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External WebsitesEmeritus Professor of Sociology, University of California, Los Angeles. Coauthor of Collective Behavior.
Ralph H. Turner , Lewis M. KillianFaculty Associate, University of West Florida, Pensacola. Emeritus Professor of Sociology, University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Author of The Impossible Revolution; coauthor of Collective.
Lewis M. Killian • All Fact-checked by The Editors of Encyclopaedia BritannicaEncyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree. They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors.
The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica Last Updated: Jul 29, 2024 • Article History Table of Contents
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social movement, a loosely organized but sustained campaign in support of a social goal, typically either the implementation or the prevention of a change in society’s structure or values. Although social movements differ in size, they are all essentially collective. That is, they result from the more or less spontaneous coming together of people whose relationships are not defined by rules and procedures but who merely share a common outlook on society.
Collective behaviour in crowds, panics, and elementary forms (milling, etc.) are of brief duration or episodic and are guided largely by impulse. When short-lived impulses give way to long-term aims, and when sustained association takes the place of situational groupings of people, the result is a social movement.
A movement is not merely a perpetuated crowd, since a crowd does not possess organizational and motivational mechanisms capable of sustaining membership through periods of inaction and waiting. Furthermore, crowd mechanisms cannot be used to achieve communication and coordination of activity over a wide area, such as a nation or continent. A movement is a mixture of organization and spontaneity. There is usually one or more organizations that give identity, leadership, and coordination to the movement, but the boundaries of the movement are never coterminous with the organizations. For example, although organizations such as California’s Sierra Club are influential in the movement to preserve the natural environment, anyone who works for the cause and interacts with other workers for this purpose is a member of the conservationist movement. The famous John Brown was not a member of any major abolitionist organization, but his martyrdom made him a leader and symbol for the movement, even though organizational leaders were reluctant to recognize him.
All definitions of social movement reflect the notion that social movements are intrinsically related to social change. They do not encompass the activities of people as members of stable social groups with established, unquestioned structures, norms, and values. The behaviour of members of social movements does not reflect the assumption that the social order will continue essentially as it is. It reflects, instead, the faith that people collectively can bring about or prevent social change if they will dedicate themselves to the pursuit of a goal. Uncommitted observers may regard these goals as illusions, but to the members they are hopes that are quite capable of realization. Asked about their activities, members of a social movement would not reply, “I do this because it has always been done” or “It’s just the custom.” They are aware that their behaviour is influenced by the goal of the movement: to bring about a change in the way things have “always” been done or sometimes to prevent such a change from coming about.
The quixotic efforts of bold, imaginative individuals do not constitute social movements. A social movement is a collectivity or a collective enterprise. Individual members experience a sense of membership in an alliance of people who share their dissatisfaction with the present state of affairs and their vision of a better order. Like a group, a social movement is a collectivity with a common goal and shared values.
The sense of membership suggests that individuals are subject to some discipline. In addition to shared values, a social movement possesses norms. These norms prescribe behaviour that will symbolize the members’ loyalty to the social movement, strengthen their commitment to it, and set them apart from nonmembers. The norms prohibit behaviour that may cause embarrassment to the movement or provide excuses for attacks by opponents. Commitment is strengthened by participation in group activities with other members and by engaging in actions, individual or collective, that publicly define the individuals as committed members.
A social movement also provides guidelines as to how members should think. Norms of this kind constitute something resembling a “party line”—a definition of the “correct” position for members to take with regard to specific issues. There is subtle pressure on individuals to espouse this position even in the absence of personal knowledge of the arguments for it. Not every member can be expected to study and think through the philosophy that justified the movement and its values. Ideology provides them with a ready-made, presumably authoritative set of arguments.
One of the defining characteristics of a social movement is that it is relatively long lasting; the activity of the membership is sustained over a period of weeks, months, or even years rather than flaring up for a few hours or a few days and then disappearing. A social movement is usually large, but, like duration, largeness is only relative. Some social movements, lasting many decades, may enlist hundreds of thousands of members. Some movements take place within the boundaries of a specific secondary group, such as a religious association or a local community, and may include only a few score or a few hundred members.
The exact size of a social movement is impossible to determine exactly, for membership is not formally defined. Indeed, one of the salient characteristics of a social movement is the semiformal character of its structure. It lacks the fully developed, formal structure of a stable association, such as a club, a corporation, or a political party. The leaders do not possess authority in the sense of legitimatized power, and members are not formally inducted. The informal, noncontractual quality of membership and the absence of formal decision-making procedures place a premium on faith and loyalty on the part of members. While not all members display these traits, ideal members give their total, unselfish loyalty to the movement. Since no legal obligation is assumed on becoming a member, either to conform to the movement’s norms or to remain a member, commitment to the movement and its values becomes one of the most important sources of control. Deeply committed members, accepting without question the decisions and orders conveyed by the leaders, sacrificing self, family, and friends if required to do so, are likely to be regarded by outsiders as fanatics. Some students of social movements, particularly those whose analysis has a psychoanalytic orientation, have suggested that the fanaticism of dedicated members results from individual psychopathological states. An alternative explanation is that the social movement becomes a reference group that provides dedicated members with a new and deviant view of social reality. Their basic assumptions about the nature of the social order become so divergent from those of “normal” members of society that their logic and conclusions are incomprehensible to them.
