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The category of new movements can best be divided into subcategories of cultural movements, which oppose the social life of the present, & political movements, which resist the modern state. Both are often viewed as recurring historical phenomena of protest. The ecological movement, however, embodies a new social trend with a new self-image. Description of new movements as Romantic or populist implies that they are recurrences of older movements. To determine whether there is in fact anything new in current movements requires examination of the type of society they attempt to create. A distinctive feature of modern societies is that social movements are themselves the sources of change, & have the power to challenge cultural traditions. Distinct cultural models can be identified as based on organic, mechanical, & cybernetic concepts of work; these in turn imply differing fundamental normative orders. Where both capitalist & socialist movements represent responses to the mechanical & industrial cultural model, the new movements represent responses to the cybernetic & postindustrial model. These are not yet unified; the logical next step is for sociological research to be followed by intervention to create a unified movement. W. H. Stoddard.

Organizations involved in the development of innovative social programs are coming under increasing pressure to establish structures through which the users, targets, or beneficiaries of program activities can be involved in program planning and implementation. The dynamic that this sets up between the program and its wider environment, particularly in areas in which "new social movements" are operating, can be quite challenging. This article seeks to examine these dynamics, particularly in the context of program evaluation. It is argued that an engaged evaluation approach (drawing on an action research orientation) has particular strengths in such a situation, although the limitations and challenges of such an approach are also outlined. It may, for example, require careful management in terms of the dynamics of the evaluation team. The discussion is illustrated by examples drawn from the evaluation of a European program for disabled people in which the author as member of a research team from The Tavistock Institute was involved.

The concept of "new social movements," characterized by a focus on identity, cannot readily be transferred to a Latin American context. Latin America never experienced the postmaterialist turn that led some to call certain European social movements "new." In addition, as the case of black organizing in Brazil demonstrates, identity-based Latin American social movements are much older than the literature suggests. What was indeed a Latin American novelty of the 1980s was the massive emergence of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). In the case of Brazil, these organizations emerged in response to new financial opportunities provided by international donors and the coercive and paternalistic actions of states, a reality that the concept of new social movements is unable to capture. Both the long history of identity-based organizing and the emergence of NGOs can be explained by focusing on political opportunities and changing protest repertoires. [Reprinted by permission of Sage Publications Inc., copyright holder.]

AbstractThe article offers a reflection on the processes of democratisation in Slovenia, arguing that the new social movements were a key player in initiating and directing democratic transformation, but later came to be gradually marginalised with the consolidation of the "new" or "bourgeois" civil society. Furthermore, a new chronotope of analysis shows that the role of social movements was a necessary but not a sufficient condition for political, economic and social changes, since during the second phase of the democratisation a political detachment is already underway. The key point of contestation and discordance can be identified in their completely opposite understanding of democracy and the process of democratisation itself.

The concept of "new social movements," characterized by a focus on identity, cannot readily be transferred to a Latin American context. Latin America never experienced the postmaterialist turn that led some to call certain European social movements "new." In addition, as the case of black organizing in Brazil demonstrates, identity-based Latin American social movements are much older than the literature suggests. What was indeed a Latin American novelty of the 1980s was the massive emergence of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). In the case of Brazil, these organizations emerged in response to new financial opportunities provided by international donors and the coercive and paternalistic actions of states, a reality that the concept of new social movements is unable to capture. Both the long history of identity-based organizing and the emergence of NGOs can be explained by focusing on political opportunities and changing protest repertoires.