The Crucial Role of Social Movements in Making Politics

  • Abstract:

    The social movements have always an constitutional role in shaping politics since 19th century. The grass-root actions turned a kind of institutional bodies to organize the demands from representatives. Rational and class-based theories saw a linear way of social movements in this process. After 1968 as a big break in social and political theories, the objects and subject of the political began to change more chaotic way. The big theories could not facilitate easily in the explanations about the social change. Especially in globalization era, the established bodies could not solve the problems and a democracy debate renewed. The role of social movements was again the crucial in this period. Anti-globalization movement constitute a new look against the one way process of neoliberal globalization and created their alternative areas to make their own political debates. Social Forum process was the turning point of anti to alter in globalization movement. After the ten years of Forums, the grass-root assemblies, coalitions and Networks still alive in search of another world. So social movements are playing important roles in asking big-questions in 2000s and they are gaining more important positions in making political debates against the established bodies like classical political parties or trade unions. Because movements reflect a horizontal hierarchy for the participation of ordinary people. The 15M and Indignados Movement in Spain turned this kind of body called Podemos and have gained a big oppositional role in Spanish politics. Also Syriza in Greece gathered the movements in its roof and raised their effect on European Parliament elections. Also in Turkey Gezi Park protest indicated to renew the opposition style to be create more democratic society and politics. These examples underline the rising roles of movements in doing political from the bottom and they give a chance to reconsideration old political concepts in a new era. So social movements approaches also are needed renewal under the effect of new experiments. In this study I would like to analyse of the latest movements with aiming the critics of movement theory and underline the importance of the movements in doing political outside the institutional way.