The ‘Political’ Role of Social Movements: A Critical Review of Rationalist Approaches

The rationalist social movement approaches, which have been dominant in social movement literature, are curiously silent concerning how social movements transform existing social structures. This study contends that the silence of rationalist approaches on that issue is related with the failure of these approaches to conceptualize the ‘political’ role of social movements. It, first, outlines the conceptual distinction made by Claude Lefort, Chantal Mouffe, and Ernesto Laclau between ‘the political’ and ‘the politics’, and by Jacques Ranciére between ‘the politics’ and ‘the police’, in order to differentiate the moment of the institution of the social from the institutionalized politics. Then, examining rationalist approaches by drawing on this distinction, it argues that these approaches confine social movements within the boundaries of the conventional politics, ignoring the political role that movements can play. As such, they fail to conceptualize how movements challenge and transform existing social structures. The study concludes by pointing out the analytical and political effects of this conceptual weakness of rationalist approaches.