Islam as Social Movement

2019 ◽  
pp. 11-84
Author(s):  
Mohammed A. Bamyeh

The chapter identifies five common features of modern Islamic social movements: 1) They tend to begin as mutual aid societies rather than as clearly defined political entities; 2) they offer themselves up as ways for society at large to organize itself outside the state; 3) they signify the increasing politicization of society itself; 4) they are only partially oriented to capturing state power; and 5) they tend to transform when they capture the state or become part of it. The jihadist movements are treated as a sub-case of Islamic mobilization, and the chapter considers five theses concerned specifically with jihadism: 1) jihadism as generic radicalism camouflaged in religious language; 2) jihadism as fusion of two previously distinct theaters (local wars and global youth culture); 3) jihadism as Islamized traces of former, secular regimes; 4) jihadism as nihilism borne out of a sense of impasse; and 5) jihadism as critical mimicry of government ideology.

Author(s):  
Mike Geddes

Since 2005, the Bolivian government has been in the hands of the MAS (Movimiento al Socialismo), a party which defines itself as the ‘political instrument’ of Bolivia’s strong social movements which brought Evo Morales and the MAS to power. The chapter explores how conceptions of class and race are reflected in the policies of a government in which many leading figures come from a community organising and social movement background. The MAS claims that ‘state power circuits (now) pass through the debates and decisions of indigenous, worker and neighbourhood assemblies’, rather than elite channels. However, as the MAS nears its first decade in power, tensions are beginning to show. In exploring these tensions, the chapter helps to illuminate both the potential and the pitfalls of an attempt to embed radical conceptions of class and race in the state, and to foreground community organising and community development principles in government policy.


2020 ◽  
Vol 47 (4) ◽  
pp. 96-111
Author(s):  
Leandro Gamallo

An analysis of the evolution of social conflicts in Argentina between 1989 and 2017 in terms of three aspects of collective action—the actors in contention, their main demands, and their chosen forms of struggle—reveals important changes since the country’s return to democracy. Collective action has extended to multiple actors, channeled weightier demands, and expanded its forms. With the emergence of progovernment and conservative social movements, it has become apparent that not all movement participation in the state implies weakness, subordination, or co-optation and that social movement action does not necessarily mean democratization or expansion of rights. The right-wing government of 2015 opened up a new field of confrontation in which old divisions and alliances are being reconfigured. Un análisis de la evolución de los conflictos sociales en Argentina entre 1989 y 2017 realizado a partir de tres grandes dimensiones de la acción colectiva (los actores contenciosos, las demandas principales que enuncian y las formas de lucha que emplean) revela cambios importantes. La acción colectiva se ha extendido a más actores, ha canalizado demandas más amplias y se ha expresado de maneras más heterogéneas. Con el surgimiento de movimientos sociales oficialistas y opositores de índole conservador, se ha hecho evidente que la participación de las organizaciones sociales en el estado no siempre significa debilidad, subordinación o cooptación por parte del estado y que la movilización social no necesariamente implica procesos de democratización o expansión de derechos. La llegada de una alianza de derecha en 2015 abrió un nuevo campo de confrontaciones que redefinió antiguas alianzas y divisiones.


Focaal ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 2016 (76) ◽  
pp. 31-45 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alf Gunvald Nilsen

Th is article explores the articulations of citizenship in subaltern politics in contemporary India. Departing from Karl Marx’s acknowledgment that, despite its limitations, political orders founded on the modern democratic conception of citizenship had propelled “real, practical emancipation,” I argue that citizenship has to be understood as simultaneously enabling and constraining radical political projects and popular social movements. I flesh out this argument through a detailed analysis of Adivasi mobilization in western Madhya Pradesh, India. My analysis shows how the Adivasi Mukti Sangathan, a local social movement in the region, democratized local state-society relations by appropriating basic democratic idioms and turning these against local state personnel and the violent extortion they engaged in. Drawing on James Holston’s work on “insurgent citizenship,” I argue that claims making around such democratic idioms inflected citizenship with new and potentially emancipatory meanings centered on local sovereignty and self-rule. I then detail how this mobilization provoked a substantial coercive backlash from the state and discuss the lessons that can be gleaned from this trajectory in terms of the possibilities and limitations that citizenship offers to progressive popular politics in India today.


1986 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 202-240 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard P. Gale

This article modifies resource mobilization theory to emphasize interaction among social movements, countermovements, and government agencies. The framework developed for tracing social movement-state relationships gives special attention to movement and countermovement agency alignments. There are six stages of movement-state relationships illustrated with an analysis of the contemporary environmental movement.


2014 ◽  
Vol 38 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 359-388 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jack M. Bloom

Studies of social movements have often focused on the role of the state vis-à-vis social movements—in recent times using the concept of political opportunity structure to understand the options available to social movements. This article examines the internal conflicts within the ruling party in Communist Poland to show that a reciprocal process proceeded, in which both the social movement and the state found the choices of action available to them limited by the other, rather than just the social movement. The social upheaval that impacted the entire country brought about the rise of a reform movement within the ruling Polish United Workers Party, which prevented the government from acting as it preferred for a significant period of time. That reform movement, which would not have existed without Solidarity and certainly would not have brought about intraparty changes by itself, saw itself as connected to and dependent upon Solidarity. Party conservatives had to respond to and overcome the reformers before they could turn their full attention to ending the challenge Solidarity presented to the Communist system. In effect, for a time, Solidarity limited the political opportunity structure of the state, while the reverse was also true. While social movement scholars have long considered the possibilities and the limits on possibilities available to social movements because of the state or other external circumstances, this experience demonstrates that similar considerations must sometimes be contemplated with respect to the state.


2014 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 165-179
Author(s):  
Keith Mann

Largely due to its conservative profile at the time, the U.S. labour movement was largely absent from modern social movement literature as it developed in response to the new social movements of the 1960s and 1970s. Recent labour mobilizations such as the Wisconsin uprising and the Chicago Teachers’ strike have been part of the current international cycle of protest that includes the Arab Spring, the antiausterity movements in Greece and Spain, and Occupy Wall Street. These struggles suggest that a new labour movement is emerging that shares many common features with new social movements. This article offers a general analysis of these and other contemporary labour struggles in light of contemporary modern social movement literature. It also critically reviews assumptions about the labour movement of the 1960s and 1970s and reexamines several social movement concepts.


Caderno CRH ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 32 (87) ◽  
pp. 659
Author(s):  
Antonio George Lopes Paulino

<p>O artigo revisita a história dos movimentos sociais de bairros de Fortaleza (CE), tendo como referente empírico o Conjunto Palmeiras, cuja formação territorial remete aos anos 1970. A análise resulta de aproximações etnográficas que adentram no cenário da mobilização por direitos fundamentais e pela urbanização do bairro, espaço social que resguarda uma memória de lutas e conquistas, possibilitando identificar agentes envolvidos na projeção desses movimentos nas décadas de 1980 e 1990. Essa experiência de organização coletiva segue na formação de espaços de autonomia, com momentos de interlocução e resistência frente ao Estado, trazendo contribuições para o debate acerca de temas como movimentos sociais, soberania e representação popular.</p><p> </p><p>BETWEEN DIALOGUE AND RESISTANCE: the neighborhood social movement in the Palmeiras Set, in Fortaleza (CE)</p><p>The article revisits the history of social movements in neighborhoods in Fortaleza (CE), with the empirical reference to Conjunto Palmeiras, whose territorial formation goes back to the 1970s. The analysis results from ethnographic approaches that enter the scenario of mobilization for fundamental rights and the urbanization of the neighborhood, a social space that protects a memory of struggles and conquests, making it possible to identify agents involved in the projection of these movements in the 1980s and 1990s. This experience of collective organization continues in the formation of spaces of autonomy, with moments of dialogue and resistance towards the State, bringing contributions to the debate on topics such as social movements, sovereignty and popular representation.</p><p>Keywords: Policy. Social movements. Representation. Sovereignty. City.</p><p> </p><p>ENTRE DIALOGUE ET RÉSISTANCE: le mouvement social de voisinage dans le Palmeiras Set, à Fortaleza (CE)</p><p>L’article revisite l’histoire des mouvements sociaux de quartiers de Fortaleza (CE), ayant comme référent empirique le Conjunto Palmeiras, dont la formation territoriale se réfère aux années 1970. L’analyse résulte d’approches ethnographiques qui entrent en scène de mobilisation pour les droits fondamentaux et d’urbanisation du quartier, un espace social qui protège une mémoire des luttes et des conquêtes, permettant d’identifier les acteurs impliqués dans la projection de ces mouvements dans les années 1980 et 1990. Cette expérience d’organisation collective se poursuit dans la formation d’espaces d’autonomie, avec des moments d’interlocution et de résistance à l’égard de l’État, apportant des contributions au débat sur des thèmes tels que les mouvements sociaux, la souveraineté et la représentation populaire.</p><p>Mots-clés: Politique. Mouvements sociaux. Représentation. Souveraineté. Ville.</p>


2021 ◽  
Vol 65 (1) ◽  
pp. 87-104
Author(s):  
Olivia Chwat

The author poses the following questions: (1) What forms are social movements adopting today, particularly in response to the epidemic crisis? (2) Are we observing the practice of grassroots solidarity reaching beyond the charitable model of support? She seeks answers taking the Facebook group Visible Hand [Widzialna Ręka] as an example; it was established shortly after lockdown had been announced in the first quarter of 2020, as a form of social organisation aiming to provide mutual aid during the difficult time of the pandemic. She asserts that communities organising themselves in a manner similar to Visible Hand are an example of how external crises highlight problems existing within societies and contribute to their destabilisation. While deliberating over whether the initiative in question is one of ad-hoc episodes of non-organised collective activity, a discussion-and-contact forum, or perhaps a contemporary social movement, she reaches for Manuel Castells’ concept of networked social movements—and asserts that Visible Hand may be acknowledged as a social movement. In closing her paper, she considers the connections between moral bond and solidarity.


Popular Music ◽  
2004 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 79-89 ◽  
Author(s):  
MARCUS BREEN

A new struggle has emerged within popular music. This struggle is about technology and access to music through computer-mediated technology. Somewhat typical of the state of cultural things being more complex in their multiple articulations, this struggle runs in tandem with the historical struggle by youth for ‘their music’ against that of previous generations. The multiple characteristics of the struggle over cultural production, ownership and circulation represents a change from earlier days when pop music was articulated to youth culture and social movements, offering relatively direct relationships from one to another. (For example, ‘The Sixties’ became the shorthand reference for these cultural formations.) That relationship still exists, albeit in a self-conscious historical sense that requires continuous examination as it changes with the new generations of youth and the available technologies.


2020 ◽  
pp. 016344372097730
Author(s):  
Yipeng Xi ◽  
Aaron Ng

Contrary to existing literature analyzing how public spaces are strategic mobilization resources for activists, we focus on the inconspicuous constraints placed by the state on public spaces that limit their utility as mobilization resources. Employing the spatial dimensions of social movement theory and Althusser’s state power theory analyze an activism case in Guangzhou, China, we argue that through everyday spatial governance by the state, public spaces in China are also forms of ideological state apparatuses that latently disrupt activists’ attempts to engage in contentious spatial practices to gain resources through media coverage. We further propose the concept of ‘spatial inertia’, which are durable, routine, and diversified spatial meaning-making practices mediated through media coverage that affect the success of social movements. This paper complements social movement scholarship by examining how the state, through latent processes exercised using public spaces as ideological state apparatuses, competes with and subverts activists’ efforts to use these spaces as strategic resources for collective mobilization, especially in authoritarian contexts.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document