516 SOCIAL RESEARCH Gonflits and power can’t be held by the same actors. ‘The myth of the movements transforming themselves into a trans parent power has already produced tragic consequences. The ‘distance between processes by which needs and conflicts are formed and structures performing systemic integration and goals is a condition for making power visible, that is, negot able. The enlargement of the public space, between move- ments and institutions, is the task for a real “postindustrial” democracy, a task in which both movements and political ae tors are concerned. folia2, he 4 © pp SIF = 868. New Social Movements: Challenging the Boundaries of Institutional / Politics* fo BY CLAUS OFFE - A sone: pots scitogits ana potal scientists who ana 1 yae the changing srueraes and dyeamics of West European pois, it became commonplace inthe seventies to observe the fasion of polial and nonpolitel spheres of stil lie. The Continued analytical usefulness ofthe conventional dichotomy ‘of “sate” and “cil society” was questioned. Processes of fir Sion could he ahserved. not only on the level of global Sociopotical arrangements, but alo on the level of eizens as the elementary poleal ators, The dividing Hine that de- Tinetes“poltal™ concerns and modes of action from “pr tate" (@g), moral or economic ones) was becoming blurred We sce the contours of a rather dramatic morte! of polital development of advanced Western soceies: a6 public plies a more direct and snore visible impact upon eiizens. Siivens in torn try to win a more iinediate and mote com prehensive control over pial elites by means that are see” Frequently to be incompatible with the maintenance of the instiatonsl order of the polity. Since the midsevenis, a hhumier of mostly conservative analysts have described his {yale as highly vicous and dangerous, one which, in their ‘ew, must lead to-a cumulative erosion of pala! muthorty818 L_RESEARCH and even the capucity 10 govern,” unless effective measures are taken that free the economy from overly detailed and ambi- tious political intervention and that immunize political elites from the pressures, concerns, and actions of citizens. The proposed solution, in other words, is restrictive redefinition fof what can and should be considered "political," and the corresponding elimination from the agenda of governments ff all sues, practices, demands, and cesponsibiliies that are defined as being “outside” the proper sphere of polities. This is the neoconservative project of insulating the politcal from the nonpolitical, Gentral to this project is the image of a breakdown or “implosion” of the autonomy and authority of nonpolitical institutional spheres and hence their increasing dependence ‘upon political support and regulation. In this sense, it can in fact be argued that the "autonomous" culwral and structural Foundations of aesthetic production, of science and technol ‘ogy, of the family, religion, and the labor market have been feroded and are contested 10 such an extent that only the political provision of rules and resources can keep these var fous subsystems of "civil society” alive. But, according to the neoconservative analysis, the extended reach of public policy, ‘of state control, support, and regulation, into formerly more independent areas of socal life i, rather paradoxically, both 3 sain and a loss of state authority: 2 in in that more variables and parameters of civil society can and must be manipulated, but also a loss, because there are Fewer nonpolitial—and hence uncontested and noncontroversial—foundations of ac tion 20 which claims can be referred or from which metapolit ‘eal (in the sense of “natural” or “given") premises For politics can be derived, As the functions and responsibilities of the sate ‘expand, its authority (ie, its eapacity to make binding deci- Sons) is debased; for political authority can be stable only as Jong as its limited, and thus complemented by self-sustaining anton, The Und Soe M Ga Tr Gr Sms CHALLE: hhompolitical spheres of uesion hich serve both co exonerate political authority and to provide it with sources of legitimacy. ‘This dilemuna can be illustrated by referring to such nonpoli cal institutional spheres asthe Family, the market, and science ‘As soon as these institutions lose their independence vis-a-vis ‘he political, and function according to some politically deter- Imined design, the repercussions of such politicization will most of all affect polities suthority itself, Rather than growing ronger by greater “comprehensiveness,” political authority subverts its nonpolitical underpinnings, which appear in Creasingly as mere artifacts of the political process itself, It is this evaporation of uncontested and noncontingent premises (hth diruetural and evaluative) of pics Urat the neoconservative project is trying to revert in # sometimes desperate search for ponpolitical foundations of order and stability. What therefore ie needed, according to the neoconservative project, is che restoration of uncontestable standards of an economic, moral, ‘oF cognitive nature. As a consequence, the concept of politics turns reflexive; polities centers on the question of what politics ig ahour—and what ic is not about, The project sims at = restrictive redefinition of politics, the counterpart of which is Tooked for in the market, the family. or science. This search for the unpolitical is hoped 10 lead to a narrower and more le concept of polities, one that “reprivatizes” chose conficts hisses that ate fot 40 be dealt with properly by means of ‘public authority. Tn spite of their obvious political opposition to the content of the neoconservative project, the polities of the new social movements shares an important analytical insight with the proponents of this project. This insight is the following: The Confess and contradictions of advanced industeial society can no longer be resolved in meaningful and promising, ways through etatism, political regulation, and the proliferating in- clusion of ever more claims and issues on the agenda of bareaueratie authorities. It is only after this shared analytical premise that neoconservative politics and movement politics820 SOCIAL RESEARCH diverge in opposite political dvections. Whereas the neocon servative project seeks t0 restore the nonpolitical, noncontin- kent, and uncomtestable foundations of civil society (such as property, the market, the work ethic, che Family, and scientitie rath) in olen qo saegael more restricted —anel therefore inore solit-—sphere of state authority an no longer “overs loacled” political institutions, the politics of new xocial move- sents, by contrast, seeks to poiticize the in ieations oF civil society in wiys that are not constrained by the channels of representative-bureaucratic political institutions, and thereby to reconsiute a civil society that is no longer dependent upon ever more regulation, control, and intervention. In order 10 ‘emancipate itself from the state, civil society itelf—its insite tions of work, production, distribution, family relations, vela tions with nature, its very standards of rationality and progress—musi he poliicied through practices that belong to fan intermediate sphere between “private” pursuits and con- cerns, on the one side, and institutional, state-sinetioned modes of politics, on the other The “aew politics” of the mew social movements can be analyzed, as can any other polities, in terms af its social base las issues, concerns, andl salves, ancl its modes af action, In rer 10 do so, | will employ the term "political paradigny"® The following agenda suggests itself: First, the “ol paradigm that has been dominant throughout the post-World ‘War IT er wilt he deseribed, Focusing on its four principal components (values, issues, actors, institutional practices). See- fond, the new paradigm will be cliseusted in the ssme categories. Third, the question will he addressed how the vise ‘rata pnt rv sweeter sch) What {ace sod ein then whith the ctr e ced oa CHALLENGING THE BOUNDARIES #21 Gh the new patadigm can he explained and what Kind of Shane i prorded by analysts who have undertaken such wns conliing explanations: Here we nso wan! 10 cO™ Bier why ais fused to speak of "new (ther than a wee for of oe) ola Tensges that we are clang {Sieve some speci sn ae cones which witli soun st ts conte about the paper spe fi re conceivable, nd what the likely ou ‘or arena of the poli fames of such resolution could be, The Old Povadigm ‘The cove tems on the agends of West European pois in the pss fom te immetine poswar years unl the ery wets were ues of economie growth dstbuon, and SMES There ena concen of "ld pli" were te ‘ated one lee of survey avn on "wh people beleve are {hn important es Ting soi” While sues of te wane taing conned ply subordinate ae 0 stows Eten conics concerning the tas of West Bee inthe remmanas rom eae pleat agenda mt Be chatered st nomethng, palo Geran pals ofthe toate a nee the Bees of desoniation the French per pth pottes While sh sven of he ty it ad ‘Rtetnian’ ef naoral covery and_nauonl terry uses nine eat in hese cours, conics ove the com Stitutional and Yegal order of nation conspicuously absent. The socal, economic, and political order that was adopted in the hte forties and early fifties was built lupon a highly encompassing beval-democratic welfare-state Gonaensus that remained sinchallenged. by any significant forces on cither the political Right oF Left, Not only was this 1A iter @ a tn Ponsa Pain ia i hr Now ot