ABSTRACT
In greatly simplified terms, we may distinguish in contemporary political thought two opposing approaches to the understanding of social change. The first, with roots in Marxism, maintains a conception of collective subjects, or actors, who at particular historical conjunctures become capable of selfconscious identity as well as political mobilization around a far-reaching critique of the nature of their society and an agenda of alternatives. The postMarxist variant of this approach is found in new social movement (NSM) theory. NSM theorists, while arguing (for reasons which cannot be explained here) that the industrial working class no longer constitutes such a collective subject, nevertheless hold to the conception of a social movement. In this view of a social movement, the actors must have a discourse which identifies fundamental social antagonisms, as well as what is at stake in the possible outcomes.2 This involves adopting normative stances regarding the desirable directions of social development which inform the social movement’s vision of a better world, and its concrete proposals for the reform of economic, social and political institutions. Second, a social movement defines a collective identity linking many different actors to a shared interpretation of societal-
level conflicts. Most NSM theorists have identified the ecology movements of Western Europe as movements which embody-at least in nascent forms-the elements of the long-awaited new social movement.
