New Social Movements and Old Political Questions

Abstract

The study of social movements has become increasingly universal in recent years. Even if their occurrence under really existing capitalism is not always considered to be ubiquitous, their significance and political relevance remains a subject of much debate and contention. The objective of this paper is as follows. I intend to consider three interrelated themes that often surface separately, but which can be usefully brought together. First, there is the issue of specifying the novelty of the social movements, or what Mouffe (1988), for example, refers to as the new democratic struggles. Involved in this discussion are problems of political rupture as well as ideological continuity. Second, I want to