Account for the Rise of New Social Movements and Evaluate their Impact on Modern British Politics

A social movement is simply defined as a non-institutional body or group which takes up a given cause or issue of a political nature. Whilst social movements have been around for a long time, 'new' social movements (or NSMs) have risen (or returned) due to more recent changes in British society and politics. However, there are more discerning features which separate NSMs from OSMs. While OSMs tend to represent working class alliances such as trade …

…people are voting, mainly because of the rise of NSMs. In the future, governments will become more and more obliged to listen to the voices of NSMs because of their increasing membership. Hopefully the rise of NSMs will pave the way for political parties to become more responsive to key cultural and moral issues like gay rights, the green movement, women's liberation and student power instead of materialistic issues like economic growth and trade unions.