The Theory
Buechler argues that there is in fact no single new social movement theory, but a set of new social movement theories, each a variant on general approach to "something called new social movement", which he cautiously defines as a "diverse array of collective actions that has presumably displaced the old social movement of proletarian revolution".
According to Kendall, new social movement theory focuses on movement culture; it also pays attention to their identity and on their relations to culture, ideology and politics.
Important contributors in the field include sociologists such as Alain Touraine, Ernesto Laclau, Chantal Mouffe, Claus Offe, Immanuel Wallerstein, or philosophers such as Michel Foucault, Jürgen Habermas and Félix Guattari.
Read more about this topic: New Social Movements
Famous quotes containing the word theory:
“No theory is good unless it permits, not rest, but the greatest work. No theory is good except on condition that one use it to go on beyond.”
—André Gide (1869–1951)
“Everything to which we concede existence is a posit from the standpoint of a description of the theory-building process, and simultaneously real from the standpoint of the theory that is being built. Nor let us look down on the standpoint of the theory as make-believe; for we can never do better than occupy the standpoint of some theory or other, the best we can muster at the time.”
—Willard Van Orman Quine (b. 1908)