Nationalist movements in the South have been superseded today by a plethora of social movements. The contributors to this volume examine these new movements from different vantage points. The focus is on social movements among underprivileged and middle-class groups, who aspire to sustainable and democratic development. The contributors consider emerging patterns of organization and mobilization, which are related to the role that movements play in economic and political development.

A number of cases are analyzed, such as the Chinese student movement, election watch movements in the Philippines, environmentalism in India, electoral politics and interest groups in Africa, and peasant and farmer movements in Latin America and India. Broad perspectives on social movements across entire continents are also presented.

In several contributions the emergence of new social movements is related to the history of popular mobilization and organization in the Third World, and the implications for social movement theory are discussed.