New Social Movements
This European-influenced group of theories argue that movements today are categorically different than in the past. Instead of labor movements engaged in class conflict, present-day movements (such as anti-war, environmental, civil rights, feminist, etc.) are engaged in social and political conflict (see Alain Touraine). The motivations for movement participants is a form of post-material politics and newly-created identities, particularly those from the "new middle class". Also, see the work of Ronald Inglehart, Jürgen Habermas, Alberto Melucci, and Steve Buechler. This line of research has stimulated an enduring emphasis on identity even among prominent American scholars like Charles Tilly.
Read more about this topic: Social Movement Theory
Famous quotes containing the words social and/or movements:
“As social beings we live with our eyes upon our reflection, but have no assurance of the tranquillity of the waters in which we see it.”
—Charles Horton Cooley (1864–1929)
“Just as language has no longer anything in common with the thing it names, so the movements of most of the people who live in cities have lost their connexion with the earth; they hang, as it were, in the air, hover in all directions, and find no place where they can settle.”
—Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926)