Claus Offe

Challenging the boundaries of institutional politics

This is the same old theme of the emergence of "New Politics" as based on the political cleavages regarding the issues of values, instead of material concerns, only that it is in the context of Germany. The same theme of formation of "New Politics" that pervades the works of Lipset, Clark, Inglehart, Inkeles, among others can be found in this work, as well as the contrast of psychological theory and the structural theory of social mobilization - broadly comparable to the RD theory and the mobilization theory in the context of American works as in Tilly and McAdam - yet Offe in this work seems to have added a slightly different twist to these theories. Let's look at what are the unique contributions of this work.

Offe's conception of what are the New Politics in contrast to the Old Politics is somewhat different from the American conception and it is apparent it is formulated to fit particularly well the context of late "West Germany". For one thing, the "new paradigm" of politics is seen as basically in the form of one coherent unit, rather than divided into two polar opposites of "new political left" and "new political right" based on the issues of cultural, social values salient in the cleavage based on this "New Politics". In short the conceptual shape of the current political affair in Germany is given as that of a triangle - with "new paradigm" groups in the form of noninstitutional social movements, as well as the "Old Right" and "Old Left" based on the traditional distinction of class each at the angle of the triangle. The fact that "new paradigm" is in turn not seen as divided into two polar opposites within it is an interesting contrast to current American situation - where clearly they are divided in such a way that there is some bitter and incessant conflict as to how society's cultural and social values are to be defined. On the other hand, Offe elaborates on the nature of new social movements based on this new paradigm with quite lots of details, albeit not all of his formulations seem to be grounded very well empirically. First, Offe notes of several characteristics that distinguish new paradigm political groups from the old paradigm ones. In terms of the issues they take up, Offe states that these groups work with issues that under the traditional scheme in-between of the so-called public (in the sense of being the legitimate object of political institutions) and private (in the sense of being no legitimate concern to others) spheres of concerns. In terms of the space of action in which they work in, new paradigm groups are seen to be working in the context of noninstitutional politics. In terms of the modes of actions, internally, they are characterized as free from rigid hierarchy, differentiation, or bureaucratization. In terms of external mode of action, they are said to be engaging in direct means of participation, as demonstrations and other protest tactics. Also, in relating to outside groups, the new paradigm groups tend to stress the principled and nonnegotiable nature of concerns, Offe notes. This is due to the fact, at least partially, these groups do not have anything they can exchange in return for the concession. They lack formal structures. They lack internal mechanism of controlling its members, and they tend to lack strong ideological coherence. They cannot impose the terms of the promise onto its members, in short. Further, they tend to characterize their goals as universal and morally superior so that none of its terms are really subject to negotiation. In terms of who tend to be participants in these new paradigm movements - this is one of the contribution usually not found in the American work - Offe states that the new middle class, elements of the old middle class, and those people outside the labor market or only peripherally involved (unemployed, students, housewives, retired) as the three core elements within the "new paradigm" movements. In contrast, the traditional working class is least likely to be part of these new social movements. So, in terms of who is involved in the conflict based on this new paradigm, Offe asserts that a totally different picture than the traditional class-based model of conflict emerges. Neither participants' social characteristics or the demands groups make are determined in anyway class-based concerns. We should also take heed of Offe's assertion that this "new paradigm" social movements share commonalities with as well as in partial opposition to both of the liberal and conservative groups in the traditional sense - which is an antithesis to the simplistic formulation that they are naturally inclined to be leftist-oriented. Following this, Offe also states of what might be called the "post-modernist" tendency of these new paradigm groups - their rejection of the peculiarly modern notion of linear societal progress with the force of industry and capitalism. For this reason, Offe states that these groups tend to formulate their goals in terms of defence of what they have instead of attaining gains - for if there is no progress, then how can one be conceived as making any "gains"? For me the validity of this claim seems to be seriously untenable, as the contemporary protest groups as women's groups, minority groups, environmental groups, and such are far from perceiving "gains" as illusory. Instead, they do seem to be going after certain sense of definite gains by any means.

Another interesting topic covered in this article is the comparison of the psychological and structural theories of social mobilization. This contrast is somewhat similar to the contrast of RD theory and resource mobilization theory of social movements, yet here this contrast comes in slightly different form. First, psychological theory is applied to the explanation of why well-to-do middle class folks participate in the "new paradigm" movements - the reasoning being that since they are already affluent materially, they can afford to be psychologically critical to other cultural and social issues. Yet, Offe finds two critical difficulties associated with this explanation ultimately. One, it does not explain why people come to participate in the movements instead of turning to introverted activities aimed at private satisfaction. Two, it does not explain why movements persist even after generations that have experienced incresing prosperity and instigated the movements moves off the stage. So, ultimately, Offe comes to favor the structural theory of social mobilization. Specifically, he finds three structural factors that contribute to the explanation as to why and who participate in the "new paradigm" movements. First, the negative side effects of rationalized modern endeavor are now dispersed across time and space so much that they are not restricted to being negative effects on any specific classes, particularly the lower. Second, qualitative change in the methods of domination made it difficult for everyone to ever escape from the bare power of rational and explicit social control at the hands of powerful institutions, particularly the government and big businesses. Third, both political and economic institutions lost capacity for self-correction that only outside intervention can remedy any wrongs done in the society. These three propositions in turn can be elaborated to explain the rise of "new paradigm" movements, Offe asserts. For instance, it could be asserted that those with greatest cognitive access to the workings of institutional process or those most likely to be affected by negative consequences are most likely to participate (But notice that given these structural conditions, the reasons people then come to participate in these new social movements are then seen as largely psychological). For the full discussion of this elaboration of three propositions, see p. 87 to p. 91. Finally, Offe concludes by stating that future political strucutures of the society will increasingly be determined by the type of alliance patterns formed by the three groups of the new paradigm group, the old left, and the old right. For, until the 70s the simple dichotomic conception of the left pitted against the right was quite adequate to capture the workings of the political scene. To give a little more detail, it has been mentioned that Offe believes the new paradigm groups to consist of mainly three segments of: elements of the new middle class, elements of the old middle class, and the"peripheral" groups. In considering which type of alliances may emerge as dominant, Offe then suggests that the pattern of alliance will ultimately depend on which among the three groups within the new paradigm are to emerge as the dominant faction.

Overall, though some of the empirical details Offe makes use of appears to be rather haphazard, otherwise this newly formulated structural explanation of the emergence of, who participates in, and the working mechanism of new social movements seems to be quite compelling.