SELF-EXPERIENCE IN THE THEME-PARK OF RADICAL ACTION?
A Post-conventional Perspective on ‘Emerging Repertoires of Political Action’
ECPR Joint Sessions of Workshops, Uppsala, 13-18 April 2004
Workshop 24: Emerging Repertoires of Political Action:
Toward a Systematic Study of Post-conventional Forms of Participation
Ingolfur Blühdorn
University of Bath
Department of European Studies
Bath BA2 7AY
[email protected]
(draft – not suitable for citation)
1. Introduction
What’s new in social movement politics? What contribution do post-conventional
forms of political articulation make to late-modern societies? Recent research on
social movements has placed much emphasis on the emergence of new waves of
direct action (e.g. animal rights protests, anti-road protests, anti-nuclear action, GMO
protests), on new patterns of coalition building and the increasing networking of
social movements at the international and global level (e.g. anti-globalisation
movements, social justice movements), and on new techniques of mobilisation and
campaigning (e.g. use of cell-phones, internet, street parties, product boycotts) (from
the many: Wall 1999; Doherty 1999; Seel et al. 2000; Waterman 2001; Shepard and
Hayduk 2002; Doherty et al. 2003). Especially against the background of a phase of
perceived social movement decline during the 1990s, and of concerns about rapidly
spreading political apathy, the recent evidence of a certain reinvigoration and reradicalisation of social movement politics seems to have come as something of a
surprise. Empirically oriented social movement research has focused on investigating
this new wave of activity in terms of the emergence of new repertoires of political
action. But is that really the key to understanding the ongoing change?
Of course, the social movements’ forms of mobilisation and action are constantly
changing because new technologies and new institutional and discursive opportunity
structures constantly offer new options and openings. Innovation, originality and
spontaneity have always been central for social movement politics not least because
in the absence of other political instruments, innovation and originality are the main
means by which social movements seek to irritate the established patterns of
perception and thinking, to disrupt the established order of things, to capture public
and media attention, and to take the authorities by surprise. For this reason, there is
an ongoing need for analyses of newly emerging repertoires of action. But as
important as this exercise undoubtedly is, as much does the systematic study of postconventional forms of participation also require the investigation of the underlying
societal conditions and cultural framework for such political articulation. Indeed,
whilst the innovation of repertoires of action is, arguably, of an incremental and more
quantitative nature, a more radical and qualitative shift has taken place at this latter
level.
As regards the repertoires of action, the most striking innovation is probably still the
on-going proliferation of forms of political expression and participation which are,
indeed, post-conventional in the sense that, rather than relying on the traditional
mechanisms of representative democracy, they represent and demand forms of direct
participation. But in the demonstration democracy (Etzioni 1970) or social movement
society (Neidhart and Rucht 1993; Meyer and Tarrow 1998) these forms of
participation have been fully normalised and belong to the standard political
repertoire of the most diverse social groups. The more genuinely innovative
developments in recent social movement politics, however, are not related to the
means and strategies of action, but concern the ends, purposes or functions of social
movement politics.
Prima facie, the talk of ends and purposes seems to imply reliance on a rational actor
model which regards social movements as collective actors who strategically pursue
clearly formulated political objectives and agendas, and who are, therefore,
constantly looking out for new ways of achieving them. However, contemporary
forms of non-traditional collective mobilisation and political articulation, can often
hardly be described as goal-oriented strategic action but at best as the collective
processing of helplessness. Contemporary anti-war demos, anti-globalisation
movements, direct action movements, public outpourings of grief, und the
observation of x minutes silence in commemoration of terror victims, are
conspicuous not so much for their innovative strategies for the self-confident and
rational pursuit of specific agendas, but for their post-ideological and expressive
nature, i.e. their lack of clear cut diagnoses, visions and demands, and their lack of
confidence that their goals can ever be achieved. At times, contemporary social
movements are little more than the expression of profound disorientation, uncertainty
and vulnerability vis-à-vis a system and condition that triggers feelings of intense
unease but does not allow them to crystallise into agendas of political action and
change. Such movements are better described as serving functions rather than
pursuing goals.
For the appropriate understanding of such movements, rational actor approaches do
not seem appropriate. Instead, the systematic study of such post-conventional forms
of political articulation seems to necessitate a return to the older collective behaviour
approaches (Smelser, Turner) which regarded social movements not primarily as
rational, strategic and goal-oriented action, but as triggered by external stimuli, as the
expression of, or reflex-like and often uncoordinated responses to, societal conditions
and cultural circumstances. Without aiming to deny that contemporary social
movements are, of course, also collective actors which command a degree of
strategic capability and steering capacity, the intention in this article is to investigate
them from a perspective closer to a collective behaviour approach, i.e. from a
perspective that does not just see them as intentional and conscious articulation of
goals, but also as unwitting indicators and unconscious expression of a certain sociocultural state.
2
In the contemporary context, such an approach might be said to focus on the postagency dimension of political mobilisation and articulation. It takes account of the
fact that in differentiated and complex societies the emergence of policentric
structures and patterns of multi-level governance have so severely reduced the
steering capacity and strategic capabilities of political actors that even the ever
increasing emphasis on political communication, marketing, media management and
spin are unable to stabilise public belief in the capabilities of politics, to stop the
trend towards political cynicism, and to destroy the spectre of the end of politics.
Furthermore, this approach takes account of the fact that irrespective of their selfdescription as radical and oppositional actors, social movements must never be
viewed as separate (apart) from mainstream society, but as an integral part of it. As
Roth, making reference to Lipietz und Touraine, correctly notes,
movements and their opponents are moving in the same historical terrain
(…). Their oppositional motives and utopias are moulded by the historical
ensemble in which they act. Their self-perception as radically different, as the
marginalised historical alternative, is self-deceptive if it does not take into
account the narrow limits of its alternative components and the wide range of
characteristics it shares with its opponents. Movements, therefore, never act
outside of the imagined logic of the system. (Roth 1994: 271)
And social movements are not only an integral part of mainstream society in the
sense that their patterns of perception, communication and action are determined by
the cognitive frames, and discursive and institutional opportunity structures provided
by mainstream society. Beyond this, social movements and their organisations have
long been co-opted by the established political and administrative authorities which
have learnt to use them as a crucial resource for the efficient achievement of their
own objectives. Furthermore, political entrepreneurs, the protest mobilisation
industry and the media all thrive on the mobilisation of post-conventional forms of
political action. And the economic system not only successfully commodifies the
supposedly alternative culture but also benefits from displaying the symbols of
ecological, sexual, ethical and other forms of alternative correctness.
If social movements are seen as a part of, rather than distinct from, advanced modern
societies, they can be taken as indicators of their condition. From this perspective
they appear not so much as actors pursuing specific goals but as signs that need
interpreting, as manifestations of a societal condition that needs conceptualising. It
goes without saying that such a perspective will focus, in particular, on those social
movements and post-conventional forms of political articulation whose agendas are
complex and not easy to express – including for the participants themselves – even
though catchy slogans may be readily available. This change of perspective reflects
the fact that social movement research has indeed pointed towards a shift from the
older primarily instrumental to a contemporary primarily expressive character of
protest movements (e.g. Nash 2000; Touraine 2000). The concepts of the cultural
turn (Ray and Sayer 1999), life politics (Giddens 1991), or performative politics
(Szerszynski 1999; Rucht 2003) suggest that contemporary social movements are to
a large extent about the expression and experience of identity. Elements of the
3
carnivalesque, theatrical and ritual figure prominently in contemporary social
movements (Nash 2000; Hayduk and Shepard 2002).
Thus, social movements provide the incentive to at least outline a comprehensive
theory of contemporary society, which can provide the framework of reference
within which contemporary social movements can then be interpreted. To an extent,
the question for innovations thus shifts its focus from repertoires of action to the
societal background and context within which this action – or behaviour – emerges.
The analysis of these changing social and cultural circumstances will endeavour to
highlight the new social problem perceptions and pathologies to which social
movements arguably respond without necessarily intending and being aware of this.
It will raise the question what social movements contribute to society, or what
function they fulfil. This function is not fixed but has, historically, changed more
than once: At the transition from industrial to post-industrial society the function of
social movements changed from being the motor of the anti-capitalist revolution to
being the agent of democratisation. Between the emergence of post-Fordist society
in the 1960s and the emergence of risk society in the late 1970s it shifted again: from
the emancipation from restrictive and repressive authorities towards collective
control of new high-tech risks. In this same sense, the function of social movements
will continue to change, in particular when the ongoing process of modernisation
brings about a categorically different societal condition.
The thesis to be developed is that the late-modern condition or denucleated
modernity (Blühdorn 2000, 2003, 2004) represents such a new type of society, and
that in this society particularly those forms of political participation and articulation
which are more genuinely new and post-conventional fulfil a new function: they
represent an intra-societal physical and discursive space – theme-park – in which
individuals, social groups and society at large can perform, express and experience
the counter-factual subject-centred, i.e. traditionally-modern, condition. This
politically neutralised innersocietal performance of autonomy, of political opposition
and agency, and of the belief in the radical social, political and economic alternative
not simply compensates for the alienating experience of the late-modern condition in
which the decentered individual is marginalised and excluded. This performance of
the counter-factual subject-centred condition also helps to conceal that in posthumanist, denucleated modernity, the political and economic systems function in a
self-referential manner as purposes in themselves. Furthermore, it provides latemodern individuals with the opportunity for a sublime form of consumption: They
can experience the modernist, subject-centred condition without becoming subject to
rational and moral imperatives of political action which since Marx, at the latest,
have always been characteristic of the modernist condition.1
1
Note the difference of this understanding of ‘political’ consumption from two other possible
understandings. Whilst in the present context the focus is on the consumptive experience of oneself as
a political subject in a staged environment (theme-park), the term may, secondly, be used to describe a
passive, service-oriented rather active, participative relationship towards politics (see below). Thirdly,
the term can be used as a more generic term for green consumerism, ethical consumerism etc., i.e. as
indicating that consumer choices are informed by political values.
4
In a pointed way it might therefore be said that for the systematic investigation of
post-conventional forms of political articulation a focus on emerging repertoires of
inaction is at least as important as the more conventional focus on emerging
repertoires of action. Without aiming to imply any normative judgement, these
emerging repertoires of inaction may also be described as repertoires of simulation
(Blühdorn 2002, 2003, 2004), or – making direct reference to one particular form of
collective articulation – as repertoires of silence. The significance of these emerging
repertoires of inaction and the argument that they are indispensable for the
stabilisation and reproduction of late modernity, i.e. the condition of contemporary
advanced liberal consumer democracies, will be further developed in three steps: In
the next section the focus is on distinguishing the traditionally modern from the latemodern condition, and on identifying the particular problems of denucleated
modernity to which contemporary forms of non-conventional articulation arguably
respond. Section three reviews some established beliefs about the nature of social
movements and demonstrates that contemporary forms of collective political action
cannot easily be explained with the existing conceptual tools. Section four fully
develops the theses which have been sketched above.
2. Identity, politics and economics in the late-modern condition
Social movements do not emerge out of nothing. Favourable political opportunity
structures, political entrepreneurs, the mass media and so forth may be conducive to,
or even indispensable for, the emergence of major social movements, but they are not
sufficient. Despite the fact that social movement issues are, indeed, socially
constructed rather than picked up from the environment, opportunity structures and
political entrepreneurs do not originally generate social movement concerns, but
merely tap into, amplify, reinforce or, put more negatively, whip up, pre-existing
concerns. More accurately one might also say they cultivate and exploit more or less
conscious pre-dispositions for the development of concern. These predispositions,
this underlying responsiveness which they mobilise is configured by the specific
cultural shape of society, its evolutionary stage of modernity, or more specifically, by
the dominant structure and state of the individual and its relationship to its societal
environment. For this reason it is necessary to analyse and understand the specific
condition of a society before investigating whether and how its social movements
respond to the particular problems and needs inherent to this condition.
The distinctive characteristic of late-modern society in comparison to earlier phases
of modernity is undoubtedly the extent to which economic rationality and the market
system have colonised all other forms of thinking and permeated all other societal
sub-systems. Especially following the increasingly successful translation of
ecological issues into economic issues, the economic system has developed into an
ever more all-integrating and unchallenged coherence.2 Advanced modern society is,
2
Since the 1970s ecological thinking had emerged as the single most important challenger of
economic thinking. For a long time both ecologists as well as their counterparts in the world of
business and industry had insisted that ecology and (capitalist consumer) economy are incompatible.
More recently, environmental economics and ecological modernisation have succeeded in repacking
5
thus, coming closer than ever to the realisation of the modernist dream of an allembracing systematic coherence. Yet the emerging system is not that centring around
the idealist notion of the autonomous human subject and its reason, but this system is
integrated by the formal logic of economic profitability, i.e. it centres around a set of
rules and imperatives which instrumentalise and marginalise the human being; which
regard it as a means rather than an end: ‘within the commodified political economy “
life is, so to speak, only a coincidental side-effect”’ (Turner and Brownhill 2001:
107, quoting Bennholdt-Thomson and Mies 1999: 20); or, using Dierckxsens’ terms,
the principle of efficiency has replaced that of vitality, which amounts to the ‘triumph
of formalist economics over the substantive approach’ (2000: 16-40, here p.17).
Obviously, this does not mean that human beings have disappeared. It merely means
that the idealist notion of the autonomous subject has de facto abdicated and that the
human identity has metamorphosed into the consumer profile. As the market has
entered and transformed even the most private spheres and dimensions of the life
worlds of contemporary individuals, individual and social identity formation and
self-experience have become, first and foremost, a matter of product choices and acts
of consumption. Whatever people do, any imaginable activity is related to and
governed by the relevant range of options which the market offers. Accordingly, any
emerging identity is assembled through product choices: people are what they
consume; their identity is not distinct from, and autonomous vis-à-vis, but identical
with the market. Their identity is their specific consumer profile. This, specifically,
i.e. the abdication of the autonomous subject and the dissolution of the distinction
and dualism between the individual and its environment, the subject and the system,
is the defining criterion of what may be called late-modern society or denucleated
modernity. In the late-modern condition, the individual and the system are
constituted and governed by the same logic. With the dissolution of the dualism that
was the very basis of traditional modernity, all societal function systems are losing
their external point of reference and ultimate purpose. They are becoming selfreferential and purposes in themselves. For contemporary individuals in advanced
consumer societies, as well as for the systems of democratic politics and the
capitalist economy, this transition from traditional to late modernity has grave
implications which have been widely discussed in the sociological and political
science literature – even though this normally happens from a perspective different
from the one adopted here.
Since the era of the Enlightenment, the notion of the autonomous individual as the
ultimate source and subject of value, as the centre of modern society and the purpose
of societal development has become deeply rooted in European and western culture.
For reasons which will be further elaborated below, this self-perception is constantly
reinforced by the political and economic systems. The opposite idea that the
individual might be merely a means rather than an end is entirely unacceptable. In
their every day lives and social relations, however, contemporary individuals
constantly experience themselves as marginalised, powerless and subject to systemic
necessities. In order to confirm or regain their autonomy vis-à-vis the system; in
ecological issues as economic issues and have thus, by and large, neutralised their tension (Blühdorn
2000; Wissenburg and Levy 2004).
6
order to experience themselves as distinct from the market and as an end in
themselves, they have to construct, express and experience their individual and social
identity. The dominant strategy late-modern society offers for this purpose is, as
noted above, through acts of consumption. For obvious reasons, however, this
strategy invariably fails. The hopes and expectations of the identity-seeking
individual are constantly frustrated because acts of consumption can at best provide
evidence of an already existing autonomous identity but they can never constitute
one that is different from the market.3 Yet, as in the all-embracing system of the
market alternative patterns of identity construction are neither readily available nor
equally attractive, and because, secondly, the act of choosing a product provides at
least the momentary impression that an identity distinct from the market exists
(criteria of selection and non-selection must have been applied), ever more and ever
accelerated consumption suggests itself as the only way forward. However, this
strategy is not only doomed to failure, but for both the individual and society at large,
it quickly leads into problems of economic and ecological sustainability, and from
there directly into environmental and social exclusion. Nevertheless, the defence of
the vanishing Self is so powerful an end that it justifies any means.
For the political system, the late-modern realisation of the single all-embracing
economic coherence and the metamorphosis of the autonomous individual into the
consumer profile implies that politics no longer centres around the negotiation and
implementation of competing social ideals and visions of a different society, but its
function is reduced to processing the systemic imperatives of the market in
accordance to its own systemic logic of power. Particularly in the supposedly postideological era of globalisation, politics has become managerial in the sense that it
first and foremost organises the smooth execution of economic necessities. In mediaoriented excitement democracies, political communication and political marketing,
which focus on explaining to the electorate that and why in any particular situation
the implementation of specific economic imperatives is the best and only available
option, at times seems to replace the politics of decision.4 On the one hand the focus
on the achievement of efficiency gains and economic growth reflects the prime
interest of late-modern individuals which for the purposes of their consumptive
identity construction are eager to maximise their earning capacities and spending
power. At the same time, however, the system of politics loses its substance and
legitimacy because it lacks the autonomous individual which used to be its external
point of reference. Politics thus becomes self-referential, a purpose in itself, i.e. the
pursuit of power for power’s sake.
3
Note the significance of ecologically, ethically or otherwise ‘correct’ forms of consumption which
represent a particular kind of identity construction and self-experience. In this consumption, socially
constructed notions of ‘correctness’ lead either to the conscious selection or conscious avoidance of
specific products. In either case processes of social construction charge the product with a distinctive
positive or negative value. But this politically informed form of consumption does not make identity
construction and experience independent from the market. It continues to rely on product choices and
consumption.
4
On the distinction and the relative shift of emphasis between the politics of presentation and the
politics of decision see, for example, the extensive work by Ulrich Sarcinelli (e.g. 1987, 1994, 1998,
2003).
7
Much discussed phenomena such as the decline of public interest in politics, low
electoral turnout, political apathy, and so forth, are the immediate consequence. The
lack of substance, decideability and agency – and by implication the lack of interest,
participation and legitimacy – undermine the viability of democratic politics. The
translation of political issues into economic issues seems to offer an escape from the
unmanageable complexity of conflicting interests, but it further accelerates the
process of depoliticisation. In the interest of efficiency, the remaining political
decisions are delegated to non-democratic bodies. Political consumers5 expect their
appointed (or hired) polit-service providers to function professionally and deliver
swiftly. Performance or output legitimacy take the place of procedural or input
legitimacy. Transparency and accountability are becoming the substitutes for
participation and responsibility. In the sociological and political science literature all
of these phenomena have been well documented and widely discussed. Contrary to
some prophecies, however, none of this leads to the end of politics. Instead, the
transformation of politics in late-modern society may be described as the emergence
of post-democratic politics.
Driven by a combination of, firstly, the imperative of its own systemic reproduction,
secondly, economic pressures for further growth and efficiency, and thirdly, the fear
that alternative, radical, forms of politics might emerge and destabilise the
established order, the political system desperately tries to counter the decline of its
substance and legitimacy. It undertakes frantic efforts to convince the democratic
electorate that politics still is about competing ideals and visions for a better society,
and that it also has the agency required to implement them. Untiringly, it reassures
the public that politics has not been emasculated by economic imperatives but still
has a degree of autonomy vis-à-vis, and control over, the economic system. In order
to stabilise its external purpose and legitimacy, the political system assiduously
cultivates the belief in the autonomous subject, which it allegedly serves. It insists
that it does listen to and represent the concerns of voters, and that it is far from
pursuing power for power’s sake. In desperate attempts to increase democratic
participation it issues projects of democratic renewal and empowerment, develops
strategies of top-down democratisation (Blaug 2002), and constantly makes promises
which it may well be unable to keep. Yet, by reproducing the belief in the
autonomous subject (voter) which supposedly is its external point of reference, the
system of politics inevitably reinforces rather than resolves the problem. Its promises
heighten the horizon of expectations and, by implication, raise the potential for
disappointment. In the effort to stabilise its own foundations, the political system
thus invariably increases the experience of powerlessness, marginalisation and
exclusion. However genuine its intentions, the system breeds cynicism because its
self-referentiality cannot be concealed. Still, as long as the political system manages
to generate economic growth and spending power, there is no genuine threat at the
(internal) horizon.
Just like the political system, the economic system, too, is losing its external point of
reference and legitimacy. In the late-modern condition, the efficiency and
profitability it achieves are no longer defined in terms of pre-existing values and
5
Here the term is used in the second meaning outlined in footnote 1.
8
goals rooted in the autonomous individual, but the accumulation of profit and capital
is a purpose in itself. The maximisation of earning capacities and spending power
provides late-modern individuals with the means to pursue their consumptive pattern
of identity construction, yet it is the economic system itself which charges the
products with the values which supposedly legitimise the price. This selfreferentiality of the economic system does not imply an immediate threat to its
systemic self-reproduction. The economy of subjective expectations of benefits
(identity gains) secures the perpetuation of the system. Yet, as noted above, these
expectations are never fulfilled, or their fulfilment remains restricted to the very
moment of product acquisition and is immediately followed by frustration triggering,
firstly, the need for further accelerated consumption, and secondly, allergic reactions
against what is perceived as immoral profiteering.
In a way that is directly comparable to the political system, the economic system,
too, responds to these threats by undertaking major efforts to reassure consumers that
it is only serving their pre-existing desires and needs, i.e. that it merely provides the
means for the realisation of the customer’s entirely autonomous self. At the macro
level, the ever repeated promises that scientific progress and economic development
are pursued in order to combat poverty, famine or cancer, represent prominent
examples for the economic system’s desperate attempt to portray itself as serving the
needs of individuals and humanity at large, and thus to construct an external
legitimation for its logic of profitability. At the micro level, advertising and
marketing work hard to reconstruct the autonomous ego which supposedly has its
pre-existing interests, values and needs to which the products merely respond. Like
those of the political system, the tireless efforts of the economic system to highlight
its service role and customer orientation breed cynicism, yet the non-availability of
alternative patterns of identity construction ensures that late-modern individuals
willingly co-operate.
The specific condition of late-modern society can thus be described as a crisis of selfreferentiality. For any appropriate understanding of contemporary social movements
and forms of collective political articulation, the full appreciation of this late-modern
condition is absolutely essential. Analyses of post-conventional forms of political
participation whose underlying social theory is outdated, i.e. whose understanding of
the late-modern individual, late-modern politics and late-modern consumer
economics is incomplete, will necessarily remain insufficient.
The dissolution of the dualisms of modernity and the emergence of the increasingly
all-embracing system of economic rationality trigger a rebellion, an allergic reaction
of late-modern society against itself (Baudrillard 2002). The marginalisation or even
dissolution of the autonomous subject is unacceptable to the individual itself and
constitutes a threat to the political and economic systems. The only available strategy
for the reconstitution and experience of the autonomous self is via increased and
accelerated consumption – which not only fails to fulfil its promise, but leads directly
into problems of sustainability and thus exclusion. Despite all hopes for ecological
modernisation and resource efficiency revolutions (Weizsäcker et al. 1998; Hawken
et al. 1999; Lomborg 2001), western life styles and patterns of consumption can not
even be generalised in the rich industrial countries, let alone in the poor Majority
9
World. Increasing social inequality and exclusion are, therefore, an inevitable
consequence of the late-modern dilemma. But although the limits to growth and the
problems of social inequality, environmental security, economic migration, organised
crime and international terrorism are becoming ever more obvious and
unmanageable, the unsustainable patterns of consumptive self-construction and selfexperience need to be perpetuated and defended at any price. The dilemma of selfreferentiality is fundamental and inescapable. It could be resolved only by
overcoming late-modern uni-dimensionality and reinstating an external point of
reference for the system. For this, however, late-modern society does not have the
cultural resources.
Critical sociology, which used to describe and evaluate the societal status quo in the
normative categories of what ought to be the case, has surrendered vis-à-vis the latemodern condition. It has been superseded by two varieties of affirmative sociology6
both of which restrict themselves to analysing a status quo which is perceived as
essentially unchangeable: The sociological mainstream has repositioned itself as a
service provider to the established system and, reproducing the belief in traditional
modernisation, looks out for managerial improvements which might increase the
system’s efficiency. The second and much smaller stream still refuses to co-operate
with the system, conceptualises the fundamental dilemmas of late-modernity, but
does not offer solutions to the problems it identifies. By mainstream sociologists, this
second stream is widely frowned upon because it is regarded as unduly pessimistic
and unproductive. Yet the service-providing mainstream may be criticised for
uncritically presupposing that late-modern society really has to change and wants to
change. Its demanded focus on the technical and managerial question how the status
quo might be further improved stops it from exploring the more genuinely
sociological question which is: How does late-modern society factually cope with its
irresolvable dilemma? What strategies does it develop in order to reconcile the
contradictory but equally categorical imperatives to perpetuate the status quo and to
radically change it? To develop the argument that one such strategy to pacify this
dilemma is to cultivate designated spaces in which the beliefs and demands that
characterise traditional modernity can be simulated; and to suggest that
contemporary social movements – or at least a sub-section of them – might fulfil
exactly this is function, is the objective of the next two sections.
3. Problems with conceptualising contemporary social movements
Traditional social movement theory suggests that social movements typically emerge
in response to experiences of political closure and the perceived failure of the
established political institutions. Against the background of political arrangements
which are regarded as repressive, authoritarian, opaque and unaccountable they
struggle for more freedom, participation and representation. They seek to politicise,
i.e. subject to democratic scrutiny what has hitherto been regarded as natural and
non-negotiable. They besiege the bastions of bourgeois custom, tradition and
6
This ignores the wealth of (semi-)academic writing that is primarily committed to political
campaigning (ecological, feminist, neo-Marxist) rather than sociological analysis.
10
privilege. Using innovative forms of mobilisation and articulation, they aim to irritate
and disrupt the established order, expose its inherent violence, injustice and
unsustainability, and suggest that things can and ought to be different. Their
objective is to reveal the irrationality, short-sightedness and inefficiency of the
established system which is driven by its own systemic imperatives and serves, if
anyone, the interests of social elites. From the social movement perspective, to
disrupt this autonomous dynamics, formal rationality and self-referentiality of the
established system is preconditional to restructuring the political and economic order
in accordance with substantive life world rationality grounded in genuine human
needs and oriented towards the realisation of the unique potentials of the human
species as a whole (Dalton and Kuechler 1990; McAdam et al. 1996; Hellmann and
Koopmans 1998; Della Porta et al. 1998; Della Porta and Diani 1999; Nash 2000).
New social movement theory (Melucci, Touraine), in particular, has interpreted the
emancipative social movements since the late 1960s as the arteries of the democratic
process, i.e. the ongoing democratisation of institutionalised democracies which,
unless continuously challenged, tend to become sclerotic. Touraine notes that whilst
‘the old social movements were associated with the idea of revolution, the new ones
are associated with the idea of democracy’ (Touraine 1992: 143). Indeed, social
movements since the late 1960s have always promoted the idea of DIY-politics.
They have demanded that institutionalised representative democracy ought to be
supplemented, or even replaced, by structures of direct democracy because these
were regarded as more legitimate and providing for the more authentic representation
of the people’s will. Where social movements were conceptualised as putting the
emphasis not so much on access to and influence on the established structures but,
primarily, on creating spaces for the rehearsal of alternative life-styles and
institutions which are supposed to bypass and eventually replace the existing ones
(Princen and Finger 1994), they were seen as continuing the Marxist tradition of
political subversion and radical change whilst disposing of the tool of revolution.
These conceptualisations of non-conventional forms of political articulation and
participation have been developed for the social movements from the 1960s to the
1980s. One of their key objectives was to capture how these new social movements
distinguished themselves from the old ones of the Marxist tradition of class struggle.
Yet, such generalising conceptualisations of social movement politics can neither do
justice to the increasingly diversified forms of non-conventional political articulation
and participation, nor do they seem adequate for the interpretation of social
movement politics in the early twenty-first century. Already in the late 1970s, the
emphasis on democratisation as emancipation from authoritarian elite rule was
incrementally superseded by the notion of democratisation as a tool for the limitation
and management of new technological and ecological risks (Beck 1992, 1997, 2000).
Since the mid-1980s the focus then seemed to shift further from the politics of risk to
the politics of identity. Social movements no longer sought to capture the state, i.e.
political control, but were increasingly concerned with conflicts over life world
issues (Habermas 1981). As noted above, Giddens’ (1991) concept of life politics
and Beck’s (1992) notion of sub-politics aim to capture this reorientation of social
movement activity. The concept of the cultural turn (Ray and Sayer 1999) in social
11
movement politics is another term that has been widely used to describe the shift
towards the politics of identity construction and self-experience.
In order to capture the increasing diversity of the social movement sector, Rucht
(1990), Koopmans (19927) and others have suggested a distinction between goaloriented, instrumental movements and more identity-oriented, expressive ones. The
former supposedly focus on specific single issues which can be addressed within the
existing political and economic order, i.e. they do not require comprehensive
structural change. The latter, i.e. identity-oriented movements are further
distinguished into sub-cultural movements which are campaigning for the societal
recognition of specific minority identities but are, again, not concerned with
fundamental societal change, and counter-cultural movements which are subversive
cells practising alternative life-styles and constructing alternative structures with the
long-term objective of radical system change. It has always been acknowledged that
a strict distinction is not possible because virtually all social movements represent a
mixture of instrumental and expressive dimensions (Rucht 1990). In the present
context, however, this attempt to distinguish different categories of social
movements and social movement objectives may help to capture the distinctive
character of contemporary social movement activity.
The bulk of non-traditional political participation in advanced liberal democracies
can undoubtedly be classified as instrumental single issue movements. The
proliferation of such clearly goal-oriented movements since the 1970s is an
immediate consequence of the diversification of contemporary societies and their
sectional interests, of the gradual decline of the belief in a common good, of the
increasing emphasis on the principle of competitiveness, and of the decentralisation
of political control. Processes of institutionalisation and professionalisation have
rendered instrumental movements a standard feature of politics in contemporary
social movement societies. In the sense that these forms of political participation
have become fully normalised and accepted, they can no longer be meaningfully
described as post-conventional forms of political articulation. Their repertoire of
action is neither particularly innovative nor radical or genuinely disruptive. The
motivational structure of these movements seems evident, their course of
development by and large predictable. Yet, the more genuinely novel social
movements such as the new direct action movements, the anti-globalisation
movement or the recent protests against the Iraq-war are much more complex and
difficult to interpret. They clearly do not fall into this category.
These movements can also not convincingly be described as sub-cultural movements.
Indeed the category of emancipative sub-cultural movements no longer seems to fit
the conditions of contemporary western societies. As contemporary democracies
have become increasingly liberal, they have offered new spaces for the development
of an ever wider range of different life styles, and legal protection for ever larger
cultural plurality. In the sense that the diversity of minority cultures is now widely
recognised as an essential economic resource, the concern for pluralism has actually
become an integral part of the established system. Of course, sub-cultural movements
7
[check reference in: Kriesi, Koopmans et al. 1995]
12
continue to exist, yet in many respects the unprecedented elasticity of social norms
has become a more serious concern than overly restrictive social institutions. For the
emancipative social movements from the 1960s to the 1980s breaking down
irrational barriers had always served the purpose of bringing about a truly rational
society. Since the decline of the belief in true reason and the common good,
however, crossing established borders always implies the danger of boundlessness
and disorientation. Even for most young people, the older desire to abandon the
established moral principles of their parent’s generation, and to push back the limits
of the socially acceptable has, therefore, given way to the opposite desire to find
moral guidance and experience limits. For these reasons it seems not very promising
to conceptualise the new social movements of the contemporary era as sub-cultural
movements.
In a number of respects, the category of counter-cultural movements seems most
applicable to the novel movements of the twenty-first century. Indeed, the antiglobalisation movement as well as the new direct action movements are widely
described as radical counter-cultural movements. Seel et al. (2000: 14) note that
‘movements such as British direct action groups are important because they produce
alternative cultural codes which challenge the dominant economistic ones’.
According to their analysis direct action is ‘propelled and informed’ by ‘an
increasingly critical attitude to big business and to official science’, and it reflects ‘an
increased confidence to challenge the power of those two institutions directly’ (2000:
21). Arguing along similar lines much of the anti-globalisation literature describes
the anti-globalisation movements since Seattle as aiming for nothing less than the
complete replacement of the ‘bankrupt world order’ (Shutt 2001) of liberal consumer
capitalism. The critics of globalisation are convinced that ‘any attempt to sustain an
empire based on unrepresentative, authoritarian institutions must ultimately fail’
(Shutt 2001: 21), and believe that ‘if the public were to understand the true nature
and implication that the globalisation project has on their lives, the project’s political
viability and its legitimacy would be severely undercut’ (Wallach 2001: 188).
However, even though these movements are clearly challenging the codes of the
established order and insist that There is an Alternative (Bennholdt-Thomson et al.
2001), it is rather difficult to establish what relationship these movements really have
to the status quo and what exactly an alternative might actually look like. As the
logic of the established system has permeated the very patterns of cognition and
imagination of contemporary individuals, it is becoming increasingly difficult to
even imagine a radically different society, let alone implement it. For contemporary
individuals, probably including those who intuitively feel a fundamental unease with
the status quo, ideas of a genuinely sustainable and globally just society as they are
regularly hinted at in the literature,8 would, if really implemented, hardly be
8
The common denominator in the wealth of suggestions is to ‘promote small scale on a large scale’
(Helena Norberg-Hodge 2001: 242). The return to local economies placing strong emphasis on
subsistence and aiming for low-growth-or-no-growth is widely seen as preconditional to a drastic
reduction of resource consumption. Particularly the ‘economies of the advanced industrial countries
must shrink … by a factor ten’ (Sarkar 2001: 50). Non-monetary local exchange and trading systems
(LETS) are widely regarded as ‘a source of great hope to us all’ (Walker and Goldsmith 2001: 274).
Contemporary individuals, relying for their pastime and psychological balance on retail therapy are
13
attractive or acceptable. And as regards the question how late modern societies might
manage the transition from here to there, no plausible strategies have yet emerged on
the horizon. Beyond this, major contemporary social movements, such as the mass
protests against the Iraq war, do not actually make any demands for radical system
change. Indeed, it seems safe to assert that in advanced modern societies the level of
enthusiasm for radical change is rather low. As the established system seems to have
succeeded in institutionalising and pacifying concerns for the environment, gender
equality, human rights or global justice – although the related problems are,
obviously, far from being resolved – there are no issues in sight which may pose a
genuine internal threat to the established economic and political order. On the
contrary, religious fundamentalism, ethnic nationalism, economic migration and
global terrorism – even though they are certainly not unrelated to these very issues –
provide the basis, across western(ized) societies, for a new consensus of system
defence whatever the cost entailed.
As indicated in the previous section, even the most fundamental beliefs of the
counter-cultural movements from the 1960s to the 1980s have in late-modern
societies become uncertain: confidence in genuine democracy and interest in political
participation. Intellectuals campaigning against globalisation may insist that ‘we
have to move from market totalitarianism to an earth democracy’ (Shiva 2001: 65),
and that at the beginning of the twenty-first century there is a historic window of
opportunity for the transition towards a ‘more genuinely participatory democracy
than has existed anywhere hitherto’ (Shutt 2001: 121). Yet, whilst participation has
for late-modern individuals adopted the primary meaning of securing self-inclusion
into the market and taking part in large-scale consumption, the contemporary
understanding of democracy is, first and foremost, one of transparency and
accountability which are supposed to function as a safe-guard against the risks
implicit in the post-democratic delegation of power and responsibilities to nondemocratic expert bodies which are expected to increase the efficiency, quality and
(output) legitimacy of public policy making. Thus, even though some contemporary
movements undoubtedly do display characteristics of Koopmans’ third category, it
does, therefore, also not seem plausible to understand contemporary forms of nontraditional political articulation as counter-cultural movements.
4. From system change to systemic reproduction
What then may be concluded from the suggestion that none of Koopmans’ three
categories provides a satisfactory explanation of contemporary social movements?
The analysis firstly suggests that contemporary forms of non-conventional political
action do indeed display genuinely new characteristics which require new theoretical
approaches. It is their instrumental dimension, in particular, which seems difficult to
grasp. Collective political articulation such as the mass demonstrations against the
American-British attack on Saddam Hussain’s Iraq or the demonstrations of
reminded that people in the non-industrialed countries ‘may be very poor and even hungry, but the
lives they lead within their family groups have meaning to them – which is ever less the case of the
lives led by most people in the cities of the industrial world today’ (Goldsmith 2001: 300).
14
solidarity with the victims of the Madrid terror attack in March 2004 through the
observation of commemorative silence indeed re-open the question for the relative
significance of, and relationship between, the instrumental and the identity-oriented
dimensions of collective action. The same applies to contemporary anti-globalisation
protests, direct action movements and consumer boycott campaigns. Even though in
many cases there is no shortage of catchy statements of goals, these movements
cannot only be certain that these goals will not be realised, but it is also hard to
imagine that movement participants believe in these goals in the sense that they
would genuinely want to see the radical change of the status quo that these goals
imply. In all likelihood, these movements’ participants are just as fond of and
dependent on the existing consumer culture as anyone else.
This analysis then gives rise to the suggestion that contemporary social movements
must not be seen as instrumental in the sense that they are genuinely trying to
influence decision makers, but that they act although – or even because – they can be
certain that they will not have any influence. In a sense these movements are the
expression of frustration about political closure and the co-optation or insider-status
(Grant 2001, 2003) of the more institutionalised social movements. But they may
still be regarded as instrumental in that they provide an opportunity for the
experience of the self as different from and in opposition to the system. In other
words, these movements are not primarily instrumental for the achievement of
political change but in the sense that they are a means of self-expression and selfexperience. Referring to the analyses offered by Hetherington (1998) and Maffesoli
(1996), Seel et al. (2000: 13) confirm that for contemporary direct action movements
‘the performance of personal and collective identities through tribal forms of dress,
speech and ritual’ is a significant dimension of their activity. They concede that these
movements ‘facilitate the construction of a personal and collective identity for
participants’ and respond to people’s ‘need for affective sociality’ and for
opportunities ‘to show empathy and solidarity with like-minded people’ (p.13). Yet
they insist that ‘to write-off performative protest activity as merely internally
oriented to other protesters would be unfair and inaccurate’ (p.14).
Developing the same idea, Boyd (2002: 248) notes that in contemporary antiglobalisation movements ‘traditional goal-oriented politics links up with the politics
of being’; people ‘join the movement not only to take action but to feel alive and find
out who they are’. Shifting the emphasis clearly towards the identity dimension,
Touraine (2000: 93) points out that whilst ‘in the past, social movements were the
embodiment of a project’, ‘the sole objective’ of contemporary protest movements
‘is to create the Subject’. A recent pamphlet by Patrick West, finally, goes yet a step
further by insisting that contemporary non-conventional political articulation ‘has
little do to with changing the world’ (2004: 44), for supposedly, ‘we no longer want
to change the world’. Instead, he claims, ‘we want merely to be nice’ (p.2).
According to West’s analysis, contemporary post-conventional forms of collective
political articulation – which he describes as ‘conspicuous compassion’, ‘ostentatious
caring’ (p.4) or ‘recreational grief’ (p.11) – are about ‘individuals projecting their
ego onto society’ (p.23) in order to experience a ‘warm glow of self-satisfaction’
(p.37). West believes that the recent anti-war protests, anti-globalisation movements
and a range of other forms of non-conventional articulation are almost exclusively
15
‘about feeling good, not doing good’ (p.1). They are ‘designed to show that you are a
nice person, and to register unhappiness with the fact that horrid things happen in the
world’ (p.41).
Thus, the suggestions that contemporary social movements cannot be adequately
understood on the basis of traditional social movement theories, and that, rather than
being instrumental in the traditional sense, they have to be interpreted as serving
purposes of identity construction and expression, take us back to the late-modern
dilemma. Of course, identity construction has always been recognised as a
constitutive part of social movement activity, yet seen against the specific
background that has above been described as the late-modern condition, the focus on
this dimension gains an entirely new quality. What non-conventional forms of
political articulation offer seems to match exactly what late-modern individuals
desperately need. This reconfirms that their significance lies not in the demonstration
of protest and opposition for the purpose of political change, but in the
demonstration, performance and experience of something that is desperately needed
but that has no place inside the system. It has no place inside the system, firstly,
because within the system it is impossible to achieve, and secondly, because, if it
were to be achievable, it would undermine and destroy the system.
At the centre of social movement activity is, thus, not the political alternative, but
alterity, i.e. the desire of individuals to be different from the system and experience
themselves as subjects of autonomous values and ideals. In the sense that the
demonstration of autonomy, counterfactual ideals and political agency has the status
of a performance in the arena of the social movement and allows for full complicity
with the status quo outside this arena, it may be described as a post-political and
consumptive form of political articulation. In this regard, the observation of
commemorative silence is perhaps late-modern society’s most advanced form of
non-conventional political articulation. It is a sign or symbol that seems to be saying
something but in fact stands for nothing. This form of political articulation performs
togetherness, says not a word, makes no demands, does not act, does not even think
the alternative, but merely thinks of the victims of the status quo, which
posthumously and symbolically are shifted back into the centre from where the
individual has been removed.
The use of the term performance for contemporary social movements and forms of
political articulation might easily be misleading. West’s interpretation of nonconventional forms of collective expression in terms of ‘crocodile tears and
manufactured emotions’ (p.2), for example, swiftly leads him to raising moral
accusations of this action as hypocritical, phoney and cynical (p.66). His politically
instrumental rather than academically committed analysis9 bars him from obtaining
an appropriate understanding of the late-modern condition and dilemma, and he
therefore understands the performance character of social movements as indicative of
9
His discussion culminates in the assertion that that ‘we would have a happier, peaceful and more just
country’ if contemporary society were to drop its ‘bovine left-liberal conformity’, if the welfare state
which ‘has created incalulable misery for mothers, children and society at large’ were to be
dismantled, and ‘if felons were treated uncaringly’ (pp.65-67),
16
a culpable lack of authenticity and morality. Yet, as was noted above, the latemodern dilemma consists exactly in the fact that within the all-embracing system of
the market no means of identity construction and experience – and thus also of
authenticity and morality – are available. The idea of autonomy (authenticity,
morality) demands distinction from and opposition to this system, yet the required
tools and spaces do not exist. Social movements, however, offer exactly such a
space. The individual and social identity which is performed or enacted within the
social movement is indeed formed by means of distinction from and opposition to the
system. Social movements thus offer a supplementary form of identity construction
which helps to compensate for the shortcomings of consumptive identity formation.
They provide late-modern individuals with an opportunity to experience themselves
both within (compliant with) and at the same time outside of (in opposition to, i.e.
autonomous from) the system.
If it is correct to say, as suggested in section two, that the reproduction of the
autonomous self is not just a desire of late-modern individuals but a requirement for
the self-reproduction of the increasingly one-dimensional system, social movements
can thus be said to represent an essential resource for the stabilisation of late-modern
society. This idea is not entirely new. Indeed, already in medieval times the fool
fulfilled the function to release social tensions, neutralise rebellious or subversive
energies and reintegrate the social order. In the 1980s Habermas (1981) described
social movements as ‘early warning systems’, and Luhmann (1984/1995) saw them
as a kind of societal ‘immune system’. Both concepts highlight their systemstabilising function. Kuechler and Dalton (1990: 298) suspected that the ‘unintended
consequence of securing long-term stability of the political order may turn out to be
the most important impact of today’s new social movements’ (my emphasis). Beck
(1997), Luhmann (1989, 1996) and others believed that social movements increase
the reflexivity of functionally differentiated societies by compensating for their lack
of a strategic centre. More recently, the elements of the carnivalesque, which seem
increasingly typical of contemporary social movements (Nash 2000, Boyd 2002)
have been described as inherently conservative. Szerszynski (1999: 219) notes that
‘theories of Carnival have tended to regard it as a safety-valve – as an officially
sanctioned and self-contained vehicle for the release of anti-social sentiments
amongst the public – and thus functioning to help stabilise the social order’. And
referring to societal reflexes against new waves of right wing extremism, Rucht
(2003: 38) points out that ‘ex negativo, the protests of the radicals against the
existing political and economic order … serve to maintain this order’.
Thus, the idea that social movements, whilst presenting themselves as oppositional,
in effect contribute to the reproduction of the established system, has often been
rehearsed. Yet, in late-modern society, system reproduction is perhaps no longer just
an ‘unintended side-effect’, but the system has been fully embraced – or late-modern
individuals have no escape from its embrace – and social movements are merely the
performative reintroduction of the dualisms of traditional modernity. For the
purposes of systemic reproduction, this internal simulation of a supposedly external
point of reference is sufficient if only the late-modern individual can find relief from
its concerns about the post-humanist, exclusive and unsustainable nature of the
system through self-experience in the theme-park of radical action.
17
5. Conclusion
In this article, my contribution to the systematic study of post-conventional forms of
participation has been the attempt to adopt a post-conventional perspective on
contemporary forms of political participation. The analysis raises a whole range of
questions which need clarification and further investigation. These include, for
example, the question how new and convincing the idea of late-modern society’s
one-dimensionality really is. This idea seems to contradict the suggestion that
contemporary societies are becoming ever more differentiated, diverse and complex.
Secondly, there is the question to what extent it is correct to assert that the dominant,
indeed almost the only available, pattern of identity construction and self-experience
in late-modern societies is through acts of consumption. Thirdly, one might ask
whether an approach that interprets contemporary social movements as theme-parks
of self-experience can really do justice to contemporary movement politics. How can
movement participants be ‘accused’ of merely staging, performing and simulating
their commitment? How can any academic investigator claim to know more about
the true purposes and motivations of new forms of post-conventional political
articulation than the movement participants themselves? And can such articulation
really be described as a commodity?
Political activists and ecologically or otherwise committed readers must respond to
the interpretation of protest movements and contemporary forms of postconventional forms of collective political articulation as system-stabilising arenas for
the consumptive experience of alterity with reflexes of defence. Within the logic of
their activism and normative commitment they must conclude that such deliberations
can only emerge from outright reactionary, repulsively immoral and radically antiecological sources. Politically and morally, such reactions are fully understandable,
but academically one may at least attempt to minimise the distorting effect normative
belief systems invariably have on any analysis. A critical approach towards the
analysis of late modern society must imply radical resistance against any form of
(self-)censorship and the willingness to think through theoretical models which
might appear morally despicable and politically incorrect.
The point of the analysis provided in this paper can never be to morally accuse
political activists and social movement participants of merely simulating their
political commitment and hypocritically abusing discourses of radical change. Nor
can it be to criticise them for contributing to the stabilisation of the system which
they claim to oppose. Instead, the objective has been to conceptualise the latemodern condition and its specific needs, and to explore in how far – other purposes
being equal – social movements and collective actors and their emerging repertoires
of action serve these needs. I am not suggesting that political activists could or
should act differently or more effectively. Nor am I implying any form of dishonesty,
hypocrisy or moral impurity. As little as the purpose of this analysis is to tell latemodern society how it ought to behave differently, as little is its objective to be in
any way prescriptive to the social movements. The approach suggested here is postcritical, even though it is, admittedly, carried by the hope that the analysis might,
18
indirectly, generate impulses of change. In a sense, my analytical activism is no less
performative or simulative than the movements which it seeks to understand.
The emerging theory is not supposed to replace the existing social movement
theories but only to supplement them. It does not claim to reveal the full and only
truth about late modern society’s post-conventional forms of political participation,
but it aims to shed light onto one specific dimension of the politics of radical change.
Obviously, the model is not directly applicable to the full range of different social
movements; although it may well be possible to adapt it for the interpretation of
social movements beyond the ones addressed. So in conclusion one might ask
whether the approach developed here isn’t conservative, cynical or even reactionary.
The belief and expectation that sociological research must generate directly
applicable – and if possible economically profitable – political prescriptions or policy
guidelines reduces critical sociology to the function of stabilising and reproducing
the status quo. In the late modern condition, a genuinely alternative and radical social
theory will be one that refuses to fulfil these expectations. The way in which late
modern societies may respond – if at all – to such genuinely alternative societal selfdescriptions is not predictable. Any aggressive rejection of such counter-narratives as
politically damaging or ideologically reactionary merely confirms how vulnerable
late modern society feels, how fragile its simulations are, and how serious it is about
the uncompromising defence of the exclusive status quo.
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