ABSTRACT
To make sense of change in the climate movement, theories developed within social movement studies can provide useful handles. The discipline of social movement studies developed in the context of a focus on some specific movements in a specific geographical area and historical era: new social movements, so considered because they addressed issues of reproduction rather than redistribution in societies which were considered as post-industrial. The field also grew under specific contextual conditions: in so-called advanced democracies, characterized by party governments, nation states, and mature welfare systems. Influential works, such as Charles Tilly's, located movements in the development of capitalism and the construction of the state (Tilly 1978, 1984). The most analyzed were in fact the environmental and women's movements, while ethnie, right-wing, or religious movements - and even labor movements - were rarely addressed within this frame.
