Challenging the Political Order: New Social and Political Movements in Western Democracies (Europe and the International Order)

The flowering of new movements concerned with the environment, women's rights, peace, and other pressing issues of advanced industrial societies has generated much scholarly and political attention over the past decade. To their supporters, these movements are seen as the vanguard of a new society; to their critics, new social movements represent a fundamental threat to the social and political order. This collection explores the challenge these movements pose to the established order. First evaluating competing theories of the origins of new social movements, the book then examines how the movements function within existing structures and how they create new structures of interest representation. Competing claims regarding the partisan impact of these movements are also examined. This work provides a key to understanding the role of new social movements in the evolving political order of advanced industrial democracies.