Write an essay on 'New Social Movements in developing countries. (UPSC CSE Mains 2019 - Political Science and International Relations, Paper 2).
- A new social movement (NSM) is a movement centered on issues of identity and human rights. Furthermore, NSMs are often anti-authoritarian and seek change in cultural spheres and civil society rather than through initiating institutional, state-centered change.
- New social movements (NSMs) are described by a theory regarding social movements which posits that the advent of the post-industrial economy resulted in a new wave of social movements distinct from those social movements arising during the industrial economy.
- In these new social movements, more importance is attached to social and cultural concerns, rather than economic or political considerations.
- Actors in NSMs are from a new middle class, instead of from the lower classes, as was typical of social movements of the industrial economy.
- NSMs consist of informal, loosely organized social networks of supporters rather than members and tend to be locally-based.
- NSMs act as a platform for collective action in civil society or in the cultural domain, rather than as an instrumental tool for the state. As such, new movements are often considered to be anti-authoritarian.
- NSMs are normally centered on a single issue, or a limited range of issues which are related to a broader theme, such as the environment.
- NSMs can be a fundamentally important vehicle for realizing rights from the state, holding it to account, and struggling for more equitable and sustainable forms of development. NSMs are indispensable alternatives for participation in developing countries due to existential threats from poverty, unresponsive or repressive states that suppress rights and freedom, and deprivation of resources.
- In advanced industrial societies, NSM tend to concentrate on matters involving society rather than the state, while those in developing countries tend to take a stand against the state, challenging the existing system of control inside and outside of each nation state.
- There are more innovative experiences for progressive politics outside the formal arena in the Global South than in the North where radical right and racism are coming back.
- Critiques of NSM theory include the fact that non- materialistic movements existed in the industrial-era and materialistic movements persist in the post-industrial economy; while there are few traits that are specific to new social movements, differences between old and new movements have already been explained by theories preceding NSM; and the NSM does not take into account right-wing movements.
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