Green parties(see Box5.5). In April 2006 there were over 232 greens holding minor elected
office across twenty-eight American states (Green Party 2006 ).
This brief overview of green parties raises two main questions. How can
therise of green parties in recent years be explained? Why have they met
with such variable electoral success? The following section assesses whether
the‘new politics’ thesis can account for the rise of green parties.
◗ Is there a new politics?
This section analyses the main components of the new politics thesis – the
rise of new social movements, the emergence of a new middle class and the
flourishing of postmaterial values – before assessing their contribution to
the rise ofgreenparties.
◗ Newsocial movements?
‘Newsocial movements’ (NSMs), notably the student, peace, anti-nuclear,
feminist and environmental movements, were responsible for a major part of
the collective social protest that swept Western Europe from the late 1960s.
Scott ( 1990 )distinguishes NSMs from old social movements, such as trade
unions, according to their location, aims, organisational form and medium
of action. First, while trade unions are located within the polity and typ-
ically seek to influence social democratic and labour parties, NSMs bypass
thestate by operating outside the established parties, trying to mobilise
civil society rather than win power. Secondly, the aims of trade unions have
been political integration, legislative reform and economic rights for work-
ers, whereas NSMs focus on defending civil society against excessive polit-
ical power (particularly of the state) and seek cultural changes to values
and lifestyles. NSMs question the materialist assumptions, such as economic
growth,that underpin the ideology of those movements representing capi-
tal and labour. Thirdly, trade unions adopt the bureaucratic and hierarchical
formsoforganisation prevalent in society, while NSMs are usually informal,
decentralised and participatory organisations. Finally, trade unions gener-
ally work within the existing political institutions, whereas NSMs adopt
innovative repertoires of action, including confrontation and direct action,
often outside the law (see Box4.1).
This characterisation of the NSM as participatory, issue-specific and geared
to the mobilisation of public opinion, is an ideal type based on the NSM in
its most radical and fundamentalist form. One obvious problem, therefore,
is that it presents a snapshot of the NSM at one moment – its initial stage –
when it ‘has all the optimism of a new movement grounded in recent mobil-
isation, before the movement must reflect upon how it is to affect the social
and political environment’ (Scott 1990 :154). Once established, movements
make compromises, usually by gradually adopting conventional organisa-
tional structures and strategies.