Protest

This volume contains the works of Niklas Luhmann that deal with social movements. In his introduction, Kai-Uwe Hellmann makes clear how social movements represent an interesting test case for the claim to universality of systems theory. Social movements have the function of drawing attention to certain consequential problems of functional differentiation through their protest. They also provide a self-description of modern society that is not otherwise provided for within the scheme of functional differentiation. The "protesting reflection ... takes up topics that none of the functional systems, neither politics nor economics, neither religion nor education, neither science nor law, would recognize as their own. It transverses what accrues in terms of self-description due to a primacy of functional differentiation within the functional systems." Of particular importance here is the subject of risk, since the potential for risk in modern society has increased to such an extent that more and more decisions arise that are highly likely to involve the possibility of harm. Against this background, social movements have a function that is unique for modern society, a function that knows no functional equivalent within modern society, without social movements therefore already showing the "distinctness of a functional system arrangement" in the sense of functional differentiation.