Epistemology of the New Social Movements in the International System and Middle East

Abstract

From 2010 onwards, the international system has observed public protests providing the situation for entering a new level of political and social evolutions around the world and the region. The transition from collective action based on class to action based on notions of identity, transition from unilateralism in action to interactive model and relationship-based and transition from economic aims in the form of collective action to symbolic cultural and political aims have been the main elements of evolution of social movement in the recent years. The current article is a response to the reason of incidence of such evolution and why the pluralism and increased access of people to political procedures, development of information and communication technologies, and highlighting the role of civil society, non-governmental organizations and expansion of role of new middle class have resulted in such evolution. Discussions made by authors such as Alberto Melucci regarding the interactive and identity-based action, could be appropriate theoretical frameworks for surveying the process of transition from conventional social movement to new social movement (NSM). From the point of research condition, the current article is a descriptive-analytical survey and from the point of aim it is an applied survey.

DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2015.v6n5s1p319