These groups, better known as social movements, are an informal and flexible way for citizens to participate in politics. Though loosely coordinated, they have made serious political impacts in the past and do have purpose as well as direction. However, for a social movement to maintain function, some sort of leadership must be present in order to hold the group's focus and give their actions coherence.
These movements first gained immense popularity within the last century and are much more prevalent and powerful than ever before. One explanation for this is the major technical advances in communication, which have always had their followings in social movement politics, in addition to the democratic belief that common citizens must participate in the making of a government. In addition to this explanation, there are two other possible answers for the volcanic growth of social movements in the last few decades. The first is that they grew from new political issues, such as women's rights and the environment, which are difficult for political parties and interest groups to deal with. The other possibility is that new, more flexible organizations have risen from the declining memberships of political parties. Furthermore, there are three more specific explanations for social movement popularity. Opportunity structures refer to the bits of the political circumstances that provide benefits for social movements. Mobilizing structures define the nature of the movement, or how it can help itself. Finally, framing is the belief that a group of people must feel a grievance, but still maintain hope that they can fix this grievance. It is important to note that these last three ideas are not competing against each other, but rather, are complimentary. Regardless of why they have so increased in number, social movements' loose organization is what differentiates it from both, political parties (who seek to control the government) and interest groups (who seek to influence policies in the government). A social movement can take either of two paths - it can focus more on removing power from the leader of a country in order to give it to someone else, or it can focus more on changing a specific government policy.
Unfortunately, there are two huge disadvantages pitted against the loose organization of social movements. The first is that, because of the informality, movements often have very little money and so, cannot access the resources to which political leaders are drawn. Additionally, social movements rarely have consistent staff members, which prevent long-term jobs, such as those needed to build a database, from developing. The second disadvantage of the social movement's informality is that they are usually short-lived and, more often than not, a politician will just try to wait it out. Despite these advantages though, social movements have gained popularity for a reason - there are benefits in loose organization. The flexibility they have in defining and framing issues is a direct effect of an ever-changing staff. This flexibility allows social movements to be very opportunistic and quickly change their tactics. Additionally, social movements are able to capitalize on new opportunities, fast, and form networks across state lines. This capability for expansion has led to what experts call the boomerang pattern, in which social movements whose goals are blocked by their government will ask a similar social movement of another country to pressure its own government to convince the initial movement's government to somehow respond.
For social movements to succeed, they must keep up with advances in communication technologies, and be skilled in using information effectively. Though many are more on the liberal side, conservative social movements do exist, and most all of them are represented on the Internet fairly heavily. Moreover, social movements utilize international ties and have developed efficient networks of private assemblies. In the end, the advantages outweigh the disadvantages and social movements are growing and advancing every day.
