forge political alliances with numerous focus groups, organize myriad campaigns and display WUNC on hundreds of occasions. Gandhi’s movement lasted for forty years. It was able to generate enough pressure on the British to force them to grant India its independence, this in spite of their knowing that the loss of their Indian territories would end their pre-eminent position inside the world

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