Page 102 - Contemporary Political Sociology Globalization Politics and Power

88 Social Movements

Social movements became a significant area of research in sociology in

the guise of “ new social movements. ” “ New ” here is indicative of the
way in which social movements seemed to erupt onto the social scene in
the 1960s, including the civil rights movement, the student movement of
that time, the women ’ s movement, the gay liberation movement, and the
environmental movement. They were seen as “ new ” in terms of their
orientation, organization, and style by comparison with the “ old ” labor
movement, from which they were distinguished as:

1 Non - instrumental, expressive of universalist concerns and often pro-
testing in the name of morality rather than the direct interests of
particular social groups.

2 Oriented more toward civil society than the state:

(a) suspicious of centralized bureaucratic structures and oriented
toward changing public views rather than elite institutions;

(b) more concerned with aspects of culture, lifestyle, and participa-

tion in the symbolic politics of protest than in claiming socio -
economic rights.

3 Organized in informal, “ loose, ” and flexible ways, at least in some

aspects, avoiding hierarchy, bureaucracy, and even qualifi cations for
membership.

4 Highly dependent on the mass media through which appeals are made,

protests staged, and images made effective in capturing public imagi-
nation and feeling. (Scott, 1990 : chapter 1 ; Crook et al., 1992 : 148)
In comparison, the labor movement was seen as directing its attention
toward the corporatist state with the aim of economic redistribution and
the extension of citizenship rights, as organized in bureaucratic trade
unions and parties which defend members ’ interests, and as showing very
little concern with wider issues or more inclusive political participation.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, this sharp and rather simplistic contrast between
old and new is not sustainable once it is looked into more closely;
there has, in fact, long been a multiplicity of different kinds of social
movements. As Craig Calhoun has shown, in the early nineteenth century
there were many movements, including the feminist movement, national-
ist and religious movements, and even aspects of the a class movement,
such as the utopian communitarianism of Robert Owen, which were less

like the conventionally defined labor movement than they were like
new social movements. Very much concerned with lifestyle and identity
politics, they were often organized in non - hierarchical ways in order
to prefigure the social order they aimed to bring about, and they used