A Critique of Ultimate Referentiality in the New Social Movement Theory of Alberto Melucci Peyman Vahabzadeh Abstract: A critical examination of Alberto Melucci’s new social movement theory shows an operative assumption about the ultimate referentiality of society in his theory. Melucci assumes society as the unique, rational ground that renders society a reservoir of all meanings and conflicts. ‘The actor's pregiven social position is assumed to predispose him or her with the ability to enter into certain conflicts. To show Melucci’s operative assumption, three major theses in his theory are examined: (1) transition to the postindustrial society. (2) the new middle class radicalism, :3)identity as “latent” and “visible.” It is argued that Melucci's notion of society has its roots in his parochial, institutional conception of politics that disregards the hegemonic formation of society and the political character of every social phenomenon and practice. This critique leads to an invitation to a sociology that treats new social movements as loci of the political re-institution of society. Résumé: Une examination critique de la theorie.du nouveau mouvement social de Alberto Melucci suggere I'hypothese que la société est referentielle d’apres cette theorie, Melucci suppose que la société est unique et rationnelle, et de plus, la source de toutes significations et conflits. La position sociale de l'acteur le donne la capacite d’entrer dans de certains conflits. Pour illustrer 'hypothese de Melucci, trois théses majeures de sa theorie sont examinées: 1) transition a une société post- industrielle; 2) le nouveau radicalisme de la classe moyenne; 3) identités telle que « latente » et « visible », L'auteur affirme que l'origine de la notion de Melucci de la societé se trouve dans sa conception paroissiale et institutionelle de fa politique, conception qui ne prend pas en compte la formation hégémonique de la société et le caractére politique de tout phEnoméne ou pratique social. Cette critique méne a une sociologie qui traite les nouveaux mouvements sociaux commie les lieux de la reinstitution politique de la societé ‘Canadian Journal of Sociology!Cahiers canadiens de socinogie 26/4) 2001 6ll612 Canadian Journal of Sociology The theoretical literature concerning social movements has clearly gone through major focal and analytical shifts in the past three decades, Such shifts are nowhere more evident than in the coinage and increasing application of the term “new social movements” (especially during the 1980s). The new social movement theory of Italian sociologist Alberto Melucci, one of the originators of the term (Melucci, 1989: 42, 204), deems identity as the cardinal character- istic that distinguishes the “new” from the “older” social movements. As such, Melucci belongs to a generation of prominent European theorists — namely, Alain Touraine, Klaus Eder, Claus Offe — who emphasize, each in a different way, the centrality of identity, as emphasis on individual or group particularity, in understanding new social movements.! This paper will examine Melucci’s conception of identity in order to show that his social movement theory hinges on an assumption that takes identity to be expressive of some “deeper” social fundament which surfaces in new social movements’ practices. I will discuss that this view of identity is symptomatic of an operative assumption about society as a foundation for theoretical moorage. I will also point out that the “ultimate referentiality” (as an assumed reference to a ground) in Melucci’s theory takes place in spite of his acknowl- edgement that theory must critically reflect on certain “older” assumptions in order to be able to account for the emergence and increasing prevalence of the “new” social movements. A comprehensive investigation into Melucci’ s theory will be done by critically examining three theses around which, to varying degrees, Melucci’s entire new social movement theory is or has been orga- nized. In each one of these three theses, Melucci tries to theoretically account for the appeals to identity in the new movements in relation to a specific criterion: first, with respect to a shift from the industrial to the postindustrial societies in the West; second, in terms of the class origins of the new movements’ actors (a position which he criticizes later); and finally, in relation to individual or group autonomy or particularity. After examining cach one of 1. This implies that in this paper I attribute the origins of new social movement theories strictly to the European social movement theorists such as Touraine, Melucci, Offe, and Eder, The reason lies in that in the United States new social movements were initially responded to and theorized by resource mobilization theorists, namely, John McCarthy. Meyer Zald, and Charles Tilly. As a result, the study of new social movements was for a decade or so dominated by resource mobilization theory, which is not strictly a “new” social movement theory but is in fact a rationalistic and calculative theory that measures action in terms of losses and gains. As aresult, resource mobilization theory does not specifically respond to what is “new” in new social movements. This, of course, does not deny the fact that the European new social movements theory has been gaining increasing influence in North America (see: Della Porta and Diani 1999: 3; Foss and Larkin, 1986: 10-27), Among new social movement theorists, Melucci has been an arch critic of resource mobilization theory (Melucci, 1989: 21-23, 192-94; 1996: 65-67; Cohen, 1985: 663; Canel, 1992; Della Porta and Diani, 1999: 9).A Critique of Ultimate Referentiality in the New Social Movement Theory 613 these theses, I will argue that Mclucci’s operative assumption of an ultimate ground stems froma parochial notion of the political. This assumption prevents him from making the necessary conceptual break with the older theories of social movements. Thus, the objective of this paper is not to launch an im- manent critique of Melucci’s theory. Rather, it tries to probe the internal logic of his social movement theory in order to show how a foundationalist model of analysis binds his theory. I will conclude the paper by pointing out the merits of an approach to new social movement based on a critique of ultimate referentiality as well as the constitutive role of the political. The Postindustrial Society Conceptually, Melucci’s postindustrial thesis comes from a critical appropria- tion of Touraine'’s idea of the postindustrial society as a society in which there no longer exists any central actor (c.g., the proletariat). Despite his criticisms of Touraine’s theory of the postindustrial society and new social movements (Melucci, 1984: 826), Melucci draws on some fundamental social transforma- tions that show affinity with those identified by Touraine. As such, he alludes to the “changes in historical circumstances” in order to explain the emergence of new social movements (Melucci, 1988a: 245; 1989: 19). According to Me- lucci, certain processes in our societies reflect these changes. First, with the collapse of the distinction between public and private spheres, that took place after WWII, the individual's needs have become the expressions of the indi- vidual’ s particularity vis-a-vis the totality of society. Secondly, since due to the first operation, domination is now understood as a fact of everyday life, opposition to the sources of domination appears as deviance and marginality. Thirdly, as a consequence, the struggles for group autonomy and freedom from political intervention prompt movements to act out their practices largely in the cultural field instead of politics. Fourthly, emphasis on group particularity and identity becomes a form of resistance against power within the cultural milieu. Finally, with the increasing importance of identity as the quest for autonomy, direct participation in the form of action-groups is stressed, and representa- tional politics (as in conventional political parties) is largely abandoned (Melucci, 1980: 218-221). Melucci’s characterizations of the new movements are widely rearticulated by other authors in the field (Carroll, 1992; Larajia, Johnston & Gusfield, 1994; Foweraker, 1995; Della Porta and Diani, 1999). Melucci announces the end of the industrial “cycle” which included industrial conflicts (between management and workers), the issue of nation- hood, and finally, the extension of political rights to the excluded. This end, however, does not mean the end of struggles for citizenship or democratic expansion of rights (Melucci, 1988b: 330). Rather, the end of the industrial cycle means that contemporary social conflicts have become increasingly614 Canadian Journal of Sociology divergent. In this respect, he launches an extensive investigation of the cognitive and “phenomenological” aspects of social movements (Melucci, 1996a). Viewing the actors as capable of transcending the “linear logic of stimulus-response,” he rightly suggests that collective action cannot be explained directly through structural determinations. This attitude toward analysing the new types of collective action, as Melucci notes, is partly due to “advances in cognitive and constructive theories of human action” that have rendered us sensitive to collective action phenomena (1988b: 330-31). He suggests that today “we can observe the formation of a new field of conflicts, which specifically belongs to postindustrial, complex or advanced capitalist societies” (Melucci, 1984: 826).’ These new conflicts are diverse and different because the “high-density information” (or postindustrial) society is based on a complex system that presupposes a myriad of autonomous individual receivers and producers of information (Melucci, 1989: 45). As a structural component of postindustrial society, group autonomy tends to radicalize democracy. The institutional conception of democracy, closely adhered to by liberalism, can hardly embody the diverse tendencies of different actors in complex societies. The waning distinction between public and private spheres in these societies also means that the distinction between the state and civil society is diminishing. This is the paradox of the “post-industrial democracy.” On the one hand, the institutions press for integration and political participation. On the other, standing at the myriad terminals in and around the information universe, various actors strive for group autonomy and identity and deliberately withdraw from such integration (Melucci, 1989: 171). The latter tendency is an alarming one for Melucci to the extent that he considers identity politics (specially those of ethnic groups) as a problematic issue (1996b: 157-59). The “paradoxes of post-industrial democracy,” he observes, “are linked to both the pressures for integration and the needs for identity building” (1992: 69). New social movements embody the efforts for identity building vis-a-vis the political institutions. As such, through struggles to attain collective autonomy and freedom from the state intervention, new social movements uncover those issues that have been excluded by and from political decisions. Therefore, they are movements for a new democracy (Melucci, 1992: 68). Their self-limiting concept of emancipation (Melucci, 1992: 73) allows these movements to offer the concept of the “democracy of everyday life” and perceive democracy as the condition for recognition, autonomy, and self-affirmation (Melucci, 1988a: 258-59). 2. Note how Melucci takes the terms postindustrial, complex, and advanced capitalist as synonymous. His generous list of fancy names for postindustrial society does not end there. He also calls it “post-material” (1984: 831; 1996a: 128, 144) and “late capitalist” (1981: 99).A Critique of Ultimate Referentiality in the New Social Movement Theory 615 The postindustrial era, as mentioned, puts an end to the idea of society as a unified totality. According to Touraine, the originator of this conception of the postindustrial society, Western societies have become sites of conflict where “no single actor can be considered the bearer of the one and only rationality” — not even the state (Touraine, 1988: 38-39, 56). Surprisingly, however, this does not instigate Touraine to reject the rather classical (Marxist) idea that in every period there exists one central conflict. Although he points out that social movements are not agents of history, modernization, or liberation and acknowledges the existence of a plurality of movements, Touraine insists that in any given type of social organization and production only one conflict — or, to state it with precision, “one central couple of conflicting social movements” (Touraine, 1985: 773) — due to the structural configuration of society, is endowed with the potential to bring the status quo toa halt. Thus, there “is only one social movement for each class in cach type of society” (Touraine quoted in Scott, 1991: 42). The reason for making this claim lies in the three components of any conflict: the field of conflict is determined through defining the identity of the actor, an opponent, and finally, the cultural totality that is to be won. Belonging to the same plane, these three constituents express the central conflict of a given type of society, “For example, in an industrial society management and workers were in conflict about the social control of industry. These three components, management, workers, industry, are homogencous” (Touraine, 1985: 760). Despite an acknowledged “critical distance” from Touraine in this respect (Melucci, 1989: 80, n. 2), Melucci still seems to accept Touraine’s argument that some movements by essence play a pivotal role that can be notably consequential for the existing social system. He writes: “Even though I am not in search of the central movement of complex society, I maintain that there are forms of antagonistic collective action capable of affecting the logic of complex systems” (1989: 73). As in Touraine’s theory, the acknowledged plurality of social movements does not persuade Melucci to reject the idea of one central conflict for each type of society. Thus, the difference between Touraine and Melucci on the issue of the central conflict is rather subtle. Touraine grounds his assertion in the vigour of a system analysis in which the position (one may safely say, identity) of the actors within the social structure is pregiven: workers and management are pre-constituted actors who struggle to control the industry (field or stake of conflict). For Melucci, however, the field of conflict remains constant — and therefore, pregiven — but it is now a general stake open to all actors regardless of their structural position. ‘The antagonistic struggles are fragmented and dispersed in the actions of different social groups. At any given moment the general conflict is expressed by the group or groups most directly concerned by a development directed from above. The field of opposition remains constant, not the actors. It is by starting with what is at stake that the actors can be identified. The conflicts of late capitalism616 Canadian Journal of Sociology continue to be played out around production, appropriation, and distribution of social resources. Yet the actors occupying the field of conflictual relations can change, and it is up to empirical analysis to identify them. (Melucci, 1981: 100) Melucci, in other words, does not accept the notion of structurally predeter- mined identities. Actors cannot be constant because their identities will inescapably undergo changes in the process of conflict. He views identity not as substantial (structurally pregiven) but processual (Melucci, 1996a: 52; 1995b). However, he still holds that conflicts are pregiven structurally. It is through this observation about identity and conflict that Melucci’s analysis tends to incorporate the versatility that is resulted from social conflicts. And ‘as we will see, it is precisely here that Melucci’s theory fails to adequately account for action in new social movement.* Melucci not only views new social movements as the movements of the postindustrial era, he also perceives them as a certain response to the failure of modernization and an urge towards it at the same time. The new movements push toward a development that has been constantly impeded by the political system and the institutionalization of developmental requirements. They struggle against such hindrance. This objective is achieved through resistances against repression and the opening of the institutions (Melucci, 1981: 104-117). They are also, at least in the case of Italian new social movements, responses “to the institutionalization of the Left” (Melucci, 1981: 113). 3. For readers interested to see how Melucci’s theory is in many respects a direct, often point-to- point, response to his teacher’s, ie. Touraine’s, theory, the issue of “sociological intervention” “hould be interesting. Identifying the central conflict is the task of Touraine's “sociological intervention” — an intervention that facilitates the researcher's entrance into the study of social ‘movements as an agent of social change (toward a postindustrial society?) (Touraine, 1981: 9) Although Melucci does not fully endorse this ambitious project, he nevertheless comes close to Touraine’s idea. Criticizing the assumption that the action of a movement will necessarily contain a “higher” meaning (Melucci, 1989: 239), Melucci views the relationship between the actor and the researcher as an “exchange.” However, Melucci draws on his own definition of the postindustrial society that emphasizes differentiation and variability in order to suggest that knowledge in such a social system becomes an indispensable resource for the actors. As a “particular type of actor” (a notion which echoes Touraine once again), the researcher can provide the movement's actors with knowledges of their social relations. The researcher and the actor are brought to their “contractual” relationship by “the recognition of a demand for cognitive resources.” Parting ways with Touraine, however, he specifies that there “is nothing missionary about it {:e., about the relationship between the researcher and the actor], and itdoes not imply expectations about the destiny of the actors on the part of the researcher” (Melucci, 1992: 51; Melucci, 1995b: 58). Rather. in the information age. the expert's knowledge becomes a valued resource for actors. Thus, the actor-researcher relationship is a reciprocal (Melucci, 1996b; 391) and contractual one (Melucci, 199Sh: 59-60).A Critique of Ultimate Referentiality in the New Social Movement Theory 617 Middle Class Radicalism Melucci’s identification of the class basis of the new movements exemplifies a schematic that is generally accepted by others in this field. According to Melucci, new social movement actors in the West have their social origins in the “new middle class” or “human capital class,” in the marginal layers of the labour market, and finally, in the “old middle class” (Melucci, 1988b: 344). He further identifies two sub-classes of the new middle cl “The ‘new middle class’ consists of at least two groups of people: new elites who are just emerging and are challenging the already established elites, and ‘human capital’ professionals, who experience both the surplus of potentialities offered by the system and its constraints” (1988b: 334; see also Melucci, 1989: 52-53). Melucci’s schematization of the class basis of the new movements is admit- tedly a borrowing from the model proposed by new social movement theorist, Claus Offe (Melucci, 1989: 53). In his theory, Offe made a distinction between three layers of middle class: (1) the new middle class (2) the old middle class (3) people outside the labour market in peripheral positions (Offe, 1985: 831-32). Melucci's interest in searching for a class analysis of the new movements comes from his effort to offer a demographically ascertainable conflictual scheme. Melucci criticizes Offe for theorizing the new movements in terms of marginality and deviance because Offe's framework, however interesting, cannot “manage to ground theoretically the conflictual and anta- gonistic character of the new movements” (Melucci, 1981: 101). Only such grounding, argues Melucci, can determine the position of the individual vis-a- vis modern values and thereby the social structure. In other words, one’s identity is defined by one’s place in the current configuration of society. Class analysis is essential toa theory of new social movements because the “capacity for constructing a collective identity is rooted in the [available] set of resources (such as educational achievement, professional skills, and social abilities)” (Melucci, 1989: 53). Herein lies a subtle but important distinction. The new movements may represent a new genus of class politics: the new middle-class politics, But as Offe recognizes, in contrast to the older working- or middle- class politics, this politics of class is “not on behalf of a class” (Offe, 1985: 833). Melucci’s critical adoption of Offe’s class analysis signifies his motivation for the sociological “locating” of new social movement actors. However, in a later essay, Melucci commendably retreats from class analysis, and for good. reasons: Thave gradually abandoned the concept of class relationships to address the question or systemic conflict... The notion of class relationships has been forme a temporary tool with which to analysis systemic conflicts and forms of domination in complex societies.... But in conternporary systems where classes as real social groups are withering away... (Melucci, 199Sa: 117)618 Canadian Journal of Sociology His turning away from a class analysis of new social movements indicates that for Melucci the relationship between identity and the social base is more complex than a relationship based on mediating cultural practices (Melucci, 1996b). The acknowledged conceptual problems of class analysis, however, does not instigate Melucci to take the crucial step further and question the pregivenness of social structures and conflicts. The Place of Identity in New Social Movements Despite their differences, European new social movement theorists almost unanimously characterize these movements primarily as identity-claims. They see in the new movements their actors’ assertion of their particularity against pre-constituted universal identities (e.g., nation or class), as well as their de- mand for universal social recognition and political inclusion. Among promi- nent European new social movement theorists, Melucci takes the issue of identity with utmost attention and treats it as his central concern. Conse- quently, he offers a sophisticated theory of the place of identity in new social movements. Melucci discusses the significance of identity in the new movements at the micro level and in due detail. In his analysis of collective action, Melucci emphasizes on the construction of a “we” (a collective identity through nega- tion) by a group of individuals through common orientations organized around three axes. The first orientation, the relations of actors to the “ends” of their action, gives actors the direction of their action. The second orientation, the relations of actors to the “means” through which the action is carried out, shows them the possibilities as well as the limits of their action. The final orientation, the relationship of actors to their “environment,” identifies the field within which their action takes place. These three orientations “produce” collective action, not vice versa. This is what he calls a “multipolar action system.” Collective action, therefore, is by no means “a unitary empirical phenomenon” (Melucci, 1988b: 332-333; 1992: 49; 1985: 793; 1995b: 44; 1996b: 5). A social movement is not “a unified and homogeneous reality” (Melucci, 1995b: 53). The unity of a movement, if it exists at all, is the outcome of collective action, not its source; it is the “personage” of the movement (Melucci, 1984: 825). Melucci understands identity, through the concept of expectation, as the intermediary concept between social-structural determinants and individuals’ motivations. A “theory of action that introduces the concept of expectations implies an underlying theory of identity” (Melucci, 1988b: 340). He criticizes resource mobilization theory because despite the presence of the concept of expectation, resource mobilization downplays the concept of identity (Melucci, 1988b: 341). He holds that it is through expectation that the actor perceives hisA Critique of Ultimate Referentiality in the New Social Movement Theory 619 or her continuity within the environment — that is, in relation to other actors, opportunities, and constraints. Identity embodies the actor's continuity. But identity itself is a social phenomenon — that is, it comes from the existing “identity resources,” i.e., the available cultural elements, which are in turn obtained from the knowledges and information available in the society (Melucci, 1988b: 344). The concept of “identity resources” is better understood when we think of the everyday practice in which “social actors gather together a ragbag of pre-existing cultural elements to express new contents tor which an adequate grammar has yet to be developed” (Melucci, 1989: 136) In other words, identity finds in society the conditions (resources) for its existence. Melucci defines collective identity as “an interactive and shared definition produced by several interacting individuals who are concerned with the orientations of their action as well as the field of opportunities and constraints in which their action takes place” (1989: 34). Collective identity entails three important dimensions: a cognitive formation of goals, means, and environment (which involves the actor’s self-identification, and thus, awareness of his or her world); activating relations among actors; and finally, making emotional investments. As well, it may congeal into several possible configurations including organizational forms, systems of formal rules, or patterns of lead- ership (Melucci, 1989: 34-35). Beyond such configurations, however, col- lective identity is essentially a process of constructing an action system. This process entails two aspects: the actor's “plurality of orientations” (that is, the actor’s internal complexity), and his or her relationship with the environment (Melucci, 1988b: 342). Identity is, therefore, a shared definition of the opportunities available to, as well as the constraints imposed upon, collective action. Social movements, then, are action systems because they have structures built by the present goals, opinions. resolutions, and exchanges that take place and operate within a systemic field (Melucci, 1985: 793). He proposes three analytical dimensions —- conflict, solidarity and breaking the system’ s limits of compatibility —to distinguish social movements from other forms of collective actions such as deviant behaviour, competition, etc. (Diani and Melucci, 1988: 339; Melucci, 1989: 29, 74). It is a form of collective action based on solidarity that upholds a conflict to break the limits of the system in which collective action takes place (Melucci, 1984: 825). Therefore, every conflict is always a conflict of identities (Melucci, 1996a: 35). Moreover, stressing one's identity signifies the actor's seeking a direct response to personal needs through participation in collective action (Melucci, 1989: 49). Thus, it “defines our capacity to speak and to act autonomously — the differentiation of our selves trom those of others while continuing to be the same person” (Melucci, 1996a: 29). Since identity is a process of attaining individual or group identity in a cultural field, it “is not something that is per- manently given. Instead, it is a process of identity-formation which constructs620 Canadian Journal of Sociology and reconstructs itself in the life-course of individuals and groups and through their different faces, roles, and circumstances” (Melucci, 1996b: 159). Thus, as mentioned, identity designates a process (Melucci, 1996a: 51-53) Melucci’s definition of social movement is based on his conception of collective action. A social movement is “an analytic construct and not an empirical object.” It is an “ensemble of the various types of conflict-based behaviour ... for the appropriation and orientation of social values and re- . which transgress the norms that have been institutionalized in social roles, which go beyond the rules of the political system” (he subordi- nates the second component of his definition to the first) (Melucci, 1980: 202). Social movements are only one of many different kinds of collective action (1996b: 30). The action that takes place within a movement establishes a concrete link between cultural orientations of the actors and the systemic opportunities and constraints. “Movements are action systems operating in a systemic field of possibilities and limits,” Melucci argues, “That is why the organization becomes a critical point of observation, and analytical level too often underestimated or reduced to formal structures. The way the movement actors set up their action is the concrete link between orientations and systemic opportunities/constraints” (1985: 792). It is interesting to observe that just like Touraine, Melucci identifies the inner components of a social movement as “a definition of the actor, the identification of an adversary and an indication of ends, goals and objectives for which to fight” (Melucci, 1992: 57). That is why he suggests in passing that the term “new social movements” is inadequate and should therefore be replaced by the term “movement network” (Melucci, 1985: 799; 1988a: 247; 1989: 203). New social movements beara special relationship with identity. Asacultural force, a social movement defines the group-particular needs that challenge the social control of needs (Melucci, 1996a: 25). In the new movements, therefore, identity becomes the emblem of group or individual particularity. sources, Defense of the identity, continuity, and predictability of personal existences beginning to constitute the substance of the new conflicts. In a structure in which ownership of the means of productions is becoming more and more socialized, while at the same ti ig under the control of particular groups, what individuals are claiming collectively is their right to realize their own identity: the possibility of disposing of their personal creativity, their affective life, and their biological and interpersonal existence... personal identity — that is to say, the possibility, on the biological, psychological, and interpersonal levels, of being recognized as an individual — is the property which is now being claimed and defended; this is the ground in which individual and collective resistance is taking root. (Melucei, 1980: 218) In the current social conditions (of the postindustrial, information society), identity emerges as a means of resistance against the forms of rationalization of life that do not incorporate differences, The features of the “identity movements” are: (1) control of the conditions of life; (2) erosion of public-A Critique of Ultimate Referentiality in the New Social Movement Theory 621 private separation; (3) difficulty in empirically distinguishing between protest and marginality, or between deviance and social movements; (4) search for a communal identity; and (5) search for participation and direct action (Melucci, 1981: 98-99; 1980: 219-20). Identity is explained by making references to the symbolic grounds, in which identity becomes meaningful and subversive of the dominant codes that are created in high-density information systems. Melucci perceives identity as a challenge against the “rationality” of domination (Me- lucci, 1981: 134). As identity-claims, therefore, new social movements strug- gle for modernization and institutional changes, the selection of a new elite, and cultural innovations. In the context of information society and identity- claims, new social movements translate action into symbolic challenges that defy and disturb the dominant codes, exposing their irrationality (especially that of the new forms of technocratic power). Indeed, the new movements emerge as signs, i.e., as forms (of movement) that become the message (Melucci, 1988a: 248-49). Due to its symbolic character, the form of the Movement emerges as the message — that is, “self-referential” (Melucci, 1989: 60, 74) — thereby undermining the (domination of the) systemic rationality. With conflicts taking place within the fields of codes, knowledge, and language, the new movements assume the form of networks immersed in the everyday life (Melucci, 1988a: 247-48). Similar to Touraine, therefore, Melucci views the new movements as forces of democratization in which iden- tity, an inadequate term as it is, stands as the emblem of the contemporary forms of collective action (Melucci, 1989: 46). But unlike Touraine, Melucci rejects the idea that the new movements replace the “older” ones as the subject of social change. Social movements, maintains Melucci, are not “subjects en- dowed with an essence and a purpose within a piéce whose finale is knowable” (1988a: 245; see also 1989: 25). The observations and formulations of the place of identity in the contempo- rary social movements lead Melucci to make and maintain a distinction between society and politics, and subsequently, to criticize the idea of the primacy of the political, which he calls “political reductionism” (Melucci, 1988b: 337-38; 1989: 43, 1995b: 54; 1995c: 288) — ic., reducing social Movement to one of its components (Melucci, 1996b: 35, 198). The weakness of the traditional theories of social movements, he maintains, cannot see the new movements’ shift toward culture (Melucci, 1995b: 42). He argues that the present cultural models and symbolic challenges cannot fall within the exi: political institutions. As Melucci puts it: “There are dimensions of social phenomena -— affective or symbolic relationships, for instance —- which cannot be considered as political because they function according to a different logic, which it is therefore necessary to respect and not to violate” (1988a: 253). As such, he reduces politics to the situation in which “a political actor interacts with political authorities”:622 Canadian Journal of Sociology Even to change these rules, then, one is de facto forced to recognize such boundaries, if only to start interacting or negotiating with authorities. I define politics in such a narrow sense in order to stress the fact that not everything is political, that there are social and cultural dimensions of action which are never entirely translated into politics. The identity issues are certainly representative of precisely such a dimension of social life, and if they fail to find appropriate means of expression they can come in the way of the transformation of a collective actor into a political actor. (Melucci, 1996b: 187) By limiting himself to a parochial and formal notion of politics (as political institutions), Melucci advocates the idea of society as the principal domain of action and the ultimate source of meaning that stands prior in relation to politics. Let us elaborate on this crucial point. The Referential Trap: Searching for Ultimate Grounds ‘There is no doubt that European new social movement theorists like Melucci have made important contributions to contemporary social movement theory. To be specific, Melucci has acknowledged the conceptual end of society as an enclosed totality in which structural determination and historical (or develop- mental) destination define the place(s), attributes, and contents of social elements or the actors. This acknowledgment allowed Melucci to rethink and criticize ideas that hinge on notions of social structure, class (as a demographic objectivity), or agency (Della Porta and Diani, 1999: 11). Furthermore, the issue of the continuity of the actor, which Melucci raises, represents a persistent theoretical problem that every social movement theory needs to address. Melucci has also acknowledged, quite correctly, and made efforts to analyse, the centrality of appeals to identity within contemporary movements. In spite of his call for an “epistemological awareness” (Melucci, 1995b: 42) in the study of new social movements, however, Melucci has neither been truly able nor willing to give up the notion of society as the unique, pregiven, and ultimate source of meaning. Although he acknowledges that collective action is not a “simple effect of structural preconditions” (Melucci, 1995b: 43) and rejects simple causal analysis (Melucci, 1995b: 62), his pivotal task is to theoretically secure the concept of new social movements in a grounding notion of society. His adoption of the postindustrial thesis, however critical, indicates his search for a presumed historical transformation of society that provides theory with an explanatory ground — i.e., an ultimate point of reference that renders meaningful claims about the raison d’étre of the new movements. Typically, such a view needs to make the fundamental assumption that society is the a priori of its constituent elements. A classical sociological conception, the method of social grounding of phenomena cannot adequately explore the various facets of the emerging phenomena and their oblique and perplexing, often concealed, relations with other social phenomena. As such,A Critique of Ultimate Referentiality in the New Social Movement Theory 623 theoretical approaches based on social grounding frequently and violently reduce the existing phenomena in their entirety to those phenomenal aspects that theory can accommodate. In other words, an assumed ultimate ground puts into operation a certain kind of selective observation and conditions « specific mode of interpretation in theory. Moreover, such an assumed ultimavy makes erroneous conceptual divisions between domains of social life in order to hide its own operation and thereby evade criticisms right from the outset. I call “ultimate referentiality” the theoretical assumption of an ultimate ground. Ultimate referentiality — a term that | borrowed, with modifications, from the radical phenomenology of Reiner Schiirmann (1987) — designates various kinds of operative assumptions prevailing in much of the social sciences. In Melucci’s theory, despite repeated assurances that it is no longer an enclosed totality, “society” functions as an ultimate referentiality, a point at which social inquiry, which by definition is an inquiry into society, stops. Ultimate referentialities can be detected by identifying the point of stoppage in inquiry , ironically, which is always the highest point of explanation. This point of stoppage intimates a point of moorage of explanation that receives its high and seemingly uncontested status from the theory itself. It is simply a theoretical construct. In Melucci’s case, ultimate referentiality unveils the assumption about the transparent (but mediated) rationality of the ground called society. Through Melucci's theoretical construction, society is rendered the “real,” i.e., the unique and objectively ascertainable realm of bestowal of meaning upon social movements’ practices. Let us explicate the way Melucci’s assumption governs his new social movement theory. He announces the end of society as enclosed totality and thus rejects structural determination. His moving away from a class analysis of new social movements attests to this fact. However, Melucci misses an important point: the fact that society no longer represents a totality does not mean that it has lost its principle of total representation. Melucci does not distinguish between the two. As such, he mistakes the representation of particulars (new social movements) as the end of total representation of society, Put differently, he mistakes the kind of representation with the source of representation. Thus, he still assumes society as an ultimate referentiality. Tf, as Melucci puts it, society has lost its status as a totality, it must have also lost its statutory position as the source from which all explanations are derived. Put accurately, if society has lost its principle of total representation, if society is no longer capable of coherently representing all its components, then its components are no longer fully understood or explained solely in relation to the referentiality of this now phantasmic totality. Herein rests a contradiction: Melucci claims that society as such has come to an end, yet he still retains society’s conceptual principle of referentiality by searching for the fields of action. Bound by such a principle, Melucci does not see that a movement624 Canadian Journal of Sociology toward a non-totalistic concept of society is inevitably linked with a radical critique of those conventions in the social sciences which hold the society as the principle of ultimate representation. In this view of society, a phenomenon is “explained” once its relations to the pregiven and constitutive social texture are exposed; it is explained only when it receives meaning from the society that is perceived as the a priori, ontologically privileged ground. Theorists like Melucci invest considerably on their assumptions about society. So much so that if the wooden leg of the presumed ultimacy of society is tackled, the entire theoretical edifice will crumble. Now, with the ultimate referentiality of society identified as the principal conceptual problem of Melucci’s new social movement theory, let us discuss in more detail how the operations of ultimate referentiality hides its own traces. A modality of thinking that is bound by a desire for ultimate grounding reduces the new movements to the expressions of the postindustrial society in Melucci. Whether the postindustrial society is a notion that can be posited without having recourse to the new movements to justify its grounding presence remains debatable. In other words, one critique of Melucci’s theory can indeed start from the position that it is in fact the emergence of new social movements that render a Western society postindustrial through their multiplication of loci of conflict and rejection of universalistic models, not vice versa. After all, both in Touraine and Melucci the shift toward the information society designates a fundamental social transformation and not ply a shift from the production of industrial goods to informatics. Without the theoretical construction of the postindustrial society, Touraine and Melucci could not have explained the groundedness of new social movements. Moreover, the postindustrial thesis runs into a series of factual problems. Both Touraine and Mclucci almost completely disregard the presence of new social movements in non-western societies. Eurocentric as it seems, their view bars them from seeing the fact that despite the endemic political repression, resolute or absolute poverty, and persistent “underdevelopment” that characterize many of the so-called Third World societies, new social movements have emerged and expanded in these societies. The theoretical constructs that link new social movements to the West through the works of Melucci and others render the European theorists blind to the fact of new social movements beyond the West. That almost none of the rather privileged conditions that these theorists associate with the postindustrial conditions exist in Third World societies is blatantly self-evident. But this cannot justify the lack of serious consideration of new social movements beyond Europe. The presence of new social movements in non-western societies (e.g., gay, women’s, or ecological movements) problematizes the explanatory linkage between the postindustrial society and new social movements. This problem in the works of European new social movement theorists has not escaped theirA Critique of Ultimate Referentiality in the New Social Movement Theory 625 Latin American counterparts (Escobar and Alvarez, 1992). Arturo Escobar is specifically sharp in pointing out Touraine’s shortcoming in this respect (1992: 71). The criticism that certain movements (e.g., various ecological movements) do not exist the way they do in Western societies does not really refute the existence of new social movements as such in non-Western societies; rather, such a criticism seeks to exclude all those new social movements that do not conform to the pregiven models of Western theorists, The fact that in non- Western societies new social movements do not seem as clear-cut as they may seem in the West (the latter point remains highly debatable, of course) should not lead one to deny the presence and proliferation of these movements in the Third World, This clearly shows that the postindustrial society, as well as the social, political, and cultural conditions that have been associated with it, serves Melucci (and Touraine) as an ultimate source of explanation whose mysterious essence justifies the presence of the new movements It is not difficult to discern similarities between European and North American new social movements, on the one hand, and Latin American ones, on the other (Foweraker, 1995: 26-27), David Slater observes that in Latin America “the surfacing of [new social] movements has not been depended on the specific political situation created by military dictatorships nor on a clear-cut defeat of Left parties” (1985a: 2). In other words, no single factor can explain the rise of the new movements in Latin America. By implication, this means that the postindustrial thesis turns out to be a problematic intervening variable between the social ground and collective action. If we set aside positivistic theses such as the postindustrial society, it would not be difficult to see that what qualifies a movement as “new” is the rejection of universalistic models of sovial change (thus, emphasis on particularity), the denial of the ontologically pre-endowed, unitary historical agent, and resistances against privileging certain loci of struggle (e.g., economy) over others (e.g., gender, sexual preference). As such, new social movements are global phenomena, but the contexts of their emergence are not global; nor are their organizational forms, struggles, or objectives. This is precisely the point Melucci has missed by having anchored new social movements in the ultimate referentiality of society. His foundationalist model is, ironically, abouta “new” generation of social movements that resist foundationalist and universal models of acting and thinking. New social movements highlight the political reconfiguration of society based on identity, a new terrain of infinite proliferation and micro politics. While Melucci recognizes the centrality of identity to the new movements, he seeks to locate identity-claims within the pregiven field of social, thereby viewing identity as mere expressions of some “deeper” fundament. In order to show the link he needs a series of conceptualizations. He adopts a motivational view of identity by suggesting that “participation in collective action is seen626 Canadian Journal of Sociology to have no value for the individual unless it provides a direct response to personal needs” (Melucci, 1989: 49). Furthermore, he holds the position that identity comes from the existing “identity resources” which are in turn pro- cured from the knowledges and information available in the society. Society imposes itself as the ultimate condition of existence of identity. That is precisely why in Melucci’s framework identity cannot be meaningful without a preconceived notion of society. The idea that prior to its surfacing identity “hibernates” somewhere within the social texture finds its clearest utterance in Melucci’s concepts of “latency” and “visibility.” These two concepts appear in several of Melucci’s works (Melucci, 1984: 829; 19884: 248; 1985: 800-801; Della Porta and Diani, 1999: 89). According to Melucci, the actors become visible only where a field of public conflict arises; otherwise they remain in a state of latency. Latency does not mean inactivity. Rather, the potential for resistance or opposition is sewn into the very fabric of daily life. His located in the molecular exper who practice the alternative meanings of everyday life. (1989: 71) ince of the individuals or groups In other words, the actor's identity precedes conflict, for it is pregiven by the social structure. It is not the conflict (the political) that is constitutive of the actor’s identity (the social). That is why Melucci secks to show how and when identities such as “gender, culture, sexual preferences, and ethnicity become political issues” (Melucci, 1996b: 188, italics added). Actors are completely the products of social arrangements — Melucci calls them “fields of action” — that assign them certain modes of action. Collective actions “are pre- political because they are rooted in everyday life experiences; and meta- political because political forces can never represent them completely” (Melucci, 1989: 72). Thus, certain actors are endowed with the capacity for resistance against other actors due to their specific pregiven social dispositions. Regardless of the possibility of ever entering conflictual situations, they nonetheless remain actors. This line of argument suggests that the actor precedes action. It is, then, only due to the social predispositions of the actors that new social movements “have created meanings and definitions of identity which contrast with the increasing determination of individual and collective life by impersonal technocratic power” (Melucci, 1988a: 247). Actors are by essence in conflict with the current institutional or technocratic power. For Melucci, therefore, the identity of actor stems from a potential to carry out an assigned or perceived form of action, regardless of the fact that action, thereby identity, can arise solely in conflictual situation. Identity precedes social situations and conflicts because it is a product of a fundamental social constitution. Latency provides Melucci with a key conceptual link between the “objective” conditions as given by social structures and stratification, on the one hand, and the possibility of resistance and action, on the other. If there is a potential forA Critique of Ultimate Referentiality in the New Social Movement Theory 627 resistance, it has to be knowable prior to action. Society is the source of such knowledge. Melucci’s entire theory of identity is indeed symptomatic of a general tendency, in the social sciences, of seeking representations of some presupposed, concealed fundaments. Accordingly, despite his self-acclaimed criticism of theories that are based on “structural determination” (Touraine) or universal rationality (resource mobilization), Melucci’s approach to new social movements hinges on show- ing the transference of a presumed mysterious essence from its exclusive ultimacy — i.e., the society — to the actor as the bearer of this essence who will reveal it through his or her action. As I will show below, Melucci’s desire for an analysis based on ultimate referentiality stems from his parochial conception of politics. He mistakes society, which is itself the product of the Political as the primal institution of society (Lefort, 1988: 218)-~and the shap- ing thereafter of social life — to be the ultimate ground. Ultimate referentiality is a trap: it is constructed by theory to hold theory in accord with the truth of an objective reality, and it takes away the ability of theory to question its own presuppositions. It constructs an entire theoretical framework to safeguard the phantasmic presence of a fundament with the armour of objectivity. Toward a Non-Referential Social Movements Theory By now, it should be apparent that as ultimacy, society does not refer to a complex yet open aggregate of peoples, institutions, and the relations between them. Rather, for Melucci it refers to a pregiven and preexisting fundament that is mysteriously endowed with the unrivalled capacity of bestowal of meaning. As a rational structure, society is the source action. It is not the “con- text” of action (identity-claims), but their “ground.” Despite his claim that the relationship between ground and action is complex and indirect (Della Porta and Diani, 1999: 57), Melucci mistakes the “explanation” with the exposition of an ultimate, rational ground. I therefore submit that Melucci’s appeal to such a fundament mainly stems from an erroneous distinction between society and politics. We saw earlier that he rejects the idea of the primacy of politics, calling it “political reduction- ism.” His self-imposed limited notion of politics (as the terrain of dissemina- tion of power through political institutions that make decisions, implement them, and regulate conflicts) automatically makes him take society as the field of conflict and action that is separate from politics. As such, he disregards a principal facet of modern life: “the political” — which is not reducible to “polities” as we understand it in everyday speech (i.c., institutional politics) — is the origin of the social, for every social positioning and configuration has its roots in the hegemonic constitution and configuration of society.628 Canadian Journal of Sociology It is this radical view of the political that sets limits, as Laclau and Mouffe recognized, upon social objectivity and rejects the “positivity of the social” (Laclau and Mouffe, 1985: 93). That is why we have different social groups and different types of conflicts in different types of society. For example, recall comparatively Western, liberal societies as opposed to those of the former socialist bloc. Different types of society indeed refer to different hegemonic constitutions and signify different moments of the political institution of so- ciety. This means that conflicts stem from certain context-specific hegemonic configurations in which the formation of both “us” and “them” is eventually contingent upon the initiatives, issues and strategies of one’s “other.” These antagonisms cannot be known from the outset, nor can they be deciphered by looking at social structures. New social movements should be understood in these terms. The political, understood as a field of antagonism, does not designate an ultimate ground, because it refers to the (counter-)hegemonic conflictual repositioning that constantly rearranges the make up of our socie- ties. Therefore, the emergence of new social movements is not expressive of some deeper fundament, but attests to their constitutive role in the political reshaping of contemporary societies through the articulation of antagonisms. Every exclusion, every identity-claim, every form of social protest is now seen primarily as a political act. Thus, new social movements refer to the ongoing attempts at political reinstitution of societies across the world in an age when the universal projects of modernity are in deep crisis. Older approaches and frameworks based on foundationality and referentiality of a rational structure cannot adequately grasp the “newness” of new social movements. If we accept my earlier observation that the new movements are global phenomena but their contexts of emergence are not global, then we should start thinking about action and movements in terms other than referentiality. The leap from one to the other may not be as simple as it seems, because by virtue of its constitu- tion, sociology has been modernity’s chosen discipline not only to discover the rational laws of society, but also to carry out, through its programs, the project of universal progress. If new social movements challenge universal models of progress and development (a point virtually all new social movement theorists, including Melucci, have acknowledged) in Western and non-western societies, then sociology (and social movement theory) must also give up its desire for rational grounding in order to understand the new movements. Much is to be gained froma non-referential sociology of social movements. In light of this critique of ultimate referentiality, new social movements reveal themselves as loci where action signifies attempts at the counter-hegemonic political (re-)institution of society. A non-referential approach to social move- ments takes action as “proactive,” and not, as is the case with Melucci, “reactive.” Action is not a response, however complex and mediated, to struc- tural stimuli, but in fact, the moment of creativity, in which a decision is madeA Critique of Ultimate Referentiality in the New Social Movement Theory 629 out of the possibilities that manifest themselves in the context of action. The view that perceives decision to be harboured in the ultimacy of society (Me- lucci) is inevitably based on a parochial conception of politics. This view cannot see that such a decision is not a decision at all, for it cannot change the structure from which it arises Moreover, action is closely related to power as it emanates form the specific hegemonic configuration of society. As such, each mode of action and each social movement should be understood according to their specific contexts of antagonism. The sociologist should seek to identify the contexts which make antagonistic articulations (demands) possible without trying to tarn these contexts into referential, rational foundations. Thus, we can speak of the universality of women’s movements, for instance, by showing the contexts of their emergence. Since these contexts are very different and diverse across cultures, we can only speak of women’s movements as plural because of the irreducible proliferation of these movements. Further more, as deconstruction shows us, identity is an outcome of the hegemonic formation of society. As banners of social movements, identities call our attention to investigate how the hegemonic configuration of society shifts the political terrain such that the consequent marginalization or exclusion of certain issues creates the “con- stitutive lack” that gives rise to antagonistic identities (Laclau and Mouffe, 1985). Deconstruction shows us that identities are always negative (or de- centred) in the sense that they articulate antagonistic positions vis-a-vis an enemy; they do not designate an essence. An example of such negativity is the 1999 WTO protest in Seattle in which the hegemonization of several issues (trade, labour, ecology, freedom) by World Trade Organization brought together an aggregate of numerous movements into a counter-hegemonic front to fight for democratic, human (“people not profit”) oriented decisions. As a constitutive lack, WTO’s monopoly over world trade, in the age of global domination of neoliberalism, set the context and gave these movements their antagonistic identities and made the anti-WTO front possible.* 4, Here I need to acknowledge and briefly respond to a possible objection. Various postmarxist, deconstructionist, or Foucaultian approaches — which are due to their suspicion of totalizing models akin to my non-referential sociology informed by Reiner Schiirmann’s radical Phenomenology — are often criticized to evade the questions of class or capitalism. While [ cannot speak for other theories, I must mention a point here in brief with regards to my proposed sociological approach. Froma radical phenomenological viewpoint, forces that reduce humans to subjects of totalizing practices — from capitalism, the state, or, national liberation, to bureaucracy, mainstream medical practices, or racism — are all different expressions of a modemity’s “archic” (from arche: the founding First) origination based on the “principle of reason” (Heidegger). As this paper has tried to argue, new social movements contest the reductive rationality that reigns over the modern epoch by attempting to wrest polities from the hands of institutions of decision-making and apparatuses of executing decisions. Ot course, this630 Canadian Journal of Sociology A non-referential social movement theory acknowledges the fact that certain modes of action are global. That is because certain contexts of the new movements are civilizational (patriarchy, ecological devastation, injustice, discrimination, labour). But at the same time, a non-referential theory con- siders the global character of movements only as a fagade. A non-referential approach to social movements is highly attuned to differences and does not attempt to draw universal principles out of those movements that seem similar. It understands the global character of new social movements not as a normative categorization and universal grounding but as the translation of experiences from one local context and language into those of another. Thus, it does not exclude, for example, the Third World ecological movements from the general category of new social movements because, allegedly unlike their Western counterparts, these movements are entangled with issues of poverty and labour in non-Western societies. Poverty and labour should be understood as the specific con-texts of the ecological movements in these societies. Understand- ing the global character of the new movements requires a clear understanding of civilizational as well as local con-texts. A non-referential social movement theory calls for a new attitude toward action. Such a theory is highly attuned to the practices of social movements as they unfold. It understands them contextually rather than referentially. When approaching movements, it treats its existing concepts as temporary tools and allows these concepts to transform according to the elements that action unveils in the new context. John Holloway’s insightful “reading” of the Zapatista concept of “dignity,” as the banner of Indigenous Mayan peasants of Chiapas, stands out in this respect (Holloway, 1998). Only by such an attunement to the local can one understand how a social movement emerges as genuinely “new.” As such, this approach seeks to go beyond the actual does not mean that many of these movements have not fallen back on institutional practices to achieve their demands. However, the new movements’ plurality of loci of politics, which amounts (o re-institutive attempts at founding politics anew, shows that we must not seek one (unitary or superior) strategy against any source of oppression in our society. That is precisely why in the case of WTO protest (also known as “Seattle N30"), we have a plurality of actors: from divergent political loci (abour, environmentalism, anarchism, student, communism, and various others) that offer a plurality of alternative solutions to the problem of unfair and oppressive world trade. To non-referential sociologist, the convergence of these movements upon one issue suggests not totalizing solutions, but a plurality of fronts to pressure and reshape globalized capitalism — indeed, an attempt at re-instituting the politics of trade. No one can predict the outcome of battles against oppressive and totalizing systems, but we can be certain that battles are to be fought. This can be called anything but tribalization, relativist celebration of pluralism, and thereby, the lack of theoretical stipulation against right-wing populism (a totalizing movement by all standards) — a charge often posed against theories that refuse to tant privileged stance to any agents, sources of oppression, movements, or practices.A Critique of Ultimate Referentiality in the New Social Movement Theory 631 conditions of emergence of new social movements, which is obviously the task of sociological project of Melucci (as well as Touraine and Offe). Any ex- planation of this sort will remain trapped in the referential frameworks. A non- referential sociology seeks to identify the possibilities that new social move- ments might bear in terms of the future openings in political thought and action. A non-referential sociology, therefore, humbly submits itself to the local and has no desire for ultimate grounding and universal projects. 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