Social Movements. Donatella della Porta
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study of social movements developed to an unprecedented pace into a major area of research. If, at the end of the 1940s, critics lamented the “crudely descriptive level of understanding and a relative lack of theory” (Strauss 1947, p. 352), and in the 1960s complained that “in the study of social changes, social movements have received relatively little emphasis” (Killian 1964, p. 426), by the mid‐1970s, research into collective action was considered “one of the most vigorous areas of sociology” (Marx and Wood 1975). At the end of the 1980s, commentators talked of “an explosion, in the last ten years, of theoretical and empirical writings on social movements and collective action” (Morris and Herring 1987, p. 138; also see Rucht 1991).
Today, the study of social movements is solidly established, with specialized journals, book series, and professional associations. The excitement and optimism of the roaring 1960s may be long gone, but social and political events over the last four decades have hardly rendered the investigation of grassroots activism any less relevant or urgent. To the contrary, social movements, protest actions and, more generally, political organizations unaligned with major political parties or trade unions have become a permanent component of Western democracies. It is no longer possible to describe protest politics, grassroots participation, or symbolic challenges as unconventional. References to a “movement society” (Dodson 2011; McCarthy, Rafail, and Gromis 2013; Melucci 1996; Meyer and Tarrow 1998; Soule and Earl 2005) seem increasingly plausible, not only in the most advances democracies but even in authoritarian regimes and in the Global South (della Porta 2017a).
To be sure, there has been considerable fluctuation in the intensity of collective action over this period, as there has been in its degree of radicalism, its specific forms, and its capacity to influence the political process. However, forecasts that the wave of protest of the late 1960s would quickly subside, and that “business as usual,” as represented by interest‐based politics, organized according to traditional political divisions, would return in its wake, have largely been proved wrong. In different ways, and with a wide range of goals and values, various forms of protest have continued to emerge, in the Western world as well as elsewhere (Ballard, Habib, and Valodia 2006; Beissinger 2002; Bennani‐Chraïbi and Fillieule 2003; Broadbent and Brockman 2011; Kriesi et al. 1995). At the start of the new millennium, possibly for the first time since 1968, the wave of mobilizations for a globalization from below (often identified as global justice movement) mounted a new, global, challenge, combining themes typical of class movements with themes typical of new social movements, like ecology or gender equality (Arrighi and Silver 1999; della Porta and Tarrow 2005; Smith 2008; Tarrow 2005). Later on, in Latin America as well as in North Africa, in Europe as well as in the United States, the Great Recession and austerity policies have triggered a broad wave of protests that have been influenced by the different times and forms of the financial crises, but also took inspiration from each other (Almeida and Chase‐Dunn 2018; della Porta and Mattoni 2014; Kriesi et al. 2012; Rossi and von Bülow 2015).
In truth, speaking of “global justice movements” or “anti‐austerity movements” as if they were unitary, homogeneous actors would be very misleading. The initiatives against neoliberal globalization or the elites’ management of the global crisis have been very heterogeneous, and not necessarily connected to each other. They have addressed a range of issues, from child labor’s exploitation by global brands to deforestation, from human rights in developing countries to military interventions by Western powers, from economic deprivation to threats to democracy. And they have done do so in a myriad of forms, from individual utterances of dissent and individual behavior to mass collective events, and from a variety of points of view.
Looking at them well illustrates what doing social movement analysis actually means. In their research practice, most of the people who study social movements focus either on individuals, organizations, or events, in the best instances trying to capture the interdependence between them:
Opposition to neoliberal policies can be looked at as the ensemble of individuals expressing opinions about certain issues, advocating or opposing social change. Globalization has surely raised fears and hopes in equal measure, but the balance is distributed unequally across countries and socioeconomic areas. Repeatedly, public opinion surveys indicate diffuse worries about the impact of globalization over people’s lives, both economically and politically. Although this may be more a diffused concern in Western Europe than in the United States or even more so elsewhere, globalization is undoubtedly at the core of public opinion’s interest these days. Those who are skeptical and often hostile to it represent a distinct and vocal sector of public opinion. Their views are forged and reinforced in dialogue with a range of prominent opinion makers and public figures, exposing the costs and faults of globalization from a Western/Northern as well as an Eastern/Southern perspective, such as Indian writer Arundhati Roy, Philippine sociologist Walden Bello, Australian journalist John Pilger, or economist and Nobel laureate Josef Stieglitz. Books like Naomi Klein’s No Logo (1999) may be safely credited with the same impact that Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring (1962), or the Club of Rome’ s report on The Limits to Growth (Meadows, Randers, and Behrens 1972) had on the spread of environmental concerns back in the 1960s and 1970s. Building on this sensitivity in public opinion, anti‐austerity protests have also built on and fueled a widespread concern for economic inequalities and social injustice in the public opinion, that in large part started to stigmatize the elites (the 1%) as being responsible for the suffering of the people (the 99%) (Flesher Fominaya 2014; della Porta 2015a).
Individual opinions and concerns often turn into various forms of political and social participation. Moral and philosophical worldviews and deeply felt convictions are then paralleled by specific attempts by individuals to stop threatening developments, redress instances of injustice, and promote alternative options to the managing of social life and economic activity. A possible way of looking at the movements for social justice and against inequalities is, then, by focusing on those individuals who actively express their opposition to neoliberal capitalism. By signing petitions calling for the cancellation of developing countries’ debt, contributing money to the activities of various social movement organizations, mobilizing to stop the building of dams or the effects of extensive exploitation of land in Asia or Africa, blocking access to the European Central Bank in Frankfurt, or Occupying Wall Street, or attempting to stop ships exporting toxic waste to developing countries or trains carrying military equipment, individuals citizens may contribute to the campaigns against neoliberal globalization and its effects at domestic level. They may do so, however, also through actions that affect individual lifestyles and private behavior as much – and possibly more – than the public sphere. Throughout the West, the recent years have seen the spread of fair trade organizations and practices that have been further fueled as direct practices aiming at the same time to criticize austerity policies and to build alternatives (Boström, Micheletti, and Oosterveer 2019; Monticelli and della Porta 2019). By consuming certain products or choosing to do business only with banks committed to uphold moral and ethical standards, individuals may try and affect the balance of economic power on a broad scale.
However, antiglobalization can hardly be reduced to sets of individuals with similar views and behavior. Rather than on individual characteristics, it may also be interesting to concentrate on the properties of the events into which conflictual interactions take place between powerholders and their opponents; as well as in events in which individuals and organizations identifying with a cause meet to discuss strategies, to elaborate platforms and review their agendas. Global justice activists have been particularly good at staging events – or disrupting opponents’ events – with a strong emotional impact over public opinion and participants alike. Already before Seattle, periodical meetings by international bodies associated with the neoliberal agenda, such as the World Trade Organization, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, or the G8, have provided the opportunity for a string of highly visible, very well attended demonstrations trying to both disrupt the specific gatherings and draw people’s attention toward alternative agenda. Events promoted by global justice activists, most notably the World Social Forum gatherings in Porto Alegre and in Mumbai, their European counterparts in Florence (2001), Paris (2003), or London (2004), the corresponding meetings in the South, such as the African Social Forum that met first in Bamako, Mali, in January 2002, all confirmed the vitality and strength of the “movement of movements”