Introduction
Over the past decade, movements such as Black Lives Matter, Extinction Rebellion, Occupy, and the Indignados have confronted states and elites, challenging inequalities and mobilising for greater justice, democracy, and progressive policy changes. Some argue that we are living in a “social movement world” (Snow et al., Reference Snow, Soule, Kriesi and Mccammon2019) in that protests have become a ubiquitous part of political bargaining as political and policy decisions are contested in the streets and squares across the globe, and that, even amidst COVID restrictions, protests remained an integral part of the global political landscape (Press and Carothers, Reference Press and Carothers2020). Periods of crisis are frequently characterised as critical junctures or “moments of rupture” that create windows of opportunity for transformations in social, political, and economic life (Della Porta, Reference Della Porta2020: 556), as different ways of doing things become conceivable to both policymakers and the public. While periods of crisis present opportunities for transformation, the direction of change is uncertain and policy outcomes are contingent on the alignment of actors and the strategic choices they make.
In this article, engaging in a theoretical discussion that is informed by empirical research on social movements [SMs] (Ishkanian, Reference Ishkanian2015; Ishkanian and Glasius, Reference Ishkanian and Glasius2018; Ishkanian and Shutes, Reference Ishkanian and Shutes2021), I bridge the divide between Social Policy and the interdisciplinary field of Social Movement Studies. I adopt Dean’s (Reference Dean2019) approach to differentiate between Social Policy as an academic field of study that “entails the study of social relations necessary for human wellbeing” and social policy, as a single or set of policies that “bear upon human wellbeing” (Dean, Reference Dean2019: 1-2). I examine how and why SMs as actors and SM theories matter for S/social P/policy. I argue that research on SMs as actors in policy spaces and engagement with SM theories can open new horizons in Social Policy research by advancing our understandings of the politics of policy from a global perspective and strengthening our analytical and explanatory frameworks of agency, ideas, and power in the study of continuity and change of policy. Moreover, I maintain that to have a fuller understanding of the potential of movements in relation to social policy, we need to examine not just their direct impacts on policies, but what transformations movements engender in culture, consciousness, and practices in everyday life, because such changes in norms, attitudes, and beliefs can lay the foundations for future policy transformations.
There are many definitions of SMs. Here I use Diani’s definition of SMs as “a plurality of individuals, groups and or organizations, engaged in political and/or cultural conflicts, on the basis of shared collective identities” who through “either joint communication and/or action” come to see themselves “as part of the side in a social conflict” (Diani, Reference Diani1992: 2-3). SMs operate in the arena of civil society. However, unlike professionalised civil society organisations (e.g. nongovernmental organisation [NGOs]), whose service delivery and advocacy roles in the mixed economy of welfare have been extensively studied (Johansson et al., Reference Johansson, Arvidson and Johansson2015), SMs are generally formed “to voice grievances and concerns about the rights, welfare, and well-being of themselves” (Snow et al., Reference Snow, Soule, Kriesi and Mccammon2019: 1) and “to demand fundamental social change, the recognition of new identities, entry into the polity, the destruction of their enemies, or the overthrow of a social order – but seldom just ‘reform’” (Tarrow, Reference Tarrow2011) [emphasis added].
I begin with a literature review to consider how Social Policy scholars have studied the relationship of SMs to social policy. Building on this review, I identify two areas for future research: a) the study of SMs and their relationship to continuity and change in social policy and b) the study of the potential and limits of SMs’ agency in imagining and enacting alternative and transformative social relations and practices of wellbeing and care.
Social Policy and Social Movements: Bridging the fields
In the 1970s, class-based labour movements were seen as having played an important role in the emergence of welfare states (Korpi, Reference Korpi1978; Esping-Andersen, Reference Esping-Andersen1990). While these studies and theoretical approaches (e.g. Power Resource Theory) recognised the power and agency of actors beyond the State (Korpi, Reference Korpi1978) and the impact of active class mobilization, they did not “deny the importance of structured or hegemonic power” (Esping-Andersen, Reference Esping-Andersen1990: 99). Such approaches were important correctives to structuralist analyses of welfare state development; however, they were not without shortcomings. Critics argued there was an over-emphasis on class as opposed to other identities such as gender (Lewis, Reference Lewis1992), race and ethnicity (Williams, Reference Williams1995) and that these approaches did not provide theoretical space to account for how citizenship rights are “recast and reconfigured” in societies (Hobson and Lindholm, Reference Hobson and Lindholm1997: 476-477).
In the 1990s, Social Policy scholarship began to engage with new social movement (NSM) theories asking how New Social Welfare Movements (Croft and Beresford, Reference Croft and Beresford1992) were mobilising around questions of social policy. NSMs are seen as distinct from the ‘old’ class-based movements in that they not only struggle “for the reappropriation of the material structure of production, but also for collective control over socio-economic development, i.e. for the reappropriation of time, of space, and of relationships in the individual’s daily existence” (Melucci, Reference Melucci1980: 219). Research on SMs and their relationship to social policy emerged in an era of welfare state retrenchment, restructuring and transition in the industrialised West (Hobson and Lindholm, Reference Hobson and Lindholm1997) as scholars analysed movements’ struggles for the legitimisation and recognition of new welfare identities (Barnes, Reference Barnes1999; Williams, Reference Williams1999), how movements’ cultural and symbolic challenges intersected with policy (Martin, Reference Martin2001: 362), and the ways in which NSMs staked claims for welfare and “put on the agenda needs to do with personhood and wellbeing” that expanded the “meanings of redistribution, equality, universalism, and justice” (Williams, Reference Williams1999: 668).
The focus on movements in Social Policy was part of a wider revival of interest in human agency, which had until that point been neglected in the discipline (Deacon and Mann, Reference Deacon and Mann1999: 413). Some of these studies of agency in social policy drew attention to the capacities of people to be creative and to be reflexive agents and how such actions were shaped by institutions and power relations (Lister, Reference Lister2004; Williams, Reference Williams1999).
There was much debate at the time as to whether NSMs were advancing material or post-material claims (Martin, Reference Martin2001) and their ability to influence social policy (Myles and Quadango, Reference Myles and Quadango2002; Newman et al., Reference Newman, Glendinning and Hughes2008: 553). As Philipps contends, “‘left’ critics of identity politics” bemoaned the perceived retreat from class (Phillips, 2003: 263), arguing that NSMs were leading to the weakening of social solidarity. Feminist scholars challenged this as a false dichotomy, arguing that NSMs’ demands for justice were about both the redistribution of material resources and the recognition of new identities (Fraser, Reference Fraser1995; Lister, Reference Lister1997; Williams, Reference Williams1999). Moreover, if we look beyond the Global North, the categories of ‘old’ versus ‘new’ movements are problematic, as old movements in formerly colonised countries were the anti-colonial movements, which did not have a clear class character (Fadee, Reference Fadee2017: 49) and historically movements in the Global South have advanced interconnected redistributive and recognition claims (Silva, Reference Silva2015).
The emergence of the global 2010+ movements (e.g. the Arab Spring, the Indignados, and Occupy), led to a renewed interest in and research on the relationship between SMs and social policy (Díaz-Parra and Jover-Báez, Reference Díaz-Parra and Jover-Báez2016; Seckinelgin, Reference Seckinelgin2016; Edmiston and Humpage, Reference Edmiston and Humpage2018). Scholars examined SMs challenging the privatization and commodification of welfare services (Mladenov, Reference Mladenov2015; Roulstone and Morgan, Reference Roulstone and Morgan2009), austerity cuts (Harrison and Risager, Reference Harrison and Risager2016) and rising inequalities and precarity within and across countries (Runciman, Reference Runciman2016). As before, questions emerged about the potential of movements to impact policy (Kreiss and Tufekci, Reference Kreiss and Tufekci2013).
SM scholars examine a range of questions around how and why movements emerge (Tilly and Tarrow, Reference Tilly and Tarrow2007), the relationship between contentious collective action and transformation (Jenkins, Reference Jenkins1983; Tarrow, Reference Tarrow2011; Della Porta, Reference Della Porta2015) as well as the agency of movement actors (Melucci, Reference Melucci1980; Touraine, Reference Touraine1984; Pleyers, Reference Pleyers2011; Jasper, Reference Jasper2010) and the significance of collective identity formation (Polletta and Jasper, Reference Polletta and Jasper2001). One area which has long dominated debates in this field is the question of impact. While some narrowly define the impact of movements as their ability to achieve policy change (Amenta et al., Reference Amenta, Caren, Chiarello and Su2010), others view success in terms of movements gaining recognition as legitimate representatives for collective interests (Gamson, Reference Gamson1975), and their ability to change social values in order to “expand the range of ideas about what is possible”, thus redefining the political agenda (Rochon and Mazmanian, Reference Rochon and Mazmanian1993: 77), and bringing about transformations “in culture and consciousness, in collective self-definitions, and in the meanings that shape everyday life” (Polletta, Reference Polletta1997). Some even argue that evidence of success includes the increased “forms of (state) surveillance, militarization of police forces and other highly aggressive and intrusive forms of censorship and repression” (White and Wood, Reference White and Wood2016: 570).
Given the ubiquity of movements today, it is worth once again asking the question posed by Rochon and Mazmanian nearly 30 years ago: “if the efficacy of mobilizing for policy change through SMs is so problematic, why are so many people doing it?” (Reference Rochon and Mazmanian1993: 76). Furthermore, if we look beyond the Global North, there is much evidence of how movements in Africa (Mottiar and Lodge, Reference Mottiar and Lodge2017), Asia (Shah and Lerche, Reference Shah and Lerche2021), Latin America (Anria and Niedzwiecki, Reference Anria and Niedzwiecki2016; Silva, Reference Silva2015), and the Middle East (Bayat, Reference Bayat2013) are not only at the forefront of challenging inequalities, demanding social justice and advancing critiques of neoliberalism, but also in creating alternative models of care and wellbeing (Araujo, Reference Araujo2016; Saugier and Brent, Reference Saugier and Brent2017).
I agree with the wider approaches to understanding impact and now turn to examine how and why movements matter for S/social P/policy. I consider how a focus on SMs as actors and engagement with SM theories can contribute to and advance our understanding of the politics of policy and strengthen our analytical frameworks of continuity and change in social policy.
Continuity and Change: Social Movements, Agency, Ideas, and Power
Actors and Agency
In researching continuity and change in social policy (Béland and Powell, Reference Béland and Powell2016; Hall, Reference Hall1993; Mahoney and Thelen, Reference Mahoney and Thelen2009) scholars have developed concepts and theories, including path dependency (Streeck and Thelen, Reference Streeck and Thelen2005), punctuated equilibrium (Baumgartner and Jones, Reference Baumgartner and Jones1993), and ideational analysis to explain incremental as well as paradigmatic changes (Béland and Powell, Reference Béland and Powell2016: 135). Until recently, this field of research was dominated by institutionalist scholars (Béland and Powell, Reference Béland and Powell2016: 132) who tended to adopt a top-down, state-centric approach. They paid far less attention to how extra-institutional actors, including movements, create political opportunities through “discursive resources and patterns of mobilization” (Hobson and Lindholm, Reference Hobson and Lindholm1997: 480).
To overcome “excessive institutional determinism”, Schneiberg and Lounsbury (Reference Schneiberg, Lounsbury, Greenwood, Oliver, Lawrence and Meyer2017) argue that there needs to be a more substantial shift from “an isomorphic institutional world of diffusion, path dependence and conformity toward conceptions of [policy] fields as sites of contestation, organized around multiple and competing logics and forms” (Schneiberg and Lounsbury, Reference Schneiberg, Lounsbury, Greenwood, Oliver, Lawrence and Meyer2017: 281). As Béland maintains, SM studies, with its focus on “the relationship between the formation of collective identities and political mobilization…is a field that has clear implications for policy research” (Béland, Reference Béland2017: 10).
Within SM studies, structural theories of resource mobilization (Jenkins and Zald, Reference Jenkins and Zald1997), political opportunities (Tarrow, Reference Tarrow2011; Della Porta, Reference Della Porta2020), and framing (Benford and Snow, Reference Benford and Snow2000) have examined how movements seek to influence political and policy decisions. However, these structural approaches focus on how movements operationalise windows of opportunity created in moments of crisis and do not give sufficient attention to the agency of SMs in creating opportunities. Recent theorising in SM studies has sought to bring together the structural and cultural paradigms (Melucci, Reference Melucci1980; Polletta, Reference Polletta1997), to consider both the agency of actors and how they are constrained by structural power. Strategic interactionism theory (Duyvendak and Jasper, Reference Duyvendak and Jasper2015), which is informed by modern complexity theory, is such a cultural-strategic model. It posits that “we cannot explain social outcomes by adding up the separate goals and actions of particular actors or groups taken individually” and that instead, we should focus on the interactions between actors and how the arenas in which they work shape their choices and actions (Goldstone, Reference Goldstone, Duyvendak and Jasper2015: 236). These approaches challenge monolithic interpretations of the State, arguing that devolution, deregulation, and decentralization have created cleavages between local and national state actors which require a rethinking of institutionalist theories (Verhoeven and Duyvendak, Reference Verhoeven and Duyvendak2017).
Applying strategic interactionism, Verhoeven and Duyvendak examine the phenomenon of governmental activism in which politicians, civil servants and governmental actors engage with movements in contentious claim-making “to alter or redress policies proposed by other governmental players” (2017: 565). Verhoeven and Duyvendak (Reference Verhoeven and Duyvendak2017) discuss instances of governmental activism. One example of governmental activism involved a group of European mayors joining almost 100 NGOs and SMs in Barcelona in 2016 to draft a declaration demanding the end of negotiations by EU governments on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership. A second instance of governmental activism examined how the Municipal Executive in Barendrecht, a Dutch municipality, joined the local CO2isNo action group by taking part in weekly secret meetings to coordinate protest efforts against national ministers around climate policies (Verhoeven and Duyvendak, Reference Verhoeven and Duyvendak2017: 564)
While the importance for movements of building allies within state institutions has long been stressed (Lipsky, Reference Lipsky1968; Schumaker, Reference Schumaker1975; Fox Piven and Cloward, Reference Fox Piven and Cloward1978), the onus has been on movement actors to build the alliances. Governmental activism, in contrast, considers how and why governmental actors seek out and build alliances with SMs to achieve their aims. Institutionalist research on continuity and change in social policy can benefit from engaging with SM theories and shifting the lens from a state-centric, top-down focus to examine SMs’ agency in policy spaces and, as I discuss below, how SMs “spur change through ideas that contest the status quo” (Schmidt, Reference Schmidt2011: 118).
Ideas and Power
A growing body of literature in Social Policy and other social sciences emphasises the role of ideas and discourses in policy continuity and change (Schmidt, Reference Schmidt2011; Béland and Powell, Reference Béland and Powell2016; Piketty, Reference Piketty2020). Schmidt’s model of discursive institutionalism examines how “substantive ideas developed and conveyed by ‘sentient’ agents” inform “policy-oriented actions, which in turn serve to alter (or maintain) ‘institutions’” (Schmidt, Reference Schmidt2011: 177). Meanwhile, in his new book, Capital and Ideology, Piketty examines how ideas have sustained inequality for the past millennium. He contends that “inequality is neither economic nor technological; it is ideological and political” and that manifestations of inequality are shaped by “each society’s conception of social justice and economic fairness and by the relative political and ideological power of contending groups and discourses” (Piketty, Reference Piketty2020: 7). While critics welcome Piketty’s focus on ideologies, they argue that ideological change cannot simply be viewed as a matter of choice (Shah and Lerche, Reference Shah and Lerche2021: 95), adding that struggles over ideas do not materialize in a vacuum, but that they emerge in the context of particular states with their “unique histories, bureaucratic capacities, and levels of autonomy” (Sanchez-Anchochea, Reference Sanchez-Anchochea2021: 128).
Drawing on theories of action and collective identity formation, SM scholars examine how activists’ agency, ideas, and cultural understandings translate into repertoires of action aimed at bringing about changes in policies, politics, cultures, and societies (Touraine, Reference Touraine1984; Jasper, Reference Jasper2010; Pleyers, Reference Pleyers2011). They view movements as sources of challenge and creativity in society and as fertile spaces where actors question dominant structures, discourses, and ideas and dare to imagine the unimaginable (Escobar, Reference Escobar2004). Alongside mobilising for or against specific policies and challenging hegemonic ideologies and systems of governmentality (e.g. anti-capitalist or anti-racist movements), movements also enact alternative social relations and practices. In the next section, I turn to examine the significance of such prefigurative practices.
From imagining to enacting alternatives: social movements, prefigurative politics and alternative practices of wellbeing
Prefiguration as a concept emerged out of anarchism and is a form of politics that was adopted by the alter-globalisation movement of the 1990s (Pleyers, Reference Pleyers2011) and recent anti-austerity and pro-democracy movements (Glasius and Pleyers, Reference Glasius and Pleyers2013). Prefigurative politics is distinct from the “grandiose politics of ‘the Revolution’” of the Left (Escobar, Reference Escobar2004: 221) and prefiguration is something people do rather than “a theory of social change that first analyses the current political landscape, develops an alternative model in the form of a predetermined goal, then sets out a five-year plan for changing the existing landscape into that predetermined goal” (Maeckelbergh, Reference Maeckelbergh2011: 3). Movements adopting prefigurative practices work in local contexts, creating micro-utopias (Díaz-Parra and Jover-Báez, Reference Díaz-Parra and Jover-Báez2016) and everyday forms of resistance (Bayat, Reference Bayat2013) that exist in parallel with, or in the course of, adversarial action (Cornish, Reference Cornish2021).
Decolonising efforts in the social sciences, including in Social Policy, have generated epistemological questions that challenge the “limits of Western-centric ways of knowing” and seek to draw “hope and inspiration from anti-racist and anti-imperial social justice movements”(Bhambra et al., Reference Bhambra, Medien and Tilley2020: 138). Post-development scholars critique the hegemonic forms of neoliberal governmentality and universalist conceptualisations of wellbeing (Escobar, Reference Escobar2004), instead arguing for “pluriversal paths” to address the multiple, interconnected systemic crises of the present (Kothari et al., Reference Kothari, Salleh, Escobar, Demaria and Acosta2019: xxi). They examine how “movements for wellbeing” in the Global South adopt transformative initiatives and practices of care, for humans as well as non-human species and nature (e.g. buen vivir, ubuntu, swaraj), which differ from “mainstream or reformist” policy approaches in their focus on root causes (Kothari et al., Reference Kothari, Salleh, Escobar, Demaria and Acosta2019: xxix) and their embrace of “more liberatory socio-economic relationships” (Araujo, Reference Araujo2016: 743). The ideas and models discussed by post-development scholars may seem quite utopian or radical, but there is a long tradition of “Utopian” thinking in Social Policy dating back to the 19th century (Williams, Reference Williams2016: 642), which involved imagining and enacting alternative futures.
In Latin America, SMs have been active in creating alternative models and practices of wellbeing that reject the exploitative and extractive practices of capitalist social relations (Araujo, Reference Araujo2016; Saugier and Brent, Reference Saugier and Brent2017). The Social and Solidarity Economy agenda (SSE) in South America, which was built from the “bottom-up” through collective processes led by “social and indigenous movements” was created to meet “the needs of individuals and communities rather than trying to maximize profits or financial gains” (Saugier and Brent, Reference Saugier and Brent2017: 262). In the 2000s, SSE was taken up by many left-of-centre governments in the region. Similarly, the concept of buen vivir (good living), which is rooted in Andean indigenous traditions, became the basis for the development of social policies in Ecuador and Bolivia. While both SSE and buen vivir were embraced by policy makers and, in the case of buen vivir, even achieved “the status of a dominant ideology”, in practice there were unintended and “contradictory” policy outcomes (Caria and Dominguez, Reference Caria and Dominguez2016: 27) as some of the more transformative aspects were watered down in the course of implementation to limit opposition from economic and political elites (Saugier and Brent, Reference Saugier and Brent2017).
In the context of austerity and cuts to public welfare in Europe, alternative forms of social relations have emerged to meet wellbeing and care needs that are structured around mutual aid and solidarity (Boersma et al., Reference Boersma, Kraiukhina, Larruina, Lehota and Nury2019; Griffiths, Reference Griffiths, Berghs, Chataika, El-Lahib and Dube2019; Ishkanian and Glasius, Reference Ishkanian and Glasius2018; Ishkanian and Shutes, Reference Ishkanian and Shutes2021). From 2013-2014 and 2017-2019, colleagues and I interviewed solidarity activists in Greece who spoke about the failure of the State to deliver services and support to those affected by austerity and how this had led to the rise of solidarity initiatives. Solidarity initiatives included electricity reconnections to homes; food distribution networks; and solidarity centres in different neighbourhoods which provided meals, second-hand clothing, classes, lending libraries, etc. These initiatives were founded on a highly politicized understanding of solidarity which involved mutual aid, but also encompassed an array of progressive, anti-systemic actions. Beginning in 2015, these solidarity initiatives expanded to support migrants in Greece, including founding solidarity accommodation sites for migrants, such as the Pikpa camp in Lesvos and City Plaza Hotel in Athens. These solidarity camps stood in stark contrast with the highly securitized State-run refugee camps, in that they were created on the principles of solidarity and empowerment, and included the active participation of migrants in the daily operations and decision making (Ishkanian and Shutes , Reference Ishkanian and Shutes2021). Similar solidarity initiatives to support migrants exist in France, Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands (Bhimji, Reference Bhimji2016; Boersma et al., Reference Boersma, Kraiukhina, Larruina, Lehota and Nury2019; Sandri, Reference Sandri2018; Sinatti, Reference Sinatti2019). These solidarity initiatives are significant not only in that they are meeting welfare needs in the absence of state support, but that they are concurrently mobilising for structural changes to the governance of asylum and migration. While these solidarity initiatives succeed in delivering support to migrants, their ability to achieve wider structural changes in national and EU migration and asylum policies has been limited.
On the one hand, the above examples demonstrate the agency of movements to imagine and enact alternative social relations and practices of wellbeing and care. On the other hand, they highlight the challenges movements face in achieving more structural and systemic changes. These cases underscore the need to take a longer-term view and to consider how movements interact with the different stages of the policy process, from agenda setting to decision-making and implementation. The lack of systemic change should not be read as a failure, but rather seen as an ongoing attempt towards wider, transformative changes that require tackling systems and structures of power, which, unsurprisingly, will take time to achieve. Furthermore, even in instances when movements do not achieve their desired policy impact, processes of sedimentation (Della Porta, Reference Della Porta2020) and the seeding of ideas in one period can lead to the birth of “a new generation of ideas, actors, and practices, awaiting to flourish when the next spring returns” (Saugier and Brent, Reference Saugier and Brent2017: 274).
Conclusion
I began the article by asking how and why SMs as actors and SM theories matter for S/social P/policy. I argued that a focus on SMs as actors and an engagement with SM theories and concepts can advance our understanding of the politics of policy and strengthen our analytical and explanatory frameworks of the role of agency, ideas, and power in the processes of policy continuity and change. Whilst acknowledging the agency and potential of movements, I do not suggest we ignore the constraints of institutions and structural power; after all, structural power is also “the power not to listen” (Schmidt, Reference Schmidt2011: 121). The question we should be asking is not whether SMs matter in or for S/social P/policy, but under which circumstances and due to what factors can movements’ ideas and actions influence and inform S/social P/policy.
Gramsci viewed civil society as the terrain in which hegemonic ideas and structures could be contested (Gramsci, Reference Gramsci1971). Today, neoliberalism is a hegemonic governing rationality which devalues common ends and public goods, opposes progressive taxation and advocates a radical reduction in welfare state provisions and protections, as well as the scrapping of wealth redistribution as a social and economic policy approach (Brown, Reference Brown2015: 28-30). In this “age of austerity”, retaining the “neoliberal hegemony” depends on focusing on the “irrationality” of redistribution (Farnsworth and Irving, Reference Farnsworth and Irving2012: 133-134). Scholars argue that if transformative changes to current welfare systems and social policies are to occur, those changes will most likely emerge from the sphere of civil society (Crouch, Reference Crouch2011) in which movements represent “the greatest move away from neoliberal ideas” (Thatcher and Schmidt, Reference Thatcher and Schmidt2013: 426). For these reasons it makes sense to examine the role of SMs as actors in national and global social policy fields who imagine and enact ideas and practices that challenge both specific policies and wider systems and structures of power. SM theories have clear implications for S/social P/policy and can strengthen our analytical frameworks of the politics of policy and processes of continuity and change.
Finally, in acknowledging the transformative potential of progressive SMs, we should not ignore the recent resurgence or intensification of authoritarian and even fascist political movements (Bhambra et al., Reference Bhambra, Medien and Tilley2020: 137). It is important to adopt critical approaches to avoid normative traps. To date, however, both SM studies and Social Policy have largely focused on progressive movements that promote social justice, rather than on movements that advance welfare chauvinism and social exclusion (Krause and Giebler, Reference Krause and Giebler2020). It will be important to consider the movement-countermovement dynamics and the potential of populist far right movements to influence and shape social policy. Moreover, and related to the above, it is important to remember that progressive politics do not magically emerge from aggrieved identities (Chun et al., Reference Chun, Lipsitz and Shin2013: 937) and that movements themselves are sites of struggle between attempts at inclusiveness and enduring tendencies to reproduce existing hierarchies (Ishkanian and Peña Saavedra, Reference Ishkanian and Peña Saavedra2019). Looking to the future, there are many fruitful areas for Social Policy research to engage with social movement theories and social movement actors; in this article, I have only touched upon the tip of the iceberg.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Philippa Mullins for her excellent research assistance with compiling the literature review.
Competing Interests
The author declares none.
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