Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-fbnjt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-05T09:28:52.227Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Postmodernism, Protest, and the New Social Movements

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 April 2024

Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

My subject is postmodern politics and law, protest from below, and the “new” social movements. The question I am concerned with is the value of postmodernism for transformative politics.

Scholars concerned with the struggles of subordinate groups have long emphasized protest from below. Accounts of the resistance of blacks and poor people became prominent in the 1960s. This tradition, joined by feminists, gays and lesbians, as well as others, continued in the 1980s. The new social movements are, roughly, environmental, antinuclear, peace, feminist, and gay and lesbian. Whether these broad movements are "new" or variations of older movements is much debated. For our purposes, they are included here insofar as they are antimaterialist, antistatist, antibureaucratic; they seek to cross traditional class lines in favor of humanistic, interpersonal, and communitarian values.

Type
The Presidential Address, 1992
Copyright
Copyright © 1992 by The Law and Society Association

Footnotes

This essay is an expanded version of my presidential address, Law & Society Association Annual Meeting, 27–31 May 1992, Philadelphia, Pa. I wish to thank William Forbath, Austin Sarat, Susan Silbey, Lucie White, and the UCLA Faculty Colloquium.

References

Aronowitz, Stanley (1988) “Postmodernism and Politics,” in Ross 1988.Google Scholar
Austin, Regina (1992a) “Black Women, Sisterhood, and the Difference/Deviance Divide,” 26 New England Law Rev. 877.Google Scholar
Austin, Regina (1992b) “‘The Black Community,‘ Its Lawbreakers, and a Politics of Identification,” 65 Southern California Law Rev. 1769.Google Scholar
Baker, Lynn (1991) “Just Do It': Pragmatism and Progressive Social Change,” in Brint & Weaver 1991:99–120.Google Scholar
Bell, Derrick (1987) And We Are not Saved: The Elusive Quest for Racial Justice. New York: Basic Books.Google ScholarPubMed
Bell, Derrick (1992) Faces at the Bottom of the Well: The Permanence of Racism. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Boggs, Carl (1986) Social Movements and Political Power: Emerging Forms of Radicalism in the West. Philadelphia: Temple Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Boyle, James (1985) “Modernist Social Theory: Roberto Unger's Passion(Book Review), 98 Harvard Law Rev. 1066.Google Scholar
Boyle, James (1991) “Is Subjectivity Possible? The Postmodern Subject in Legal Theory,” 62 Univ. of Colorado Law Rev. 489.Google Scholar
Brint, Michael, & Weaver, William, eds. (1991) Pragmatism in Law & Society. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Crenshaw, Kimberlé (1989) “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics,” 1989 Univ. of Chicago Legal Forum 139.Google Scholar
Dahrendorf, Ralph (1988) The Modern Social Conflict. New York: Weidenfeld & Nicolson.Google Scholar
Dalton, Harlon (1987) “The Clouded Prism,” 22 Harvard Civil Rights–Civil Liberties Law Rev. 435.Google Scholar
Dalton, Russell J., & Kuechler, Manfred, eds. (1990) Challenging the Political Order: New Social and Political Movements in Western Democracies. Oxford: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Dalton, Russell, Kuechler, Manfred, & Burkin, Wilhelm (1990) “The Challenge of New Movements,” in Dalton & Kuechler 1990:3–20.Google Scholar
Delgado, Richard, Dunn, Chris, Brown, Pamela, Lee, Helena & Hubbert, David (1985) “Fairness and Formality: Minimizing the Risk of Prejudice in Alternative Dispute Resolution,” 1985 Wisconsin Law Rev. 1359.Google Scholar
Deutsche, R. (1991) “Boys Town,” 9 Society & Space 5.Google Scholar
Ewick, Patricia, & Silbey, Susan (1992) “Conformity, Contestation, and Resistance: An Account of Legal Consciousness,” 26 New England Law Rev. 73.Google Scholar
Fish, Stanley (1991) “Almost Pragmatism: The Jurisprudence of Richard Posner, Richard Rorty, and Ronald Dworkin,” in Brint & Weaver 1991:47–83.Google Scholar
Fisher, Marc (1992) “Sweden's Socialist Utopia Gets a Conservative Jolt,” Washington Post, p. A13 (30 May).Google Scholar
Fraser, Nancy (1989) Unruly Practices: Power, Discourse, and Gender in Contemporary Social Theory. Minneapolis: Univ. of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Fraser, Nancy (1990) “Struggle over Needs: Outline of a Socialist-Feminist Critical Theory of Late-Capitalist Political Cultures,” in Gordon 1990a.Google Scholar
Fraser, Nancy, & Nicholson, Linda (1988) “Social Criticism without Philosophy: An Encounter between Feminism and Postmodernism,” in Ross 1988.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fuss, Diana (1989) “‘Race’ under ‘Erasure‘? Poststructuralist Afro-American Literary Theory,” ch. 5 in Essentially Speaking. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Genovese, Eugene (1972) Roll, Jordan, Roll: The World the Slaves Made. New York: Vintage.Google Scholar
Giddens, Anthony (1990) The Consequences of Modernity. Stanford, CA: Stanford Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Gordon, Linda (1988) Heroes of Their Own Lives: The Politics and History of Family Violence, Boston, 1880–1960. New York: Viking.Google Scholar
Gordon, Linda. (1990a) Women, the State, and Welfare. Madison: Univ. of Wisconsin Press.Google Scholar
Gordon, Linda (1990b) “Family Violence, Feminism, and Social Control,” in Gordon 1990a.Google Scholar
Grey, Thomas (1989) “Holmes and Legal Pragmatism,” 41 Stanford Law Rev. 787.Google Scholar
Grossberg, Lawrence (1988) “Putting the Pop Back into Postmodernism,” in Ross 1988.10.2307/827814CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Habermas, Jurgen (1984) The Theory of Communicative Action: Vol. 2, Lifeworld and Systems: A Critique of Functionalist Reason, trans. McCarthy, T.. Boston: Beacon Press.Google Scholar
Handelman, Susan (1982) The Slayers of Moses: The Emergence of Rabbinic Interpretation in Modern Literary Theory. Albany: State Univ. of New York Press.Google Scholar
Harvey, David (1989) The Conditions of Postmodernity. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Hassan, Ihab (1987) The Postmodern Turn: Essays in Postmodern Theory and Culture. Columbus: Ohio State Press.Google Scholar
Hunt, Alan (1990) “Rights and Social Movements: Counter-hegemonic Strategies,” 17 J. of Law & Society 309.Google Scholar
Hutchinson, Allan C. (1988) Dwelling on the Threshold. Toronto: Carswell.Google Scholar
Hutchinson, Allan C. (1989) Book Review: “The Three ‘Rs’: Reading/Rorty/Radically,” 103 Harvard Law Rev. 555.Google Scholar
Jenkins, Peter (1992) “Goodbye to All That,” New York Review of Books, pp. 1617 (14 May).Google Scholar
Johnson, Paul (1987) A History of the Jews. New York: Harper & Row.Google Scholar
Kaplan, E. Ann, ed. (1988) Postmodernism and Its Discontents New York: Verso.Google Scholar
Katz, Michael (1986) In the Shadow of the Poorhouse. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Kuechler, Manfred, & Dalton, Russell (1990) “New Social Movements and the Political Order: Inducing Change for Long-Term Stability?” in Dalton & Kuechler 1990:277–300.Google Scholar
Laclau, Ernesto (1988) “Politics and the Limits of Modernity,” in Ross 1988.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Laclau, Ernesto (1990) New Reflections on the Revolution of Our Time. New York: Verso.Google Scholar
Laclau, Ernesto, & Mouffe, Chantal (1985) Hegemony & Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic Politics. New York: Verso.Google Scholar
Lawrence, Charles R. III (1987) “The Id, the Ego and Equal Protection: Reckoning with Unconscious Racism,” 39 Stanford Law Rev. 317.Google Scholar
Lawrence, Charles R. III (1990) “If He Hollers Let Him Go: Regulating Racist Speech on Campus,” 1990 Duke Law J. 431.Google Scholar
Luhmann, Niklas (1986) “The Self-Reproduction of Law and Its Limits,” in Teubner (1986a).Google Scholar
Matsuda, Mari (1989) “Public Response to Racist Speech: Considering the Victim's Story,” 87 Michigan Law Rev. 2320.Google Scholar
Menand, Louis (1992) “The Real John Dewey,” New York Rev. of Books, pp. 5055 (25 June).Google Scholar
Minow, Martha, & Spelman, Elizabeth (1990) “In Context,” 63 Southern California Law Rev. 1597.Google Scholar
Mouffe, Chantal (1988) “Radical Democracy: Modern or Postmodern?” in Ross 1988.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Norris, Christopher (1991) Deconstruction: Theory and Practice. Rev. ed. New York: Methuen.Google Scholar
Offe, Claus (1990) “Reflections on the Institutional Self-Transformation of Movement Politics: A Tentative Stage Model,” in Dalton & Kuechler 1990:232–50.Google Scholar
Oliver, Melvin L. (1976) Book Review, No. 28 Telos 215.Google Scholar
Pecora, Vincent (1992) “What Was Deconstruction?” 1 (No. 3) Contention 59.Google Scholar
Piven, Frances, & Cloward, Richard (1977) Poor People's Movements: Why They Succeed, How They Fail. New York: Pantheon.Google Scholar
Pontusson, Jonas (1992) “At the End of the Third Reich: Swedish Social Democracy in Crisis,” 20 Politics & Society 305.Google Scholar
Post, Robert (1992) “Postmodern Temptations,” 4 Yale J. of Law & the Humanities 391.Google Scholar
Putnam, Hilary (1991) “A Reconsideration of Deweyan Democracy,” in Brint & Weaver 1991:217–43.Google Scholar
Radin, Margaret (1991) “The Pragmatist and the Feminist,” 63 Southern California Law Rev. 1699.Google Scholar
Riding, Alan (1992) “Mitterrand Names an Old Ally as New French Prime Minister,” New York Times, p. A6 (3 April).Google Scholar
Rorty, Richard (1989) Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity. New York: Cambridge Univ. Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rorty, Richard (1992) “What Can You Expect from Anti-foundationalist Philosophers? A Reply to Lynn Baker,” 78 Virginia Law Rev. 719.Google Scholar
Rosenau, Pauline (1992) Post-Modernism and the Social Sciences. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ross, Andrew, ed. (1988) Universal Abandon? The Politics of Postmodernism. Minneapolis: Univ. of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Santos, Santos Boaventura da (1991) “The PostModern Transition: Law and Politics,” in Sarat & Kearns 1991:79–118.Google Scholar
Sarat, Austin (1990) “‘… The Law Is All Over’: Power, Resistance and the Legal Consciousness of the Welfare Poor,” 2 Yale J. of Law & Humanities 343.Google Scholar
Sarat, Austin, & Kearns, Thomas, eds. (1991) The Fate of Law. Ann Arbor: Univ. of Michigan Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scott, Alan (1990) Ideology and the New Social Movements. Boston: Unwin Hyman.Google Scholar
Scott, James (1990) Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts. New Haven, CT: Yale Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Singer, Joseph (1989) Book Review: “Should Lawyers Care about Philosophy?” 1989 Duke Law J. 1752.Google Scholar
Singer, Joseph (1990) “Property and Coercion in Federal Indian Law: The Conflict between Critical and Complacent Pragmatism,” 63 Southern California Law Rev. 1821.Google Scholar
Spelman, Elizabeth (1988) Inessential Woman: Problems of Exclusion in Feminist Thought. Boston: Beacon Press.Google Scholar
Stack, Carol (1974) All Our Kin: Strategies for Survival in a Black Community. New York: Harper Torchbook.Google Scholar
Tarrow, Sidney (1989) Struggle, Politics, and Reform: Collective Action, Social Movements, and Cycles of Protest. Ithaca, NY: Center for International Studies, Cornell Univ.Google Scholar
Tarrow, Sidney (1990) “The Phantom at the Opera: Political Parties and Social Movements of the 1960s and 1970s in Italy,” in Dalton & Kuechler 1990:251–73.Google Scholar
Testa, Mark (1992) “Racial Variation in the Early Life Course of Adolescent Welfare Mothers,” in Rosenheim, M. & Testa, M., eds., Early Parenthood and Coming of Age in the 1990's. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Teubner, Gunther, ed. (1986a) Dilemmas of Law in the Welfare State. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Teubner, Gunther (1986b) “After Legal Instrumentalism? Strategic Models of Post-regulatory Law,” in Teubner 1986a.10.1515/9783110921526.299CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thomas, Richard (1991) “Milton and Mass Culture: Toward a Postmodernist Theory of Tolerance,” 62 Univ. of Colorado Law Rev. 525.Google Scholar
Torres, Gerald (1991) “Critical Race Theory: The Decline of the Universalist Ideal and the Hope of Plural Justice—Some Observations of an Emerging Phenomenon,” 75 Minnesota Law Rev. 993.Google Scholar
Unger, Roberto (1987) Politics: A Work in Constructive Social Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press.Google Scholar
West, Cornel (1989) The American Evasion of Philosophy. Madison: Univ. of Wisconsin Press.Google Scholar
Westbrook, Robert Brett (1991) John Dewey and American Democracy. Ithaca, NY: Cornell Univ. Press.Google Scholar
White, Lucie E. (1990) “Subordination, Rhetorical Survival Skills, and Sunday Shoes: Notes on the Hearing of Mrs. G.,” 38 Buffalo Law Rev. 1.Google Scholar
Wicke, Jennifer (1991) “Postmodern Identity and the Legal Subject,” 62 Univ. of Colorado Law Rev. 455.Google Scholar
Williams, Patricia (1987) “Alchemical Notes: Reconstructed Ideals from Deconstructed Rights,” 22 Harvard Civil Rights–Civil Liberties Law Rev. 401.Google Scholar
Williams, Patricia (1991) The Alchemy of Race and Rights. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Williams, Raymond (1966) Modern Tragedy. Stanford, CA: Stanford Univ. Press.Google Scholar