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Definition and components of social movements
Paul Wilkinson interprets social movement as “a deliberate
collective endeavor to promote change in any direction and by any means, not excluding violence, illegality, revolution or withdrawal into ‘utopian’ community. Social movements are in this sense, obviously distinct from historical movements, upheavals or waves. It is obligatory to remember, in this connexion, however that such propensities and inclinations and the effect of the material or insensible factors in human behavior, may be of vital significance in enlightening the problems of interpreting and explaining social movement.”
According to Herbert Blumer, “Social movements can be viewed as collective enterprises to establish a new order of life. They have their inception in the condition of unrest, and derive their motive power on the one hand from dissatisfaction with the current form of life, and on the other hand, from wishes and hopes for a new scheme or system of living.”
Dong McAdam defines social movements as “ those organized efforts, on the part of excluded groups, to promote or resist changes in the structure of society that involve recourse to non-institutional forms of political participation.”
In the words of Sidney Tarrow, “ collective challenges, based on common purposes and social solidarities in sustained interaction with elites, opponents and authorities.”
Three crucial factors concurrent in the above definitions are noteworthy. They include (1) collective initiative, (2) social transformation, and (3) common purposes
Hence, in the strict sense agitation or protests are quite different form social movements. Since, they recurrently do not seek to bring about social change. They do not interpret that. They are recoil to a certain state of conditions.
Components of Social Movements
Social movements possess five ingredients: Objectives, ideology, programmes, leadership, and
organization. They are interdependent and inter related. Repulsive public protest in an unorganized manner does not resemble social movement. Social movement is associated with social and political change. Therefore it has a direct and persistent objective. The urgent objective may be to handle a particular issue or remonstration contrary to the decision of the authority. But such a collective initiative does not terminate there. It undertakes a number of concerns and continues towards a consistent objective of altering authority, power relationship, dominance and political system. The movement originates policy for the long-term objective. It assigns precedence to specific course of actions over the rest and also concentrates on a selected direction, energizes several groups. The course of initiative is closely connected to re get dimension with the perception of the desired social transformation. It engages certain parameters; premises and standards endow to contemplate in a preordained manner social reality. The parameters and ideals constitute ideology. The ideology in not necessarily systematic or preconceive. In some cases, ideology champions the movement and in other cases ideology gets to be moulded and authorizes the movement. Leadership plays dominant part in formulation of ideology and constructing strategies for action.
Social movement entails activation of people who duly get involved with the objective of the movement. They interchange values and start to interchange impression of common realization of social reality. This too needs some or other form of organization. The organization may be loose or compact with centralized or decentralized decision-making mechanism for introducing programmes.
None of theses components are deductive and stationary. They gradually change. Their nature and function differ between movements. They are found to be elementary in some movements whereas in some others they may be considerably matured. These factors – leadership, organization as well as ideology get rotated in due time of the movement. In certain cases the objective may even alter and circulate in different direction in contrast to the previous ones.