Social Movement Research Essay
Why are social movements necessary in liberal democracies?
Summary:
Social movements are necessary for liberal democracies, and it is because of the fact that dominant groups re-shaping the policies in their favour. Therefore, social movements (protests and campaigns) have become necessary to fix the social policies in terms of gender, ethnicity and racial equality against the autocracy of elite classes (Porta, 2011). The purpose of the social movements is to raise awareness about the public interests, fostering solidarity and to challenge the status quo barriers and policies (Norman, 2017).
Challenging status quo is a difficult attempt in a liberal democracy. The dominant groups can potentially challenge the effectiveness of the challengers in many ways. Thus, social movements like protests are important to divert the attention of the public from dominant groups (Della Porta, 2013). Social movements are usually issue-based protest by individuals in an attempt to take their voice out on the streets to be heard by the state and dominant influential groups (Burcher, 2017). Since the 19th century, social movements have been pertaining to its role in shaping politics. Forthwith, social movements have been playing an influential role in challenging big- question in the 2000s (Yildirim, 2015).
In the later 20th century, the role of social movement has deepened in shaping the public processes of decision-making by changing the status quo as well as a culture. On the contrary, liberal democracy has certain distinguishable features that are significant in the functioning of the democratic government. Liberal democracy encourages civil liberty and fundamental human rights. Secondly, liberal democracy endorses electoral democracy for fair elections in a country. In addition, liberal democracy provides the room for the opposition in order to limit the powerful party (Habets, 2015). In a social context, the opposition party promotes social movements in order to challenge the dominant groups. Similar to the limitation of liberal democracy in a country, the social aspect also refuses the over-ruling and presence of liberal democracy. In a way, liberal democracy empowers the glees of an elite minority, and often overlook the social impact (Habets, 2015). Moreover, liberal democracy has prevailed social conflicts to such an extent that encouraged assemblage of challengers or protestors to come out to the streets in order to get their issues heard.
According to Björgvinsson, Ehn and Hillgren (2012), the term democracy defines the extent of democratization of society. By this, they mean that the essentials of democracy include the welfare of the state and its citizens against the rules of powerful groups. This encouraged and promote the option of social movements and protests to retaliate the powerful groups’ actions and policies. In most of the times, social movements act as the protest against the autocracy and marginalization/inequality, in the context of gender, ethnicity or any other discourse (Garada, 2018).
In a social context, equality and fairness in treatment is the foremost objective for a healthy society. Thereof, social movements and protests have become the leading agent for change in contemporary societies (Della Porta, 2012). Campaigns and collective challenges of individuals have strengthened the impact of social movements to highlight the issues that are needed to be changed for better (Venerallonza, 2010).
Hire Expert Writers at
Affordable Price
WhatsApp
Get Assignment Help
References
Björgvinsson, E., Ehn, P. and Hillgren, P.A., 2012. Agonistic participatory design: working with marginalised social movements. CoDesign, 8(2-3), pp.127-144. Retrieved from: https://sci-hub.tw/https://doi.org/10.1080/15710882.2012.672577
Burcher, U. C., 2017. Social movements are here to stay – a part of our democratic way of life, News. Viewed on: 25 March 2019, https://www.idea.int/news-media/news/social-movements-are-here-stay-%E2%80%93-part-our-democratic-way-life
Della Porta, D., 2012. Critical trust: Social movements and democracy in times of crisis. Cambio. Rivista sulle Trasformazioni Sociali, 2(4), pp.33-43. Retrieved from: https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/4318/84b9a2c0f161525f738bba039595c7a1c178.pdf
Della Porta, D., 2013. Democracy and social movements. The Wiley‐Blackwell Encyclopedia of Social and Political Movements. Retrieved from: https://sci-hub.tw/https://doi.org/10.1002/9780470674871.wbespm065
Garada, U., 2018. Democracy and Social Movements, ResearchGate. Retrieved from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/323736326_Democracy_and_Social_Movements
Habets, I., 2015. Liberal democracy: the threat of counter-narratives. European View, 14(2), pp.145-154. Retrieved from: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12290-015-0369-z
Norman, R., 2017. Six Reasons why Protest is so Important for Democracy, Global Policy. Viewed on: 25 March 2019, https://globalpolicyjournal.com/blog/06/12/2017/six-reasons-why-protest-so-important-democracy
Porta, D.D., 2011. Communication in movement: Social movements as agents of participatory democracy. Information, Communication & Society, 14(6), pp.800-819. Retrieved from: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1369118X.2011.560954
Venerallonza, 2010. Democracy And Social Movements, SlideShare. Viewed on 25 March 2019, https://www.slideshare.net/venerallonza/democracy-and-social-movements
Yildirim, Y., 2015. THE CRUCIAL ROLE OF SOCIAL MOVEMENTS IN MAKING POLITICS. Retrieved from: http://euroacademia.eu/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Yavuz_Yildirim_The_Crucial_Role_of_Social_Movements_in_Making_Politics.pdf
