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Social Movement Studies


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After New Social Movements


Michel Wieviorka

Online publication date: 13 October 2010

To cite this Article Wieviorka, Michel(2005) 'After New Social Movements', Social Movement Studies, 4: 1, 1 — 19
To link to this Article: DOI: 10.1080/14742830500051812
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Social Movement Studies,
Vol. 4, No. 1, 1–19, May 2005

After New Social Movements


MICHEL WIEVIORKA
Centre d’analyse et d’intervention sociologiques (CADIS), EHESS, Paris, France
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ABSTRACT This article combines an historical and a sociological approach. Historically, it


distinguishes three main moments in the history of social movements since the 1960s. After working-
class movements, which corresponded to industrial societies, came the so-called new social
movements, in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and these were followed by a third generation of
actors deserving a new denomination as alter-globalization activists. Sociologically, this articles
analyses the differences between these three figures from the point of view of the identity of the
actors, of their relationship to culture, to their adversary, to their subjectivity, or to their framework
for action (national or otherwise). The article introduces the concept of anti-movement, which is
illustrated with the contemporary cases of ‘global’ anti-movements such as global terrorism or
global anti-Semitism.

KEY WORDS : Social movement, anti-movement, subjectivity, globalization

The Sociology of Social Movements: New Beginnings


The sociology of social movements is recent – barely half a century old. Throughout its
brief history, which has been characterized by continual discussions of considerable
theoretical importance, there have been moments of doubt and questioning linked to the
socio-historical evolution of its context, or, in other words, to the very nature of the actual
objects and struggles which are its content.
From the outset in the 1960s it has been split by a theoretical conflict which is not only
clear in the minds of its protagonists but also inscribed in the very working of the
international institutions of the subject: for example, the International Sociological
Association (ISA) has two Research Committees, the definitions and orientations of which
each correspond to one of the two poles which structure this theoretical opposition. On one
hand numerous sociologists, as well as political scientists and historians, claim to adhere to
the ‘contentious politics’ school, which has built on the ‘theory of mobilisation of
resources’, with other contributions, and defines social movements as being the rational
behaviour of collective actors attempting to establish themselves at the level of the
political system, maintaining this position and extending their influence by mobilizing all
sorts of resources including, if necessary, violence. On the other hand, whole sectors of
sociological research see in social movements the action of an actor who is dominated and

Correspondence Address: Michel Wieviorka, Centre d’analyse et d’intervention sociologiques (CADIS), EHESS,
54 bd Raspail – 75006 Paris, France. Fax: þ33 01 42 84 05 91; Tel.: þ33 01 49 54 24 27 or þ33 01 49 54 23 47;
Email: wiev@ehess.fr or Jacqueline.Longerinas@ehess.fr
1474-2837 Print/1474-2829 Online/05/010001-19 q 2005 Taylor & Francis Group Ltd
DOI: 10.1080/14742830500051812
2 M. Wieviorka

challenges the established order by opposing a social adversary in an attempt to


appropriate the control of historicity, that is to say, the main orientations of community
life. The first of these trends is often associated with the names of Charles Tilly and
Anthony Oberschall, and the second with that of Alain Touraine.
In fact, these two trends deal with relatively distinct dimensions of social reality and
there is no real need to consider them as being diametrically opposed. The first is
ultimately a form of political sociology which is only one level, and not the highest,
sociologically speaking, from the point of view of the second. It is indeed one thing to aim
at penetrating a political system and quite another to appropriate the control of the mode of
learning, of the culture or of the definition of investment. In the last resort, it is possible to
reconcile the two main approaches to social movements, as long as one recognizes that
they do not have the same object or the same concerns. This is why the late Alberto
Melucci often refused to choose and participated actively, for example, in the activities of
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both the ISA Committees referred to above.


The theoretical debate between political sociology, reducing collective action to its
instrumental dimensions, and Tourainian sociology, which prioritizes the direction of
action and its most significant meanings, is obviously not the only one to exhaust the
possible definitions of the social movement. Thus, for example, functionalist thinkers were
able to use this word to describe the collective actions which characterized the dysfunction
of a system. Towards the end of his life, Pierre Bourdieu also used this term to describe
‘the’ social movement, which was in fact a phenomenon of ‘widespread refusal’ which
started with a large-scale strike in the public sector (more particularly in public transport)
in France in November –December 1995. This mobilization was primarily evidence of the
crisis of the French state and its republican model of public service and a rejection of the
attempts at reform put forward both by the right and by the classical left.
It should be recognized, therefore, that no sociologist has the monopoly of thinking
about social movements. We would simply like to indicate, therefore, that the lines which
follow lie distinctly within the approach inaugurated by Alain Touraine in the 1960s.

The Founding Paradigm


When the working-class movement was at its height in the 1960s, it provided sociology
with the founding paradigm for social movements. This paradigm was based on five main
points.

The Framework of the Nation-State


The actor – i.e. the social movement – was situated in the framework of the states and nations
within which industrial society had developed and postulated a high degree of correspondence
and, to some extent, integration of the social, political and cultural spheres. The working-class
movement was the major figure of protest challenging a society which was itself to a greater or
lesser degree identified with a state and a nation. It is undeniable that the working-class parties
and trade unions could create international networks and had no hesitation in proclaiming the
universal, general and global level of their struggle – ‘workers of the world, unite’ in the well-
known words of Marx and Engels. But it is in the framework of states and nations that, for the
main part, the working-class movement was constructed and developed and, moreover,
studied by historians or sociologists.
After New Social Movements 3

Domination
The working-class movement is the outcome of a relationship of domination; its origins are in
the factory and on the shop floor where the masters of labour reigned supreme. It is at its
strongest when this ascendancy simultaneously affects skilled workers whose characteristic is
their pride in their competence and who find themselves deprived of their craftsmanship, and
unskilled workers with no specific competence who tend to be proletarian in outlook and who,
by definition, are deprived of any positive relationship to their jobs. Historically, Taylorism, or
similar systems provided the best conditions for this type of simultaneous two-fold pressure
exerted at grassroots level by those in charge of the ‘scientific’ organization of labour. Even in
firms where these principles do not apply, in the working-class struggles which take place
there is always a keen awareness of confronting a social adversary who exploits and oppresses
workers in a direct relationship of domination.
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Specifically Social Forms of Action


There are instances in which the working-class world presents the image of a strong
community bound by its own culture characterized by its own specific needs. These have
been described by British historians and sociologists, such as Edward P. Thompson
(Thompson, 1966) and Richard Hoggart (Hoggart, 1957), and by the French sociologist
Maurice Halbwachs who was interested in the ‘needs’ and the consumption patterns of the
working class (Halbwachs, 1912). Moreover, working-class action may very well be based
on the strength of a community: this is basically the situation when the latter is threatened
in its very existence, following, for example, the announcement of the closure of the mine
or the factory which is the lifeline of the town, or even the region. For two centuries,
working-class culture has been an undeniable reality and has sometimes been, one might
say, the vehicle of action. But if we leave to one side defensive forms of mobilization
which are ultimately a type of survival reflex, working-class culture cannot explain the
involvement of the actor, or his or her capacity to project him or herself into the future and
to endeavour to reverse a relationship of domination. The core of the action is played out in
social relationships – action is impelled by a social consciousness much more than by a
community awareness which may conceal a mode of defence. When working-class culture
and the community mobilize, the aim is not to challenge a relationship of domination but
to maintain a way of life which includes this relationship: they wish to save the mine where
the miner is subjected to particularly hard working conditions or to save the firm which is
doomed to closure despite the poor salaries, etc. Moreover, this explains why women are
often found in this type of struggle; while traditionally they do not even have the right to
enter the coal mine, they may well be the spearhead of the mobilization aimed at
preventing its closure.

From Social Movement to Political Action


The social movement is not a political actor. A statement of this sort may be surprising as,
over the past two centuries, we have heard so many political figures introducing
themselves as the personification of the working-class movement. But why continue to
confuse those who speak in the name of a social movement with those who are its
expression, the workers, rising up against a domination which they have experienced and
of which they are acutely aware?
4 M. Wieviorka

This sort of remark should not prevent us from envisaging a relationship between this
conscience, which is social, and the concrete forms of organization – mainly trade unions
and political action – with which it ultimately arms itself. Thus, in some of its
components, or at certain points in its history, the working-class movement is explicitly
and vigorously hostile to any relation with political parties; on these occasions, it is proud
of its independence – this was the case with direct action trade unionism, in particular.
But the principal model of its relation to the political sphere is not that of trade unionism,
which was at its peak during the birth phase of the working-class movement. It tends
instead to be characterized by the idea that to move from the social to the political level,
from social conscience to state power, a political party is required – an intermediary
which can assume various forms ranging from revolutionary or reformist, to communist,
social democratic or others. Workers have frequently been the main losers in this
relationship, which in fact has then tended to be reversed with their action becoming
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subordinate to that of a party. Lenin, in particular, was the theoretician behind these ideas
which he implemented with total disregard for the workers whom he described as, at best,
‘trade-unionist’, and incapable of going further than their short-term economic interests,
with the partisan avant garde being entrusted with the monopoly of the orientation of
action.

A Social Subject
Finally, the workers, whose actions set them in the context of a social movement
approach, do not define themselves as the mere outcome of ‘contradictions’, or of crises,
as is the wont of structuralism, a wide-ranging intellectual and political tradition
dominated by a form of Marxism. The worker has his or her own subjectivity which is
defined in social terms. S/he is class conscious, or aware of belonging to the working class,
expressions which refer to the meaning which workers may give to their action even if,
from a sociological point of view, this meaning can never be entirely restricted to
consciousness. Their subjectivity is defined in social terms on the basis of the relationships
of production and domination which are shaped there and the feeling which they have of
being deprived of the control of productive activity, or of any control over what is
produced.
From the point of view of the working-class movement, the worker is a subject – more
precisely a social subject – in the context of the reality of labour and its organization.
Nowadays, when we speak of distressing conditions of work or when we discuss the
harassment which some wage earners experience in firms, we do not think of them as
workers who are victims as such but rather as individuals perceived from the point of view
of the affronts to their personal, moral and physical integrity as individual human beings at
their most profound. This is quite different from envisaging the domination and oppression
which one might say produce a working-class consciousness. Furthermore, this explains
why, today, trade unions have difficulty in dealing with the affronts which affect a subject
defined as a moral being and no longer as a worker.
Five major characteristics form the basis of the paradigm of the working-class
movement as the social movement of industrial societies (cf. Touraine et al., 1984):
it operates within the framework of the nation-state, it challenges domination, the actions
associated with it are genuinely social, it rarely rises to the political level of its own accord,
and it is impelled by a subject which is also social.
After New Social Movements 5

New Social Movements


At the end of the 1960s and the beginning of the 1970s the working-class movement was
near its end as a social movement, even if Colin Crouch and Alessandro Pizzorno (1978)
thought that they recognized a revival of class conflict in the struggles of the period. At the
same time, new forms of protest were coming to the fore, to the point that it was quite
legitimate to postulate a change in the type of society. From this point of view, there was a
move from the industrial to post-industrial era, and the protest movements in post-
industrial societies were no longer the working-class movement, historically on the wane,
but the struggles of students, anti-nuclear groups, regionalist groups, women, and so on.
Obviously not all sociologists shared this vision, even if they were acutely aware of the
fact that in-depth changes were at play. Daniel Bell coined the term ‘post-industrial
society’ as early as the end of the 1960s; the image he suggested was very different from
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that of Alain Touraine. Bell, using his own definition of the term, saw therein a form of
extension of industrial society much more than a new type of society, which was
Touraine’s view (Bell, 1974; Touraine, 1971). Whatever the case may be, with the
struggles inaugurated by social movements in the USA, France or Italy, the very concept
of social movement was applied to struggles sufficiently different from those of the
working-class movement in the previous period to justify speaking of ‘new social
movements’. In this second period, the material characteristics of the actors differed in
many confused, and therefore not always very distinct, ways from those of the social
movement of the industrial era.

The Same Context of Nation-State


The struggles and actors of the late 1960s and early 1970s continued to be defined in the
context of the nation-state. The organizational forms were set up in this framework, even if
the attributes of mobilization tended to give an image of a global phenomenon. For
example, even today, the mention of ‘68’ evokes a set of student protests, followed
possibly by working-class protests, in Europe and Latin America as well as Japan.
However, in some cases the action was beginning to be transnational and to be organized
in spaces where an attempt was made to make light of borders. For example, in Europe, in
the second half of the 1970s, the protests against the construction of nuclear power stations
often brought together anti-nuclear militants from several countries.
True, the framework of the nation-state was not shattered but struggles were beginning
to be global – something which should not be confused with the internationalization of
action, by which I mean creating links between national contexts.

A Less Clearly Defined Social Adversary


In these ‘new social movements’ the actor has difficulty in defining its adversary and
resists the possible image of this adversary offered by research studies. Thus the anti-
nuclear militants in France whose campaign definitely had the highest potential for
conflictual action, if compared with other mobilizations in the same period, were very
hesitant in admitting this hypothesis when it was proposed by researchers who had set up
several groups of militants for a ‘sociological intervention’. They were very diffident when
the researchers put forward the idea that they were mobilizing against a new type of social
6 M. Wieviorka

adversary – the technocratic structures endeavouring to impose their hold on society by


imposing an electro-nuclear programme in keeping with their interests and their skills
(cf. Touraine et al., 1980).
In other struggles in the same period it was even more difficult to persuade militants to
imagine and to recognize the adversary. Thus, unlike the working-class movement, whose
social adversary was relatively clear and identifiable with real leading and dominant
actors, the ‘new social movements’ have only inchoate and unstable representations of
their adversary. They are involved in conflicts in which the adversary becomes
impersonal, distant, undefined or ill-defined – except when they adopt anti-capitalist
Marxist definitions, but this results in their losing sight of the specificities of their
struggles, in effect reducing them to a metamorphosis of the class struggle and a somewhat
mythical campaign in favour of the working class.
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Culturally Loaded Movements


Actors in the ‘new social movements’ are characterized by a high degree of cultural
awareness; they have no qualms about challenging the cultural orientations of the societies in
which they live. They confront authority in all its forms – today, this is one of the main
criticisms of May ’68 in a country like France. They took stands in the then widespread
criticism of consumer society, advertising and the manipulation of needs; they denounced the
cultural industries. The main body of the anti-nuclear movement was made up of ecologists,
and from then on environmental militants were to play a central role in many of the struggles in
which, in the last resort, it was a question of setting up a different model of the nature/culture
relationship from that imposed by the multinational firms and states that may have supported
them. These actors wanted to invent a new way of living together; they thought that increasing
production was not necessarily a sign of progress and they were concerned about what sort of
planet their generation would leave to those following them. The women’s movement was
torn between those who spoke primarily about equality and those who paraded a difference
which, once again, refers to a cultural statement. The regionalist movements and other
phenomena of ethnic revival stressed demands for recognition which were primarily cultural;
they emphasized a history, a language and traditions – even if these were invented with
somewhat mythical constructions being advanced.
These ‘new social movements’ may, of course, put social demands in the forefront: the
students denounced their difficult living conditions, their ‘poverty’, the Occitan campaigns
had socio-economic dimensions when they were expressed by small-scale winegrowers
exposed to the market, and so on (on these struggles, see the research programme launched
at the time by Alain Touraine which led to the book on the anti-nuclear movements already
referred to and the collective books by Touraine et al., 1978, 1981). But on the whole they
tend to argue the cause for cultural values and changes rather than becoming involved in
classically social types of action; these actors are much more culturally than socially
oriented.

Another Relationship to the Political


Actors in the 1970s often passionately desired to rethink their relationship to politics.
In some cases they declared that everything was political, which then led them, should the
need arise, to eliminate the distinction between the public and the private. By declaring
After New Social Movements 7

an end to the borders between the public and the private spheres they intended to terminate
power relationships which until then had not even been discussed, quite simply because
they were ‘private’ and there was no need to present and debate them, far less oppose
them. This is how, for example, violence towards women was recognized. In other cases,
actors wished to indicate their distance from politics. The problem for many militants from
the counter-culture, for example, was not to gain access to power, and in particular state
power, but to invent new ways of living together. On several occasions the May ’68
movement students went past government offices deserted by the frightened occupants; in
no way did they have any intention of going in and taking them over.
But between believing ‘everything is political’ and totally rejecting politics, the most
striking thing about these actors is the way in which they were usually totally incapable of
distancing themselves from the ideologies of the times, which in all manner of versions, in
the last resort, called on them either to become prematurely institutionalized or else to
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submit to political projects and aims inherited from the past. In this latter case it meant
becoming more radical by adopting a revolutionary outlook and thinking of themselves in
the terms and categories of leftism. As a result, some did enter the political system:
political ecology, in particular, often became involved in politics while, at the same time,
the most innovating ideas were adopted to some extent throughout the political world, and
even beyond, as if the movement had moved from a status of opposition to one of
modernization. We even witnessed the appropriation by the opponents of the political
ecology of the 1970s, the top EDF managers (Electricité de France – a powerful public-
sector monopoly providing electricity), of some of the themes from campaigns. Now,
thirty years later, EDF has become a most enthusiastic supporter of the idea of sustainable
development. Others, however, became more radical, sometimes by opposing leftism and
revolutionary ideologies, and ended by losing the way or by becoming submerged by
them, at least in part. For example, the women’s movements often contributed to the
splitting of leftist groups in the 1970s. From within, they accused them of machismo and of
a lack of sexual equality in power structures but this also led feminists into difficulties and
some then adopted forms of radical politics which were not very far from those they had
opposed.

A Cultural Subject
The ‘new social movements’ are very interested in the subjectivity of the actors, both at the
individual and the community level. They no longer accept the model of deferred
gratification, the expectation of a better future; they wish to experience the social and
interpersonal relationships for which they are campaigning here and now. In some cases,
this may have given way to a quest for pure enjoyment and hedonism, in others the
implementation of communitarian utopias of which there are still some traces, in particular
in Germany where a few communities originating in this spirit are still to be found.
In other cases, action was based on a reference to the past and to traditions, rooted in a
history and culture which is to a large extent invented, or ‘cobbled together’ in Claude
Levi-Strauss’s well-known words. What this really meant was that the individual subject’s
propensity for forms of inventiveness or cultural creativity was enhanced, as was the
sharing of common values. The subject of the working-class movement was collective and
social, while that of the ‘new social movements’ could be individual and was definitely
resolutely as cultural.
8 M. Wieviorka

The era of ‘new social movements’ is behind us now. It corresponded to a transitional phase
between the working-class movement of yesterday and the ‘global’ movements of today,
between industrial society and the societies which we now refer to as network societies rather
than ‘post-industrial’ societies. The very idea of society is challenged. There has not been any
student movement for a very long time. Ecologists have either become institutionalized or else
radicalized in forms of leftism with no power whatsoever. What remains of feminism has
become primarily a combination of modernizing political pressure and intellectual or
philosophical reflection, which undoubtedly marks a turning point in the women’s
movements. Regional struggles have also changed; some have been caught in the vicious
circle of violence, others have become modernizing forces, or new political powers. Contrary
to a sort of sociological optimism, the ‘new social movements’ have not marked the entry into
a new type of society directly and distinctly; instead they constituted the beginnings of a new
set of social movements but ones which broke up too quickly or on which leftism wreaked
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havoc before they could become permanently established.

‘Global’ Movements
At the end of the 1970s the working-class movement had lost its capacity to endow the
struggles of one specific actor – the workers – with universal meaning or all-encompassing
significance; it was no longer a social movement in our definition of the term. At the same
time, the ‘new social movements’ were falling by the wayside and, at world level, many
thinkers – sociologists and others – were wondering whether we were not embarking on a
period of social vacuum, with widespread individualism, or, yet again, a period characterized
by cultural fragmentation resulting from the emergence of all sorts of differences in the public
sphere. In both cases, whether it be a question of valorizing the theme of individualism or that
of tribalism, ‘post-modern’ thinking was based on the idea of an end to ‘grand narratives’ and
on the supposition that social movements were disappearing.
Throughout the 1980s and the 1990s it was often difficult to advance the notion of a
social movement to account for observable realities, though this varied across regions and
countries. The former social movements, the working-class movement, or even what
remained of the new mobilizations of the 1970s, had not entirely disappeared but what
remained had either been institutionalized and was consequently incapable of rising to the
level of historicity to challenge the overall control of the major orientations of collective
life, or else had been radicalized and was prepared, in particular, to take the form of
violence or of ideologies of rupture. The most visible assertions of identity seemed more
likely to lead to withdrawal into communities, or to be set in a context of sectarianism,
nationalism – even terrorism – than to have any relation with social movements.
Individualism was also gaining ground, sometimes in spectacular fashion.
However, we cannot content ourselves with the image of a world restricted to these
major trends – the institutionalization of former actors, radicalization, violence,
withdrawal of cultural actors into their identities; and widespread individualism. For, as
from the mid-1990s, novel figures of action began to assert themselves, some being really
new and others an extension of older initiatives.
Until the end of the Cold War, the world was structured at international level by the
conflict opposing the two superpowers, namely the USA and the Soviet Union. With the
fall of the Berlin Wall, we entered a new phase in which the economy seemed to reign
supreme and in which globalization became the key word. Thus we became aware of the
After New Social Movements 9

importance of NGOs and of new struggles taking place, often claiming to be ‘global’ and
refusing to restrict themselves to the framework of the nation-state, or yet again being the
outcome of a refusal to recognize the consequences of globalization on culture and social
life. Whether it be a question of the environment, human rights, or ‘another world’ form of
opposition to neo-liberal globalization, or yet again declarations of cultural identities
demanding their recognition, there were numerous struggles which belonged to a third
type of social movement and which we will call, like many other researchers before us,
‘global movements’. These struggles, when examined in detail, may present many
traditional aspects which at first sight seem to orientate them towards the past, and towards
the movements of the first and second type listed above; they also include sombre
elements, which may be alarming – like a tendency to violence. The concept of ‘global
movement’ leaves these various dimensions to one side, and concentrates on those aspects
in the struggles in question which correspond to the image of a social movement.
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The Decline in the Nation-State as Framework


The framework of the nation-state has not, of course, disappeared from the horizon of the
actors who interest us here, but it is no longer as fundamental as it was in the past. To begin
with, this is due to general changes; day after day the categories of social life, strictly speaking,
are becoming distinct from political and cultural life. The spheres of these three dimensions of
community life are less and less integrated, with the result that protestors are no longer
confronted with a single framework and mobilize in spheres which are to some extent
disarticulated, in frameworks which are no longer primarily that of the nation-state. If, for
example, it is a question of cultural differences, these are frequently transnational, akin to a
diaspora and likely to lead to protests here one day and there another. When the Armenian
communities in France obtained official recognition of the genocide in Turkey, their
campaign was part of a global process which, in their eyes, is far from over; when the Kurds
block roads in Germany, it may be to bring pressure to bear on the situation in Turkey. Islam,
contrary to the over-simplistic versions of Samuel Huntington’s hypotheses on the ‘clash’ of
civilizations, is a force for protest and action which can operate worldwide, in various forms,
including some which are close to being a social movement. The assertions of identity in the
USA of the ‘Mexican-American’ type are very different today from those of the ‘Chicanos’
period under Cesar Chavez. They can be understood only in a spatial frame of reference which
includes the USA and Mexico at one and the same time. The protagonists of the struggles
against neo-liberal globalization sometimes wish to return to more state control and national
sovereignty but they are more akin to a social movement, particularly since they contribute to
the reopening of international spheres for political negotiation, economic regulation or justice
well beyond the framework constituted by the specific state in which they are established. The
‘global movements’ think less and less in terms of states and nations and are not against
appealing to the right of intervention to bypass the most brutal implications of the classical
concept of state sovereignty.

Recognition
The protests of ‘global’ actors may be very limited either in their demands or as a result of
being located in a small area: the inhabitants of a town, for example, campaign against the
pollution perpetrated in a specific area by a multinational firm where one of its factories is
10 M. Wieviorka

particularly harmful. But the element which makes them global is the awareness of the actors,
who know how to articulate a limited campaign with global vision, and who are able to link up
with transnational networks. They may challenge inequalities or social injustice, but not
always, or not necessarily. On the other hand, their mobilization always includes a key
dimension requesting recognition. The ‘global’ movements do not adopt the classical guise of
domination; they are not impelled primarily by a challenge to forms of exploitation; their
prime desire is to construct another world and to put an end to the various forms of contempt
and ignorance which leave them to one side. This perhaps explains why they have much more
difficulty than the ‘new social movements’ in the 1970s in defining a social adversary. It may
be that they consider they are campaigning against capitalism, but it is difficult for them to link
this anti-capitalist struggle to a class struggle in which the central character would then still be
the proletariat. They also often tend to make an enemy of the USA for reasons of anti-
imperialism, but also as a result of anti-Americanism; however, this transforms their action
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which then ceases to be a social movement and becomes a political movement. These may be
radical to some extent but are incapable of advancing the slightest constructive proposal since
it is then a question of waiting for the contradictions and the crisis of the system to play
themselves out. Yet again, they may challenge the action of the major international
organizations – the United Nations, the World Bank, and so on, or take on an individual
opponent during a specific campaign – like a firm, for example. But, on the whole, the image
of the ‘global movements’ is of a loose conglomeration campaigning against a vague,
impersonal and poorly identified opponent. As a result, they could hardly be further from the
working-class movement one century earlier, which was capable of challenging the masters of
labour in a fairly specific manner.

The Central Role of Culture


What was hinted at by the ‘new social movements’ in the 1970s is considerably reinforced in
the ‘global movements’ in which the cultural input is distinctly high. Even when their concern
is to prioritize social demands, if they mobilize, it is always by inventing forms of involvement
in which the relationships between them bear witness to the invention of a new culture,
respecting values which are specific to them. Above all, these movements constantly include
demands for cultural recognition. They frequently stress an identity which they then have to
avoid fixing in a process of reproduction; on the contrary, it has to be nurtured by obtaining
rights with, at the outset, the right to exist. Global movements wish to create conditions which
promote the development of forms of cultural life; they do not wish to withdraw into
themselves. In this respect they are very different from integrationist or fundamentalist actors
as well as nationalisms, which also claim to be anti-global movements. For example, the
Zapatist movement in the Chiapas, which is often considered to be a pioneer in these ‘global
movements’, prioritizes a demand for cultural recognition (that of the Indians in Mexico)
which is an integral part of a struggle for social justice and democracy (for further information
on this actor and anti-global movements in general, see Wieviorka, 2003a).

A New Relationship with the Political Sphere


As soon as the framework for action is no longer necessarily the nation-state and when
demands are cultural and not exclusively or mainly social, in the classical sense of the term,
the relationship of actors to the political is transformed considerably. They are even less
After New Social Movements 11

concerned than the ‘new social movements’ with the question of appropriating state power or
of endeavouring to impose any form of communism – in any event, the experience, and then
the collapse, of actual communism is a reminder of the outcome of these temptations.
However, these actors do frequently denounce the neo-liberalism of globalization in a
discourse of rupture, but it has no political follow-up and in fact sets these actors at a distance
from the social movement (at least from the point of view which we have adopted). On the
other hand, they do come nearer to it when they attempt to contribute to the reconstruction of
political spheres by pleading for more international mediation, particularly in economic and
legal matters. After all, the main outcome of the major anti-globalist meetings in Seattle or
Porto Alegre was to have put an end to the arrogance of the political and economic elites who
used to meet in Davos. From the political point of view, their prime importance is undoubtedly
due to the desire and the capacity of the actors – although these do have their limits – to
contribute to the construction of political and legal instances within which they could then
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possibly function as protestors. In other words, it is due to their desire and their capacity to
create the conditions of their own existence, far beyond the classical forms of states.

A Subject that is Neither Political, Social nor Cultural


In the major upheavals which ended in the American and then the French Revolutions, the
subject who emerged was primarily political – it was the citizen. In the working-class
movement, as we have seen, it was social and with the ‘new social movements’ it was
cultural. Today, the loose collection of ‘global’ actors usually finds considerable space for
the subjectivity of individuals who become involved or who recognize themselves therein.
This subjectivity is personal, specific to the individual and cannot be reduced to any form
of cultural rooting. It operates upstream, it is what leads a person to become involved and,
moreover, what leads them to leave. Each individual wishes to be able to choose his or her
struggle, involvement and collective identity; but people also wish to manage their
participation in action in their own way, at their own rhythm and be able to stop if they so
desire. In the past, the involvement could almost be dictated by the situation; today, it is a
choice, a personal decision. From that point on, the subject is not political, social or
cultural; it is this virtuality which will possibly become action and by means of which the
subject, who has become an actor, will shape his or her trajectory, produce his or her
experience, define choices, inventing and developing their own creativity at the same time
as making a contribution to collective mobilization.
It is precisely because the subject of ‘global movements’ is neither social, political nor
cultural that we must put an end to the idea that, to understand our contemporary societies,
we have to choose between the images of widespread individualism and that of the
omnipresent emergence of cultural differences, or even, more generally speaking, of the
return of collective action. In fact, the first phenomenon nurtures the second; individualism
manufactures personal subjects who are likely, if need be, by choice, or also moreover as a
result of calculation, to participate in collective mobilizations, cultural identities and all
sorts of movements. ‘Global movements’ will develop even further when they succeed in
combining requests for cultural recognition with demands for social justice and forms of
behaviour contributing to the opening up of new political spaces. This will only be
possible in so far as they continue to be based on the personal subjectivity of their
members, respecting and promoting it and making it the driving force for the integration of
their various components.
12 M. Wieviorka

Anti-Social Movements
Whether it be a question of the working-class movement, the ‘new social movements’ or
‘global movements’, there is one danger which constantly threatens the analyst: that of
confusing a relatively abstract concept, a sociologically pure category, with real historical
phenomena – actual events – which may include this category but are also, of necessity,
interplaced with others. The social movement is a pure concept and is never apparent as such;
it always appears as one single dimension of action amongst others. For example, in practice, a
working-class strike may very well include a restricted number of social demands which may
be corporatist or sectional in nature, elements of political pressure on a government, aspects
which refer to the idea of an economic crisis, tendencies to violence and a social movement
component which may well turn out to be very weak in comparison with the others.
Moreover, in theory, a social movement is defined by the fact that it has not one, but two,
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aspects to it, namely the offensive and the defensive, which present themselves in extremely
varied forms depending on the situation or – in the same situation – at the point in time or even
the economic conjuncture. The offensive aspect of the movement corresponds to the actor’s
capacity to define a project, a vision or a utopia and, on the basis of a strong identity, to put
forward an alternative conception of community life. This aspect is more amenable to
negotiation than the defensive aspect of the movement in which the actor is concerned
primarily with not being annihilated or destroyed by the domination to which he or she has
been subjected and in which he or she endeavours to find a way of existing, living, surviving
and safeguarding body and soul, or his or her physical and moral integrity.
The conditions enabling a social movement to develop and fully articulate its capacity for
offensive action and the demands of defensive action are never perfect and, moreover, all
movements begin, develop and decline though their historical trajectory – which may be far
from smooth. The difficulties which they encounter are sometimes considerable and are
linked to the context (e.g. political or economic crisis) but also to their own resources. In some
cases, these lead to deviations, characteristic of varying stages of decomposition. These
deviations begin to loom on the horizon when the two aspects of the movement separate and
the different dimensions of material action are no longer integrated by the actor. This type of
multifarious phenomenon occurs more readily in times of economic crisis, when economic
difficulties rule out any hope of negotiation of wage claims, or when poverty becomes all
pervasive, thereby preventing actors from envisaging the projection of their own future in a
positive fashion. This is further enhanced by politically blocked situations, when social or
cultural demands have no chance of being dealt with politically, debated, or discussed, which
encourages actors either to withdraw into themselves or to become radical and violent.
Deviations occur more rapidly at the time when the movement is taking shape or, on the
contrary, at a time of historical decline, when it is weak and vulnerable, its maturity long
past. At this point, the movement is fragile, lacks confidence in itself and its capacities, and
is more attracted by premature institutionalization on the one hand, possibly by
compromising with the authorities which it has been opposing and, on the other hand, by
violent forms of rupture behaviour such as refusing to talk and to negotiate. This is why
one should not necessarily contrast the institutionalization of a movement with the
manifestations of angry and violent forms of behaviour on the part of those who claim to
represent it. These are two different ways of expressing the same thing – the difficulty
which the movement is experiencing in integrating its main dimensions in a conflict with a
high level of project, and its tendency to self-destructuration.
After New Social Movements 13

But, even when destructured, a social movement must not be confused with its inverted
image – the anti-social movement which is its reverse, negative expression.

Global Anti-Movements
We can speak of an anti-movement when each of the elements by which a movement may
be defined is deformed, inverted and perverted. In this case, the universal nature of the
action that was intended to transcend the restricted interests of the actor is replaced by
sectarianism. The challenge of an adversary, even weakly identified, gives way to the
definition of an implacable enemy who may, if the need arises, be racialized or made to
appear diabolical, treated like a superman or an underling, possibly both at once. The
conflictual relationship between actors becomes a pure power relationship, a rupture
which can be annihilated only by violence, war, destruction and, in some cases, self-
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destruction. In Carl Schmitt’s terminology, all that remains is a friend or foe relationship.
It is possible to distinguish three figures of the anti-movement, each of which corresponds to
one of the three types of movement which we have described. We can illustrate this remark
with the case of terrorism. First, among other experiences, terrorism, when it claimed to speak
in the name of the working class in its extreme left, anarchist and above all Marxist-Leninist
forms, was an anti-movement of the working-class movement. In several countries this had
a real impact on industrial society at its formative stage or, on the contrary, its decline, and
is, from this point of view, an inversion of the working-class movement. Second, and also
among other experiences when terrorism shaped the undefined expectations of young people,
particularly in Italy, combining working-class themes and references to unfulfilled cultural
demands did, at least partly, produce a sort of inversion of the ‘new social movements’. And
third, a phenomenon such as the Aum sect in Japan, which became known after it released
Sarin gas in the Tokyo subway in 1995, now seems to have inaugurated the era of global anti-
movements which we are going to consider in more detail along with two other phenomena:
the transformations of international terrorism which has become ‘global’ with radical Islam
and the 9/11 attacks in 2001 in the USA, and the present-day return of anti-Semitism.
One point should be stressed: globalization may explain the formation of anti-movements
but the latter are not necessarily themselves ‘global’. Throughout the world today
globalization is indeed a powerful factor in cultural fragmentation and in the reinforcement of
social inequalities, and these phenomena may give rise to all sorts of anti-movements: sects,
for example, communities which turn to extreme violence, do not in themselves have the
slightest connection with the ‘global’ approaches of classical social movements which
disintegrate and invert to such an extent that they resemble social movements.
In this case, globalization provides us with guidelines for analysis of actors who may
themselves remain confined within a limited, possibly national, space. The factors which
influence action are global, but the action itself is local and cannot be linked to
transnational dimensions.
The characteristic of the two phenomena which are going to be considered, terrorism of the
bin Laden type and contemporary anti-Semitism which, moreover, is sometimes linked to it, is
therefore to be at one and the same time impelled by globalization and be in themselves global.

‘Global’ Terrorism1
In the 1980s there was a profound change in terrorism. Until then, it was primarily either
strictly political, on the extreme left or the extreme right, and, in that case, set in a nation-state
14 M. Wieviorka

context, or else national, in which case it endeavoured to create the nation-state which its
actors dreamt of. Then came the end of the Cold War, the historical decline of the working-
class movement, the rise of neo-liberalism and the transformation of violence. It became
either more infrapolitical than hitherto, and then tended to be economic in nature, concerned
with acceding to money more than to state power; or, when religious in nature, it became
metapolitical, beyond politics, with a global vision as regards space and an interest in the after-
life as regards time. The outstanding phenomenon, from the Iranian Revolution onwards, was
the assertion of political Islamism and its terrorist dimensions.
But if we have to speak of a global anti-movement, for Islamic terrorism, this is not so
much on the basis of the events of the years 1980 – 90 as on a consideration of the year
2001 and the paradigmatic, if not founding, event constituted by the terrorist attacks on
11 September 2001, or ‘9/11’.
This terrorism is ‘global’ for the following reasons. Its protagonists are not necessarily
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the direct expression of living, warm communities but, for example, are people whose
political and economic situation has deprived them of all hope: the young Palestinians who
put on belts containing explosives to go and blow up a bus in Israel are not involved in
‘global’ terrorism because they are in a situation which is extreme – as it is – but classical.
On the other hand, the perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks are cut off from the everyday reality
of those on whose behalf they claim to speak; they do not have direct contact with them
except through their acts and via the media when these acts are successful. Their space is
the planet, whether it be a question of their personal trajectory or of their terrain of action.
They were born in Egypt or in Saudi Arabia, they went to Sudan, they trained in
Afghanistan and in Pakistan, they went to Germany to study, have lived in English and in
France and they learned to fly planes in Florida. They are not accountable to anybody
except themselves and their group; they have no roots amongst the people. The most recent
attacks in Morocco, Bali, Turkey, Spain, and elsewhere lead us to think that the ‘global’
nature of the action indicates a sort of articulation, which varies from one situation to
another, between aims or goals which are global and religious – similar to those evoked by
Huntington, for example, set in a context of a clash of civilizations – and local concerns
set in the context of the policies of the countries attacked, and in projects for the
destabilization of a particular government and a specific regime. The 2004 attacks in Saudi
Arabia seem to offer an illustration of this observation: they can be understood only by
crossing the global dimensions of the aims of al Qaeda with the characteristics specific to
the political situation of the country.
The ‘global’ nature of contemporary terrorism also refers to its mode of operation,
which appears to be through highly flexible, global networks – similar to capitalism –
networks which know how to connect with each other and how to disconnect. This ‘global’
nature is also due to the skilfulness of its actors in financial matters – bin Laden was even
said to have profited from speculating, before 11 September 2001, on the financial and
stock exchange consequences of the attacks which he was preparing. Terrorism is also
global in the type of relationship which it maintains with the state: it is no longer a question
of subordination – as in the period when sponsor states used terrorist actors almost like
mercenaries, to carry out illicit or covert activities by controlling and sometimes
manipulating them – but one of subjugation, as al Qaeda did with the Taliban state, or else
of settlement in regions where there is almost no state – for example in tribal areas.
The ‘global’ nature of terrorism at the moment is also due to its meanings which are as
worldwide as those of the movements in favour of another world, of which it is in some
After New Social Movements 15

respects a sort of inversion and from which it borrows some of its concerns (the struggle
against exclusion in the name of the dominated or the impoverished, against American
imperialism, and so on).
And, if we have to describe such terrorism as an anti-social movement, it is really
because it does give a distorted, inverse image of a social movement. It ceases to be
the protagonist of a conflict to become the promoter of forms of behaviour which break the
movement. It acts as if confronted by an enemy and not by an opponent. It transforms the
social relationship of which it claims to be the highest form of expression into a total war
with no limits. It is important here to understand the subjectivity of the actors. They do not
appear themselves as sadists, in terms of cruelty, even if they do carry out the most horrific
acts including in front of the camera; nor can their actions be reduced to forms of
calculation, or to strategies and therefore to something purely instrumental. They are not
nihilists – quite the contrary – they are hyper subjects, subjects who overload their action
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with a plethora of meanings, to the point of defining issues which, in certain cases, go
beyond life on this earth. Some of them are therefore ready to go as far as self-destruction
in suicide, becoming martyrs, which is a very good indication of the extraordinary amount
of meaning they confer on their acts.

‘Global’ Anti-Semitism
Seen from France, more assuredly than in any other society, the contemporary hatred of
Jews is not a continuation of modern anti-Semitism, strictly speaking. It has undergone
changes and assumed new forms to the point that a discussion has begun as to whether we
should continue to speak of anti-Semitism (see, for example, Weill, 2003), anti-Judaism
(see Milner, 2003) or even of a new type of Judeophobia (see Taguieff, 2002).
By considering the way in which the present forms of hatred of Jews are displayed today it
does seem to me to be possible to speak primarily about a ‘global’ phenomenon.
To say this is, in the first instance, to admit that the sources of hatred of Jews are today
simultaneously global, and therefore transnational and localized, in particular at a national
level. We thus recognize a link between the most general, world-level aspects and those
which refer to a specific, limited situation. For example, this means that an analysis of the
attempt to set fire to a synagogue in the Parisian suburbs takes into account both local
factors and international factors, particularly those in the Middle East.
The globalization of anti-Semitism is based on a two-fold compression of time and of
space. It amalgamates elements originating in historically distinct categories and merges
these without arousing the slightest criticism from its propagandists. There is room for
everything: accusations of ritual crimes as in the far-off times when Christian anti-Judaism
was prevalent in Europe; overdone references to the Protocol of the Elders of Zion, this
invention emanating from the imagination of the Tsarist regime at the beginning of the
twentieth century; a revival of the classical, racial themes of modern anti-Semitism which
were at their height between the end of the nineteenth century and the Nazi period;
revisionism and negationism minimizing or denying the gas chambers and the genocide of
the Jews; denunciation of the ‘shoah-business’ from which the Jews are said to make
money and which is said to constitute the State of Israel’s largest source of income, and
more.
At the same time, globalization owes a lot to the electronic technologies which ensure
instantaneous circulation, but also the stocking throughout the world of texts, sounds and
16 M. Wieviorka

images for propaganda: here, the Internet and television are complementary, though the
Internet demands a more active approach on the part of the receiver.
The globalization of anti-Semitism has a centre, the Near East, more precisely the
Israeli – Palestinian conflict, and its organization is based on challenging the existence of
the State of Israel. But it includes religious dimensions, Islamic in particular, which set the
hatred of Jews in a context of a metapolitical conflict at world level which is not
particularly polarized on the State of Israel alone. Thus there is an enormous gulf between
al Qaeda – for whom the Palestinian cause is not an absolute priority and for whom global
terrorism is both at world level and embedded in all sorts of local situations – and the
Palestinian Hamas movement which remains profoundly nationalist and therefore
localized.
But if there is globalization it is because world-level approaches are grafted onto local
approaches. In France, to remain with this case alone, anti-Semitism at the moment feeds
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on revisionist or negationist ideologies, prepared in the past by strange alliances which


referred at the time to a shared preoccupation, the hatred of communism, Marxism or
Bolshevism throughout the Cold War. The pioneers of the phenomenon were a socialist,
Paul Rassinier, a former deportee who had become an anarchist before joining the extreme
right, and Maurice Bardèche, an extreme right ideologist who was Robert Brasillach’s
brother-in-law. At the end of the 1970s, a second tandem was formed between Robert
Faurisson, who joined the extreme right fairly rapidly, and Pierre Guillaume, an extreme
left activist. As from the mid-1980s, the impact of negationism gained momentum under
the Front National whose leader, Jean-Marie Le Pen, returned to these themes (Igounet,
2000). For a long time negationism and, more broadly speaking, the open expression of
hatred of Jews was contained; the dams began to give way in the international context of
the end of the Cold War and with growing disapproval of the State of Israel. Then,
particularly as from the second Intifada – but the phenomenon was perceptible earlier –
anti-Semitic language and actions developed in two other sectors. On the one hand, it
appeared in the deviations of the extreme left and a particular form of the ‘another world’
ideology, whose criticism of imperialism and capitalism became an anti-Zionism which
sometimes veered towards anti-Semitism, and, on the other hand, in immigrant-origin
circles who often identified either with the Palestinian cause or with Islam and who, on the
basis of these identifications, transformed their hatred of Israel into a hatred of Jews in
general (or perhaps the argument should be reversed, from the hatred of Jews in general to
anti-Zionism).
Anti-Semitism in France at the moment cannot be understood, for example, unless
simultaneously we bear in mind changes in French society, the rise of the Front National,
social difficulties in the suburbs, the racism experienced by the children of immigrants,
and so on, and the major phenomena constituted by the Israeli – Palestinian conflict and the
rise of Islamism throughout the world. Formerly, Jews were criticized for not having any
roots and being cosmopolitan, while nowadays they tend to be accused of being ‘global’
and being both here in France and rooted in the Middle East in Israel.
If anti-Semitism today is thus ‘global’, in what respect does it constitute an anti-
movement? It is an anti-movement in so far as it takes up the categories of the social
movement but only by denying or perverting them. For anti-Semitism, the Jews constitute
a figment of the imagination, a total enemy who assumes all the characteristics which, in
their absence, would be attributed to a flesh-and-blood opponent. These characterizations
include money, political power and access to the media, and are interpreted in an evil way
After New Social Movements 17

and by taking the place of true adversaries: bosses and capitalists who exploit people,
political authorities who dominate, press magnates or journalists who manipulate the
news, and so on. The Jews are thus portrayed as diabolical, with innate qualities attributed
by nature; they are enemies and not adversaries. Instead of clashing with them, being
involved in a negotiable, conflictual relation, we are involved in a war, a struggle to the
end with an enemy who has to be got rid of, destroyed and wiped out. As far as anti-
Semitism is concerned, there is no common ground on which to establish a relationship
with the Jews; they have to leave the arena by means of assimilation, departure or
annihilation.
Anti-Semitism is also an anti-social movement in so far as it directly replaces an
impossible movement. We see this, for example, in our ongoing field research in a
working-class area in Roubaix, an industrial town in crisis. The young people of
immigrant origin are particularly anti-Semitic when they themselves suffer from racism,
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discrimination and are confined to ghettos and excluded. Their hatred of the Jews declines
when their social difficulties are taken seriously.
The sources of this anti-Semitism are clearly ‘global’ since they include world-level and
transnational dimensions along with local dimensions against a background of the history
and changes in French society; in what way is it global in its own right? It is because in the
minds of its protagonists its context goes beyond the confines of the nation-state. The
hatred of Jews is not hatred of a group living in France or whose impact would only be
perceptible on French society; it targets a whole in which the State of Israel and the Jews of
the diaspora form a single entity which is considered to be an integral whole and to which,
in some situations, the USA can be added. The hatred is expressed – and here we find the
theme of the subject – in the name of a victim with which one is identified in the young
Palestinians of the Intifada, or the radical Islamists of al Qaeda – it becomes difficult to
distinguish between the suffering of the one and the other. The Jews are then accused of
having moved from the status of victim to that of guilty party, and the suffering of the anti-
Semitic actor is constantly stressed here; they suffer, they are victims or identified with the
victims of the time. The hatred of Jews is more especially sensitive to international news
and events; according to Ministry of Justice statistics, the peaks in anti-Semitic violence
coincided in 2002/03 with important events in the Middle East (though this does not seem
to be as true today). Today’s anti-Semitism not only denotes the crisis in the nation-state,
which is weakened by globalization in a general way, but also makes it worse. It is
obviously not an accident if the problem is particularly significant in state schools which,
in France, come under the Ministry of National Education (so much so that a recent
publication took as its title: ‘The Republic’s Lost Lands’; Brenner, 2002), which is a way
of saying that in France the state schools are having difficulty in fulfilling the promises of
the Republic). The schools are indeed finding it increasingly difficult to live up to the
proud motto of Liberty –Equality –Fraternity. There are acts of violence targeting Jews,
but also questions about what is being taught, especially when the history of the Second
World War and the Shoah is concerned. These reveal that these state schools are not
meeting the expectations of young people of immigrant origin who, generally speaking,
realize that they are victims of inequalities which the school reinforces and aggravates;
they would like to learn about slavery and colonization at least as much as about the
Shoah.
One could say similar things when considering anti-Semitic acts which have taken place
abroad, such as the terrorist attacks in Tunisia, Turkey and Morocco: obviously these have
18 M. Wieviorka

an impact on the Jews in France who feel threatened and affected, concerned by them; they
know that they are part of a transnational approach.

Conclusion
An approach to globalization should include anti-movements which are themselves global.
These anti-movements are the darkest aspect of globalization. But, as we have seen, they
also have a positive side to them; they also include ‘global’ movements, of which the most
important example today is unquestionably the movement for another world. The
sociology of globalization should not only study globalization, its geo-political impact, its
modalities and its impact on the economy, on culture or on social inequality. One of its
major challenges is undoubtedly also the exploration of movements and anti-movements,
or, more precisely, the dimensions of movement and anti-movement of struggles which
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challenge globalization, but which also shape it because they themselves act at a global
level – they are themselves global.
Social anti-movements are not the defensive dimension of social movements but their
contrary, and often their enemy. Instead of promoting a social or cultural identity, they are
champions of some abstract entity, essence or symbol, and speak in the name of a purity or
homogeneity. Instead of defining an adversary, they have one or several enemies, and
search for and try to eliminate scapegoats, traitors or spies; they give the impression of a
collective paranoia that has no bounds. Instead of building relationships with other actors,
agreeing on the principle of debates and negotiations, they champion absolutes, and adopt
do-or-die attitudes. And if they appear in an arena where social movements also exist, they
will try to destroy these movements, and fight against them: Bin Laden is a real enemy for
alter-globalist actors, even when he speaks in the name of social justice and equality, and
in fact because he uses the same categories as alter-globalists. Anti-movements sometimes
appear through changes that modify a social movement, or in a context where they appear
at the same time. They may either fight with social movements in the same political and
social arena, or come before or after them, when they are weak and too new or too old.
They are part of the same story and, therefore, of the same framework of analysis.
Translated by Kristin Couper

Note
1. For further details, cf. my new preface to Wieviorka (2003a).

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(Paris: Balland).

Michel Wieviorka is a professor at EHESS is Paris, and Director of CADIS (centre


d’Analyse et d’Intervention Sociologiques). His work includes books on social
movements, violence, terrorism, race and racism, ethnicity, and multiculturalism.
In English: The Arena of Racism (Sage, 1993) and The Making of Terrorism (University of
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Chicago Press, new ed., 2003).

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