When it comes to issues that pervade the area of politics, you may have already realized that a large part of the most common opinions is that the political act is a purely institutional manifestation. In other words, it is believed that the political act can only take place within the mediation of the chambers of councilors, deputies, senators, etc., and that only elected politicians can actually act politically.
But the truth is that politics is much more present in our daily lives than you think. The political act is not limited to the institution, even though it is often directed in some way to the institutional level. Max Weber presents the enormous scope of the term politics when defining it briefly as “ any type of independent leadership in action ” ¹. In other words, any type of action that seeks conflict mediation or seeks power in a particular medium in a non-violent way can be considered as political action.
In the meantime, it is worth saying that the search for power, usually, underlies the political act , since clashes within the scope of politics are usually associated with the dispute for the power of action in the name of the will of different groups or individuals. Thus, the actions or policies adopted by the institutions of a State, such as political parties or other legislative bodies, will not always aim to benefit all parts of society equally. In fact, this would be an impossible task in view of the great differences of interests between the different groups that make up the political scenario of a state.
In view of these different groups that constitute the social and political environment, it is necessary to emphasize that conflicts of interest can manifest themselves in a way that is far from the conventional forms instituted by the State, that is, in the form of organized groups that seek to see their interests represented. in the institutional environment, with legal prestige or not. We refer to them when we talk about “ social movements ” or popular organizations.
Norberto Bobbio, in his “Dictionary of Politics”, clarifies that “ social movements are attempts, founded on a set of common values, aimed at defining the forms of social action and influencing their results“². This means that social movements are vectors of social and political changes and, consequently, of the order established in a society. A clear example of this was the feminist social movements that provided a wave of changes between the end of the 19th century and the middle of the 20th century, such as obtaining the right to vote and combating serious gender discrimination. Universal suffrage, which today exists in most nations that are under a democratic regime, was largely motivated by women’s struggle for the right to vote. The conquests of the feminist movement of that period ended up resulting in great social changes that still reverberate in our social sphere today.
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The feminist movement was responsible for profound social changes
The example of the feminist movement shows us that, at times, social changes do not always occur in an orthodox way. The revolution is a phenomenon of extreme social change in which all social paradigms end up undergoing changes in one way or another. The overthrow of an established political order is, in general, a traumatic and violent event because the popular masses take action to dissolve the established power with their own hands, which usually translates into armed conflicts and great bloodshed. Precisely for this reason, revolutions are extremely rare events and occur only at very particular moments in the history of a nation.
It is social movements, however, that have become the biggest actors in social change in our modern history. The feminist movement was an example. Another would be the movements that fought for improvements in the lives of workers in all countries. Social movements that fight to end racial discrimination and reduce social inequalities are also responsible for major social advances. This demonstrates that the political clash and the social and political changes that take place within a democratic society, when they occur in the name of the security of equality and common welfare, are symptoms of a healthy democracy.
