Key Takeaways
1. The social movement is a historically specific, three-part political invention.
No single element, but the combination of repertoire and WUNC displays within campaigns, created the social movement’s distinctiveness.
A distinct political form. Tilly argues that the social movement is not a catch-all term for any popular protest or crowd action throughout history. Instead, it is a highly specific, historically bound synthesis of three distinct elements that emerged in the West after 1750. These elements must work in tandem to constitute a true social movement:
- A sustained, organized public effort making collective claims on target authorities (a campaign)
- An ensemble of political performances such as rallies, demonstrations, and petition drives (the repertoire)
- Concerted public representations of worthiness, unity, numbers, and commitment (WUNC displays)
Interactive political campaigns. Unlike a single riot or a one-time petition, a social movement campaign is an ongoing, interactive challenge. It always links three distinct parties: the self-designated claimants, the objects of those claims (often governments or powerful elites), and a wider public audience. The movement is defined not by the solo actions of any one group, but by the dynamic, evolving interactions among all three.
The WUNC display. The odd-sounding acronym WUNC represents the vital currency of popular legitimacy that movements must project to be taken seriously. Activists signal these traits through highly recognizable local idioms, such as wearing matching badges to show unity or braving terrible weather to prove commitment. Without these public displays of moral weight and collective resolve, a group's claims are easily dismissed by authorities.
2. Social movements require a synthesis of campaigns, repertoires, and WUNC displays.
Unlike a one-time petition, declaration, or mass meeting, a campaign extends beyond any single event—although social movements often include petitions, declarations, and mass meetings.
The modular repertoire. The social movement repertoire consists of highly adaptable, modular performances that can easily migrate across different geographic regions and political issues. Over time, these performances have become standardized, allowing diverse groups to quickly organize and express dissent. Key performances in this repertoire include:
- Special-purpose associations and crosscutting coalitions
- Public meetings, rallies, and solemn processions
- Vigils, demonstrations, and petition drives
- Media statements and pamphleteering
Signaling collective worth. Worthiness, unity, numbers, and commitment are not merely abstract concepts; they are actively performed on the public stage. For instance, worthiness is demonstrated through sober demeanor and neat clothing, while unity is signaled through synchronized chanting or matching headbands. These performances translate raw numbers into a disciplined, formidable political force.
The power of campaigns. A campaign is the connective tissue that binds individual performances and WUNC displays into a coherent, long-term struggle. It requires political entrepreneurs to plan, build coalitions, and mute local differences to sustain pressure on targets over months or years. This sustained interaction distinguishes social movements from spontaneous, short-lived riots or localized rebellions.
3. The social movement was invented in the late eighteenth century in Britain and North America.
Then, during the later eighteenth century, people in Western Europe and North America began the fateful creation of a new political phenomenon.
The Wilkite catalyst. The turbulent political career of John Wilkes in 1760s London served as a primary laboratory for the invention of the social movement. Wilkes, a controversial Member of Parliament, converted his personal legal battles into a broader campaign for "English Liberty," mobilizing non-voting working-class crowds to fill the streets. This mobilization pioneered the synthesis of electoral campaigns with disciplined popular protest.
American colonial resistance. Across the Atlantic, American colonists resisting British taxation during the Stamp Act crisis of 1765 rapidly adopted and expanded these modular tactics. Organizations like the Sons of Liberty coordinated boycotts and public meetings, linking elite merchants with street-level artisans. They established a highly effective resistance network that relied on:
- Inter-colonial committees of correspondence
- Public dedications of "Liberty Trees"
- Highly publicized, symbolic toasts and processions
A new political space. These early British and American innovations pushed back the boundaries of what authorities considered permissible public assembly. By combining traditional, tolerated gatherings with radical program claims, these pioneers carved out a contested but durable legal space for popular politics. This marked a permanent shift away from localized, destructive riots toward organized, nonviolent public campaigns.
4. Parliamentarization, capitalization, and proletarianization drove the rise of social movements.
The shift of power toward Parliament meant that the impact of legislative actions on everyone’s welfare greatly increased and that, because of parliamentary representation’s geographic organization, everyone in Great Britain and the colonies acquired a more direct connection to the men—the elected legislators—who were taking consequential political actions.
The impact of parliamentarization. As national parliaments gained power over hereditary monarchs and local patrons, they became the central targets for popular claim-making. Because parliaments were organized geographically, ordinary citizens suddenly had a direct, structural connection to the legislators making decisions about taxes, war, and public welfare. This shift focused popular attention on a single, highly visible national arena.
Capitalism and proletarianization. The rapid expansion of agrarian, commercial, and industrial capital fundamentally altered the social structure of Western nations. Proletarianization—the rising proportion of the population depending entirely on wages—freed workers from the stifling control of local landlords and masters. This newly independent workforce was uniquely positioned to organize collectively, utilizing:
- Concentrated urban workplaces as organizing hubs
- Mutual aid societies and early trade unions
- Independent financial resources free from patron control
The war-state nexus. The massive financial demands of global conflicts, such as the Seven Years War, forced states to extract unprecedented resources from their populations. This extraction triggered intense negotiations between governments and subjects over the terms of their contributions. To secure compliance, states were forced to concede basic rights of assembly and association, unwittingly paving the way for social movements.
5. Democratization and the expansion of citizenship are the lifeblood of social movements.
The rise and fall of social movements mark the expansion and contraction of democratic opportunities.
A symbiotic relationship. Democratization—the movement toward broad, equal, consultative, and protective relations between governments and citizens—is the single most powerful promoter of social movements. While social movements do not always advocate for democratic programs, they require the protective umbrella of democratic institutions to survive and flourish. When regimes democratize, they establish the essential legal rights that make social movements possible:
- Secure rights of public assembly and association
- Freedom of speech and press protections
- Protection of citizens from arbitrary state violence
The role of citizenship. Citizenship institutionalizes regular, categorical relations between subjects and their governments, replacing personal patronage with uniform rules. This equalization of political rights provides a powerful incentive for excluded groups to demand inclusion by pointing out logical contradictions in existing laws. For example, early feminists and civil rights activists successfully leveraged the language of universal citizenship to dismantle exclusionary laws.
The threat of dedemocratization. Conversely, when a regime dedemocratizes, the space for social movements rapidly contracts or disappears entirely. Authoritarian regimes, such as Fascist Italy or Soviet Russia, routinely suppress autonomous campaigns, co-opting social movement performances into highly controlled, state-sponsored pageantry. Without genuine protection and consultation, the social movement ceases to exist as an independent vehicle for popular voice.
6. The twentieth century saw the global expansion and ideological diversification of movements.
Once social movements establish themselves in one political setting, modeling, communication, and collaboration facilitate their adoption in other connected settings.
Global diffusion. During the twentieth century, the social movement model diffused far beyond its Western origins, adapting to diverse political cultures across the globe. Anti-colonial struggles, such as the Indian independence movement led by Mohandas Gandhi, brilliantly synthesized traditional religious and moral concepts with the standard social movement repertoire. This global expansion was accelerated by:
- Rapid improvements in international transportation and communication
- The rise of international organizations like the United Nations
- The modeling of successful revolutionary campaigns in other nations
Ideological polarization. The twentieth century also witnessed the aggressive appropriation of social movement forms by right-wing and anti-democratic forces. Fascist and Nazi movements in Europe utilized disciplined marches, mass rallies, and special-purpose associations to seize power and subsequently dismantle democratic institutions. This historical reality proves that the social movement is a highly flexible political tool, not an inherently progressive force.
Routinization and policing. As social movements became permanent fixtures of democratic societies, relations between activists and authorities underwent a profound transformation. Governments and police forces developed specialized, less-lethal strategies for "protest policing," focusing on containment and negotiation rather than outright suppression. This routinization reduced the physical violence of demonstrations but also risked taming their disruptive potential.
7. "New" social movements shifted focus toward identity, autonomy, and lifestyle.
The repeatedly stated aim of Solidarity is to free society from the party’s totalitarian domination.
The post-industrial shift. In the wake of the global upheavals of 1968, many political analysts argued that a new class of social movements was supplanting traditional, class-based labor struggles. These "new social movements" (NSMs) focused less on material distribution or state power and more on personal autonomy, self-expression, and lifestyle. They challenged the bureaucratic, top-down control of post-industrial society across several key domains:
- Environmental protection and ecological sustainability
- Expressive feminism and gender equality
- Gay, lesbian, and queer rights
- Indigenous sovereignty and cultural preservation
The centrality of identity. Unlike older movements that prioritized instrumental political gains, NSMs placed collective identity at the very center of their campaigns. Activists engaged in intense internal negotiations to define who "we" are, using public performances to demand recognition and respect for their distinct identities. This focus on identity claims often blurred the traditional boundaries between the public and private spheres.
A historical continuity. However, historical analysis reveals that the distinction between "old" and "new" movements is often overstated. Nineteenth-century movements, such as temperance and religious revivals, also placed a heavy emphasis on identity, moral reform, and personal autonomy. Rather than representing a radical break with the past, NSMs simply highlighted the enduring, multi-dimensional nature of social movement claim-making.
8. Digital technology and globalization have created "smart mobs" and transnational networks.
A global social movement was built, united around this one issue.
The digital revolution. The early twenty-first century brought a dramatic integration of digital communications technologies into social movement practices. Mobile phones, text messaging, and the Internet have drastically lowered the costs of coordination, allowing decentralized networks to mobilize rapidly without relying on traditional, resource-rich organizations. This technological shift has enabled:
- The rapid formation of "smart mobs" that coordinate in real-time
- The execution of simultaneous, geographically dispersed "days of action"
- The creation of virtual performances, such as online petition drives
Transnational social movements. Globalization has also fostered the rise of transnational social movement organizations (TSMOs) that target international bodies like the World Trade Organization or multinational corporations. These movements, such as the global justice and anti-debt campaigns, coordinate actions across multiple continents to challenge the policies of global capital. They rely heavily on international networks of activists and professional non-governmental organizations.
The digital divide. However, the digital transformation of social movements is highly unequal, reinforcing a stark global divide. While activists in rich, highly connected nations utilize cutting-edge digital tools, the vast majority of the world's population remains excluded from these networks due to a lack of basic infrastructure. Furthermore, weakly linked digital networks often struggle to sustain the long-term commitment and discipline required to achieve lasting political change.
9. Social movements do not automatically promote democracy; they can also undermine it.
Empirically, antidemocratic movements have formed repeatedly; we need look no further than the nativist mobilizations in William Gamson’s catalog for the nineteenth-century United States.
The dark side of mobilization. Throughout history, the highly effective tools of the social movement—campaigns, repertoires, and WUNC displays—have been repeatedly deployed to restrict rights and promote inequality. Nativist, racist, and exclusionary movements have frequently mobilized large populations to demand the expulsion of immigrants or the denial of basic rights to minorities. These movements demonstrate that popular mobilization is not synonymous with democratic progress:
- Nativist and anti-immigrant campaigns in the United States and Europe
- Fascist and totalitarian mobilizations in twentieth-century Europe
- Polarized, exclusionary religious and ethnic movements in the global South
The danger of polarization. When social movements become deeply polarized along rigid ethnic, religious, or class lines, they can severely damage a regime's democratic health. Instead of fostering cross-cutting coalitions, these movements reinforce existing social cleavages, treating political opponents as existential enemies rather than legitimate competitors. This polarization often leads to a breakdown in political trust and a rise in collective violence.
Undermining the rule of law. In some cases, powerful social movements can bypass democratic institutions entirely, using street pressure and disruptive tactics to force policy changes without broad public consultation. This "democracy on the hoof" can undermine the legitimacy of elected legislatures and judiciaries, replacing the rule of law with the rule of the loudest or most disruptive crowd. The long-term survival of democracy requires a careful balance between popular protest and institutional stability.
10. The future of social movements hangs on the balance between professionalization and democratic health.
The social movement, as an invented institution, could disappear or mutate into some quite different form of politics.
The threat of professionalization. As social movements enter the twenty-first century, they face a growing threat from intense professionalization and bureaucratization. Increasingly, campaigns are dominated by self-appointed, non-accountable non-governmental organizations and professional political entrepreneurs who manage dissent from above. This professionalization risks turning ordinary citizens into passive consumers of political choices made elsewhere, diluting the democratic essence of the movement:
- The dominance of well-funded, elite-led advocacy organizations
- The reduction of active participation to passive financial donation or online signing
- The co-optation of radical claims by professional political brokers
The impact of state capacity. The future of social movements is also deeply tied to the changing capacity of national states. As globalization and privatization weaken the regulatory power of governments, the traditional targets of social movement claims are becoming increasingly elusive. If national governments lose the capacity to implement social movement programs, the efficacy of the social movement as a political tool will decline precipitously.
A contingent future. Ultimately, the social movement is not a permanent feature of human history, but a contingent political invention that could easily disappear or mutate into a completely different form of politics. Its survival depends on the continuous renewal of democratic institutions, the bridging of global communication inequalities, and the ability of ordinary people to reclaim the tools of collective action from professional elites. The future of the social movement is, in essence, the future of democracy itself.
