Social Movements, Collective Action and Activism

Collective action and oppositional political activism are firmly established features of any society and pose a challenge to inequality, exclusion and injustice rooted in the oppression of people. Oppressive practices and exclusionary policies are often the catalyst for participation in collective action to generate a conscious move towards social, cultural and political change. Over 100 years ago the suffragette movement in the UK and the nationalist movement in India employed peaceful tactics (viewed as law breaking) with spectacular outcomes and impact which could not have been foreseen. To acknowledge the history of movements globally is crucial in the understanding of new social movements which is the focus of this special issue. Viewed from the perspective of political sociology, the range of interests of social movements is reflected in the articles published in Sociology since the 1960s to the second decade of the twenty first century, with terms such as ‘collective action’, ‘networks’ , ‘democracy’, ‘power’, ‘resistance’, and ‘citizenship’ in their titles. Furthermore, the concept ‘social movements’ has been applied to new areas such as education, for example in the article by Mirza and Reay (2000, included in our collection) which considers supplementary schools as a new social movement. This requires us to reconsider or rethink social movement theory commensurate with contemporary collective action (Ryan 2006, included in our collection). Indeed, a range of theories has been developed over time to understand the rise of social movements and their achievements. This special issue brings together a range of articles with particular ideas about social movements that have developed over a number of decades.