Social Movements

Social Movements MEANING OF SOCIAL MOVEMENTS Social movements are broad alliances of people who are connected through their shared interest in social change. Social movements can advocate for a particular social change, but they can also organize to oppose a social change that is being advocated by another entity. A social movement is a persistent and organized effort involving the mobilization of large numbers of people to work together to either bring about what they believe to be beneficial social change or resist or reverse what they believe to be harmful social change. Social movements are a type of group action. They are large, sometimes informal, groupings of individuals or organizations which focus on specific political or social issues. In other words, they carry out, resist or undo a social change. Anderson and Parker, social movement is ―a form of dynamic pluralistic behaviour which progressively develops structure through time and aims at partial or complete modification of the social order.‖ Lundberg define social movement as, ―a voluntary association of people engaged in concerted efforts to change attitudes, behaviour and social relationships in a larger society.‖ TYPOLOGY OF SOCIAL MOVEMENTS Sociologists distinguish between several types of social movement. This typology is on the basis of scope, type of change, targets, method novelty and scope. Alternative movements Aim to change a single type of behavior. For example, the temperance movement of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, similar in focus to today‘s antidrug movement, tried to convince people not to drink alcohol because of suspected links to child and spousal abuse, other violent crimes, and social ills. Redemptive movements Intend to bring about a more total transformation of the individual by encouraging people to adopt a new moral-religious outlook that will affect a wide range of personal behaviors. Examples include religious revivalist or fundamentalist movements that demand a deeper demonstration of commitment to the faith Revolutionary movement In contrast, aims to bring about great structural change by replacing one or more major social institutions. In the eighteenth century, the American Revolution succeeded in changing the 1 | P a g e Social Movements political system of the original thirteen colonies by freeing colonists from British monarchical control and creating a democratic form of government. In the late eighteenth century and early nineteenth century, the French Revolution ended a monarchy and established a republic. More contemporary examples of successful revolutions include the 1979 Iranian Revolution that replaced a monarchy with a fundamentalist Islamic republic, the revolutions that swept away one-party political. Reform movement Calls for change in patterns of behavior, culture, and/or policy, but does not try to replace entire social institutions. Supporters of reform movements appeal to policymakers, attempt to elect candidates, and sometimes bring cases before courts to achieve their goals. Movements involving civil rights, women‘s rights, sexual orientation, and the rights of people with disabilities all call for acceptance by the larger culture to ensure equal access to all social institutions but do not aim to replace them. Antiwar and environmental movements are also considered reform movements because they call for changes in government policy rather than sweeping institutional change. STAGES OF SOCIAL MOVEMENTS Social movements tend to go through a number of stages of development. A well-known model of these stages was developed by Armand L. Mauss (1975). Mauss stressed the importance of focusing on the continual interactions between movements, government, and the larger social environment. His research led him to conclude that movements typically, though not always, go through five phases: incipiency, coalescence, institutionalization, fragmentation, and demise. For some social movements there is also a sixth phase, revival. Incipiency The first stage of a social movement, which begins when a large number of people become distressed by a particular situation. Coalescence The second stage of a social movement, in which it becomes more organized and develops resource-gathering capabilities. Institutionalization 2 | P a g e Social Movements The third stage of a social movement, in which the government takes official notice of the movement and tries to cope with it and the movement establishes one or more geographically extensive or even national social movement organizations. Fragmentation The fourth stage of a social movement, in which it breaks apart, typically after a period of some success, because movement participants disagree about whether essential goals have really been achieved. Demise The fifth stage of a social movement, in which it comes to an end because it has achieved its goal, lost popular support, or been repressed. Revival An additional stage of some social movements that occurs if they re-emerge in the same or a modified form. CHARACTERISTICS OF SOCIAL MOVEMENTS Expresses the dissatisfaction of people. The members of the movement expect that something will be done about the matter. Social movements are highly organized. Group of people who feel very strongly about the matter. Propaganda: when public attention is being drawn to the matters. Influences public opinion. Have the potential to bring about social change or to transform social structure. RELATIVE DEPRIVATION THEORY The discrepancy that one perceives between what one has and what one could or should have, in contradistinction to absolute deprivation of the bare necessities for living. Egoistic relative deprivation arises from unfavourable comparisons between one's individual circumstances and those of a comparative reference group, and it tends to generate personal dissatisfaction and unhappiness; fraternal relative deprivation arises from unfavourable comparisons between the circumstances of one's group (social class, racial group, occupational group, and so on) and a reference group, and it tends to generate protest behaviour, rebellion, and in extreme cases revolution. The concept was introduced by the US sociologist Samuel Stouffer (1900–60) and several co-authors in their study of The American Soldier (1949), where it was reported that 3 | P a g e Social Movements army units with the highest rates of promotion also had the highest levels of dissatisfaction among those not promoted. The US sociologist Robert K(ing) Merton (1910–2003) developed the idea further in his book Social Theory and Social Structure (1957), arguing that high rates of social mobility raised hopes and expectations and encouraged over-optimistic social comparisons. The British sociologist Walter G(arrison) Runciman (born 1934), in his book Relative Deprivation and Social Justice (1966), provided further evidence that workers' feelings of deprivation and class consciousness tend to be relative rather than absolute. Subsequent researchers have generally corroborated and extended these basic ideas and findings. See also equity theory, social comparison. OR The concept of relative deprivation was first given by Samuel Stouffer, in his study of the military officials in World War 2. Various scholars like Robert Merton and Walter Runciman have further extended it. Relative deprivation is seen often as the theory of social movements, it is the perceived lack of resources of the essential elements to be able to survive in the society; such as money, rights, food, political voice or status. This is that feeling that we are generally ‗worse-off‘ than others around us and arises from the comparison we make of ourselves with others, e.g. when we see that in the work environment, one of our colleagues who may be working less may have a higher salary, this may frustrate us and thus is a state of relative deprivation. Samuel Stouffer gave this concept in his study of World War 2 and cited the results of his study in The American Soldier, he carried of scientific research, using questionnaires and interviews and other such methods to find that the army units, in which the rate of promotion was the highest were actually the ones where there were maximum number of people present who were dissatisfied with the promotions, often due to the reason that they themselves did not get promoted. Based on this and work of Merton, Runciman has given four pre-conditions for the relative deprivation; First, the person does not have anything. Second, the person knows that others (who he compares himself with) have that thing. Third, the person wants that thing. And lastly, the person believes he has a chance of obtaining that thing. 4 | P a g e Social Movements Runciman has also further made a distinction between egoistic deprivation and fraternalism deprivation. The former is the one that arises from one‘s feelings of deprivation or unfair treatment, this is more individual and perceived. Fraternalistic, on the other hand, is more to do with a mass movement, when a group of people may feel deprived of something, e.g. the civil rights movements of the United States in the 1960s, which took place as a result of the racial segregation, it was carried out to fight for the equal rights of the blacks under the United States law. It was because of the fact that while the Civil War had abolished the institution of slavery, it, however, was unable to do away with the discrimination that took place against the black population, they started a social movement which has as it‘s source this feeling of deprivation. While we see that this feeling of relative deprivation may lead to social movements, we may also witness cases where it leads to disorder and chaos e.g. the agitation in Haryana where the Jats, who are already a politically influential groups wanted quota reservations under the other backward classes category, this was due to the fact that they felt that the government had not lived up to its promise of increasing the quota for the economically backward classes, they created chaos across the state to the extent of threatening people‘s lives.

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