STRUCTURAL LIMITATIONS OF THE NEW SOCIAL MOVEMENTS ACTIONS
Abstract
Resume
The paper conducts conceptual research based on Gramsci's theory of hegemony. The structural limitations of New Social Movements and the lack of transformative strategies are analyzed analytically, in order to answer the research question why social movements failed to achieve changes in the economic and political system through transformative action. After a brief presentation of Gramsci's meaning of hegemony, we move on to the definition of the concept of counter-hegemony, which Gramsci left with an ambiguous meaning. Analysis then moves on to definitions of New Social Movements and their strategies, which are then linked to the concept of counter-hegemony. On this theoretical basis, it is examined whether the resistance practices used by the New Social Movements can bear the name of counter-hegemony. Next step of the analysis moves on to the question of Social Non-Movements and their strategies in order to examine the action of a new type of social movements that is more closely related to the countries of the Middle East. Analyzing the concept and strategies of Social Non-Movements, it is noted that these are social movements that represent a specific Middle Eastern society, however, they are similar to social movements of Western society in that they do not try to bring about deeper transformations of the political and economic structure. Since the New Social Movements are characterized by a shift from the area of production to the area of consumption, it is concluded that the main structural limitations of resistance/counter-hegemonic strategies are based on this transition. By abandoning the question of the organization of the economic system of production, as well as rejecting political society in favor of civil society, these movements remain within the dominant policy paradigm. Fragmentation/atomization with emphasized problems of identity recognition and insistence on the politics of differences, along with the rejection of political organizations and leadership on a conceptual level, rejects the establishment of a new hegemony and thus defines the action of social movements as anti-hegemonic. Therefore, at the very conceptual level, it can be observed that New Social Movements as well as Social Non-Movements do not have deeper intentions to make their strategies counter-hegemonic and to establish a new hegemonic project. On this basis, it is concluded that social movements failed to bring about deeper structural changes in politics and economy because they remained within the framework of the existing hegemonic project.
References
Badiou, Alain. 2019. „Lessons from the “Yellow Vests” movement.“ African Yearbook of Rhetoric 9 (1): 14-19.
Bayat, Asef. 2002. „Activism and social development in the Middle East.“ International journal of Middle East studies 34 (1): 1-28.
Bayat, Asef. 2013. Life as politics: How ordinary people change the Middle East. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Briziarelli, Marco and Susana Martinez Guillem. 2014. „The Counter-Hegemonic Spectacle of Occupy Wall Street: Integral State and Integral Struggle.“ IC Revista Científica de Información y Comunicación (11): 145-166.
Carducci, Vince. 2006. „Culture jamming: A sociological perspective.“ Journal of consumer culture 6 (1): 116-138.
Carroll, William. 2006. „Hegemony, counter-hegemony, anti-hegemony.“ Socialist Studies/Études Socialistes 2 (2): 9 43.
Carroll, William. 2010. „Crisis, movements, counter-hegemony: In search of the new.“ Interface 2 (2): 168-198.
Carroll, William. 2014. „Alternative policy groups and transnational counter-hegemonic struggle.“ In Global economic crisis and the politics of diversity, ed. Yıldız Atasoy, 259-284. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Carty, Victoria. 2002. „Technology and counter-hegemonic movements: The case of Nike Corporation.“ Social Movement Studies 1 (2): 129-146.
Christiansen, Jonathan. 2009. „Four Stages of Social Movements.“ In Theories of Social Movements, Editors of Salem Press, 14-24. Pasadena: Salem Press.
Collier, David and Gerardo Munck. 2017. „Building blocks and methodological challenges: A framework for studying critical junctures.“ Qualitative and Multi-Method Research 15 (1): 2-9.
Cox, Robert. 1993. „Gramsci, hegemony and international relations: Аn essay in method.“ In Gramsci, historical materialism and international relations, ed. Stephen Gill, 49–66. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Della Porta, Donatella. 2020. „Protests as critical junctures: Some reflections towards a momentous approach to social movements.“ Social movement studies 19 (5-6): 556-575.
Filc, Dani. 2021. „Is resistance always counter-hegemonic?“ Journal of Political Ideologies 26 (1): 23-38.
Fraser, Nancy. 1995. „From Redistribution to Recognition? Dilemmas of Justice in a 'Post-Socialist' Age.“ New Left Review (212): 68-93.
Freyberg-Inan, Annette and Christian Scholl. 2014. „Hegemony Reloaded–Warum die globalisierungskritische Bewegung nicht von der neoliberalen Krise profitiert.“ Zeitschrift für Außen-und Sicherheitspolitik 7 (4): 465-487.
Gramsci, Antonio. 1979. O državi. Beograd: Radnička štampa.
Gramsci, Antionio. 1980. Filozofija istorije i politike. Beograd: Slovo Ljubve.
Im, Hyug Baeg. 1991. „Hegemony and counter-hegemony in Gramsci.“ Asian Perspective 15 (1): 123-156.
Habermas, Jürgen. 1981. „New Social Movements.“ Telos (49): 33-37.
Jessop, Bob. 1991. „Accumulation strategies, state forms and hegemonic projects.“ In The state debate, ed. Simon Clarke, 157-182. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Scholl, Christian and Annette Freyberg-Inan. 2013. „Hegemony's dirty tricks: Explaining counter-globalization's weakness in times of neoliberal crisis.“ Globalizations 10 (4): 619-634.
Thomas, Peter. 2021. „After (post)hegemony.“ Contemporary Political Theory 20 (2): 318-340.
Tilly, Charles and Lesley Wood. 2015. Social Movements, 1768-2012. New York: Routledge.
Touraine, Alain. 1985. „An introduction to the study of social movements.“ Social research 52 (4): 749-787.
Touraine, Alain. 1992. „Beyond social movements?“ Theory, Culture & Society 9 (1): 125-145.
