Is Tea Party Movement also a New Social Movement?

• In Event: 277 - Section on Collective Behavior and Social Movements Roundtable Session (one-hour).
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 14. Social Movement Theory

Abstract

There is a glaring gap in the new social movement studies in addressing conservative and right-wing social movements. Theoretically, it seems that new social movement (NSM) theories have explanatory power for both the progressive and the right-wing social movements rising since 1960s. Empirically, however, NSM studies have focused solely on the former while ignored the latter. To address this gap and explain whether it is justified to exclude conservative movements from NSM framework, I compare the Occupy Wall Street Movement and the Tea Party Movement in order to answer what count as a new social movement. Drawing from Habermas and Offe, I argue that Tea Party Movement departs from the underlying premises of NSM in two major ways. It neither challenges market or state colonization of civil society nor cast a reflective relation to the social and cultural norms in the civil society itself. Therefore, it seems plausible that right-wing movements are not accounted for under current NSM paradigm. Otherwise, an expanded framework of NSM should be developed to explain the right-wing movements.

Author

• Hao Cao, University of Texas-Austin