SOCIAL MOVEMENTS: SPECIAL AREA OR CENTRAL

PROBLEM IN SOCIOLOGICAL ANALYSIS?

Alain Touraine

1. Introduction

Can sociology - defined as the functional analysis of social systems - in-

corporate the study of social movements, or should on the contrary the
attempt be made to reconstruct sociology from the analysis of social move-
ments ? The second option opens up two very different paths. For the one
group it seems necessary to drop completely the idea of a social system. In
this view everything is involved in constant change and social movements are
the actors of change. The other group, however, sees it as important to
preserve the idea of a social system, but in a reconstructed form which
proceeds from the analysis of social movements in the context of their
cultural space and the forms of institutionalisation of their conflicts.

It is thus necessary to distinguish at least three types of conflict. I propose to

call those conflictual actions which can be characterised as defensive collect-
ive behaviour. They are the attempt to restore a sick element of the social
system or to adapt it; it can be a question of a value, a norm, an authority
relationship or of society as a whole. If on the other hand conflicts are
analysed as mechanisms, which modify decisions or whole systems of decision
making, i.e. as factors of change like political forces in the widest sense of the
word --
I propose that we speak of social struggles. If, however, the conflict-
ual actions seek to change the social relations of power in the decisive cultural
areas -- such as production, science and ethical values - then I propose that
we use the term social movement. A different vocabulary is of course possible.
I consider, however, that the concepts used here are closest to contemporary
practice. At all events it is essential that these three approaches, by means of
which a realm of observable reality is constructed, are clearly differentiated.
Of course any one conflict can demand the application of one, two or all
three of the analytic forms. This is the reason why sociological analyses can-
not replace historical analysis, which seeks to grasp the conflict in all its com-
plexity.

2. Social Movements

Collective behaviour is conceived as of the response to a situation, defined as

an integrated disintegrated
or social system. Struggles on the other hand
imply strategic conception
a of transformation, without reference to a system
sufficiently capable of preserving its balance and integration. Transformation

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 is the response here to changes in the environment or to tensions between
actors. Struggles are thus not responses but initiatives wbich can neither con-
struct a social system nor have that intention. That is why the conception of
social struggles is tied more or less directly to conceptions of a society as
market or arena. Between competition and war there exists a whole range of
conflict strategies, but none of them is governed by the idea of a social
system determined by values, norms and institutions.
It is thus clear that in the transition from collective behaviour to social
struggles the reference to society is eliminated; conflicts are no longer
thought of as responses. The transition to social movements, however, re-
stores the connection between collective action and social system, but in
reversed form. Let us take an example: a movement arises in a factory around
the demand that wage differences between workers of similar qualifications
be abolished. Analytically this is a simple exarraple of c®llectivc behaviour. Or
they demand that employees have a greater say in decisions concerning the
work place; this is a social struggle. The organisational structure of a firm can-
not be seen as pure expression of technical rationality, but also equally not as
the direct result of constantly changing relations of forces. As numerous
classical texts have shown, in industry the owners of capital have transferred
their power from the sales area to the work situation; they subject the work-
ers in the factory to an authoritarian, collective organisation of work.

The workers’ movement fights against this domination. They seek to transfer
control of the organisation of work and the wealth produced by the industrial
economy to the workers or to society as a whole. This means that the organ-
isational forms of firms can be seen as the result of social actors. These actors
are characterised both by their relations to domination and their common

participation in certain cultural values. In our example the central value is the
progress created by productive work. It is the basis of their conflicts. Let us
take as a further example the anti-nuclear power movement and the political
ecology movement, many of whose members seek to accelerate the transition
from a society based on energy to one based on information and communica-
tion. They resist the expansion of technocratic power over the apparatuses of
information and of production in general, through which forms of consump-
tion, life and needs are created and imposed.
A social movement is therefore situated between cultural values and social
forms of organisation. This methodological approach is thus distinguished
clearly from two other prevalent approaches today. The first, which may be
termed functionalist, posits as premise the functioning of a system according
to a central principle, whether this be values, profit, power or national qualit-
ies. The second approach proceeds from the power relations between actors
following opposed interests. As with the market or war this excludes neither

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open conflicts nor negotiations. ’The conception of social life which is the
basis of the methodological approach to social movements states on the other
hand that economic, and ethical can only be transformed
into social forms of organisation through a central social conflict. These
patterns, which I call &dquo;historicity&dquo; are necessarily guided and controlled by a
limited social category, i.e. the ruling class. This does not mean, however, that
cultural models are simply ideologies which express the interests of the ruling
class. The best counter proof is that the social movement - consisting of
socially dependent categories, whose aim is to combat the power of the ruling
class - is oriented to the same cultural patterns. The workers’ movement only
arose when it abandoned its rejection of industry for an anti-capitalist posi-
tion. The weakness of cultural counter movements in our time can be seen in
the same fashion. They can carry social movements for a certain time but
only on the basis of grave misunderstandings. They disappear - usually quick-
ly - or take on new meanings - thereby seriously weakening the recent social
movements - until they reassert themselves, usually on a lower level of action,
i.e. slowly and progressively differentiating themselves from collective behav-
iour and social struggles.

The social movement, as it is defined here, is never a response to a social situa-

tion. On the contrary, the social situation is the result of the conflict of social
movements. Social movemeaats ~r°e fighti~ag for the control of cultural patterns,
of &dquo;histo~icity &dquo;. The conflict can lead to the dissolution of the political
system or on the contrary to institutional reforms, which then express them-
selves in everyday social and cultural forms of organisation and relations of
domination. ~4 social movemeaat is therefore that form of conflictual action,
which transform cultural patterns - a certain field of historicity - into
social forms of organisation. These social forms of organisation are character-
ised both by general cultural norms and by social relations of domination.
Such a conception of social life is incompatible with the concept of &dquo;society&dquo;.
This can no longer define the object of sociology. For we can only talk of
&dquo;society&dquo; when we maintain the existence of a principle, which holds the
whole of social life together but is transcendental to it. The concept of
society is in fact only the abstract translation of the idea of modernity,
which was seen as central by social thought in the 18th and 19th centuries.
This idea proved to be so influential and powerful that it defined classical
sociology, as it could be called.
In contrast to collective behaviour and social struggles the concept of the
social movement demands a complete reversal of classical sociology. This
reversal leads from a sociology of society to a sociology of action, which is
based both on a knowledge of cultural orientations and of social movements.
As in my opinion the concept of society and classical sociology itself has
grown even weaker, it is apparent that this leads to a parting of the ways. On

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 the one a sociology of pure change, in which social struggles
hand it leads to
become important element on the other hand it leads to a sociology of
an

action, based on the concepts, &dquo;cultural patterns&dquo; and &dquo;social rnove~nents&dquo;.

The dynamics of sociology, or at least of a great part of its theoretical discuss-
ions, can be seen as competition, conflict and compromise between these three
basic orientations, no one of which is likely to be able to exclude the other two.

No social movement can cover all the conflicts and forces of social change to-
day. The sphere of social struggles separates itself ever more autonomously
from that of the social movements - a tendency which could be reversed in
other social situations. And collective behaviour is becoming ever more de-
fensive and approximates to what I have called counter movements. The
acceleration of social change has provoked almost everywhere a massive re-
surgence of social conflicts and collective actions, fought out in the name of
the social and cultural integration of a community. This extreme divergence
between social movements, social struggles and collective behaviour protects a
sociology, constructed around the concept of social movements, from the
danger of becoming a philosophy of history. It is also no longer possible to
situate sociological analysis in an evolutionary conception, which leads from
the traditional to the modern, from mechanical to organic solidarity, from
community to society. Moreover, the collapse of the hegemonic position of
the central capitalist countries forbids us from proclaiming their historicity
and their social movements as universal history, whose stages must necessarily
be repeated by all other societies.

This leads to a break with the classical idea which identifies creative produc-
tion with its works, and historicity - defined as reason or progress - with the
dominion over nature through science and technology. The outcome of this is
that a different conception of the subject is introduced into sociological
analysis, which emphasises the distance which exists between creativity and
works, between consciousness and social forms. Cultural patterns are trans-
formed into social forms of organisation as the result of conflicts between
opposed social movements, but they must also liberate themselves from these
social forms of organisations in order to constitute themselves as creative
patterns. This demands self-reflection, distance and - to use a word deeply
rooted in the western tradition - consciousness. In certain epochs social
thought emphasises economic investment and scientific production; at other
times, however, it inclines more to the creating and changing of ethical
patterns. Distancing becomes more important than investing. In reality of
course both sides complement each other, and it would be just as dangerous
to engage in moral philosophy as in philosophy of history.

The concept of social movements cannot be separated from that of social

class. What, however, distinguishes social movement from social class is that

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the latter can be conceived of as situation, whereas the social movement alone
can be class subject. 1Jp to the historical and sociological investigations, rr~ain-
ly in England, of the development of workers’ lives, the study of the workers’
movement amounted to an analysis of capitalism, its crises and booms. In
exactly the same way - only in a cruder form the study of the social and
--

national movements of the Third World are determined by analyses of im-

perialism and analyses of the international economic system. This was carried
so far that the formation of mass movements seemed impossible. And this in
turn led to the emphasis being placed on armed struggle, either as guerillas or
as military mass struggle under the leadership of a revolutionary party. This
can be explained by the fact that social classes have not been defined as in-
ternal categories of the social organisation but as categories situated between
social organisation and meta-social order. In industrial society the capitalist
class is characterised by the contradiction which it introduces between
nature and society, between the natural forces of production and its own
interests. Whereas the working class is part of this nature, so that its victory
leads to its own disappearance and that of all particular social categories,
the ruling classes on the other hand have always proclaimed themselves the
bearers of reason, who bring civilisation to the barbarians. The result was that
the social classes were always seen in positive or negative relation to a principle
which lay outside of social relations. Thus they could not be thought of as
social actors. They preferred to define themselves &dquo;objectively&dquo;.

As soon as one rejects every meta-social principle -- and thereby also the idea
of a contradiction between society and nature - it becomes essential to
regard social classes as actors. They no longer find themselves in situations of
contradiction but conflict. In order to stress this important change it is clear-
er if we no longer speak of social classes but of social movements: the social
movement is then the action of a social class, which is both culturally orient-
ed and social-conflictual action. The social class is defined by its dominant or
subordinate position in the process of the appropriation of historicity, i.e. of
cultural patterns: economic, scientific and ethical. Social class is the category
in whose name a movement acts. 1~~ social movement has always a certain
consciousness; it is not sufficient, however, to bring about the political
organisation and thought of a social movement. For example, conflicts arise
now in the most varied areas of social life and point to a new social move-
ment. And yet the women’s movement, struggles over the health, information
and education systems have not found direct political expression, whereas
the ecological movement in some countries has created such an expression.
Even the workers’ movement did not possess for long periods any organisa-
tional unity. The coexistence of trade union, syndicalist, educational and
political actions nevertheless did not prevent one speaking of a workers’
movement.

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 3. Special theme or general analytic approach?
3.1I Our definition of social movements makes them the conflictual actors
in the productive and functional process of a social system. But are there not
also social movements operating directly on the level of cultural patterns --

instead of just on the level of their social application? Further: is the analysis
of social movements limited to a synchronic perspective or can it be extended
to the sphere of social change? Cultural renewal as such - or resistance to it
--

cannot be by itself a social movement, because the definition of a social

movement contains two aspects: the reference to cultural patterns and the
consciousness of relations of power. A cultural conflict, however, can have a
social dimension, because cultural patterns do not exist independent of forms
of domination. Cultural movements occupy the broad spectrum between pure
cultural conflicts - for example, within the scientific or artistic community --

and the cultural expression of primarily social conflicts. They are defined
both by their opposition to old or new cultural patterns and by the inner con-
flict between two social forms of translation of the represented cultural
patterns. The most important cultural movement at the moment is the
women’s movement. On the one hand it reacts against the traditional situa-
tion of woman and changes our conception of the subject. On the other hand
the movement is split into two different tendencies, which actually represent
opposed social forces: the first is a liberal tendency, which fights for equal
rights and attracts socially higher categories: to demand entry into parliament
or the medical profession is more interesting than into unqualified work. The
second tendency is a radical one, which is fighting rather for the specific
qualities of woman than for equal opportunities, and even mistrusts the latter
as a trap. It combats a type of domination which is both sexual and social and
relates its actions to those of workers. Or it directly opposes its own feminist
conception to the technocratic and male conception of social life. Cultural
movements are important expecially at the beginning of a new historical
epoch, when the new demands and new social movements are not yet re-
presented at the political level but the transformation of the cultural sphere
requires fundamental debates about science, economics or morality.
Besides social movements, in the narrow sense of the word, and cultural
movements, which must be characterised more precisely as socio-cultural,
socio-historical movements must also be distinguished. Unlike social move-
ments they do not belong to a single field of historicity but arise in the phase
of transition to a different type of society. This corresponds to what is called
development, whose most important manifestation is still industrialisation.
The new element in socio-historical movements is that the conflict revolves
around the management of development. The dominant actor here is there-
fore not a ruling class - always defined by its role in a system of production
--
but a ruling elite, i.e., a group which leads development and historical

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change and is defined above all through leadership of the state. A socio-
historical movement stands in a relation of alliance or opposition to the in-
dustrialising state. Whether ally or opposition, they have, however, one thing
in common: both strive for development and modernisation. The one group
wants to develop the capacity for investment and mobilisation of the state,
the other, however, appeals to the nation and the people and opposes the
state.

3.2 Social, socio-cultural and socio-historical movements can never be

seen in isolation. The workers’ movement, which challenges the social power
of the owners of industry, is not to be separated from the demands and the
pressure through which the trade unions seek to increase their influence on
economic, social and political decisions. On the other hand the workers’
movement cannot be understood only as the sum of demands to be negotiat-
ed. On the contrary the existence of a workers’ movement is indicated by the
raising of demands, which cannot be negotiated. A trade union, which is the
vehicle of the workers’ movement, cannot act solely instrumentally in terms
of advantages and disadvantages. Such a market oriented trade unionism, as
it has been called, no longer belongs to the workers’ movement. The outcome
is the development of explosive forms of behaviour: illegal strikes, absentee-
ism, deliberate restraints on production, acts of violence and sabotage. They
point to a repressed workers’ movement which is also present in market
oriented trade unions or where trade union demands have been strongly in-
stitutionalised.

Thus the study of social movements cannot confine itself to a few conflicts or
to spectacular social movement is not the stronger the more its
events: a

ideology is apparent and the more it is organised. The opposite seems to be

closer to the truth. We have become used to talking of the &dquo;class-in-itself&dquo;
which becomes the &dquo;class-for-itself&dquo;, of suffering which comes to conscious-
ness through political action. The &dquo;class-in-itself&dquo; does not exist, there is no
class without class consciousness. What has to be distinguished is social class
consciousness and political consciousness. That is to say: social class con-
sciousness, a social- movement - which is always present, at least in diffuse
form, where it comes to conflicts over the social appropriation of decisive
cultural patterns - and political consciousness, through which the social
movement is transformed into political action, must be differentiated; an
action directed against a social power can become strategy directed against
political power.
3.3 The problems we have named add up together to one of the great
&dquo;areas&dquo; of sociological analysis, that of social action. To formulate it here
briefly once more: in a cultural field conflicts arise between social move-
ments over the control of cultural patterns. These oppositions determine

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 the institutional and organisational mechanisms through which social practices
are formed. These mechanisms are autonomous to a certain degree and justify
an autonomous political science and sociology of social movements and
cultural patterns. But besides the area of social action there are other areas of
sociological analysis.
Social relations are never completely open: they solidify and transform them-
selves into social order. This is maintained by social and cultural instances of
control and by the power of the state. The social order can, however, enter
into crisis, as can social relations and cultural patterns. Thus the areas of
social order and of crisis must be added to the area of social action. Finally,
without leaving the given social field, social relations and social order are sub-
ject to constant change. Can the analysis of social movements go beyond its
own area and penetrate the areas of social order, crisis and social change?

3.4 The penetration of the sociology of social movements into the area of
social order is difficult to envisage because these two intellectual orientations
are so opposed. For at least 20 years - from Marcuse to Foucault, from A It-
husser to Bourdieu this intellectual current, which forms an important
--

part of our social thinking, maintains that contemporary society is controlled

and supervised to an ever increasing degree. Social life is reduced thereby to
the system of signs of an undivided power. And every social movement which
is more than refusal or revolt is made impossible or reduced to a marginal
phenomenon of one dimensional society. This pessimism is all the more
appropriate, as studies on education and social work have shown their in-
ability to combat social differences. That means that today the main obstacle
facing the sociology of social movements is no longer a sociology of institu-
tions or of the social system their influence has already been weakened by
--

cultural and social crises - but the sociology of the ideological apparatuses of
the state. It is therefore important that the sociology of social movements
penetrates into this hostile area.

~arstly: Today we can reject the theses which comprehend school and social
work completely impotent institutions as regards the lessening of social in-
as

equality - as if teachers and educators cannot also be actors. However, it is

true that one can oppose to these assertions, which are based on little data,
investigations which clearly show that original inequality is greatly increased
in the course of schooling by the school system. The verification of the facts
allows us to reopen now the debate on education, that is, on social problems
of knowledge and morality. This is an essential condition for the opening up
of the field of social movements.

Secondly: Social order is never complete. When we speak of ideological con-

trol, manipulation and alienation, there exists above all, physical oppression,

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violence and revolts, even if in weakened forms. Is it not of great significance
at the end of this century, overshadowed by absolute states, that we see social
life reviving where it seemed to be extinguished: in Brazil and even in Chile,
in Poland, Romania or also in China?

3.5 Let us turn now to &dquo;situations&dquo; and &dquo;crisis behaviour&dquo;: they too resist
a sociological analysis which departs from the concept of social movements,
but to a lesser degree. A contemporary example is to hand. We read once
again numerous investigations of the social effects of unemployment: on the
whole they are less than in the Great Depression. In the 1930s it was imposs-
ible to speak only of the psychological effects of unemployment, when
hunger marches occurred in America and in Europe, the fascist movements fed
on unemployment. Today too we must criticise the sociology which speaks

only of anomie, of marginal existences or of personality problems in relation

to unemployment, while for instance, almost all the black ghettos of the
United States as well as many English cities have experienced riots. At the
same time all those analyses, which only speak the language of crisis and of
the collapse of social organisation, have shown themselves insufficient.

3.6 The forms of behaviour of social change are on the contrary so close
to the social movements that they are often mistaken for each other.

3.7 In all cases we can apply the concept of overdetermination. The

observed forms of behaviour can be explained as responses to integration or

exclusion, to crisis or change. But these explanations always leave an import-

ant residue, which can only be analysed as a complex of indirect effects,
either of impotence or of the emergence of social movements. Where there is
no conflict, forced unity, violence and withdrawal prevails. The concept of
overdetermination has the advantage that it respects the autonomy of the
analytic approaches, which corresponds directly to this or that area of social
life; at the same time, however, it holds fast to general analytic principles.

4. Sociological Practices
Collective behaviour, social struggles and social relations require special
techniques of investigation. If conflicts are seen as the expression of systemic
problems extensive opinion polls are meaningful. The behaviour of the
observed persons is related to the position which they occupy in the system.
The investigation of social struggles on the other hand is always historical in
approach, even when it is complemented by techniques which simulate
decisions or debates.

How are social movements to be studied? The difficulties here lie in the fact
that the conflicts, in which a social movement appears to be recognisable, are

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 mostly so complex that it seems to be absolutely necessary to first compre-
hend them from a global, that is, an historical perspective. And yet: a sociol-
ogy, which accords social movements a central place, cannot renounce tech-
niques which aid their investigation. Let us recall that a social movement
creates the social situation and is not a response to it, as is the case with
collective behaviour. The technique of investigation must permit the
reversal of the relation of the actors to practice; the discovery - under-
neath the behaviour which responds to a situation - of the behaviour which
challenges this situation, thereby bringing the underlying social relations and
cultural orientations to light. The method of sociological intervention has
made this its goal. It has been developed by me and applied in some ten
investigations. The central interest of sociological intervention is to arrive at
this reversal, which I call &dquo;conversion&dquo;. The researcher applies it first to him-
self, then he tries it out with the actors. This presupposes that an artificial
situation is created, in which the actors do not have to react to the situation,
just as they do not have to answer the questions of the researcher. As against
this the actors discover through open discussion with social partners, through
independent reflection and dialogue with the researchers, whether a project
and which project is contained in their own action. In this way the actors
may approach the action component, which is hidden as social movement in
their collective behaviour and in their social struggles. This self-analysis of the
actors is possible. For the meaning of an action and the consciousness of the
actors are never completely separated. However, a self-analysis always remains
incomplete, because an actor can never fully become an analyst; he cannot be
both judge and accused at the same time. He can, however, come close to the
analysis of the researcher. The researcher in turn comes closer to the actor
through his desire to obtain from the conflict its highest possible meaning.
This interaction of the &dquo;self-analysis&dquo; of the actors and the active interven-
tion oi’ the researcher seems to me to circumscribe the intentions, approach
and difficulties of this method best.

5. The grounds for this approach

The interest which many sociologists have for social movements instead of
parties, the fact that they prefer to talk of movements rather than trade
unions, can be traced to a growing distrust they feel towards a certain type of
political action: towards the political action which originally draws on socio-
popular movements and then becomes more and more an instrument and
voice in the service of the state. Since the workers’ movement has led to total-
itarian states in many countries and national movements of liberation have
often resulted in military dictatorships or corrupt regimes, many sociologists,
and others, are looking for the emergence of new demands and new move-
ments on a deeper level than that of political action, in the area of often weak
or unorganised currents of opinion.

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This investigation of social movements becomes of itself a central issue of
sociological analysis as soon as it questions our historical development. This
questioning is especially today strongly tied up with the appearance of a
multiplicity of non-western ways of development, with the catastrophe of
totalitarianism, which makes a continuing belief in progress and in the mean-
ing of history impossible, with the wave of new technologies, ~~hich revolu-
tionise production, and with the ever growing distance between political
apparatuses and public opinion, between ideology and customs and habits,
so that social life appears as completely disjointed between yesterday, today

and tomorrow.

Translated by David Roberts

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