Page 124 - Contemporary Political Sociology Globalization Politics and Power

110 Social Movements

his work. First, he over - emphasizes ideology in social movement confl icts.
This is well illustrated by his study of the anti - nuclear movement in France
in the 1970s. Touraine ’ s interest in anti - nuclear protest lay in his hope
that it might be the central social movement of post - industrial society,
replacing the workers ’ movement of industrial society. In order to estab-
lish whether or not this was the case, he used his unconventional method

of “ social intervention. ” The first aim of this method is to study collective
action as directly as possibly, by looking at the self - analysis of a militant
group in confrontation with its opponents. Second, the researcher actively
intervenes to help collective struggle take shape as a force for social trans-
formation by challenging the assumptions with which activists work and
raising their action to a “ higher level of struggle. ” It is this aim which has
earned Touraine ’ s method the epithet “ sociological Leninism ” (Cohen,
cited in Pickvance, 1995 : 127; cf McDonald, 2002 ). Finally, the researcher
also tries to get the group to develop an alternative, progressive model of
modernity. In the case of the nuclear protestors Touraine found so prom-
ising, he hoped that they would develop an anti - technocratic vision of

society as a whole for which they could fight. In fact, however, he found

that they were unable to fulfil the criteria he specifi ed as those of the
central movement of post - industrial society. Motivated above all by fear
rather than by a vision of the future, they were unable to identify a con-
crete enemy – attributing problems to “ the system ” – and were eventually
tempted by the utopian ideal of a retreat into community and withdrew
from engagement in the struggle to bring about social transformation
(Touraine, 1983 ).
As several commentators have pointed out, Touraine ’ s methodology,
particularly the way in which he attempts as a researcher to bring the
movement to the realization of its potential, seems to suggest that the
most important aspect of bringing about social transformation is to have
the right ideas. This is manifestly not the case; since action takes place in
practice and so is subject to constraints and is implicated in modifi cations
and consequences which cannot be foreseen in advance, even the best
plans may be thwarted. In Touraine ’ s work with social movements, fur-
thermore, it is not ideas of strategy which are at issue, but rather the
“ true ” definition of the social actors involved in the struggle, and the

cultural orientations at stake (Pickvance, 1995 : 127). This is problematic,
not just because “ truth ” is relative to perspective, but also because it is
counter - intuitive, begging a number of questions about the relevance of
“ truth ” to social movements. It is not that social movements must estab-
lish the “ true ” identities of their opponents, or the “ realities ” of the situ-
ation in which they are engaged. It is rather that they necessarily engage