Compare and contrast social movements in advanced industrial and developing societies. (2013, 20 Marks)
Ronald Inglehart‘s modernisation thesis links values to development: once survival is secure, citizens shift from material to post-material concerns. That shift explains why movements in rich and poor societies share a form but differ in substance. Ramachandra Guha‘s contrast between the “full-stomach” environmentalism of the North and the “empty-belly” environmentalism of the South, developed with Joan Martinez-Alier (1997), captures the difference in one image.
What they share
- Both are sustained collective challenges pursued largely outside institutions, in Sidney Tarrow‘s sense, and both depend on resources, political opportunity and persuasive framing.
- Both increasingly use digital, networked repertoires and borrow symbols across borders.
- Both respond to a perceived failure of representation by parties.
- Both pass through the stages Herbert Blumer mapped (social ferment, popular excitement, formalisation, institutionalisation) and end in success, failure, co-optation or repression.
Where they differ
| Criterion | Advanced industrial societies | Developing societies |
|---|---|---|
| Old and new | Largely sequential: post-material movements followed labour politics | Overlapping: livelihood and identity claims run together |
| Core demands | Recognition, environment, peace, lifestyle, autonomy | Land, water, wages, rehabilitation, dignity, plus rights |
| Social base | Educated new middle class, students, professionals | Cross-class: peasants, Adivasis, Dalits, urban poor, with middle-class leaders |
| Relation to state | State as regulator to be influenced | State as both target and provider |
| Organisation | Professionalised, well-funded, often institutionalised | Loose, resource-poor, often NGO-dependent |
| Main risk | Absorption into routine advocacy | Repression, co-optation, escalation |
Explaining the contrast
- Material insecurity. Where basic needs are unmet, ecology becomes a question of access. Chipko (1973) and the Narmada Bachao Andolan defended forests and rivers as livelihoods, not amenities.
- Weak institutions. Rajni Kothari‘s non-party political process and Partha Chatterjee‘s political society show the poor negotiating for recognition itself, a stage Northern movements passed long ago.
- Political opportunity. Peter Eisinger (1973) found protest highest in partially open systems, the condition of most developing democracies. Liberal democracies channel dissent into courts and lobbying: Black Lives Matter (2020) and #MeToo (2017) shaped norms that way. Elsewhere detention, shutdowns and foreign-funding laws raise its cost; CIVICUS recorded detention of protesters in at least 82 countries in 2025.
- External targets. Southern movements confront global lenders and corporations directly; the Narmada campaign pushed the World Bank out of Sardar Sarovar in 1993.
- Repertoire. Northern movements lean on litigation, media and symbolic action, though the Yellow Vests (2018) show disruption persists. Southern movements rely on mass mobilisation, dharnas, blockades and fasts, with greater risk of violent escalation.
- Outcomes. Northern movements often change culture more than law. Southern ones can win statutes, as with India’s Right to Information Act (2005) and the farm-law repeal (2021), reverse budgets, as Kenya’s youth did with the Finance Bill in June 2024, or topple governments, as in Bangladesh (2024) and Nepal (2025).
Convergence
The gap is narrowing. #MeToo travelled to India, Pakistan and China; Fridays for Future has chapters across the South; Pakistan’s Aurat March carries feminist politics into developing societies. Europe’s farmers’ protests of 2024 show material, sectoral movements persisting in rich countries, and right-wing and anti-gender counter-movements use the same repertoires everywhere.
Conclusion
The difference is one of emphasis and context, not kind. In advanced societies the old–new distinction describes a sequence; in developing societies it describes an overlay, because livelihood and recognition remain unsecured together. Shared media and grievances are blurring the line, yet the state’s role as provider keeps Southern movements more material, more contentious and more consequential for democracy itself.