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Social Movements 109

cultural contest: “ Action is the behavior of an actor guided by cultural
orientations and set within social relations defi ned by an unequal connec-
tion with the social control of those orientations ” (Touraine, 1981 : 61).
He sees control over historicity as involving control over “ the great cul-
tural orientations ” by means of which a society ’ s relationships are nor-

matively organized (1981: 26). The conflict between social movements
which produces social transformation is principally a confl ict over inter-

pretations shared by both sides of the conflict; if actors do not share the
same values in the broadest sense – what Touraine calls the “ stakes ” of

the struggle – a conflict cannot be said to be social (1981: 32 – 3). In
Touraine ’ s view, culture not only provides the motivations for collective
action in the normative orientation to such issues as “ progress against
tradition ” and “ universalism against particularism, ” it is also the princi-
pal object of class struggles.
Touraine does not use the term “ cultural politics. ” He actually restricts
the term “ political ” to activities directed at representative institutions
organized at the level of the state. However, he is sympathetic to what he
calls Foucault ’ s “ denunciation of power ” as inherent in all social rela-
tions. He sees it as contributing to critical social thought by revealing how
apparently rationally organized social relations have actually been estab-

lished through conflicts and clashes between dominators and dominated.
Moreover, although Touraine criticizes Foucault for failing to consider
the source of power in society, arguing that it originates in the apparatuses
of the ruling class – in post - industrial society, from centers of technocratic
domination – like Foucault, he sees power as operating in every social
sphere rather than as possessed or produced by the modern state (Touraine,
1981 : 21).
For Touraine, social relations are relations of power insofar as they are
fixed in certain patterns by class domination. Struggle for the control of

historicity takes place in conflicts across the social field, wherever domina-

tion tries to impose itself. Touraine ’ s theory of social movements therefore
minimizes the importance of the state in the transformation of society. In
his view, genuine social movements struggle in the social realm, not
through the state. He considers engaging with the political system to be
cooption into the status quo and antithetical to the radical changes social
movements may achieve. The importance Touraine gives to struggles over
interpretations of norms and values in civil society allows us to see much
social movement activity as political in the widest sense, not just in rela-
tion to the political process narrowly defi ned.
However, there are also problems with Touraine ’ s approach which
limit the development of an understanding of cultural politics based on