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73 (Melucci 1989, 73-74)
(Melucci 1989, 73-74)
In order to transcend the current paradigm of new social movements the main characteristics of recent collective action must be identified. Even though I am not in search of the central movement of complex society, I maintain that there are forms of antagonistic collective action capable of affecting the logic of complex systems. However, the identification of this type of action requires an analysis that recognizes the plurality of operative factors (opportunities, limits, responses) and does not simply assume that the movement is a metaphysically given ’entity’.
Such general considerations are important when considering what is ’new’ about the recent movements. One of their distinctive characteristics is the unstable pattern of their membership. The attributes of the actors are defined almost entirely by the action itself. This means that the energies and resources that actors invest in the construction of their collective identity are an essential part of the action, and not simply an accessory or ’expressive’ dimension. The weakness of an exclusively political view centred on the ‘instrumental’ dimension of action is that it considers as ‘expressive’ or residual the self reflective investments of the movements. But these investments in self-reflection are crucial for understanding the effects of movements on the political system. If what movements do to construct a sense of ’we’ is not considered accessory or residual, then our understanding of concepts such as efficacy and success is correspondingly modified.
What is new about contemporary movements is first of all that information resources are at the centre of collective conflicts. Conflicts shift to the codes, to the formal frameworks of knowledge, and this shift is made possible by the self-reflexive capacity of complex systems. The self-reflexive form of action is thus another specific characteristic of recent movements. The decline of movements as ‘characters’ signifies the dissolution of the ‘subject’ and an increase in the formal capacity for self reflection. Finally, the global interdependence or the ‘planetarization’ of action profoundly alters the environmental conditions in which actors are formed and act: the field of opportunities and constraints of action is redefined within a multipolar and transnational system. [Melucci, Alberto. 1989. Nomads of the Present. London: Hutchinson Radius.]
