animal welfare or gay rights have often been studied alongside more tradi-
tionally political movements. The importance of NSMs is that they appear to
be thriving at a time when orthodox political participation as measured by
membership in political parties and trade unions, or even voting, is declining in
most Western democracies. Social movements have always existed, of course,
and indeed the origins of many parties and unions lie in early social move-
ments. Their new incarnations exhibit a number of differences from the earlier
versions, however. To start with, NSMs recruit those expressly disenchanted
with ordinary politics; they recruit predominantly from the educated and
affluent (often called the ‘new middle classes’). They also espouse some
ideological characteristics in common, despite their various aims. They tend
to be more participatory, wishing to avoid the rise of bureaucratic e ́lites within
their own organizations; they are all prepared to take, and many prefer, radical
action to further their aims, the preference is for street demonstrations, sit-ins,
occupations, even some degree of violence, rather than routine pressure-group
activities. They nearly all eschew parliamentary ambitions, seeking only to
force the state to adopt their specific policies, rather than to take power
themselves. It is almost part of the definition that an NSM will concentrate
on a single issue (although the issue may be broadly defined, as with environ-
mental protest groups) rather than try to produce an overall ideology or
programme, as must be done by those wishing to be elected to government.
NSMs vary enormously in their influence and always risk having their
policies ‘stolen’ by orthodox parties who then weave solutions into their overall
programmes. In general there is a connection, albeit ill-defined, between the
rise of NSMs and the development of a post-materialist culture in Western
democracies.
New Thinking
‘New thinking’ was Soviet leader MikhailGorbachev’sown label for his fresh
approach to the Soviet Union’s foreign policy, which became particularly
apparent in his speech to the United Nations in December 1988, when he also
announced unilateral troop withdrawals fromEastern Europe. New thinking
had several applications, and was as much a carefully calculated diplomatic tool
as it was an extension of his internal reforming zeal to international politics. To
the West the most important aspect was the new willingness to be involved in
very far-reaching conventional arms controltalks whereas, due to the
complexities of the nuclear weapons issue, theIntermediate Nuclear Forces
(INF) Treaty, signed almost exactly a year before, had made little effective
difference to the balance of force in Europe. For 15 unproductive years the
West had been looking for a serious preparedness by the Soviet Union to
reduce its conventional troops, and to do so disproportionately to make up for
New Thinking