Social movement

[3] Social movements have been described as "organizational structures and strategies that may empower oppressed populations to mount effective challenges and resist the more powerful and advantaged elites".

[9] Some scholars have argued that modern Western social movements became possible through education (the wider dissemination of literature) and increased mobility of labor due to the industrialization and urbanization of 19th-century societies.

[10] It is sometimes argued that the freedom of expression, education and relative economic independence prevalent in the modern Western culture are responsible for the unprecedented number and scope of various contemporary social movements.

[14] Mario Diani argues that nearly all definitions share three criteria: "a network of informal interactions between a plurality of individuals, groups and/or organizations, engaged in a political or cultural conflict, on the basis of a shared collective identity"[15] Sociologist Charles Tilly defines social movements as a series of contentious performances, displays and campaigns by which ordinary people make collective claims on others.

[20] As editor of the paper The North Briton, Wilkes vigorously attacked the new administration of Lord Bute and the peace terms that the new government accepted at the 1763 Treaty of Paris at the end of the Seven Years' War.

[23] This was the first ever sustained social movement: it involved public meetings, demonstrations, the distribution of pamphlets on an unprecedented scale and the mass petition march.

However, the movement was careful not to cross the line into open rebellion; it tried to rectify the faults in governance through appeals to existing legal precedents and was conceived of as an extra-Parliamentary form of agitation to arrive at a consensual and constitutional arrangement.

Wilkes was returned to Parliament, general warrants were declared unconstitutional, and press freedom was extended to the coverage of Parliamentary debates.

[25][26][27] The Association had the support of leading Calvinist religious figures, including Rowland Hill, Erasmus Middleton, and John Rippon.

The situation deteriorated rapidly, and in 1780, after a meeting of the Protestant Association, its members subsequently marched on the House of Commons to deliver a petition demanding the repeal of the Act, which the government refused to do.

Modern extra parliamentary political organization is a product of the late eighteenth century [and] the history of the age of reform cannot be written without it.

These tendencies were seen in poorer countries as pressure for reform continued, for example in Russia with the Russian Revolution of 1905 and of 1917, resulting in the collapse of the Czarist regime around the end of the First World War.

Finally, the spread of democracy and political rights like the freedom of speech made the creation and functioning of social movements much easier.

Popovic also argues that a social movement has little chance of growing if it relies on boring speeches and the usual placard waving marches.

It turned fatalism and passivity into action by making it easy, even cool, to become a revolutionary, branding itself within hip slogans, rock music and street theatre.

Caution must always be exercised in any discussion of amorphous phenomena such as movements to distinguish between the views of insiders and outsiders, supporters and antagonists, each of whom may have their own purposes and agendas in characterization or mischaracterization of it.

[citation needed] Social movements have a life cycle: they are created, they grow, they achieve successes or failures and eventually, they dissolve and cease to exist.

They are more likely to evolve in the time and place which is friendly[citation needed] to the social movements: hence their evident symbiosis with the 19th century proliferation of ideas like individual rights, freedom of speech and civil disobedience.

"It was not until after the Brown v. the Board of Education Supreme court decision (1954), which outlawed segregation in Public schools, and following the arrest of Rosa Parks in Montgomery, Alabama for refusing to comply with segregation laws on city buses by giving up her bus seat to a white man, that the American Civil Rights Movement would proceed to the next stage – coalescence.

"[41] The impact of a black woman, Rosa Parks, riding in the whites-only section of the bus (although she was not acting alone or spontaneously—typically activist leaders lay the groundwork behind the scenes of interventions designed to spark a movement).

The Polish Solidarity movement, which eventually toppled the communist regimes of Eastern Europe, developed after trade union activist Anna Walentynowicz was fired from work.

The South African shack dwellers' movement Abahlali baseMjondolo grew out of a road blockade in response to the sudden selling off of a small piece of land promised for housing to a developer.

For example, birth control is still a greatly debated topic on a government level, but it has been accepted into social life as a common thing that exists.

Resources are understood here to include: knowledge, money, media, labor, solidarity, legitimacy, and internal and external support from power elite.

Organizational strength falls inline with resource-mobilization theory, arguing that in order for a social movement to organize it must have strong leadership and sufficient resources.

This vulnerability can be the result of any of the following (or a combination thereof): One of the advantages of the political process theory is that it addresses the issue of timing or emergence of social movements.

It provides coherence to an array of symbols, images, and arguments, linking them through an underlying organizing idea that suggests what is essential – what consequences and values are at stake.

The free-rider problem refers to the idea that people will not be motivated to participate in a social movement that will use up their personal resources (e.g., time, money, etc.)

Culture theory argues that, in conjunction with social networks being an important contact tool, the injustice frame will provide the motivation for people to contribute to the movement.

The 2009–2010 Iranian election protests also demonstrated how social networking sites are making the mobilization of large numbers of people quicker and easier.