What are Social Movements?

Social movements are collective efforts by groups of people to either promote or resist social change. They vary widely in their goals, ranging from radical transformations of society to more limited reforms, and may focus on changes at global, national, community, or individual levels. Despite these differences, all social movements share several key characteristics. They arise within specific historical, cultural, and social contexts, and they face challenges such as attracting members, building commitment, and maintaining participation. Social movements also possess some level of organization, often expressed through formal groups, strategies, and tactics designed to achieve their objectives. Furthermore, every movement produces consequences, whether significant or minor. Typically, social movements consist of people outside established centers of institutional power who rely on both unconventional methods, such as protests and sit-ins, and conventional methods, such as petitions and letter-writing campaigns. Their outsider status and tactics distinguish them from political parties and lobbying groups. Most participants contribute voluntarily, offering their time, skills, and resources to support the movement’s survival and goals.

Anthony Oberschall classifies social movements into two dimensions. One dimension concerns the relationship within the collectivities, so he identifies three types of movements: ‘‘communal’’, ‘‘associational’’, and ‘‘weakly [organized] or unorganized’’. The second dimension refers to two types of relations with other collectives and segments of society, and these relations can be "vertical" or "horizontal". A strong vertical connection, such as that between different classes, can positively or negatively affect the success of mobilization, depending on the type, that is, the goal of a social movement. Vertical connectivity has a bad effect on class-based movements but is favorable for movements based on ethnicity.

                     Emergence of Social Movements

Early theories of social movements, known as “breakdown theories,” argued that movements emerge during periods of major social disruption, such as urbanization and industrialization. These changes were believed to weaken social controls and increase unrest. However, modern scholars reject the idea that social movements are abnormal responses to social strain. Instead, they view them as a form of political action used by groups with limited access to formal political power.

A key factor in movement emergence is the structure of political opportunities—the extent to which political systems are open or vulnerable to protest. Movements are more likely to arise when political conditions become favorable. For example, the U.S. civil rights movement was supported by changes such as African American migration to the North, the expansion of Black voting rights, shifts in political alliances, and economic transformations. Similarly, increased political openness in the former Soviet Union during the period of perestroika led to a significant rise in protest activity.

Research also shows that repression and protest have a complex relationship. Limited repression may intensify resistance and encourage further activism, while extreme repression can suppress collective action. The strength of state institutions, access to decision-making processes, and power structures all influence movement development.

Organizations such as churches have often provided resources and support for movements, including the civil rights, peace, and Moral Majority movements. Some scholars argue that new social movements emerged as governments increasingly intervened in private areas of life, such as sexuality, health, aging, and environmental issues. Movements advocating women’s rights, gay rights, euthanasia, and environmental protection sought to reclaim these domains from state control.

Culture is another crucial factor. It helps create shared identities, express grievances, and unite people around common beliefs. Cultural values can amplify moral outrage and encourage collective action, while also shaping how movements develop and spread across different societies. Even when movements respond to similar events, such as opposition to war, cultural differences influence their strategies, goals, and forms of mobilization.

                          Outcomes of Social Movements

The success of social movements can be assessed in several ways, including their ability to mobilize participants, spread ideas across societies, influence cultural values, and achieve policy or structural changes. Research suggests that social movements are generally more successful in producing cultural change than structural transformation. For example, the social movements of the 1960s had a lasting impact on attitudes toward women and minorities, popular culture, fashion, music, and lifestyles. However, their achievements in addressing deeper structural inequalities were more limited. Despite important civil rights legislation, many African Americans continued to face poverty and institutional discrimination, while women gained relatively few structural advantages.

Nevertheless, some movements have achieved significant structural successes. The abolitionist movement ended slavery, the anti-apartheid movement helped dismantle racial segregation in South Africa, and grassroots movements in Eastern Europe contributed to the transition from totalitarian regimes to democratic governments. Environmental organizations such as Greenpeace have also influenced international policies on toxic waste trade.

Sociologist William A. Gamson examined the factors associated with movement success by studying 53 social movement organizations in the United States between 1800 and 1945. He found that movements were more likely to succeed when they offered incentives for participation, used disruptive tactics against vulnerable targets, maintained centralized organizational structures, and avoided internal divisions. Movements seeking to completely replace existing elites were generally less successful.

Successful framing of issues can also shift public opinion and create favorable conditions for change. For example, the movement against drunk driving redefined intoxicated drivers as serious public threats, helping secure stronger laws and penalties. While public support alone does not guarantee social change, it can increase resources and opportunities that make change more achievable.

                 Reasons Why People Join Social Movements

Early explanations of social movement participation were based on breakdown theories, which viewed activism as an irrational response to social strain. Factors such as alienation, social isolation, status anxiety, and relative deprivation were believed to predispose certain individuals to join movements. These theories suggested that participants were driven by psychological distress or personality defects. However, the widespread social movements of the 1960s challenged this view and led scholars to reconsider participation as a rational and purposeful activity.

Rational choice theories argue that people engage in social movements when they believe the benefits of participation outweigh the costs. Research shows that these decisions are influenced by a combination of social, psychological, and structural factors. One of the most important influences is social networks. Most new recruits are drawn into movements through personal connections with existing members. At the same time, family responsibilities, careers, and other commitments can limit participation by creating conflicts over time and resources.

To sustain involvement, activists develop “vocabularies of motives”—shared justifications that explain and legitimize their participation to themselves and others. These rationales help participants defend their actions, encourage others to join, and strengthen commitment to the cause. As individuals invest more time, effort, and sacrifices in a movement, they develop a stronger sense of collective identity, or “groupness,” making withdrawal less likely.

Research also highlights the importance of how people interpret social problems. Individuals must come to see existing conditions as unjust and changeable rather than inevitable. This process, known as cognitive liberation, often involves shifting blame from oneself to broader social or political systems. The shared understanding of problems, causes, opponents, solutions, and motivations for action forms a movement’s collective action frame. Social movements are therefore most likely to emerge when favorable structural conditions, supportive cultural contexts, and shared interpretations of grievances come together.

Finally, participation varies according to the costs and risks involved. Low-cost, low-risk activism requires less commitment, while high-cost, high-risk activism—common in repressive societies—typically demands deeper integration into movement culture and previous involvement in less risky forms of activism.

Social Movements Organization and Resource Mobilization

Social movement organizations (SMOs) are the formal groups that coordinate and direct the activities of social movements. They differ in several important ways, including their origins, scope of operation, and organizational structure. Some SMOs emerge from the grassroots level, founded by individuals directly affected by a social issue. For example, Mothers Against Drunk Driving was established by a mother whose child was killed by a drunk driver. Other organizations are created from the top down by political or social elites, as seen in state-sponsored peace movements in former communist countries.

SMOs also vary in scale. Some focus on local community concerns, while others operate at regional, national, or international levels. Transnational organizations often address issues such as human rights across multiple countries. In addition, SMOs differ in how they are connected to one another. Some are tightly controlled by central authorities, while others are largely independent. Between these extremes are networks, federations, and coalitions that allow organizations to cooperate while maintaining varying degrees of autonomy.

As the organizational centers of social movements, SMOs acquire resources, recruit members, develop strategies, and coordinate collective action. Scholars argue that movements are unlikely to survive without organizations capable of gathering and managing resources. Movements often begin in informal discussion groups, or “micromobilization contexts,” where people with shared grievances meet. These groups may eventually develop into formal organizations that pursue social change.

SMOs also help create a collective identity by linking movement goals to the values and beliefs of potential supporters. Emotions play a significant role in recruitment, and mass media are important in shaping public perceptions of social problems and movements. By controlling the flow of information, the media influence how issues are framed and understood.

To achieve their goals, movements adopt strategies and tactics. Strategies involve broad plans for using resources, while tactics are specific actions such as marches, sit-ins, strikes, rallies, and petitions. Different SMOs often specialize in particular tactics, creating a division of labor within movements. By developing unique identities and expertise, some organizations build stable support bases and continue to exist even after the broader movement has declined.

     Theoretical Approaches to Social Movements

Three major theoretical perspectives have shaped the study of social movements: resource mobilization theory, political process theory, and the framing perspective. Since the mid-1990s, researchers have increasingly adopted an integrated approach that combines these three perspectives into a broader framework for understanding social movement dynamics. This synthetic model recognizes that the emergence, development, and success of social movements are influenced by resources, political opportunities, and the ways issues are framed and interpreted. Despite this trend toward integration, many scholars continue to focus primarily on one of these areas.

Resource mobilization theory highlights the importance of both formal and informal organizations in facilitating collective action. According to this perspective, the success of a social movement depends largely on its ability to acquire, organize, and effectively use resources such as money, leadership, skills, networks, and public support. Scholars working within this tradition also examine how social movement organizations (SMOs) are structured and connected within broader social contexts. To analyze these relationships, they use concepts such as the social movement sector, social movement industry, and organizational field, which describe the networks and environments in which movement organizations operate and interact. Some of the most prominent proponents of this approach are William Gamson, Anthony Oberschall, John McCarthy, Mayer Zald, Charles Tilly, Doug McAdam, Neil Smelser, and Sidney Tarrow.

Oberschall developed this approach in his book Social Conflicts and Social Movements (1973) and believes that the ideas and beliefs that social movements use when they are trying to fight for something through public protests already exist in the wider culture. If collective protests are centrally organized, then the mobilization of participants is very similar to the mobilization of soldiers within the army; and the management of protests is similar to a military organization. The key to a successful protest is the possession of the most important resources: organizational resources, money, skills, time, access to the media, and access to centers of power. Oberschall views the protests and their organizers and participants in the context of the logic of rational choice developed by the Neoclassical School of Economics. He believes that this model best explains the strategies and tactics of social movements and that the main unit of their analysis should be a group, not individual members. Oberschall introduces the term "block recruitment," which means that it is easier to mobilize an entire existing group or groups (block) into a new social movement than to mobilize individuals to join the movement.

In the book From Mobilization to Revolution (1978), Charles Tilly studies the process of formation and transformation of collective action and creates a theoretical and methodological model for studying social movements and social change. He believes that it is necessary to study the specific context of each collective action so that it can be understood. The most important aspects of the context are the existence of common interests of different actors so that they can be mobilized into a common front. The movements changed their demands over time; while they previously fought against certain measures or policies, they later became proactive and began to emphasize completely new demands. The main factors influencing the operation of social movements are interests, organization, and opportunities. Interests affect the organization of the movement, and both of these factors then affect the mobilization of resources for collective action. He introduced the notion of the "action repertoire of the movement", which refers to the strategic re-examination of the relationship between gains and losses that occurs in conflict with the authorities. Tilly believes that collective action is rational and goal-oriented, rather than random and chaotic, so collective actors always question whether their activity will lead to greater benefit or harm to their interests. This collective rationality is not based on individual rationality or individual aspirations but arises from the social relations that rebellious individuals enter into.

In the book Theory of Collective Behavior (1962), Neil Smelser emphasizes the key importance of mobilization for collective action. He introduces the concept of "structural strain" to develop a multi-level model that explains many forms of collective behavior. He takes the concept of "added value" from economics to explain the successive stages that occur in collective behavior. Smelser applies this approach to study the case of the emergence of new social movements. Each new stage in the development of social movements adds some new added value to the whole movement and thus increases the chance that collective behavior or social movements will be successful.

Studying social movements, he concluded that there is no specific mover, but they are always the result of several factors. In this context, six elements add new value to social movements. 1) structural conduciveness – opportunities and resources available to movements; 2) structural strains - the emergence of “ambiguities, deprivations, conflicts, and discrepancies” (1962); the discrepancy between people's expectations and social reality, meaning, when the situation in society does not meet people's expectations; 3) generalized beliefs - beliefs and attitudes that are spread among the population and support the movement; 4) precipitating factors - events that serve as a spark for the sudden spread of dissatisfaction and mobilization; 5) mobilization for action - formation of a functional social network of activists, in order to carry out the necessary activities; 6) failure of social control - the authorities are not able to stop the formation and spread of the social movement.

The political process theory focuses on how the broader political environment influences the emergence, development, and success of social movements. Central to this perspective is the concept of political opportunities, which are conditions that make collective action more likely. Five key dimensions of political opportunity are commonly identified: access to political institutions, conflicts among political or economic elites, changes in electoral coalitions, the presence of influential allies such as experts, media, or religious organizations, and a reduction in state repression. When these opportunities are present, social movements are more likely to emerge, mobilize large numbers of people, and achieve their goals. However, some scholars argue that highly open political systems may reduce the need for protest by providing more conventional channels for political participation.

The framing perspective emphasizes the role of interpretation and meaning in social movements. According to this approach, grievances and resources alone are not enough to explain why movements arise. Activists must present social problems in ways that are persuasive, meaningful, and motivating to potential supporters. This process, known as framing, involves shaping public understanding of issues such as injustice, oppression, and inequality.

Researchers identify three main framing tasks. Diagnostic framing defines a problem and identifies those responsible for it. Prognostic framing proposes solutions and strategies for addressing the issue. Motivational framing provides the reasons and appeals that encourage people to take action and participate in the movement. According to scholars such as David Snow and Robert Benford, these framing processes are essential for generating support, sustaining participation, and maintaining social movement mobilization over time. Together, political opportunities and effective framing help explain why some movements gain widespread support while others fail to attract followers.

                             Revolutionary Movements

Revolutionary movements, including the Bolshevik, Palestinian, Islamic Jihad, and Irish Republican movements, aim to bring about profound structural transformations in society. Their objectives often involve fundamentally altering key social, political, and economic institutions or, in some cases, reshaping the broader international order. Because these movements challenge the authority and legitimacy of existing power structures, political and economic elites frequently respond with strong opposition, often employing a range of measures—including coercion and violence—to suppress their activities. For more information on revolutionary movements, see entry Revolutions on Sociopedia.

                              Leftist Movements

Leftist and workers’ movements emerged in the 19th century as responses to industrialization, poor working conditions, and economic inequality. Early labor activism was closely linked to socialist and communist ideas, which called for greater economic equality and collective ownership of production. Workers organized strikes, trade unions, and political parties to demand better wages, shorter working hours, and safer conditions. Throughout the 20th century, these movements achieved significant reforms, including labor protections, social welfare systems, and collective bargaining rights. However, they also faced repression and internal divisions. Today, leftist and labor movements continue to advocate for workers’ rights and economic justice in a globalized economy.

In the book False Promises: The Shaping of American Working Class Consciousness (1973), Aronowitz describes how the labor movement in America emerged, in large part, from the trade union movement that was trying to set better standards for workers, and whose goal was not to radically reform the capitalist system and take over the control of the means of production. In How Class Works (2003), Aronowitz states that the labor movement in the US still struggles over working conditions, like working hours and overtime pay. But in the class struggle between workers and capitalists, capitalists hold the majority of power and are subjugating the working class by dividing them based on citizenship status, race, and gender. For the labor movement to gain power back, it should forgo divisions and unite to fight for common goals.  

Frances Fox Piven and Richard Cloward, in the book Poor People’s Movements (1977), focused on the social movements of this disenfranchised population. The focus of this research was on the factors that contribute to, or hinder, the success of these movements. Piven and Cloward believe that the social movements of the poor should not be focused on creating organizational resources, because that diverts energy from mass protests. The success of these movements depends on mass and radical expressions of dissatisfaction through demonstrations and the illegal occupation of buildings and other facilities owned by those being protested. Creating a formal organization of these movements can lead to these organizations becoming an end in themselves, and thus their struggle would lose its edge. They saw the psychological causes of the protest in the great frustration of the poor, and not in the rational approach to the problem through the creation of strategies. For these movements to succeed, the disenfranchised must experience the situation in which they find themselves, as very unjust, but at the same time, understand that the situation can change for the better. However, only during the period of great systemic crises did these movements really manage to get some concessions from the elite. The authors felt that poor movements had a positive impact on other movements, such as the African-American Civil Rights Movement.

Eric Hobsbawm - In his study of Luddites and similar movements and riots that destroyed industrial machines, he concluded that this type of protest was not directed at the machines themselves, but at the machines as tools of capitalist exploitation. Since there were no systematic and political ways of protesting, Hobsbawm called these types of protests "collective bargaining by riot." Even when the English Parliament declared the destruction of industrial machines a crime punishable by the death penalty, such protests did not stop.

                           Conservative Movements

Social movements often face organized resistance in the form of countermovements, which aim to block or reverse the changes promoted by reform or revolutionary groups. These countermovements are typically conservative in nature, as they seek to preserve existing institutions, cultural norms, and lifestyles. Examples include movements such as antibusing campaigns, McCarthyism, stop-ERA activism, and the Moral Majority.

A key modern example is the evangelical Protestant Christian Right in the United States, which has aligned with the Republican Party to oppose policies it views as morally unacceptable, such as same-sex marriage, abortion rights, and secular education in schools. Its influence has been strengthened through political alliances at multiple levels of government and through large-scale recruitment strategies, including mobilizing entire church communities. Since the 1990s, this movement has achieved significant political success, gaining representation in local and national government bodies and influencing key judicial appointments, including those to the Supreme Court.

                             Women’s Movements

The women’s movement is a broad social movement that seeks to achieve gender equality and improve the social, political, and economic status of women. It has evolved over time, with early waves focusing on legal rights such as voting and property ownership, while later waves addressed workplace equality, reproductive rights, and protection from gender-based violence. The movement operates both nationally and globally, using protests, advocacy, and legal reform to challenge discrimination and patriarchal norms. It has contributed to major changes, including expanded access to education, increased political representation, and stronger legal protections. Despite progress, ongoing issues such as wage inequality and underrepresentation remain central concerns.

               Civil Rights and Anti-Racist Movements

The civil rights movement was a struggle to end racial segregation and discrimination, primarily in the United States during the mid-20th century. It aimed to secure equal rights for African Americans through legal reform, nonviolent protest, and mass mobilization. Key figures such as Martin Luther King Jr. led campaigns including boycotts, marches, and sit-ins. Major achievements included the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which outlawed segregation and protected voting access. The movement drew on earlier abolitionist struggles and inspired global campaigns for racial equality. Its legacy continues to influence ongoing efforts against systemic racism and inequality.

In The Decline of the Significance of Race (1978), Wilson claims that the African-American Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s diminished the importance of race and enabled the creation of a large African-American middle class, so in the late 1970s, class affiliation affected life chances more than race.

                                New Social Movements

New social movements refer to collective actions that emerged mainly from the late 20th century onward, focusing less on traditional economic issues and more on identity, culture, and quality of life. Unlike older labor-based movements, they often address concerns such as gender equality, environmental protection, peace, human rights, and lifestyle choices. Examples include environmental activism, LGBTQ+ rights, feminist movements, and anti-nuclear campaigns. These movements tend to be decentralized, network-based, and rely heavily on media, symbolic actions, and grassroots participation rather than formal party structures.

They often arise in post-industrial societies where material needs are relatively met, shifting attention toward issues of identity and values. Scholars such as Alberto Melucci emphasize that these movements seek to transform cultural meanings and everyday life rather than only state policies or economic systems. New social movements also frequently operate transnationally, using global networks to coordinate action. Overall, they represent a shift in collective action toward cultural change and personal identity politics.

In his book Divided Societies: Class Struggle in Contemporary Capitalism (1989), Miliband argues that, even though new social movements and their ideologies put identity politics at the forefront, class divisions remain the basic and key divisions in capitalism.

Manuel Castells, in his works from the 1980s, saw the source of the urban social movements in the impossibility of reconciling the demands for the concentration of labor in the city centers and the increasing costs for maintaining urban collective consumption. In recent works, he has focused on the question of how social movements function in the age of the Internet, as well as on information technology and network society.

In the book, Postmodernization (1992), Jan Pakulski, Malcolm Waters, and Stephen Crook explore the process of postmodernization. During modernization, culture went through processes of differentiation, rationalization, and commodification. In postmodernization, the processes of hypercomodification, hyperrationalization, and hyperdifferentiation take place. Thus, a "postculture" is created in which cultural styles and personal tastes are fragmented and mixed, and the distinction between high and popular culture is increasingly erased. In the postmodern age, the power of the state and traditional elites is weakening, while the importance and power of new social movements are growing.

In his book The Post-Industrial Society (1969), Alain Touraine states that the second half of the twentieth century saw the development of a post-industrial society, which he called a "programmed" society. In post-industrial societies, the focus is shifting from the production of goods to the production of information. The development of the welfare state abolished the autonomy of the economic sphere because more and more economic decisions are made by the centralized state bureaucracy. It is this centralization and bureaucratization of economic policy that has contributed to post-industrial societies becoming programmed. The creation and dissemination of information is becoming most important for society and the economy, so universities are taking on the most important role in creating and shaping a new type of society and its elite. The centralized power of the state tends to control both the economy and public opinion and thus endanger the power of collective actors and the democratic order. In industrial society, the main representatives of the ruling class were the capitalists, and the main representatives of the popular class were the workers, so class conflicts were characterized by a conflict between workers and capitalists. In postmodern society, the most important representatives of the ruling class are politicians, bureaucrats, and managers, and the main force of resistance to the ruling class is no longer workers and the labor movement, but new social movements - environmental, student, anti-nuclear, feminist, and the like.

Touraine argues that, for a new social movement to be completely formed, it must meet three conditions: to be aware of its own identity, to accept the principle of opposition (existence of a clearly defined opponent), and to adopt the principle of totality, that is, to be aware of its historicity. The potential for success of these new movements depends on the successful activation of informational, organizational, financial, and ideological resources and the ability to make strategic decisions. Touraine believes that sociology should play a key role in providing information and ideological resources to new social movements. To this end, he advocates the establishment of "sociological interventionism", engaged sociology that will, through the creation of information and ideological resources, help social movements to create their own identity and shape their own principles of opposition and totality. Touraine formulated the main principles of this sociology, together with the sociologist Michel Wieviorka, in his book The Voice and the Eye (1981, in French 1978).

As the main actors who can resist neoliberal globalization and lay the groundwork for socialist globalization, Leslie Sklair sees new social movements (alter-globalist, environmental, women's) and their organizations. According to Sklair, the goals of socialist globalization should be: reviving local economies controlled by local communities, negotiating reductions in states' external debt, expanding production and consumer cooperatives, and developing a cultural ideology of human rights (especially economic and social rights).

                        Transnational Social Movements

Globalization has had a significant impact on contemporary social movements by increasing connections between people, societies, and institutions around the world. Advances in communication and transportation technologies, along with growing economic, political, and cultural interdependence, have created greater global awareness and encouraged similarities in social movement activities across countries. As a result, ideas, values, and strategies can spread more easily between movements through transnational networks.

One important example is the global justice movement, often labeled by critics as the anti-globalization movement. Emerging in the late twentieth century alongside the rapid expansion of the Internet, this movement used global communication technologies to organize and mobilize supporters across national borders. Organizations such as the Council of Canadians, Jubilee 2000, and ATTAC worked with non-governmental organizations worldwide to influence powerful institutions, including the United Nations, World Trade Organization, and World Bank. The movement focused on issues such as economic justice for developing countries, environmental protection, and greater transparency in global decision-making. Its international visibility increased dramatically after the large-scale protests at the WTO meeting in Seattle in 1999.

Other notable transnational social movements are: 1) Human Rights Movement - promotes universal human rights and works against abuses such as political repression, torture, discrimination, and unlawful detention. Organizations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch play major roles in monitoring violations and advocating for reform. 2) Environmental Movement - its activism addresses issues such as climate change, biodiversity loss, pollution, and sustainable development. Prominent organizations include Greenpeace and World Wide Fund for Nature. 3) Global Climate Justice Movement - a branch of environmental activism that emphasizes the unequal impacts of climate change on vulnerable populations. Movements such as Fridays for Future have coordinated protests across dozens of countries. 

                                Nationalist Movements

Successful nationalist movements transform the existing culture and create a new one, which enables political unification. This means that nationalism preceded and was the cause of the creation of a nation-state and not the other way around. Those communities that exist within an industrial state, and remain left out of the early stages of industrial progress, and possess some cultural differences from the dominant nation, usually create their own national movements. These communities reject cultural unification and often demand political and cultural independence.

In the books Africa: The Politics of Independence (1961) and Africa: The Politics of Unity (1967), Immanuel Wallerstein studied the political situation in Ghana and Ivory Coast, which were then still British colonies. He was interested in the influence that voluntary associations have on the growth of nationalist movements in these colonies and the role that these movements play in liberation from colonial oppression.

Michael Hechter argues that nationalist movements strive for self-determination and authority over a particular territory. Ethnic conflicts more often erupt during the emergence of new states. That is why nations remain marked by the specific nature of the conflict that existed when that nation emerged. In the context of the theory of rational choice, ethnic groups reduce the costs of supervision and increase the benefits associated with ethnic mobilization, while solving the problem of "blind passengers". States respond to ethnic tensions by combining tactics of repression and concessions, depending on the strength of ethnic movements and the state's ability to suppress the aspirations of those movements. For the relationship between the state and ethnic movements, the institutional arrangement for the transfer of power from the state to local leaders is very important, because cultural autonomy and decentralization can delay conflicts in the long run.

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