Feminism
Is a political, cultural and economical movement aimed at establishing equal rights and legal protection for women, it is a movement that campaigns for women’s rights and interests as well as gender equality. Feminist activists have campaigned for women’s legal rights, rights of contract, property rights and for reproductive rights and protection of women and girls from domestic violence, sexual harassment and rape. Rights for women in the workforce including maternity leave, equal pay, against misogyny and against other forms of gender specific discrimination against women.
Internationalism
Internationalism has become one of the dominant sociological perspectives in the world today. It is a theory based on social interaction, and it was first linked to the work of James Parker.
It is a theory that studies individuals and how they act within society. Internationalism is micro-sociological and believes that meaning is produced through the interactions of individuals. The social interaction is a face-to-face process consisting of actions, reactions, and mutual adaptation between two or more individuals. The interaction includes all language (including body language) and mannerisms. The goal of the social interaction is to communicate with others. If the interaction is in danger of ending before one intends it to, it can be conserved by conforming to the others' expectations, by ignoring certain incidents or by solving apparent problems. Erving Goffman underlines the importance of control in the interaction. One must attempt to control the others' behavior during the interaction, in order to attain the information one is seeking and in order to control the perception of one's own image. Important concepts in the field of internationalism include the "social role" and Goffman's "presentation of self".
Collectivism
Collectivism is a term used to describe any moral, political, or social outlook that emphasizes the interdependence of every human in some collective group and the priority of group goals over individual goals. Collectivists focus on community and society, and seek to give priority to group rights over individual rights.
There are many examples of societies around the world which have characterized themselves or have been characterized by outsiders as "collectivist".
On the one hand, there are the socialist governments, which have often nationalized most economic sectors, agriculture in particular, with the exception of Cuba. If these states practice agricultural collectivism, they are often called Communist states. On the other hand, there are Israeli kibbutzim (voluntary communes where people live and farm together without private ownership), the Federation of Egalitarian Communities (non-hierarchical income-sharing intentional communities), and communities such as the Freetown Christiania in Denmark (a small anarchist political experiment centered on an abandoned military installation in Copenhagen; Christiania has laws abolishing private property).
Many political movements such as fascism, all other forms of totalitarianism, and certain forms of nationalism and patriotism can be considered collectivist as well, as they emphasize the role of the nation or the state over individuals. However, Fascism and Nazism have Social Darwinism, which is anti-collectivist and leans toward individualism, as core tenants as well as collective nationalism.
Democracy, with its emphasis on notions of social contract and the collective will of the people, has been characterized by some as a form of (political) collectivism.
Postmodernism
Postmodernism is a tendency in contemporary culture characterized by the rejection of objective truth and global cultural narrative. It emphasizes the role of language, power relations, and motivations; in particular it attacks the use of sharp classifications such as male versus female, straight versus gay, white versus black, and imperial versus colonial. Postmodernism has influenced many cultural fields, including literary criticism, linguistics, architecture, visual arts, and music.
Postmodernist thought is an intentional departure from modernist approaches that had previously been dominant. The term "postmodernism" comes from its rejection of the "modern" scientific mentality developed during the Enlightenment.
"Postmodern" literally means 'after modernism'. These movements, modernism and postmodernism, are understood as cultural projects or as a set of perspectives. "Postmodernism" is used in critical theory to refer to a point of departure for works of literature, drama, architecture, cinema, journalism, and design, as well as in marketing and business and in the interpretation of law, culture, and religion in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Indeed, postmodernism can be understood as a reaction to modernism. Whereas modernism was often associated with identity, unity, authority, and certainty, postmodernism is often associated with difference, separation, textuality, and skepticism.
The New Right
New Right ideas were developed in the early eighties and took a distinctive view of elements of society such as family, education, crime and deviance. In the United Kingdom, the term New Right more specifically refers to a strand of Conservatism that the likes of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan influenced. Thatcher's style of New Right ideology, known as Thatcherism, was heavily influenced by the work of Friedrich Hayek (in particular the book The Road to Serfdom). They were ideologically committed to neo-liberalism as well as being socially conservative. Key policies included deregulation of business, a dismantling of the welfare state, privatization of nationalized industries and restructuring of the national workforce in order to increase industrial and economic flexibility in an increasingly global market. Similar policies were continued by the subsequent Conservative government under John Major and the mark of the New Right is evident in the New Labour government, first under Tony Blair, then Gordon Brown.