1.2 What is Distinctive about Social Movements?

(Rheenmel)
• The concept of a social movement
• Social movements differ in distinct social process that include the channels
which individuals participated in collective action. According to Mario Diani
(1992a, 2003a, 2004a, Diani and Bison 2004). This comprises formal networks
with a tendency toward conflict and an unified concept of identity. Which
adversaries are easily discernible.
• Conflictual Collective Action. When we refer to conflict, we imply an
adversarial relationship between parties engaged in competing for the same
share of power, whether it be political, economic, or cultural power, and
making demands of one another that, if met, would be detrimental to the
interests of the other parties (Tilly 1978; Touraine 1981: 80–4). Conflicts
such as those in politics or culture that social movement participants intended
to proselytize or condemn in any social change. Solving collective issues
does not always parallel the progression of social change. It necessitates that
the latter recognize the goals for group actions, defining them in terms of
social or political variables. Collective action on globalization issues, for
instance, is conflictual to the point where groups like the World Trade
Organization or the International Monetary Fund are held accountable not for
the actions of their officials or specific policy errors, but rather for acting as
the spokespeople for various alliances of preferences.

• Dense informal networks. Dense informal networks set social movement

activities apart from the numerous occasions when collective action occurs
and is organized, typically inside the confines of certain organizations. A
social movement process is present to the extent that both unorganized and
organized actors participate in ongoing resource exchanges in the pursuit of
shared objectives while maintaining their autonomy and independence. No
movement can be claimed to be represented by a single organized actor, no
matter how strong they may be. It follows that, as opposed to when action is
focused within formal organizations, there are greater options for highly
devoted and/or skilled people to play an autonomous involvement in the
political process.
• Collective identity. Only when collective identities emerge that transcend
beyond particular activities and projects can a social movement process take root.
Recognition and the development of connectivity are closely linked to collective
identity (Pizzorno 1996). This empowers individual activists and/or groups to see
themselves as integrally tied to other actors in a larger collective mobilisation, who
are not necessarily the same but are unquestionably compatible (Touraine 1981).

THE STUDY OF SOCIAL MOVEMENTS

• Many experts do not consider the transnational Zapatista support network to
be a social movement despite the fact that solidarity resources do flow
through it due to the lack of a clear identity and the resulting ties (Olesen
2004). Creating links between various events, both public and private, that
occurred at various times and places that are pertinent to their experience is
another aspect of collective identity formation that actors must do (Melucci
1996).It makes considerably more sense to view animal rights activism and
environmentalism as being part of the same movement process in Italy than
in Britain, according to new research on environmentalism (Rootes 2003;
Diani & Forno 2003). Collective action participants, both organizations and
individuals, start to see themselves as parts of much wider and all
encompassing processes of change, or opposition to change, rather than just
pursuing narrow objectives.

• Thru the identity-building processes based on organisational networking and

global communication, disparate events like the "battle of Seattle" and
resistance to the Narmada Valley dam in India may be tied together in the
same movement. By comparing various iterations of these three components,
we may compare social movements to other forms of collective action. A key
component of social movement analysis is the investigation of the
relationships between these processes.

Conflictual and consensual collective action

•