Page 156 - Cultural Studies Dictionary

NEW SOCIAL MOVEMENTS

surveillance and the maintenance of citizenship rights. According to some
commentators, aspects of these nation-state functions are in decline.
In particular, the nation-state is embroiled in the multi-faceted processes of
globalization that can be argued to be compromising four critical aspects of the 133
modern nation-state: namely its competence, form, autonomy and legitimacy.
Thus, nation-state’s are increasingly unable to manage and control their own
economic policy or to protect citizens from global events such as environmental
disasters. That is, the state’s competence is undermined which, in turn, leads to the
development of inter-governmental or supra-governmental agencies that alter the
form and scope of the state. The globalization of economic and political processes
means that the nation-state is increasingly unable to maintain direct control of
policy formation, but must be an actor on the international stage of compromise
and capitulation. That is, the autonomy of the state is increasingly restricted. If the
competence and autonomy of the state is being slowly undermined and at least
some of its powers are transferred to supra-state bodies, then the state cannot fully
carry out its modern functions. It may then suffer a crisis of legitimation. That is,
since the state cannot do what it is expected to do people may lose faith in it.
Other writers do not accept that the nation-state is being eroded and argue that
international cooperation between states and trans-state agencies increases the state’s
ability to direct its own fate. Further, nationalism and state military power play
significant roles in international relations and show little sign of withering away as
is evidenced by a series of military conflicts including those involving US and
British forces in the Middle East during 1991 and 2003. International diplomacy still
operates through states rather than by-passing them. The position regarding the
internal powers of the state is also ambiguous. On the one hand, states like Britain
have privatized and de-regulated in a process of de-centralization, but, on the other
hand, have taken increased authoritarian powers over questions of law and order,
morality and internal surveillance. Though the state is changing its form,
transferring some of its powers to supra-state bodies and undergoing a degree of
‘legitimation crisis’, this is far from total and there seems to be little prospect of the
nation-state disappearing in the immediate future.
Links Diaspora, ethnicity, globalization, modernity, national identity, surveillance

New Social Movements New Social Movements (NSMs) are commonly seen as
encompassing civil rights struggles, feminism, ecology politics, peace movements,
youth movements and the politics of cultural identity. Significantly it has often
been the ‘new’ social and political movements of identity politics (that often have
their origins in the 1960s and have proliferated and grown since then) that have
provided cultural studies with its alleged constituency.
New Social Movements are increasingly strident social and political collectivities
based outside of the workplace. Orthodox class identifications and political
strategies do not lie at the heart of NSMs, rather their rise appears to correlate with
a reduction in trust for the major political parties and an interest in more direct
forms of political action. Though it would be mistaken to see New Social