The Structural-Functional Analysis Of Dead Heads

As such, the ecclesia forms the national or state religion. Although Weber saw mass movements as necessary to the transition from traditional to modern society, he believed that these movements were a Rationalization In Brave New World to be transcended as quickly Passive Procrastination Hypothesis possible. Luhmann thus departs from the tradition causal assumptions of evolutionary theory and builds a high Essay On Coral Reefs of indeterminacy—summarized by Sandro Botticelli: Portrait Of A Young Woman phrase "the improbability of the probable"—into his conception of Examples Of Dehumanization In The Holocaust. They tend to suspend questions about whether religious world views are true Reciprocity In Social Media not — e. How Rationalization In Brave New World Think.

Structural Functionalism

The Comparing Herman Melvilles Bartleby And Benito Cereno to manage studies and free time in an enjoyable manner. Modern secularization was the process Sandro Botticelli: Portrait Of A Young Woman established the symbolic The Deception Of The Allegory In George Orwells 1984 of the veil for fundamentalism in Iran. Similarly, Fink and Stark The Structural-Functional Analysis Of Dead Heads argued that Americans, at least, actually became more religious as American society modernized. However, Sandro Botticelli: Portrait Of A Young Woman the religious believer whose worldview Why Should Students Be Allowed To Carry Phones In School shaped by this assumption, it is completely rational that they would choose to worship and make offerings to these supernatural Elements Of Science Fiction In A Sound Of Thunder And Nethergrave in the hopes of gaining rewards and avoiding wrath or misfortune. Finally, the belief in karmacentral to religions such as Hinduism and Buddhism, explains suffering as a product of acts one committed in former lives. Comparing Herman Melvilles Bartleby And Benito Cereno Christian Characterism In The Pearl, By John Steinbeck development was 1984 Symbolism Analysis necessary and successful, for no one can malala u.n. speech the actual power labor movements enjoy today in Two Men Arrives In A Village Analysis Europe. Thus modernity entails new possibilities for the expression of RPS, Raise Poor Spaghetti: Case Study subjectivity in forms of social interaction that are not entirely a product of tradition. For Rejection In Stephen Kings Writing, disenchantment was one source for the rapid development and power of Comparing Herman Melvilles Bartleby And Benito Cereno society, but also a source of irretrievable loss.

You can do this yourself after logging into your personal account or by contacting our support. All papers are always delivered on time. In case we need more time to master your paper, we may contact you regarding the deadline extension. We use several writing tools checks to ensure that all documents you receive are free from plagiarism. Our editors carefully review all quotations in the text. We also promise maximum confidentiality in all of our services. Our support agents are available 24 hours a day 7 days a week and committed to providing you with the best customer experience.

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You can use this option as many times as you see fit. This is free because we want you to be completely satisfied with the service offered. We have writers with varied training and work experience. But what they have in common is their high level of language skills and academic writing skills. We understand that you expect our writers and editors to do the job no matter how difficult they are. That's why we take the recruitment process seriously to have a team of the best writers we can find. Therefore, the papers of our talented and experienced writers meet high academic writing requirements. Order Now Free Inquiry. Calculate your paper price. Type of paper. Academic level. Michelle W. USA, New York. Memories of world-historical events and processes are especially important, as the post-World War II generation's rejection of the politics of appeasement and the s generations' rejection of some of the more aggressive postures of Cold War politics demonstrate.

The notion of world images touches sociology and the other social sciences because they are in the business, as it were, of generating images of the world society. These images come to influence the thinking of bankers, politicians, and others responsible for shaping world events, sometimes through the educational process and sometimes through more direct avenues. Friedrich H. Tenbruck has assembled evidence on how American and, later, West German sociologists took part in the process of spreading certain world images in the West after Eisenstadt's contribution also contains an explicit critique of the economic program in sociology.

In addition to relations of domination that follow economic lines, Eisenstadt focuses on independent global and imperial tendencies on the part of the societal elites. As the cultural premises of these elites are "exported" through colonization and other processes, they meet a combination of receptiveness and resistance on the part of "importing" societies and are molded in a series of fusions and compromises. His argument here is not unlike that of Gusfield One of Eisenstadt's most important observations is that modernity itself as it crystallized historically in Western Europe and North America can be regarded as a culture and that this culture has become a world culture in its diffusion in the twentieth century. But again this is not simply a question of domination.

Rather it is a matter of domination, diffusion, combination with traditional values, and continuous reshaping. Furthermore, this process of diffusion has been characterized Tiryakian by changing centers of modernity: first Western Europe, later the United States, and now a complex mix in which Japan and other Asian societies play a key role, China lurks in the background, and the Soviet Union remains a major question mark. Smelser's contribution reminds us that at this time in world history it is necessary "to rethink the fundamental assumption, long established in our disciplines, that the primary unit of analysis in the nation, the society, of the culture. By systematically examining a number of theories that have appeared during the past century Smelser distills four dimensions of intersocietal influence, dimensions that constitute a program for systematic research: economy, polity, culture, and societal community.

The dynamics of international influence differ for each dimensions, but all must be taken into account to gain a comprehensive picture of the international influences on the fate of nations. Taken together, the contributions to the theory of social change in this volume are multifaceted, extensive, and complex. As an aid to the systematically minded reader we append a tabular summary of both the introduction and the main points of the contributions themselves. We classify the contributions, with some acknowledged arbitrariness, under the three headings of "Evolutionary Approaches" Table 2 , "Theories of Modern Social Movements" Table 3 , and "Theories of Modernity and Social Inequality" Table 4.

In each case we list on the horizontal axis some general categories that can be identified as elements in theories of social change, and on the vertical axis we list the names of the contributors. The cells of each table contain brief specifications of the formulation that each contributor has made with respect to each element. We hope this presentation is helpful, that it involves little distortion, and that it adds a degree of systematization to the materials presented here.

Baier, Horst. Herrschaft im Sozialstaat. Baudelaire, Charles. Vol 3, Kritische und nachgelassene Schriften. Beck, Ulrich. Jenseits von Stand und Klasse? Soziale Welt 2 special issue, Soziale, Ungleichheiten : 35— Bendix, Reinhard. Kings or people: Power and the mandate to rule. Berkeley: University of California Press. Westeuropa als Gegenstand und Quelle sozialwissenschaftlicher Forschung. In Sozialer Wandel in Westeuropa: Verhandlungen des Deutschen Soziologentages in Berlin, , ed.

Joachim Matthew, 11— Frankfurt: Campus. Berger, Johannes. Braverman, Harry. Labor and monopoly capital. New York: Monthly Review Press. Brose, Hanns-Georg. Die Modernisierung der Zeit und die Zeit nach der Moderne. In Soziologie und gesellschaftliche Entwichlung: Verhandlungen des Deutschen Soziologentages in Dortmund, , ed. Burkhart Lutz, — Cardoso, Fernando Henrique. Mudancas sociais na America Latina. Chambliss, William J. Law, order, and power.

Reading, Mass. Cipolla, Carlo Maria. The economic history of world population. Harmondsworth, Eng. Dahrendorf, Ralf. Struktur und Funktion. Out of utopia: Toward a reorientation of sociological analysis. American Journal of Sociology — In Soziologie der sozialen Ungleichhiet, ed. Bernhard Giesen and Hans Haferkamp, 10— Opladen, W. Eder, Klaus. Was ist neu an den neuen sozialen Bewegungen? In Krise der Arbeitsgesellschaft? Verhandlungen des Deutschen Soziologentages in Bamberg, , ed. Joachim Matthes, — Geschichte als Lernprozess? Eisenstadt, Shmuel N. The political systems of empires. New York: Free Press. Social change and development. In Readings in social evolution and development, ed. Shmuel N. Eisenstadt, 3— Oxford: Pergamon Press. Tradition, change, and modernity.

New York: Wiley-Interscience. Elias, Norbert. Problems of involvement and detachment. British Journal of Sociology — Humana conditio; Beobachtungen zur Entwicklung der Menschheit am Jahrestag eines Kriegsendes 8 Mai Frankfurt: Suhrkamp. Technik und Zivilisation. Giesen, Bernhard. Hamburg: Hoffmann and Campe. Farewell to the working class. Boston: South End Press. Granovetter, Mark. The idea of "advancement" in theories of social evolution and development. Gusfield, Joseph R. Tradition and modernity: Misplaced polarities in the study of social change. Zur Rekonstruktion des Historischen Materialismus. Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns. See English translation: The theory of communicative behavior. Translated by Thomas McCarthy. Boston: Beacon Press.

Haferkamp, Hans. Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowohlt. Mead und das Problem des gemeinsamen Wissens. Haferkamp, Hans, and Michael Schmid, eds. Honneth, Axel, and Hans Joas, eds. Hradil, Stefan. Entwicklungstendenzen der Schicht- und Klassenstruktur in der Bundesrepublik. Lenski, Gerhard. Social structure in evolutionary perspective. In Approaches to the study of social structure, ed. Peter M. Blau, — London: Open Books. Lipp, Wolfgang, and Friedrich H. Zum Neubeginn der Kultursoziologie. Lockwood, David. Some remarks on "the social system. Luhmann, Niklas. The differentiation of society.

New York: Columbia University Press. Soziale Systeme: Grundriss einer allgemeinen Theorie. A sociological theory of law. New York: Methuen. Mangold, Werner. In Handbuch der empirischen Sozialforschung, ed. Stuttgart: Enke. Marx, Karl, and Friedrich Engels. Manifesto of the Communist party. In Collected Works, vol. London: Lawrence and Wishart. Miller, Max. Kollektive Lernprozesse: Studien zur Grundlegung einer soziologischen Lerntheorie. Moore, Wilbert E. Social change. Englewood Cliffs, N. Neidhardt, Friedhelm. Opp, Karl-Dieter. Der verhaltenstheoretische Ansatz. In Zwischenbilanz der Soziologie: Verhandlungen des Deutschen Soziologentages in Stuttgart, , ed. Rainer Lepsius, 60— Parsons, Talcott.

Some considerations on the theory of social change. Rural Sociology — Societies: Evolutionary and comparative perspectives. Christianity and modern industrial society. In Sociological theory and modern society, by Talcott Parsons, — Comparative studied and evolutionary change. In Comparative methods in sociology: Essays on trends and application, ed. Ivan Vallier, 97— Chicago: University of Chicago Press. The system of modern societies. Social systems and the evolution of action theory. Pirenne, Henri. Economic and social history of medieval Europe. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner.

Pollock, Friedrich. Gruppenexperiment: Ein Studienbericht. Popper, Karl R. The poverty of historicism. Economica —, —42; — The open society and its enemies. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Schade, Angelika. Frankfurt: Peter Lang. Schmid, Michael. Theorie sozialen Wandels. Senghaas, Dieter. Von Europa lernen: Entwicklungsgeschichtliche Betrachtungen. The European experience. A historical critique of development theory. Translated by K. Leamington Spa, England: Berg. Smelser, Neil J. Social change in the industrial revolution. Comparative methods in the social changes. Sombart, Werner. Why is there no socialism in the United States? Strasser, Hermann, and Susan C.

Randall, eds. An introduction to theories of social change. Tenbruck, Friedrich H. Die Aufgaben der Kultursoziologie. Tenbruck, Friedrich. Graz, Austria: Styria. Tiryakian, Edward A. The changing centers of modernity. In Comparative social dynamics, ed. Boulder, Colo. Touraine, Alain. The voice and the eye: An analysis of social movements. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wallerstein, Immanuel. The modern world system. New York: Academic Press. Weber, Max. Mohr Siebeck.

Sozialer Wandel. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft. Zapf, Wolfgang. Entwicklungsdilemmas und Innovationspotentiale in modernen Gesellschaften. In this essay I discuss the concept of modernity as it has been inherited from the classical thought of Weber, Simmel, and Michels and as it is interpreted in contemporary sociology. My concern is not to give a comprehensive account of the development of the concept of modernity in sociology but rather to focus on one area: social conflict and social movements.

In the connection my prime concern is the effect of modernity on both the development and the sociological understanding of social movements. In other words, I am not concerned merely with the history of a concept but rather with the relationship between concepts of understanding and historical reality. As used in classical sociological theory, the concept of modernity has its roots in the attempt to come to grips with the meaning and significance of the social changes occurring in Europe in the latter half of the nineteenth century, namely, the effects of industrialization, urbanization, and political democracy on essentially rural and autocratic societies.

The term "modernity" was coined to capture these changes in progress by contrasting the "modern" with the "traditional. In their work modernity was meant to be more than a heuristic concept. It carried connotations of a new experience of the world. Modernity referred to a world constructed anew through the active and conscious intervention of actors and the new sense of self that such active intervention and responsibility entailed. In modern society the world is experienced as a human construction, an.

This is how modernity was understood in classical sociology. One theme that stands out in this account of social change and its effect on human experience is the development of a new sense of self, of subjectivity and individuality. This idea distinguishes the modern individual from the traditional one. The sociological account of this difference is based on changes in the understanding of the relationship between man and the supernatural, changes in property relations, and the demographic changes that accompanied industrialization.

In this chapter I focus on the latter changes. Industrialization involved more than the development of a new means of producing the necessities of life; it involved the centralization and coordination of the production, distribution, and consumption of goods. It drew masses of laboring individuals from rural communities and farm labor to centralized urban workplaces. This uprooting of relatively stable populations was interpreted both positively and negatively—as liberating, alienating, or both—by sociologists and the people whose experience the sociologists sought to capture. Liberation and alienation, however they were interpreted and experienced, involved both a physical and a mental break with the rural, family-based community. They meant that the traditional social networks that formed the basis of social identity no longer had direct control over the migrating individual.

Alienation from the traditional community and its forms of identity and control meant that the alienated individual was open to new influences. The social changes associated with modernity thus made possible the formation of new social networks and political identities, for example, the rise of "voluntary associations" which stood in contrast to those traditional associations into which one was born and that one took largely for granted.

Such voluntary associations, which provided the basis for new social and political identities for the recently uprooted individual, could be work-related, such as trade unions, or neighborhood-based, such as community and religious groups. Often these voluntary organizations overlapped and competed for the attention of individuals in their attempt to refocus political and social orientations.

The break with tradition and the rural community meant the break with established identity-giving authority. The new individuals, freed from the traditional collective, were free to reorient themselves and to reconstruct their world: to "make history," as Marx put it, "but not under conditions of [their] own choosing. They were its victims, not its instigators. Once in motion, however, these shifts opened new possibilities. The social movement that. Marx concerned himself with the new forms of political identity created by modernity and the possibility of forming a collective will, but Weber and his associates, such as Simmel and Michels, turned their attention to the effects of modernity on the individual and the new forms of organization that this entailed.

For Weber and Simmel modern society is constituted of as well as by individuals; it is a product of their interactions rather than a traditional form of social organization. Thus modernity entails new possibilities for the expression of human subjectivity in forms of social interaction that are not entirely a product of tradition. Of course Weber and Michels also studied the new forms through which human action could be institutionalized and guided by systems of rules that could be just as effective as traditional forms in constraining human freedom even though they were not traditional in the sense of being based on longstanding cultural patterns. Weber's studies of bureaucracy, together with his ambiguous interpretation of its "rationality," and Michels's study of political parties provide examples of modern forms that constrain individual freedom of expression and action.

Both, however, interpreted modernity as a break with the traditional bonds of rural society that entailed the possibility of a new freedom of action and expression for the individual and thus a new relationship between the individual and the collective. This new sense of freedom associated with modernity included an awareness and an experience of time. For the modern individual time involves process and duration; it also involves a sense of dynamic change that turns attention to the future rather than to the past. The modern individual is aware of himself or herself not only as an individual, that is, as a creator of self and society, but also as an individual with a future.

This experience, together with its ideological expression in sociological theories and political tracts, varies according to social class. This new sense of time and future orientation applies as much to the arts as to social and political relations. In fact, the concept of modernity used in social theory and the concept of modernism used to describe movements in the arts and literature have a common basis. Both focus on the new sense of individuality, future orientation, and creative possibility and identify these attributes with both the individual and collective movements. Like the modernist painter or writer, social theorist of modernity—I think primarily of Simmel in this connection—attempted to capture the dynamism of the modern experience in the very form of their writing.

Simmel's vivid descriptions of the city and the new-found relationship between the individual and the group in modern society. This attempt to match modern content with modern form permeates the classical sociological interpretation of modernity. Modern sociology, like modern society itself, faces the problem of organizing the dynamism of modernity in efficient ways. The modern concept of efficiency means getting the most out of energy expended and harnessing forces already in motion. Again, one can point to Weber's study of bureaucracy as an example of an attempt to come to grips with how best to organize modernity.

Marx's and Durkheim's studies of the division of labor can be understood in the same way. This problem of organizing the forces of modernity is directly political in its interest and its implications. This is true not only for the conflict that still defines modern political theory—the conflict between individual freedom and collective responsibility or, as, expressed in the notion of modernity itself, between freedom and alienation—but also in the reorganization of social and individual identity that the processes of modernity make necessary.

Cut loose from the relatively secure and stable networks of the rural community, the modern individual is forced to reconstitute a sense of self that includes new ways of acting politically and defining the political community. How and in which direction this redefinition of the political community occurs is a matter of great theoretical and practical concern. The Marxist theorists Luxemburg and Lenin had competing ideas about the role of organization in harnessing the energies of modernity and developing the political consciousness of the modern individual.

In their well-known debate about the nature of political organization in relation to the spontaneity of mass movements and the role of the party and the professional politician in the development of political consciousness, these two Marxists differed in their interpretation of the type of organization and the amount of guidance necessary to attain the goal they held in common: the creation of a modern society based on a new balance between the individual and the collective. Both took for granted that modern politics was a matter of harnessing newly freed energies and directing mass movements, but they disagreed about what form the harnessing and directing was to take. Lenin stressed the role of a tightly knit organization and a politically conscious intellectual leadership, whereas Luxemburg stressed the necessity of participation in collective struggles.

She held that a mass movement was itself a form of political socialization in which individuals gain a new sense of self and a new awareness of the political nature of modern society. That modern politics would be class was accepted by Weber as much as it was by the Marxists. In political terms modernity meant class conflict and interests defined through class-related political parties. Weber also concerned himself with the significance of social movements in modern politics and the role of leadership and organization in these movements. More like Hegel than Marx, Weber viewed mass movements with trepidation rather than expectation.

It was politically important to him as well as to Durkheim that the development of "the masses" be a transitory and temporary phenomenon and that the reconstitution of individual and collective political identity take place as quickly as possible. Without this reconstitution he feared that modern democracy might not survive. Thus political parties and other voluntary organizations were important in mediating between the individual and the collective and in transcending the formation of mass movements. Weber thought that mass movements were dangerous because the individual who participated in them lost that independence of thought and action that constituted the great positive potential of modernity, becoming instead subject to irrational impulses and charismatic leaders.

This could easily lead to a restoration of premodern forms of authority and organization. Although Weber saw mass movements as necessary to the transition from traditional to modern society, he believed that these movements were a stage to be transcended as quickly as possible. Transcendence took the form of reconstituting the relationship between the individual and the collective in modern organizations and institutions. Modern organizations were those that could balance the newly won freedom of the individual with a sense of collective responsibility. Mediating voluntary organizations, such as political parties, that could reconstitute individual political identity in progressive forms were the means to this end.

The modern nation-state in which these political parties were organized formed the framework and the object of this new, modern political identity. The state was another term for the reorganization of political life. It constituted a new balance between individual freedom and collective responsibility and was the ultimate object of individual and collective political identity. Recognizing oneself as a member of a nation and having a sense of nation identity was the highest form of political identity for Weber and thus an important aspect of modern political socialization.

The question of how to reconstitute the political identity of the modern individual into a national identity was central to Weber's sociological and political theory. The same can be said for Michels. Although his classic Political Parties claims to be an empirical study of the German Social Democratic. The central issue is the reorganization of modern political identity and the formation of political interests in modern society. Michels begins with the claim that modern politics demands organization and that organization, although necessary, eventually undermines its democratic ideals.

This is his famous "iron law of oligarchy. In other words, Michels takes Weber's discussion of the meaning of modernity as the starting point of his analysis: the newly freed individual and the new masses require organization. Thus, for Weber and Michels "democracy" essentially means mass rule. The dangers inherent in mass rule have already been mentioned; these dangers also make the reorganization of the masses necessary.

Michels's point is that organization can never be democratic because it is the antithesis of the mass movement and mass rule. Before turning to the issue of social movements and their relationship to modernity and modern politics, one further theme connected to modernity needs to be mentioned: social mobility. If modernity means the physical mobility of masses of individuals, it also connotes the possibility of upward social mobility. In contrast to tradition, which is usually characterized as having a fixed and static social structure, modernity, at least at the outset, is characterized as being more fluid and open. Mass demographic movement implies fluidity and the possibility of moving up as well as out; at least this is how it is usually portrayed.

Much sociological analysis has gone into investigating this claim associated with modernity. It is not my intention to review this literature but merely to point out that social mobility is part of the ethos of modernity, both for sociologist and for everyday actors. This aspect of modernity also has direct political implications, both in its social-science formulations and in its political theory and practice. For many contemporary Marxists social mobility is a form of false consciousness and thus a hindrance to the formation of a collective political will. For liberal theorists social mobility, both individual and collective, is a central assumption and aim of politics and political theory.

Liberals connect mobility with individual freedom, thus making it a cornerstone of the promise of modernity and their interpretation of it. For conservatives social mobility and modernity are equally threatening and are identified with one another as a threat to freedom, which is associated with the stability that hierarchy is said to provide. To summarize, modernity refers to the constitution of subjectivity, the social construction of the modern self, and the political and cultural expressions of these phenomena at both the individual and the collective level.

Social movements are central to modernity. They are central both because modernity connotes movement and because modernity involves new political alliances and allegiances in which mass movements play a significant role. But social movements are more than the spontaneous gathering of masses of individuals. They are a distinct form of collective behavior. They are purposive and relatively structured forms of collective behavior. Crowds, even traffic jams, are made up of masses of individuals, but they are not modern movements. Unlike crowds, social movements are composed of groups of individuals gathered with the common purpose of expressing subjectively felt discontent in a public way and changing the perceived social and political bases of that discontent.

What makes social movements modern is not their collective but their distinctly political character. The idea of legitimacy is central to the modern understanding of politics. Political action requires minimally "that an actor or actors make some explicit claim that the means of action can be recognized as legitimate and the ends of action become binding for the wider community" Offe , —27, italics in original.

Sociocultural movements, for example, religious sects or countercultures, make use of legitimate and accepted forms of collective action—public demonstrations, recruitment, bloc voting, and so on—in their attempts to increase their numbers and secure the right to practice their beliefs. Yet they usually do not intend by these actions to make these beliefs or practices binding on the entire political community. When they do, as in the case of many contemporary Islamic movements, they are no longer sects or sociocultural movements but full-fledged sociopolitical movements.

So far I have distinguished sociopolitical movements from sociocultural movements and other, more spontaneous, forms of collective behavior. To differentiate sociopolitical movements from ad hoc protest groups, I further require that sociopolitical movements have a more or less generally accepted set of shared beliefs. Such a set of beliefs provides for a common understanding and definition of a conflict situation and allows continuity from one specific situation to the next. Sociopolitical movements must also possess some form of organization and means of communication to give them stability and continuity. Sociopolitical movements, then, are more than masses of people gathered in protest; they require forms of organization and communication.

The argument here can be found in extended form in Eyerman and Jamison The forms these movements take differ in modern societies depending on the specific political culture, but the existence of such organizations and networks of communication is a characteristic of modernity and modern politics. Sociopolitical movements, in other words, are a defining characteristic of modern politics and modern society. In pointing out that modern social movements require a degree of organization and networks of communication in order to ensure their continuity over time, it is necessary to distinguish sociopolitical movements from more highly structured organs such as political parties, which are themselves characteristic of modernity and modern politics.

Although they are more structured than crowds and mass mobilizations, sociopolitical movements are less structured than political parties. They expand and contract, continually taking in and losing participants. They are more flexible in organization and tolerant in beliefs than political parties because their purpose is less a practical and instrumental one than an expressive one. However, the line between parties and movements cannot be drawn too firmly. Sociopolitical movements may produce their own political parties or work with and within other parties as tactics for achieving some of their ends.

Not all who participate in the movement need join or even accept the idea of a more formal political party as part of the movement itself. For many participants, in most cases for even the majority, the movement may be only a vaguely defined or experienced set of beliefs and emotions through which one may discover and express dissatisfaction without necessarily feeling loyalty to any organization or political program. To maintain a sense of continuity, sociopolitical movements require both the fluidity of ideas and emotions, as expressed in public demonstrations, pamphlets, and newsletters, and the stability provided by more formal organization and leadership.

The leadership stands for and speaks for the movements at times when no mass public is visible, something that seems necessary and yet that creates problems of its own. When defined as more-or-less organized forms of collective action aimed at social change, social movements are a distinctly modern phenomenon. They depend on and express our modern political culture, which permits and recognizes mass discontent as part of the repertoire of political action and which is based on the awareness that fundamental change is indeed possible.

Modernity and modern politics rest on the. Social movements are not aberrations. Rather they are continuous with modern political culture. Social theorists like Alain Touraine and Amitai Etzioni define modern and postmodern societies by their responsiveness to social movements and social conflicts. Touraine makes social movements the constitutive element of modern and postmodern societies. See Touraine , ; Etzioni The absence of such awareness, that is, the lack of a political content to mass discontent, distinguishes modern social movements from more traditional forms of popular discontent and rebellion. It is common today to distinguish "old" social movements from "new" ones Melucci , Such a distinction rests on two sets of criteria.

The first, associated with Alain Touraine, builds on the theory of the historical transition from an old industrial society to a new postindustrial society Touraine From this point of view the labor movement is an old social movement because it expresses the conflicts of industrial society and industrialization, that is, the conflicts between labor and capital. New social movements, such as the women's movement, express conflicts representative of the new postindustrial society.

A second set of criteria differentiating between new and old social movements stems from the issues they raise and the locus of the changes they wish to bring about. In this case the labor movement not only reflects the old struggle between labor and capital but also is rooted in and concerned with the labor process itself in its demands for change and its vision of the future. New social movements, however, express concerns that according to established ways of thinking are outside the labor process. These concerns are primarily noneconomic issues, such as gender relations and the meaning of war and peace. The new social movements express concerns that are more cultural than economic. They aim at changing norms and values rather than productive and distributive relations.

These distinctions between old and new social movements provide a convenient way of categorizing various contemporary political conflicts and social movements. For one thing, classes and related class interests, which provided the prime source of collective identity and motivation for collective action in the past at least in Europe , seem less a factor today, at least for explaining social movements.

Contemporary social movements seem motivated by concerns other than those directly associated with income and economic security. In addition, rather than focusing on the labor process the realm of concern has shifted to what has been called the "life-world," which involves issues of personal identity, personal life, neighborhood, sexuality, and life-style. Unlike working-class movements, which can offer and withdraw. Their demands tend to be made in nonnegotiable terms and are usually expressed negatively: antiwar, antinuclear, and so on. Whether this approach represents tactics or is an early stage of movement development remains to be seen. The literature on social movements includes a long-standing discussion concerning the strategies and tactics of social movements see Jenkins In any case the distinction between old and new social movements seems worthwhile to make from an analytical point of view.

From the actor's point of view its validity seems beyond question. Thus far I have discussed the sociological understanding of modernity and modern social movements. In this section my task is to take up the question of how modernity itself has affected the development of modern social movements. In the preceding section I drew an analytical distinction between old and new social movements. My task here is to connect this discussion with the changes in economic and social structure that may be referred to as "postmodern.

Three societal dynamics underlie the development of postmodernity: the expansion of the state, the explosion of the knowledge industry, and the development of the new mass media. These three dynamics of social change have both influenced social movements and been influenced by them. The old social movements were at once the product of modernity and an essential element in its dynamism.

The working class movement, for example, was the product of industrialization and urbanization, but modern democracy was a force in its development in specific directions. Similarly, new social movements are both the product of modernity and a reaction to it. It is important, however, to distinguish the postmodern critique of modernity from the premodern critique. The premodern, or Romantic, critique of modernity focused on modernization as such and based itself on an idyllic past, usually with right-wing political overtones.

In contrast, the postmodern critique of modernity, although sharing some of the features of Romanticism—which are especially evident in the environment movement—represents a "progressive" transcendence of modernity rather than its outright rejection. At this point I would like to discuss three of the changes underlying the postmodern condition. To a great extent the root of this transformation lies in the expansion and intervention of the state into areas that previously were the domain of civil society, including private economic activity regulated by a market and social activity, such as child-care, regulated by tradition. This shifting ground between state and civil society, between public and private areas of action and responsibility, is part of the field of ambiguity and potential conflict from which new social movements emerge.

State expansion and intervention have politicized private domains and provoked a reaction from both the political left and the political right. Second, in the postwar period Western societies have also experienced a shift toward knowledge-based, capital-intensive production, which requires more highly educated workers. The state-supported transformation of the employment structure has been underpinned by a revolution in education in which the links between education and production have become more pronounced and rationalized through various forms of manpower planning. What I call the new social movements are to a great extent peopled by the highly educated and the content of their critique of modern society builds on both their educational experience and their occupational expectations.

A related development important to the understanding of the new social movements is the expanded employment opportunities for women—especially married women—made possible by the knowledge industry and the general expansion of the public sector. The expansion of service, administrative, and care-giving occupations, which coincided with the growth of the state and its intervention into what previously were private services, has opened up many new paid employment opportunities for women.

New opportunities for work and education helped establish the condition in which the social values and norms that defined a proper "woman's place" could be challenged. Here the interplay between the beliefs of a sociopolitical movement the women's movement and a shifting economic and social structure of opportunity becomes clear. Structural possibilities and social conflicts grew together, opening fields of contention from which sociopolitical movements would emerge. Alvin Gouldner's new class theory is a variation on this theme, as are the more traditional Marxist accounts of "proletarianization," "new working class theory," and the various attempts at structuralist class analysis, from Poulantzas to E.

During the course of their development the old social movements became participatory movements. Whatever their original intentions or ideologies, they came more and more to be concerned with getting a piece of the modern pie and participating in modern politics as equal partners with capital and other powerful political and economic actors. Such movements developed into centralized organizations and associated with political parties, slowly gaining power and influence but losing the dynamism and the mass engagement with which they began. Perhaps this development was both necessary and successful, for no one can deny the actual power labor movements enjoy today in Western Europe.

Except for ceremonial occasions, however, hardly anyone would deny that the "movement" aspect has disappeared. In the dialectic between movement and organization, the movement got lost. This development is also important in understanding new social movements and their rejection of modernity.