Were the 1980s' Anti‐Nuclear Weapons Movements New Social Movements?

Abstract

The cycle of social movement mobilization over the past generation moved theorists to make claims about the novelty of student, peace, ecology, and women's movements of the period. It has not been determined whether such characteristics apply to the anti-nuclear weapons movements of the 1980s. This article reviews the theoretical underpinning of "new social movements" and assesses the extent to which it accurately describes the action, identity, and organization of recent peace movements, with special attention to the West German antimissile movement. The author argues that anti-nuclear weapons efforts, in both Europe and the United States, evinced a distinctive blend of borrowed and innovative features but had more in common with their predecessors than previously recognized.

Peace, a Contested Identity: Japan’s Constitutional Revision and Grassroots Peace Movements

“…In fact, her testimony represents a part of a dynamic construction of personal identity through her persistent efforts to achieve peace. The construction of identity emerges from the dialectical nature of social movements and politics, 46 and the life history narrated by participants of social movements will be reproduced until the contradictions in real politics are resolved. The accumulation of such life histories will be a great source for generating a shared collective identity when they challenge the dominant political discourse.…”