Page 103 - Contemporary Political Sociology Globalization Politics and Power

Social Movements 89

unconventional means, such as direct action, rather than working through
the “ normal ” political institutions of the state. As Calhoun sees it, they
tended to be ignored by sociologists because of the rationalist, instrumen-
talist bias of sociology itself. Once the labor movement was institutional-
ized in the late nineteenth century with the extension of the vote, it came
to be seen as the social movement of industrialization and progressive
social change. Other movements, at least as much concerned with trans-
formations of the self, lifestyle choices, and aesthetic criteria for judging
personal and social arrangements, were ignored as irrelevant to rational,
material progress (Calhoun, 1995 ).
However, as Calhoun himself acknowledges, the institutionalization of
the labor movement also actually marginalized other social movements
from the mid - nineteenth century. As Charles Tilly has shown, the labor
movement and the modern state developed together. The extension of the
franchise and the relative willingness of state elites to respond to working
men ’ s concerns meant that the very form of the state itself was shaped by
the labor movement. This process culminated in the corporatist welfare
state, in the period following World War II, in which negotiations between
capitalists, workers, and government were formalized (Tilly, 1984 ). For
example, although it is true that the women ’ s movement never completely
disappeared, following the extension of the vote to women in the early
twentieth century it was absorbed into mainstream politics. Women ’ s
groups worked either within the state, advising on liberal policy and lob-
bying ministers or, in the working - class movement, campaigning for better
social conditions for poor wives and mothers (Pugh, 1992 ). The more
lifestyle - oriented politics of the earlier links between feminism and social-
ism were marginalized to the point of extinction (see Taylor, 1983 ). As
sociological theory was established at the same time as these develop-
ments, sociologists were also led to focus on the state as the site of modern
politics and the labor movement as the dominant political force. This
resulted in the narrow understanding of politics in traditional political
sociology that we looked at in chapter 1 . Social movements that did not
resemble the labor movement, with its organized political parties and
instrumental demands for improved social conditions, tended to be ignored
as not political.
At the same time, it is important to note that social movements in
general share some of the features attributed to the “ old ” labor move-
ment. This is clearest when their organization is considered in detail. Some
aspects of the organization of new social movements do distinguish them
from formal political organizations, to the extent that the term “ network ”
is often a better description than “ organization. ” They are often locally