For English(1) (1) [612102]

UNIVERSITY OF BUCHAREST
FACULTY OF SOCIOLOGY AND
SOCIAL WORK

PROJECT FOR ENGLISH
1ST YEAR

Student: [anonimizat] –Nicoleta
1st Series, 2nd Group

2017 -2018

My choice of book is Social Movement : Key Concepts in Political Science by
Paul Wilkinson, written in London in 1971.
Introduction
The English word ꞌmovement ꞌ derives from the old French and medieval Latin
words ꞌmovoir ꞌ respectively ꞌmovimentum ꞌ.
A different and now obsolete usage of the term was to denote some ꞌliberal ꞌ,
ꞌinnovatory ꞌ or ꞌprogressive ꞌ parties or functions as in cases of ꞌparti du movement ꞌ
in France or ꞌmovement party ꞌ in the early part of the nineteenth -century Britain.
Political concepts are a big part of our daily speech -we abuse 'bureaucracy'
and praise 'democracy', welcome or recoil from 'revolution'. Emotive words such
as 'equality', 'dictatorship', 'elite' or even 'power' can often, by the very passions
which they raise, obscure a proper understanding of the sense in which they are, or
should be, or should not be, or have been used. Confucius regarded the
'rectification of names' as the first task of government. 'If names are not correct,
language will not be in acc ordance with the truth of things', and this in time would
lead to the end of justice, to anarchy and to war. One could point out that the
attempts by governments to enforce their own quaint meanings on words have not
been conspicuous for their success in justice.
There are many today who woul d disagree with Bism arck's view that politics
can never be an exact s cience. But all of us who are students of politics -and our
numbers both insi de and outside the universities continue to grow -will be the better
for knowing what precis ely we mean when we use a common politic al term.

Concepts
It is possible to analyse the difficulties of the refinement of the social
movement concept under five main headings : the problem of generality, dangers of
ambiguity, problems of reification, problems of the type concept and problems of
comparison.
The things that are l ogically connected with the problems of reification are the
pitfalls of type -concepts. Social movement is itself a ꞌtypeꞌ concept, in that is must
necessarily be related to a wider typology of social institutions, collectivities and
phenomena, and it rises simultaneous problems of defining social movement
types and subtypes.
However, social movements are rarely one -dimensional ; they tend to be
multidimensional.
A working concept?
It is proposed that our working concept should attempt to identify and
generally define the quintessential characteristics may thus be defined as a
precondition of social mo vement.
 A social movement is a deliberate collective endeavour to promote change
in any direction and by any means, not excluding violence ,illegality,
revolution or withdrawal into a ꞌutopian ꞌ community.
 A social movement must evince a minimal degree of organization, though
this may range from a loose , informal or partial level of organization to the
highly institutionalized and bureaucratized movement and the corporate
group.

 A social movementꞌs commitment to change is founded to the movementꞌs
aims or b eliefs and active participation on the part of the followers or
members.
Historically, social movements are multi -dimensional and kaleidoscopic.
British socialism, for example , has from time to time, contained the
characteristics of a class movement, a qua sireligious labour secretarianism, a
moral and intellectual crusade, populism, and even imperialism and
nationalism.
Rural and urban movements
ꞌPopular movement ꞌ, however, is too broad a term to constitute a type of
social movement in any meaningful sense.
ꞌThe people ꞌ, surely, are the vital element of all the social movements.
National movements
There is no justification for restarting the history of nationalist concepts
and doctrines, as this has been outlined in several able accounts to which the
reader is reffered. Nevertheless, students of social movement will note a lack of
analytical and comparative studies of national movement.
Race movement
Races can be loosely defined as human groups sharing certain easily
identificable somatic characteristics, the most important of this bei ng skin
pigmentation.
The wide occurrence of colour prejudice, however, is generally
exacerbated by the dissemination of various racial myths which have been used

to justify a particular pattern of dominance to provide quasi -ideological
rationalization for the cruelest forms of racial persecution or the stirring up of
race hatred.
Moral crusade
Modern moral crusade and moral protest movements are confronted with
extremely testing problems of political strategy. To add to their traditional
repertoire of publ ic meetings , processions, marches, demonstrations, the
presentation of petitions, mass lobbying of legislators and pamphleteering,
moral crusades have developed new means for exerting moral and
psychological pressure -planned mass civil disobedience , ꞌsit-insꞌ and ꞌfreedom –
rides ꞌ.
Revolutionar and totalitarian movements
Revolutionary movements are aimed at sweeping away existing political,
economic or social structures.
Guerilla -based revolution
One of the great , possibly decesive strengths of modern revolutionary
movements in the Third World Countries has been their ability (as for example,
in China, Algeria and Cuba) to establish a firm foundation of popular support
among the rural poor.