Account for the rise of European New Social Movements in the post-war period

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NSM’s interpretations treat NSM as symptoms of the contradictions of the modern super-bureaucratic society for they express the tension between human autonomy and the growing regulation of post-industrial society (see website 2). In brief, NSM are produced by the new contradiction between the individual and the state. According to Habermas this contradiction is reflected in new conflicts which “no longer arise in the areas of material reproduction; they are no longer channelled through parties and organisations... Rather, the new conflicts arise in areas of cultural reproduction, social integration and socialisation” (Habermas 1981, p.34).

be subdivided into five categories of constraints: “values, past experiences, a constituency’s reference group, expectations, and relations with target groups”

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networks must be composed of like-minded people whose backgrounds, experiences (e.g. the shared historical and (post-) war experiences) or locations in the social structure make them receptive to the ideas of a specific NSM (see Freeman 1999, p.8). Therefore NSM act more directly profiting from cultural and communicative innovations, e.g. the Internet.

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