SELF-EXPERIENCE IN THE THEME-PARK OF RADICAL ACTION? A Post-conventional Perspective on ‘Emerging Repertoires of Political Action’

ECPR Joint Sessions of Workshops, Uppsala, 13-18 April 2004

Workshop 24: Emerging Repertoires of Political Action: Toward a Systematic Study of Post-conventional Forms of Participation

Ingolfur Blühdorn

University of Bath Department of European Studies

Bath BA2 7AY I.Bluehdorn@bath.ac.uk

(draft – not suitable for citation)

1. Introduction What’s new in social movement politics? What contribution do post-conventional forms of political articulation make to late-modern societies? Recent research on social movements has placed much emphasis on the emergence of new waves of direct action (e.g. animal rights protests, anti-road protests, anti-nuclear action, GMO protests), on new patterns of coalition building and the increasing networking of social movements at the international and global level (e.g. anti-globalisation movements, social justice movements), and on new techniques of mobilisation and campaigning (e.g. use of cell-phones, internet, street parties, product boycotts) (from the many: Wall 1999; Doherty 1999; Seel et al. 2000; Waterman 2001; Shepard and Hayduk 2002; Doherty et al. 2003). Especially against the background of a phase of perceived social movement decline during the 1990s, and of concerns about rapidly spreading political apathy, the recent evidence of a certain reinvigoration and re-radicalisation of social movement politics seems to have come as something of a surprise. Empirically oriented social movement research has focused on investigating this new wave of activity in terms of the emergence of new repertoires of political action. But is that really the key to understanding the ongoing change? Of course, the social movements’ forms of mobilisation and action are constantly changing because new technologies and new institutional and discursive opportunity structures constantly offer new options and openings. Innovation, originality and spontaneity have always been central for social movement politics not least because in the absence of other political instruments, innovation and originality are the main means by which social movements seek to irritate the established patterns of perception and thinking, to disrupt the established order of things, to capture public and media attention, and to take the authorities by surprise. For this reason, there is an ongoing need for analyses of newly emerging repertoires of action. But as important as this exercise undoubtedly is, as much does the systematic study of post-conventional forms of participation also require the investigation of the underlying societal conditions and cultural framework for such political articulation. Indeed, whilst the innovation of repertoires of action is, arguably, of an incremental and more

quantitative nature, a more radical and qualitative shift has taken place at this latter level. As regards the repertoires of action, the most striking innovation is probably still the on-going proliferation of forms of political expression and participation which are, indeed, post-conventional in the sense that, rather than relying on the traditional mechanisms of representative democracy, they represent and demand forms of direct participation. But in the demonstration democracy (Etzioni 1970) or social movement society (Neidhart and Rucht 1993; Meyer and Tarrow 1998) these forms of participation have been fully normalised and belong to the standard political repertoire of the most diverse social groups. The more genuinely innovative developments in recent social movement politics, however, are not related to the means and strategies of action, but concern the ends, purposes or functions of social movement politics. Prima facie, the talk of ends and purposes seems to imply reliance on a rational actor model which regards social movements as collective actors who strategically pursue clearly formulated political objectives and agendas, and who are, therefore, constantly looking out for new ways of achieving them. However, contemporary forms of non-traditional collective mobilisation and political articulation, can often hardly be described as goal-oriented strategic action but at best as the collective processing of helplessness. Contemporary anti-war demos, anti-globalisation movements, direct action movements, public outpourings of grief, und the observation of x minutes silence in commemoration of terror victims, are conspicuous not so much for their innovative strategies for the self-confident and rational pursuit of specific agendas, but for their post-ideological and expressive nature, i.e. their lack of clear cut diagnoses, visions and demands, and their lack of confidence that their goals can ever be achieved. At times, contemporary social movements are little more than the expression of profound disorientation, uncertainty and vulnerability vis-à-vis a system and condition that triggers feelings of intense unease but does not allow them to crystallise into agendas of political action and change. Such movements are better described as serving functions rather than pursuing goals. For the appropriate understanding of such movements, rational actor approaches do not seem appropriate. Instead, the systematic study of such post-conventional forms of political articulation seems to necessitate a return to the older collective behaviour approaches (Smelser, Turner) which regarded social movements not primarily as rational, strategic and goal-oriented action, but as triggered by external stimuli, as the expression of, or reflex-like and often uncoordinated responses to, societal conditions and cultural circumstances. Without aiming to deny that contemporary social movements are, of course, also collective actors which command a degree of strategic capability and steering capacity, the intention in this article is to investigate them from a perspective closer to a collective behaviour approach, i.e. from a perspective that does not just see them as intentional and conscious articulation of goals, but also as unwitting indicators and unconscious expression of a certain socio-cultural state.

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In the contemporary context, such an approach might be said to focus on the post-agency dimension of political mobilisation and articulation. It takes account of the fact that in differentiated and complex societies the emergence of policentric structures and patterns of multi-level governance have so severely reduced the steering capacity and strategic capabilities of political actors that even the ever increasing emphasis on political communication, marketing, media management and spin are unable to stabilise public belief in the capabilities of politics, to stop the trend towards political cynicism, and to destroy the spectre of the end of politics. Furthermore, this approach takes account of the fact that irrespective of their self-description as radical and oppositional actors, social movements must never be viewed as separate (apart) from mainstream society, but as an integral part of it. As Roth, making reference to Lipietz und Touraine, correctly notes,

movements and their opponents are moving in the same historical terrain (…). Their oppositional motives and utopias are moulded by the historical ensemble in which they act. Their self-perception as radically different, as the marginalised historical alternative, is self-deceptive if it does not take into account the narrow limits of its alternative components and the wide range of characteristics it shares with its opponents. Movements, therefore, never act outside of the imagined logic of the system. (Roth 1994: 271)

And social movements are not only an integral part of mainstream society in the sense that their patterns of perception, communication and action are determined by the cognitive frames, and discursive and institutional opportunity structures provided by mainstream society. Beyond this, social movements and their organisations have long been co-opted by the established political and administrative authorities which have learnt to use them as a crucial resource for the efficient achievement of their own objectives. Furthermore, political entrepreneurs, the protest mobilisation industry and the media all thrive on the mobilisation of post-conventional forms of political action. And the economic system not only successfully commodifies the supposedly alternative culture but also benefits from displaying the symbols of ecological, sexual, ethical and other forms of alternative correctness. If social movements are seen as a part of, rather than distinct from, advanced modern societies, they can be taken as indicators of their condition. From this perspective they appear not so much as actors pursuing specific goals but as signs that need interpreting, as manifestations of a societal condition that needs conceptualising. It goes without saying that such a perspective will focus, in particular, on those social movements and post-conventional forms of political articulation whose agendas are complex and not easy to express – including for the participants themselves – even though catchy slogans may be readily available. This change of perspective reflects the fact that social movement research has indeed pointed towards a shift from the older primarily instrumental to a contemporary primarily expressive character of protest movements (e.g. Nash 2000; Touraine 2000). The concepts of the cultural turn (Ray and Sayer 1999), life politics (Giddens 1991), or performative politics (Szerszynski 1999; Rucht 2003) suggest that contemporary social movements are to a large extent about the expression and experience of identity. Elements of the

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carnivalesque, theatrical and ritual figure prominently in contemporary social movements (Nash 2000; Hayduk and Shepard 2002). Thus, social movements provide the incentive to at least outline a comprehensive theory of contemporary society, which can provide the framework of reference within which contemporary social movements can then be interpreted. To an extent, the question for innovations thus shifts its focus from repertoires of action to the societal background and context within which this action – or behaviour – emerges. The analysis of these changing social and cultural circumstances will endeavour to highlight the new social problem perceptions and pathologies to which social movements arguably respond without necessarily intending and being aware of this. It will raise the question what social movements contribute to society, or what function they fulfil. This function is not fixed but has, historically, changed more than once: At the transition from industrial to post-industrial society the function of social movements changed from being the motor of the anti-capitalist revolution to being the agent of democratisation. Between the emergence of post-Fordist society in the 1960s and the emergence of risk society in the late 1970s it shifted again: from the emancipation from restrictive and repressive authorities towards collective control of new high-tech risks. In this same sense, the function of social movements will continue to change, in particular when the ongoing process of modernisation brings about a categorically different societal condition. The thesis to be developed is that the late-modern condition or denucleated modernity (Blühdorn 2000, 2003, 2004) represents such a new type of society, and that in this society particularly those forms of political participation and articulation which are more genuinely new and post-conventional fulfil a new function: they represent an intra-societal physical and discursive space – theme-park – in which individuals, social groups and society at large can perform, express and experience the counter-factual subject-centred, i.e. traditionally-modern, condition. This politically neutralised innersocietal performance of autonomy, of political opposition and agency, and of the belief in the radical social, political and economic alternative not simply compensates for the alienating experience of the late-modern condition in which the decentered individual is marginalised and excluded. This performance of the counter-factual subject-centred condition also helps to conceal that in post-humanist, denucleated modernity, the political and economic systems function in a self-referential manner as purposes in themselves. Furthermore, it provides late-modern individuals with the opportunity for a sublime form of consumption: They can experience the modernist, subject-centred condition without becoming subject to rational and moral imperatives of political action which since Marx, at the latest, have always been characteristic of the modernist condition.1

1 Note the difference of this understanding of ‘political’ consumption from two other possible understandings. Whilst in the present context the focus is on the consumptive experience of oneself as a political subject in a staged environment (theme-park), the term may, secondly, be used to describe a passive, service-oriented rather active, participative relationship towards politics (see below). Thirdly, the term can be used as a more generic term for green consumerism, ethical consumerism etc., i.e. as indicating that consumer choices are informed by political values.

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In a pointed way it might therefore be said that for the systematic investigation of post-conventional forms of political articulation a focus on emerging repertoires of inaction is at least as important as the more conventional focus on emerging repertoires of action. Without aiming to imply any normative judgement, these emerging repertoires of inaction may also be described as repertoires of simulation (Blühdorn 2002, 2003, 2004), or – making direct reference to one particular form of collective articulation – as repertoires of silence. The significance of these emerging repertoires of inaction and the argument that they are indispensable for the stabilisation and reproduction of late modernity, i.e. the condition of contemporary advanced liberal consumer democracies, will be further developed in three steps: In the next section the focus is on distinguishing the traditionally modern from the late-modern condition, and on identifying the particular problems of denucleated modernity to which contemporary forms of non-conventional articulation arguably respond. Section three reviews some established beliefs about the nature of social movements and demonstrates that contemporary forms of collective political action cannot easily be explained with the existing conceptual tools. Section four fully develops the theses which have been sketched above. 2. Identity, politics and economics in the late-modern condition Social movements do not emerge out of nothing. Favourable political opportunity structures, political entrepreneurs, the mass media and so forth may be conducive to, or even indispensable for, the emergence of major social movements, but they are not sufficient. Despite the fact that social movement issues are, indeed, socially constructed rather than picked up from the environment, opportunity structures and political entrepreneurs do not originally generate social movement concerns, but merely tap into, amplify, reinforce or, put more negatively, whip up, pre-existing concerns. More accurately one might also say they cultivate and exploit more or less conscious pre-dispositions for the development of concern. These predispositions, this underlying responsiveness which they mobilise is configured by the specific cultural shape of society, its evolutionary stage of modernity, or more specifically, by the dominant structure and state of the individual and its relationship to its societal environment. For this reason it is necessary to analyse and understand the specific condition of a society before investigating whether and how its social movements respond to the particular problems and needs inherent to this condition. The distinctive characteristic of late-modern society in comparison to earlier phases of modernity is undoubtedly the extent to which economic rationality and the market system have colonised all other forms of thinking and permeated all other societal sub-systems. Especially following the increasingly successful translation of ecological issues into economic issues, the economic system has developed into an ever more all-integrating and unchallenged coherence.2 Advanced modern society is,

2 Since the 1970s ecological thinking had emerged as the single most important challenger of economic thinking. For a long time both ecologists as well as their counterparts in the world of business and industry had insisted that ecology and (capitalist consumer) economy are incompatible. More recently, environmental economics and ecological modernisation have succeeded in repacking

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thus, coming closer than ever to the realisation of the modernist dream of an all-embracing systematic coherence. Yet the emerging system is not that centring around the idealist notion of the autonomous human subject and its reason, but this system is integrated by the formal logic of economic profitability, i.e. it centres around a set of rules and imperatives which instrumentalise and marginalise the human being; which regard it as a means rather than an end: ‘within the commodified political economy “ life is, so to speak, only a coincidental side-effect”’ (Turner and Brownhill 2001: 107, quoting Bennholdt-Thomson and Mies 1999: 20); or, using Dierckxsens’ terms, the principle of efficiency has replaced that of vitality, which amounts to the ‘triumph of formalist economics over the substantive approach’ (2000: 16-40, here p.17). Obviously, this does not mean that human beings have disappeared. It merely means that the idealist notion of the autonomous subject has de facto abdicated and that the human identity has metamorphosed into the consumer profile. As the market has entered and transformed even the most private spheres and dimensions of the life worlds of contemporary individuals, individual and social identity formation and self-experience have become, first and foremost, a matter of product choices and acts of consumption. Whatever people do, any imaginable activity is related to and governed by the relevant range of options which the market offers. Accordingly, any emerging identity is assembled through product choices: people are what they consume; their identity is not distinct from, and autonomous vis-à-vis, but identical with the market. Their identity is their specific consumer profile. This, specifically, i.e. the abdication of the autonomous subject and the dissolution of the distinction and dualism between the individual and its environment, the subject and the system, is the defining criterion of what may be called late-modern society or denucleated modernity. In the late-modern condition, the individual and the system are constituted and governed by the same logic. With the dissolution of the dualism that was the very basis of traditional modernity, all societal function systems are losing their external point of reference and ultimate purpose. They are becoming self-referential and purposes in themselves. For contemporary individuals in advanced consumer societies, as well as for the systems of democratic politics and the capitalist economy, this transition from traditional to late modernity has grave implications which have been widely discussed in the sociological and political science literature – even though this normally happens from a perspective different from the one adopted here. Since the era of the Enlightenment, the notion of the autonomous individual as the ultimate source and subject of value, as the centre of modern society and the purpose of societal development has become deeply rooted in European and western culture. For reasons which will be further elaborated below, this self-perception is constantly reinforced by the political and economic systems. The opposite idea that the individual might be merely a means rather than an end is entirely unacceptable. In their every day lives and social relations, however, contemporary individuals constantly experience themselves as marginalised, powerless and subject to systemic necessities. In order to confirm or regain their autonomy vis-à-vis the system; in ecological issues as economic issues and have thus, by and large, neutralised their tension (Blühdorn 2000; Wissenburg and Levy 2004).

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order to experience themselves as distinct from the market and as an end in themselves, they have to construct, express and experience their individual and social identity. The dominant strategy late-modern society offers for this purpose is, as noted above, through acts of consumption. For obvious reasons, however, this strategy invariably fails. The hopes and expectations of the identity-seeking individual are constantly frustrated because acts of consumption can at best provide evidence of an already existing autonomous identity but they can never constitute one that is different from the market.3 Yet, as in the all-embracing system of the market alternative patterns of identity construction are neither readily available nor equally attractive, and because, secondly, the act of choosing a product provides at least the momentary impression that an identity distinct from the market exists (criteria of selection and non-selection must have been applied), ever more and ever accelerated consumption suggests itself as the only way forward. However, this strategy is not only doomed to failure, but for both the individual and society at large, it quickly leads into problems of economic and ecological sustainability, and from there directly into environmental and social exclusion. Nevertheless, the defence of the vanishing Self is so powerful an end that it justifies any means. For the political system, the late-modern realisation of the single all-embracing economic coherence and the metamorphosis of the autonomous individual into the consumer profile implies that politics no longer centres around the negotiation and implementation of competing social ideals and visions of a different society, but its function is reduced to processing the systemic imperatives of the market in accordance to its own systemic logic of power. Particularly in the supposedly post-ideological era of globalisation, politics has become managerial in the sense that it first and foremost organises the smooth execution of economic necessities. In media-oriented excitement democracies, political communication and political marketing, which focus on explaining to the electorate that and why in any particular situation the implementation of specific economic imperatives is the best and only available option, at times seems to replace the politics of decision.4 On the one hand the focus on the achievement of efficiency gains and economic growth reflects the prime interest of late-modern individuals which for the purposes of their consumptive identity construction are eager to maximise their earning capacities and spending power. At the same time, however, the system of politics loses its substance and legitimacy because it lacks the autonomous individual which used to be its external point of reference. Politics thus becomes self-referential, a purpose in itself, i.e. the pursuit of power for power’s sake.

3 Note the significance of ecologically, ethically or otherwise ‘correct’ forms of consumption which represent a particular kind of identity construction and self-experience. In this consumption, socially constructed notions of ‘correctness’ lead either to the conscious selection or conscious avoidance of specific products. In either case processes of social construction charge the product with a distinctive positive or negative value. But this politically informed form of consumption does not make identity construction and experience independent from the market. It continues to rely on product choices and consumption. 4 On the distinction and the relative shift of emphasis between the politics of presentation and the politics of decision see, for example, the extensive work by Ulrich Sarcinelli (e.g. 1987, 1994, 1998, 2003).

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Much discussed phenomena such as the decline of public interest in politics, low electoral turnout, political apathy, and so forth, are the immediate consequence. The lack of substance, decideability and agency – and by implication the lack of interest, participation and legitimacy – undermine the viability of democratic politics. The translation of political issues into economic issues seems to offer an escape from the unmanageable complexity of conflicting interests, but it further accelerates the process of depoliticisation. In the interest of efficiency, the remaining political decisions are delegated to non-democratic bodies. Political consumers5 expect their appointed (or hired) polit-service providers to function professionally and deliver swiftly. Performance or output legitimacy take the place of procedural or input legitimacy. Transparency and accountability are becoming the substitutes for participation and responsibility. In the sociological and political science literature all of these phenomena have been well documented and widely discussed. Contrary to some prophecies, however, none of this leads to the end of politics. Instead, the transformation of politics in late-modern society may be described as the emergence of post-democratic politics. Driven by a combination of, firstly, the imperative of its own systemic reproduction, secondly, economic pressures for further growth and efficiency, and thirdly, the fear that alternative, radical, forms of politics might emerge and destabilise the established order, the political system desperately tries to counter the decline of its substance and legitimacy. It undertakes frantic efforts to convince the democratic electorate that politics still is about competing ideals and visions for a better society, and that it also has the agency required to implement them. Untiringly, it reassures the public that politics has not been emasculated by economic imperatives but still has a degree of autonomy vis-à-vis, and control over, the economic system. In order to stabilise its external purpose and legitimacy, the political system assiduously cultivates the belief in the autonomous subject, which it allegedly serves. It insists that it does listen to and represent the concerns of voters, and that it is far from pursuing power for power’s sake. In desperate attempts to increase democratic participation it issues projects of democratic renewal and empowerment, develops strategies of top-down democratisation (Blaug 2002), and constantly makes promises which it may well be unable to keep. Yet, by reproducing the belief in the autonomous subject (voter) which supposedly is its external point of reference, the system of politics inevitably reinforces rather than resolves the problem. Its promises heighten the horizon of expectations and, by implication, raise the potential for disappointment. In the effort to stabilise its own foundations, the political system thus invariably increases the experience of powerlessness, marginalisation and exclusion. However genuine its intentions, the system breeds cynicism because its self-referentiality cannot be concealed. Still, as long as the political system manages to generate economic growth and spending power, there is no genuine threat at the (internal) horizon. Just like the political system, the economic system, too, is losing its external point of reference and legitimacy. In the late-modern condition, the efficiency and profitability it achieves are no longer defined in terms of pre-existing values and 5 Here the term is used in the second meaning outlined in footnote 1.

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goals rooted in the autonomous individual, but the accumulation of profit and capital is a purpose in itself. The maximisation of earning capacities and spending power provides late-modern individuals with the means to pursue their consumptive pattern of identity construction, yet it is the economic system itself which charges the products with the values which supposedly legitimise the price. This self-referentiality of the economic system does not imply an immediate threat to its systemic self-reproduction. The economy of subjective expectations of benefits (identity gains) secures the perpetuation of the system. Yet, as noted above, these expectations are never fulfilled, or their fulfilment remains restricted to the very moment of product acquisition and is immediately followed by frustration triggering, firstly, the need for further accelerated consumption, and secondly, allergic reactions against what is perceived as immoral profiteering. In a way that is directly comparable to the political system, the economic system, too, responds to these threats by undertaking major efforts to reassure consumers that it is only serving their pre-existing desires and needs, i.e. that it merely provides the means for the realisation of the customer’s entirely autonomous self. At the macro level, the ever repeated promises that scientific progress and economic development are pursued in order to combat poverty, famine or cancer, represent prominent examples for the economic system’s desperate attempt to portray itself as serving the needs of individuals and humanity at large, and thus to construct an external legitimation for its logic of profitability. At the micro level, advertising and marketing work hard to reconstruct the autonomous ego which supposedly has its pre-existing interests, values and needs to which the products merely respond. Like those of the political system, the tireless efforts of the economic system to highlight its service role and customer orientation breed cynicism, yet the non-availability of alternative patterns of identity construction ensures that late-modern individuals willingly co-operate. The specific condition of late-modern society can thus be described as a crisis of self-referentiality. For any appropriate understanding of contemporary social movements and forms of collective political articulation, the full appreciation of this late-modern condition is absolutely essential. Analyses of post-conventional forms of political participation whose underlying social theory is outdated, i.e. whose understanding of the late-modern individual, late-modern politics and late-modern consumer economics is incomplete, will necessarily remain insufficient. The dissolution of the dualisms of modernity and the emergence of the increasingly all-embracing system of economic rationality trigger a rebellion, an allergic reaction of late-modern society against itself (Baudrillard 2002). The marginalisation or even dissolution of the autonomous subject is unacceptable to the individual itself and constitutes a threat to the political and economic systems. The only available strategy for the reconstitution and experience of the autonomous self is via increased and accelerated consumption – which not only fails to fulfil its promise, but leads directly into problems of sustainability and thus exclusion. Despite all hopes for ecological modernisation and resource efficiency revolutions (Weizsäcker et al. 1998; Hawken et al. 1999; Lomborg 2001), western life styles and patterns of consumption can not even be generalised in the rich industrial countries, let alone in the poor Majority

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World. Increasing social inequality and exclusion are, therefore, an inevitable consequence of the late-modern dilemma. But although the limits to growth and the problems of social inequality, environmental security, economic migration, organised crime and international terrorism are becoming ever more obvious and unmanageable, the unsustainable patterns of consumptive self-construction and self-experience need to be perpetuated and defended at any price. The dilemma of self-referentiality is fundamental and inescapable. It could be resolved only by overcoming late-modern uni-dimensionality and reinstating an external point of reference for the system. For this, however, late-modern society does not have the cultural resources. Critical sociology, which used to describe and evaluate the societal status quo in the normative categories of what ought to be the case, has surrendered vis-à-vis the late-modern condition. It has been superseded by two varieties of affirmative sociology6 both of which restrict themselves to analysing a status quo which is perceived as essentially unchangeable: The sociological mainstream has repositioned itself as a service provider to the established system and, reproducing the belief in traditional modernisation, looks out for managerial improvements which might increase the system’s efficiency. The second and much smaller stream still refuses to co-operate with the system, conceptualises the fundamental dilemmas of late-modernity, but does not offer solutions to the problems it identifies. By mainstream sociologists, this second stream is widely frowned upon because it is regarded as unduly pessimistic and unproductive. Yet the service-providing mainstream may be criticised for uncritically presupposing that late-modern society really has to change and wants to change. Its demanded focus on the technical and managerial question how the status quo might be further improved stops it from exploring the more genuinely sociological question which is: How does late-modern society factually cope with its irresolvable dilemma? What strategies does it develop in order to reconcile the contradictory but equally categorical imperatives to perpetuate the status quo and to radically change it? To develop the argument that one such strategy to pacify this dilemma is to cultivate designated spaces in which the beliefs and demands that characterise traditional modernity can be simulated; and to suggest that contemporary social movements – or at least a sub-section of them – might fulfil exactly this is function, is the objective of the next two sections. 3. Problems with conceptualising contemporary social movements Traditional social movement theory suggests that social movements typically emerge in response to experiences of political closure and the perceived failure of the established political institutions. Against the background of political arrangements which are regarded as repressive, authoritarian, opaque and unaccountable they struggle for more freedom, participation and representation. They seek to politicise, i.e. subject to democratic scrutiny what has hitherto been regarded as natural and non-negotiable. They besiege the bastions of bourgeois custom, tradition and 6 This ignores the wealth of (semi-)academic writing that is primarily committed to political campaigning (ecological, feminist, neo-Marxist) rather than sociological analysis.

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privilege. Using innovative forms of mobilisation and articulation, they aim to irritate and disrupt the established order, expose its inherent violence, injustice and unsustainability, and suggest that things can and ought to be different. Their objective is to reveal the irrationality, short-sightedness and inefficiency of the established system which is driven by its own systemic imperatives and serves, if anyone, the interests of social elites. From the social movement perspective, to disrupt this autonomous dynamics, formal rationality and self-referentiality of the established system is preconditional to restructuring the political and economic order in accordance with substantive life world rationality grounded in genuine human needs and oriented towards the realisation of the unique potentials of the human species as a whole (Dalton and Kuechler 1990; McAdam et al. 1996; Hellmann and Koopmans 1998; Della Porta et al. 1998; Della Porta and Diani 1999; Nash 2000). New social movement theory (Melucci, Touraine), in particular, has interpreted the emancipative social movements since the late 1960s as the arteries of the democratic process, i.e. the ongoing democratisation of institutionalised democracies which, unless continuously challenged, tend to become sclerotic. Touraine notes that whilst ‘the old social movements were associated with the idea of revolution, the new ones are associated with the idea of democracy’ (Touraine 1992: 143). Indeed, social movements since the late 1960s have always promoted the idea of DIY-politics. They have demanded that institutionalised representative democracy ought to be supplemented, or even replaced, by structures of direct democracy because these were regarded as more legitimate and providing for the more authentic representation of the people’s will. Where social movements were conceptualised as putting the emphasis not so much on access to and influence on the established structures but, primarily, on creating spaces for the rehearsal of alternative life-styles and institutions which are supposed to bypass and eventually replace the existing ones (Princen and Finger 1994), they were seen as continuing the Marxist tradition of political subversion and radical change whilst disposing of the tool of revolution. These conceptualisations of non-conventional forms of political articulation and participation have been developed for the social movements from the 1960s to the 1980s. One of their key objectives was to capture how these new social movements distinguished themselves from the old ones of the Marxist tradition of class struggle. Yet, such generalising conceptualisations of social movement politics can neither do justice to the increasingly diversified forms of non-conventional political articulation and participation, nor do they seem adequate for the interpretation of social movement politics in the early twenty-first century. Already in the late 1970s, the emphasis on democratisation as emancipation from authoritarian elite rule was incrementally superseded by the notion of democratisation as a tool for the limitation and management of new technological and ecological risks (Beck 1992, 1997, 2000). Since the mid-1980s the focus then seemed to shift further from the politics of risk to the politics of identity. Social movements no longer sought to capture the state, i.e. political control, but were increasingly concerned with conflicts over life world issues (Habermas 1981). As noted above, Giddens’ (1991) concept of life politics and Beck’s (1992) notion of sub-politics aim to capture this reorientation of social movement activity. The concept of the cultural turn (Ray and Sayer 1999) in social

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movement politics is another term that has been widely used to describe the shift towards the politics of identity construction and self-experience. In order to capture the increasing diversity of the social movement sector, Rucht (1990), Koopmans (19927) and others have suggested a distinction between goal-oriented, instrumental movements and more identity-oriented, expressive ones. The former supposedly focus on specific single issues which can be addressed within the existing political and economic order, i.e. they do not require comprehensive structural change. The latter, i.e. identity-oriented movements are further distinguished into sub-cultural movements which are campaigning for the societal recognition of specific minority identities but are, again, not concerned with fundamental societal change, and counter-cultural movements which are subversive cells practising alternative life-styles and constructing alternative structures with the long-term objective of radical system change. It has always been acknowledged that a strict distinction is not possible because virtually all social movements represent a mixture of instrumental and expressive dimensions (Rucht 1990). In the present context, however, this attempt to distinguish different categories of social movements and social movement objectives may help to capture the distinctive character of contemporary social movement activity. The bulk of non-traditional political participation in advanced liberal democracies can undoubtedly be classified as instrumental single issue movements. The proliferation of such clearly goal-oriented movements since the 1970s is an immediate consequence of the diversification of contemporary societies and their sectional interests, of the gradual decline of the belief in a common good, of the increasing emphasis on the principle of competitiveness, and of the decentralisation of political control. Processes of institutionalisation and professionalisation have rendered instrumental movements a standard feature of politics in contemporary social movement societies. In the sense that these forms of political participation have become fully normalised and accepted, they can no longer be meaningfully described as post-conventional forms of political articulation. Their repertoire of action is neither particularly innovative nor radical or genuinely disruptive. The motivational structure of these movements seems evident, their course of development by and large predictable. Yet, the more genuinely novel social movements such as the new direct action movements, the anti-globalisation movement or the recent protests against the Iraq-war are much more complex and difficult to interpret. They clearly do not fall into this category. These movements can also not convincingly be described as sub-cultural movements. Indeed the category of emancipative sub-cultural movements no longer seems to fit the conditions of contemporary western societies. As contemporary democracies have become increasingly liberal, they have offered new spaces for the development of an ever wider range of different life styles, and legal protection for ever larger cultural plurality. In the sense that the diversity of minority cultures is now widely recognised as an essential economic resource, the concern for pluralism has actually become an integral part of the established system. Of course, sub-cultural movements 7 [check reference in: Kriesi, Koopmans et al. 1995]

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continue to exist, yet in many respects the unprecedented elasticity of social norms has become a more serious concern than overly restrictive social institutions. For the emancipative social movements from the 1960s to the 1980s breaking down irrational barriers had always served the purpose of bringing about a truly rational society. Since the decline of the belief in true reason and the common good, however, crossing established borders always implies the danger of boundlessness and disorientation. Even for most young people, the older desire to abandon the established moral principles of their parent’s generation, and to push back the limits of the socially acceptable has, therefore, given way to the opposite desire to find moral guidance and experience limits. For these reasons it seems not very promising to conceptualise the new social movements of the contemporary era as sub-cultural movements. In a number of respects, the category of counter-cultural movements seems most applicable to the novel movements of the twenty-first century. Indeed, the anti-globalisation movement as well as the new direct action movements are widely described as radical counter-cultural movements. Seel et al. (2000: 14) note that ‘movements such as British direct action groups are important because they produce alternative cultural codes which challenge the dominant economistic ones’. According to their analysis direct action is ‘propelled and informed’ by ‘an increasingly critical attitude to big business and to official science’, and it reflects ‘an increased confidence to challenge the power of those two institutions directly’ (2000: 21). Arguing along similar lines much of the anti-globalisation literature describes the anti-globalisation movements since Seattle as aiming for nothing less than the complete replacement of the ‘bankrupt world order’ (Shutt 2001) of liberal consumer capitalism. The critics of globalisation are convinced that ‘any attempt to sustain an empire based on unrepresentative, authoritarian institutions must ultimately fail’ (Shutt 2001: 21), and believe that ‘if the public were to understand the true nature and implication that the globalisation project has on their lives, the project’s political viability and its legitimacy would be severely undercut’ (Wallach 2001: 188). However, even though these movements are clearly challenging the codes of the established order and insist that There is an Alternative (Bennholdt-Thomson et al. 2001), it is rather difficult to establish what relationship these movements really have to the status quo and what exactly an alternative might actually look like. As the logic of the established system has permeated the very patterns of cognition and imagination of contemporary individuals, it is becoming increasingly difficult to even imagine a radically different society, let alone implement it. For contemporary individuals, probably including those who intuitively feel a fundamental unease with the status quo, ideas of a genuinely sustainable and globally just society as they are regularly hinted at in the literature,8 would, if really implemented, hardly be 8 The common denominator in the wealth of suggestions is to ‘promote small scale on a large scale’ (Helena Norberg-Hodge 2001: 242). The return to local economies placing strong emphasis on subsistence and aiming for low-growth-or-no-growth is widely seen as preconditional to a drastic reduction of resource consumption. Particularly the ‘economies of the advanced industrial countries must shrink … by a factor ten’ (Sarkar 2001: 50). Non-monetary local exchange and trading systems (LETS) are widely regarded as ‘a source of great hope to us all’ (Walker and Goldsmith 2001: 274). Contemporary individuals, relying for their pastime and psychological balance on retail therapy are

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attractive or acceptable. And as regards the question how late modern societies might manage the transition from here to there, no plausible strategies have yet emerged on the horizon. Beyond this, major contemporary social movements, such as the mass protests against the Iraq war, do not actually make any demands for radical system change. Indeed, it seems safe to assert that in advanced modern societies the level of enthusiasm for radical change is rather low. As the established system seems to have succeeded in institutionalising and pacifying concerns for the environment, gender equality, human rights or global justice – although the related problems are, obviously, far from being resolved – there are no issues in sight which may pose a genuine internal threat to the established economic and political order. On the contrary, religious fundamentalism, ethnic nationalism, economic migration and global terrorism – even though they are certainly not unrelated to these very issues – provide the basis, across western(ized) societies, for a new consensus of system defence whatever the cost entailed. As indicated in the previous section, even the most fundamental beliefs of the counter-cultural movements from the 1960s to the 1980s have in late-modern societies become uncertain: confidence in genuine democracy and interest in political participation. Intellectuals campaigning against globalisation may insist that ‘we have to move from market totalitarianism to an earth democracy’ (Shiva 2001: 65), and that at the beginning of the twenty-first century there is a historic window of opportunity for the transition towards a ‘more genuinely participatory democracy than has existed anywhere hitherto’ (Shutt 2001: 121). Yet, whilst participation has for late-modern individuals adopted the primary meaning of securing self-inclusion into the market and taking part in large-scale consumption, the contemporary understanding of democracy is, first and foremost, one of transparency and accountability which are supposed to function as a safe-guard against the risks implicit in the post-democratic delegation of power and responsibilities to non-democratic expert bodies which are expected to increase the efficiency, quality and (output) legitimacy of public policy making. Thus, even though some contemporary movements undoubtedly do display characteristics of Koopmans’ third category, it does, therefore, also not seem plausible to understand contemporary forms of non-traditional political articulation as counter-cultural movements. 4. From system change to systemic reproduction What then may be concluded from the suggestion that none of Koopmans’ three categories provides a satisfactory explanation of contemporary social movements? The analysis firstly suggests that contemporary forms of non-conventional political action do indeed display genuinely new characteristics which require new theoretical approaches. It is their instrumental dimension, in particular, which seems difficult to grasp. Collective political articulation such as the mass demonstrations against the American-British attack on Saddam Hussain’s Iraq or the demonstrations of

reminded that people in the non-industrialed countries ‘may be very poor and even hungry, but the lives they lead within their family groups have meaning to them – which is ever less the case of the lives led by most people in the cities of the industrial world today’ (Goldsmith 2001: 300).

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solidarity with the victims of the Madrid terror attack in March 2004 through the observation of commemorative silence indeed re-open the question for the relative significance of, and relationship between, the instrumental and the identity-oriented dimensions of collective action. The same applies to contemporary anti-globalisation protests, direct action movements and consumer boycott campaigns. Even though in many cases there is no shortage of catchy statements of goals, these movements cannot only be certain that these goals will not be realised, but it is also hard to imagine that movement participants believe in these goals in the sense that they would genuinely want to see the radical change of the status quo that these goals imply. In all likelihood, these movements’ participants are just as fond of and dependent on the existing consumer culture as anyone else. This analysis then gives rise to the suggestion that contemporary social movements must not be seen as instrumental in the sense that they are genuinely trying to influence decision makers, but that they act although – or even because – they can be certain that they will not have any influence. In a sense these movements are the expression of frustration about political closure and the co-optation or insider-status (Grant 2001, 2003) of the more institutionalised social movements. But they may still be regarded as instrumental in that they provide an opportunity for the experience of the self as different from and in opposition to the system. In other words, these movements are not primarily instrumental for the achievement of political change but in the sense that they are a means of self-expression and self-experience. Referring to the analyses offered by Hetherington (1998) and Maffesoli (1996), Seel et al. (2000: 13) confirm that for contemporary direct action movements ‘the performance of personal and collective identities through tribal forms of dress, speech and ritual’ is a significant dimension of their activity. They concede that these movements ‘facilitate the construction of a personal and collective identity for participants’ and respond to people’s ‘need for affective sociality’ and for opportunities ‘to show empathy and solidarity with like-minded people’ (p.13). Yet they insist that ‘to write-off performative protest activity as merely internally oriented to other protesters would be unfair and inaccurate’ (p.14). Developing the same idea, Boyd (2002: 248) notes that in contemporary anti-globalisation movements ‘traditional goal-oriented politics links up with the politics of being’; people ‘join the movement not only to take action but to feel alive and find out who they are’. Shifting the emphasis clearly towards the identity dimension, Touraine (2000: 93) points out that whilst ‘in the past, social movements were the embodiment of a project’, ‘the sole objective’ of contemporary protest movements ‘is to create the Subject’. A recent pamphlet by Patrick West, finally, goes yet a step further by insisting that contemporary non-conventional political articulation ‘has little do to with changing the world’ (2004: 44), for supposedly, ‘we no longer want to change the world’. Instead, he claims, ‘we want merely to be nice’ (p.2). According to West’s analysis, contemporary post-conventional forms of collective political articulation – which he describes as ‘conspicuous compassion’, ‘ostentatious caring’ (p.4) or ‘recreational grief’ (p.11) – are about ‘individuals projecting their ego onto society’ (p.23) in order to experience a ‘warm glow of self-satisfaction’ (p.37). West believes that the recent anti-war protests, anti-globalisation movements and a range of other forms of non-conventional articulation are almost exclusively

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‘about feeling good, not doing good’ (p.1). They are ‘designed to show that you are a nice person, and to register unhappiness with the fact that horrid things happen in the world’ (p.41). Thus, the suggestions that contemporary social movements cannot be adequately understood on the basis of traditional social movement theories, and that, rather than being instrumental in the traditional sense, they have to be interpreted as serving purposes of identity construction and expression, take us back to the late-modern dilemma. Of course, identity construction has always been recognised as a constitutive part of social movement activity, yet seen against the specific background that has above been described as the late-modern condition, the focus on this dimension gains an entirely new quality. What non-conventional forms of political articulation offer seems to match exactly what late-modern individuals desperately need. This reconfirms that their significance lies not in the demonstration of protest and opposition for the purpose of political change, but in the demonstration, performance and experience of something that is desperately needed but that has no place inside the system. It has no place inside the system, firstly, because within the system it is impossible to achieve, and secondly, because, if it were to be achievable, it would undermine and destroy the system. At the centre of social movement activity is, thus, not the political alternative, but alterity, i.e. the desire of individuals to be different from the system and experience themselves as subjects of autonomous values and ideals. In the sense that the demonstration of autonomy, counterfactual ideals and political agency has the status of a performance in the arena of the social movement and allows for full complicity with the status quo outside this arena, it may be described as a post-political and consumptive form of political articulation. In this regard, the observation of commemorative silence is perhaps late-modern society’s most advanced form of non-conventional political articulation. It is a sign or symbol that seems to be saying something but in fact stands for nothing. This form of political articulation performs togetherness, says not a word, makes no demands, does not act, does not even think the alternative, but merely thinks of the victims of the status quo, which posthumously and symbolically are shifted back into the centre from where the individual has been removed. The use of the term performance for contemporary social movements and forms of political articulation might easily be misleading. West’s interpretation of non-conventional forms of collective expression in terms of ‘crocodile tears and manufactured emotions’ (p.2), for example, swiftly leads him to raising moral accusations of this action as hypocritical, phoney and cynical (p.66). His politically instrumental rather than academically committed analysis9 bars him from obtaining an appropriate understanding of the late-modern condition and dilemma, and he therefore understands the performance character of social movements as indicative of

9 His discussion culminates in the assertion that that ‘we would have a happier, peaceful and more just country’ if contemporary society were to drop its ‘bovine left-liberal conformity’, if the welfare state which ‘has created incalulable misery for mothers, children and society at large’ were to be dismantled, and ‘if felons were treated uncaringly’ (pp.65-67),

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a culpable lack of authenticity and morality. Yet, as was noted above, the late-modern dilemma consists exactly in the fact that within the all-embracing system of the market no means of identity construction and experience – and thus also of authenticity and morality – are available. The idea of autonomy (authenticity, morality) demands distinction from and opposition to this system, yet the required tools and spaces do not exist. Social movements, however, offer exactly such a space. The individual and social identity which is performed or enacted within the social movement is indeed formed by means of distinction from and opposition to the system. Social movements thus offer a supplementary form of identity construction which helps to compensate for the shortcomings of consumptive identity formation. They provide late-modern individuals with an opportunity to experience themselves both within (compliant with) and at the same time outside of (in opposition to, i.e. autonomous from) the system. If it is correct to say, as suggested in section two, that the reproduction of the autonomous self is not just a desire of late-modern individuals but a requirement for the self-reproduction of the increasingly one-dimensional system, social movements can thus be said to represent an essential resource for the stabilisation of late-modern society. This idea is not entirely new. Indeed, already in medieval times the fool fulfilled the function to release social tensions, neutralise rebellious or subversive energies and reintegrate the social order. In the 1980s Habermas (1981) described social movements as ‘early warning systems’, and Luhmann (1984/1995) saw them as a kind of societal ‘immune system’. Both concepts highlight their system-stabilising function. Kuechler and Dalton (1990: 298) suspected that the ‘unintended consequence of securing long-term stability of the political order may turn out to be the most important impact of today’s new social movements’ (my emphasis). Beck (1997), Luhmann (1989, 1996) and others believed that social movements increase the reflexivity of functionally differentiated societies by compensating for their lack of a strategic centre. More recently, the elements of the carnivalesque, which seem increasingly typical of contemporary social movements (Nash 2000, Boyd 2002) have been described as inherently conservative. Szerszynski (1999: 219) notes that ‘theories of Carnival have tended to regard it as a safety-valve – as an officially sanctioned and self-contained vehicle for the release of anti-social sentiments amongst the public – and thus functioning to help stabilise the social order’. And referring to societal reflexes against new waves of right wing extremism, Rucht (2003: 38) points out that ‘ex negativo, the protests of the radicals against the existing political and economic order … serve to maintain this order’. Thus, the idea that social movements, whilst presenting themselves as oppositional, in effect contribute to the reproduction of the established system, has often been rehearsed. Yet, in late-modern society, system reproduction is perhaps no longer just an ‘unintended side-effect’, but the system has been fully embraced – or late-modern individuals have no escape from its embrace – and social movements are merely the performative reintroduction of the dualisms of traditional modernity. For the purposes of systemic reproduction, this internal simulation of a supposedly external point of reference is sufficient if only the late-modern individual can find relief from its concerns about the post-humanist, exclusive and unsustainable nature of the system through self-experience in the theme-park of radical action.

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5. Conclusion In this article, my contribution to the systematic study of post-conventional forms of participation has been the attempt to adopt a post-conventional perspective on contemporary forms of political participation. The analysis raises a whole range of questions which need clarification and further investigation. These include, for example, the question how new and convincing the idea of late-modern society’s one-dimensionality really is. This idea seems to contradict the suggestion that contemporary societies are becoming ever more differentiated, diverse and complex. Secondly, there is the question to what extent it is correct to assert that the dominant, indeed almost the only available, pattern of identity construction and self-experience in late-modern societies is through acts of consumption. Thirdly, one might ask whether an approach that interprets contemporary social movements as theme-parks of self-experience can really do justice to contemporary movement politics. How can movement participants be ‘accused’ of merely staging, performing and simulating their commitment? How can any academic investigator claim to know more about the true purposes and motivations of new forms of post-conventional political articulation than the movement participants themselves? And can such articulation really be described as a commodity? Political activists and ecologically or otherwise committed readers must respond to the interpretation of protest movements and contemporary forms of post-conventional forms of collective political articulation as system-stabilising arenas for the consumptive experience of alterity with reflexes of defence. Within the logic of their activism and normative commitment they must conclude that such deliberations can only emerge from outright reactionary, repulsively immoral and radically anti-ecological sources. Politically and morally, such reactions are fully understandable, but academically one may at least attempt to minimise the distorting effect normative belief systems invariably have on any analysis. A critical approach towards the analysis of late modern society must imply radical resistance against any form of (self-)censorship and the willingness to think through theoretical models which might appear morally despicable and politically incorrect. The point of the analysis provided in this paper can never be to morally accuse political activists and social movement participants of merely simulating their political commitment and hypocritically abusing discourses of radical change. Nor can it be to criticise them for contributing to the stabilisation of the system which they claim to oppose. Instead, the objective has been to conceptualise the late-modern condition and its specific needs, and to explore in how far – other purposes being equal – social movements and collective actors and their emerging repertoires of action serve these needs. I am not suggesting that political activists could or should act differently or more effectively. Nor am I implying any form of dishonesty, hypocrisy or moral impurity. As little as the purpose of this analysis is to tell late-modern society how it ought to behave differently, as little is its objective to be in any way prescriptive to the social movements. The approach suggested here is post-critical, even though it is, admittedly, carried by the hope that the analysis might,

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indirectly, generate impulses of change. In a sense, my analytical activism is no less performative or simulative than the movements which it seeks to understand. The emerging theory is not supposed to replace the existing social movement theories but only to supplement them. It does not claim to reveal the full and only truth about late modern society’s post-conventional forms of political participation, but it aims to shed light onto one specific dimension of the politics of radical change. Obviously, the model is not directly applicable to the full range of different social movements; although it may well be possible to adapt it for the interpretation of social movements beyond the ones addressed. So in conclusion one might ask whether the approach developed here isn’t conservative, cynical or even reactionary. The belief and expectation that sociological research must generate directly applicable – and if possible economically profitable – political prescriptions or policy guidelines reduces critical sociology to the function of stabilising and reproducing the status quo. In the late modern condition, a genuinely alternative and radical social theory will be one that refuses to fulfil these expectations. The way in which late modern societies may respond – if at all – to such genuinely alternative societal self-descriptions is not predictable. Any aggressive rejection of such counter-narratives as politically damaging or ideologically reactionary merely confirms how vulnerable late modern society feels, how fragile its simulations are, and how serious it is about the uncompromising defence of the exclusive status quo. References Baudrillard, Jean (2002) Der Geist des Terrorismus, Vienna: Passagen Verlag Beck, Ulrich (1992) The Risk Society. Towards a New Modernity, Cambridge: Polity Beck, Ulrich (1997) The Reinvention of Politics. Rethinking Modernity in the Global

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