Social movements & symbolic power

by J. L. S. Girling

"The 'social fracture' of modern societies, divided between dominant elites and subordinate citizens, is central to the critique of Alain Touraine ('social movements') and Pierre Bourdieu ('symbolic power'). Both insist that structural inequalities in social, economic and political fields are at the heart of the democratic malaise. Indeed, widespread inequality at work, in educational opportunities and access to social goods contradicts the founding principles of liberty, equality and fraternity. Touraine and Bourdieu differ, however, in their theoretical and practical conclusions. Touraine is reformist, advocating cooperation as well as contestation in relations between social movements (such as trade unions, environmentalists and feminists) and political institutions. Bourdieu, on the contrary, is radical, insisting on the overthrown of dominant structures of society, which not only physically enforce elite rule, but by the subtle diffusion of 'symbolic power' - whereby the dominated