What's New About the "New Social Movements"?: Continuities and Discontinuities with the Socialist Project

Abstract

Since the 1960s, social theorists have sought to explicate factors that contributed to the emergence of the New Left in North America and Western Europe and to the "new social movements" that arose during this tumultuous decade (see, for example, Alberoni, 1984; Birnbaum, 1969; Gamson, 1975; Gorz, 1973; Gouldner, 1979; Habermas, 1970 and 197 5; Jenkins, 1986; Klandermans and Oegema, 1987; Oberschall, 1978; Offe, 1984 and 1985; Tilly, 1978; Touraine, 1971a, 1971b, and 1981; Useem, 1975). There are, as Cohen (1983:97) suggests, "compelling reasons for a renewed reflection on the significance and potentials of social movements." In no small part, this is because these movements served to dispel the conviction that advanced industrial societies had arrived at a stage that marked the "end of ideology," as they reflected instead conflictual tendencies in those societies. This paper explores questions concerning the relationship of these movements to socialism. It does so by reviewing issues raised both in theoretic discourse and in concrete instances of these new contestatory actors.