Development and ideological tendencies of ecology movement as a "new social movement"

This study has the scope of the ecological movement, which has been sprinkled and developed during the 1970's in Western Europe and Northern America. The ecological movement is considered within the theoretical framework of new social movements. To prove a relation between the ecological problem and the social theory is an appealing issue in the current studies. The study has three main parts excluding the introduction and conclusion chapters. In the introduction, the basic concepts shaping the study are primarily deliberated. Secondly, a comprehensive historical and theoretical background to the ecological problem/crisis is attempted to establish. In this context, the ecological crisis is correlated with the modernity and to determine the relation between social, cultural and political transformations modernity requires and the ecological problems is exerted effort. The first part is separated for new social movements in order to provide a theoretical ground for the study. After considering the social transformations that led the new social movements including the ecological movements and the differences between the previous and new movements, the approaches to the social movements are aveluated on the whole. The resource mobilization theory from Northern America and the new social movements theory from Western Europe are scrutinized in the context of the contribution to the studies of social movements. The second part is set apart for the chronicled evolution of the ecological movement and the path to political organization of the movement. The social and intellectual improvements that provoked the ecological opposition to become a mass movement by virtue of radicalization and increasing ecological awareness during the 1970's are evaluated roughly. Later, the political procss of the ecological movements from the cases in Germany, United Kingdom and France is analyzed. The concept of "new