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Apolitical movement is a collective attempt by a group of people to changegovernment policy orsocial values.[1] Political movements are usually in opposition to an element of thestatus quo,[2] and are often associated with a certainideology.[3] Some theories of political movements are thepolitical opportunity theory, which states that political movements stem from mere circumstances,[4] and theresource mobilization theory which states that political movements result from strategic organization and relevant resources.[2] Political movements are also related topolitical parties in the sense that they both aim to make an impact on the government and that several political parties have emerged from initial political movements.[5] While political parties are engaged with a multitude of issues, political movements tend to focus on only one major issue.[6][7]
An organization in a political movement that is led by acommunist party is termed amass organization by the party and a "Communist front" by detractors.[citation needed]
Some of the theories behind social movements have also been applied to the emergence of political movements in specific, like the political opportunity theory and the resource mobilization theory.[2][8]
The political opportunity theory asserts that political movements occur through chance or certain opportunities and have little to do with resources, connections or grievances in society.[4][8] Political opportunities can be created by possible changes in the political system, structure or by other developments in the political sphere and they are the driving force for political movements to be established.[4]
The resource mobilization theory states that political movements are the result of careful planning, organizing and fundraising rather than spontaneous uprisings or societalgrievances. This theory postulates that movements rely on resources and contact to the establishment in order to fully develop. Thus, at the beginning and core of a political movement there lies a strategic mobilization of individuals.[2][9]
Political movements are different from political parties since movements are usually focused on a single issue and they have no interest in attaining office in government. A political movement is generally an informal organization and uses unconventional methods to achieve their goals.[6] In a political party, a political organization seeks to influence or control government policy through conventional methods,[6] usually by nominating their candidates and seating candidates in politics and governmental offices.[7]
However, political parties and movements both aim to influence government in one way or another[6] and both are often related to a certain ideology. Parties also participate in electoral campaigns and educational outreach or protest actions aiming to convince citizens or governments to take action on the issues and concerns which are the focus of the movement.[7]
Some political movements have turned into or launched political parties. For example, the15-M Movement against austerity in Spain led to the creation of the populist partyPodemos[10] and the labor movements in Brazil helped form theBrazilian Workers' Party.[11] These types ofmovement parties serve to raise awareness on the main issue of their initial political movement in government, since the established parties may have neglected this issue in the past.[5]
Political scientists Santos and Mercea argue that, in recent years, "the rise of movement parties across Europe has disrupted traditional notions of party politics and opened up new avenues for citizen engagement and political mobilisation. Movement parties are the reflection of a wider socio-political transformation of increasing interconnection between electoral and non-electoral politics". They identify four types of movement parties:green/left-libertarian,far-right,eclectic, andcentrist.[12]
For groups seeking to influence policy, social movements can provide an alternative to formal electoral politics. For example, the political scientistS. Laurel Weldon has shown that women's movements and women's policy agencies have tended to be more effective in reducingviolence against women than the presence of women in the legislatures.[13]
Highbarriers to entry to the political competition can disenfranchise political movements.[14]
Some political movements have aimed to change government policy, such as theanti-war movement, theecology movement,alter-globalization and theanti-globalization movement. Withglobalization,global citizens movements may have also emerged.[15] Many political movements have aimed to establish or broaden the rights of subordinate groups, such asabolitionism, thewomen's suffrage movement, thecivil rights movement,feminism,gay rights movement, thedisability rights movement, theanimal rights movement, or the inclusivehuman rights movement. Some have represented class interests, such as thelabour movement,socialism, andcommunism, while others have expressed national aspirations, including bothanticolonialist movements, such asRātana andSinn Féin, as well ascolonialist movements such asManifest destiny. Political movements can also involve struggles to decentralize or centralize state control, as inanarchism,fascism, andNazism.
Famous recent social movements can be classified as political movements as they have influenced policy changes at all levels of government. Political movements that have recently emerged within the US are theBlack Lives Matter Movement, and theMe Too Movement. While political movements that have happened in recent years within the Middle East is theArab Spring. While in some cases these political movements remained movements, in others they escalated into revolutions and changed the state of government.[16]
Movements may also be named by outsiders, as with theLevellers political movement in 17th century England, which was named so as aterm of disparagement. Yet admirers of the movement and its aims later came to use the term, and it is this term by which they are most known to history.[17]
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Amass movement denotes a political party or movement which is supported by large segments of a population. Political movements that typically advocate the creation of a mass movement include the ideologies ofcommunism,fascism, andliberalism. Both communists and fascists typically support the creation of mass movements as a means to overthrow a government and create their own government, the mass movement then being used afterwards to protect the government from being overthrown itself; whereas liberals seek mass participation in the system of representative democracy.
The social scientific study of mass movements focuses on such elements as charisma, leadership, active minorities, cults and sects, followers, mass man and mass society, alienation, brainwashing and indoctrination, authoritarianism and totalitarianism. The field emerged from crowd or mass psychology (Le Bon, Tarde a.o.), which had gradually widened its scope from mobs to social movements and opinion currents, and then to mass and media society.
One influential early text was the double essay on the herd instinct (1908) by British surgeon Wilfred Trotter. It also influenced the key concepts of the superego and identification in Massenpsychologie (1921) by Sigmund Freud, misleadingly translated as Group psychology. They are linked to ideas onsexual repression leading to rigid personalities, in the original Mass psychology of fascism (1933) byFreudo-MarxistWilhelm Reich (not to be confused with its totally revised 1946 American version). This then rejoined ideas formulated by the Frankfurt School and Theodor Adorno, ultimately leading to a major American study ofthe authoritarian personality (1950), as a basis for xenophobia and anti-Semitism.Another early theme was the relationship between masses and elites, both outside and within such movements (Gaetano Mosca, Vilfredo Pareto, Robert Michels, Moisey Ostrogorski).
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