ABSTRACT
This chapter provides public input into the process of defining standards and products, and they open up a public debate on the design of the material world. The social movement literature, developed is rich and complex, but in some ways it is too narrowly focused for the study of sustainability politics. It often lack power to have a transformative effect on society, at some historical junctures, raise effective challenges to the legitimacy of the dominant institutions, and as a result the action of social movements leads to some changes. The technology- and product-oriented movements (TPMs) are generally professional and industrial reform movements, with a component in nonprofit advocacy or trade association organizations and a component in for-profit firms that develop, produce, and market the alternative technology. The industrial opposition movements (IOMs) are identified as social movements because of their broad scope and tendency to utilize protest as a repertoire of action directed against governments and large corporations.
