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40 (Giddens 1994, 120)
(Giddens 1994, 120)
...Social movements have received a great deal of attention in the political and sociological literature. Yet, in terms of their numbers, their importance in the lives of many and their endurance over time, self-help groups are perhaps more significant.
It is obvious that neither social movements nor self-help groups are necessarily democratic in their aims; some such movements and groups, after all, have been dedicated to discrediting the whole framework of democratic institutions. Social movements are sometimes led by demagogues; such leaders may create a mass emotional identification that is the very antithesis of dialogic democracy.
Yet it makes sense to think of an intrinsic connection between democracy, social movements and self-help groups, coming in large part from the fact that (in principle) they open up spaces for public dialogue. A social movement, for example, can force into the discursive domain aspects of social conduct that previously went undiscussed, or were ’settled’ by traditional practices. The feminist movement problematized female and male sexual identity through making them matters of public debate; ecological movements have achieved a similar result in relation to the environment.
Some kinds of social movements and self-help groups pioneer and...help sustain, democratizing influences by the very form of their social organization.
