The State and Social Movements: Autonomy and Its Pitfalls IBRAHIM STEYN * ABSTRACT The aim of this article is to make critical sense of the pro-autonomy argument in discussions on state – social movement relations in the new social movement (NSM) literature. The argument is framed by a dichotomy between autonomy and power that portrays the NSMs as ‘anti-state’ or ‘non-statist’ movements. The generalized assumption implicit in the NSM literature is that the new movements operate at a distance from the state, as state politics is inherently undemocratic and despotic, and, in addition, that their collectivities prefer independent political activism to state politics. This article advances two arguments in order to offer a more complex picture of the autonomy question than what it is made out to be in this generalized assumption. First, the infatuation with autonomy in NSM scholarship could unwittingly legitimate the depredations of neoliberal capitalism. Second, the relationship between state practices and the praxis of the NSMs is dialectical and fluid; thus, the struggles of the new movements take place across institutional and non-institutional spaces regardless of the political opportunity structure in which they operate. Hence, autonomy can only be partially achieved, and since the new movements are heterogeneous, the extent to which they operate autonomously from the state will differ from movement to movement. ... we may find it difficult to understand the manifest preference of some analysts for the small, weak, isolated and powerless community movement over the very same group of people once their demands have been satisfied. (Hellman, 1992, p. 56) Introduction My aim is to make critical sense of the pro-autonomy argument in discussions on state – social movement relations in the new social movement (NSM) literature. 1 In this regard, NSM scholars and autonomist academics, based on a strong anti- state bias, agree that the new movements do their politics at an arm’s length from the state (Laclau and Mouffe, 1985; Offe, 1985; Barchiesi, 2004) and ident- ify this as a key constitutive component of their novelty (Habermas, 1981; Slater, Politikon, (December 2012), 39(3), 331–351 ISSN 0258-9346 print; 1470-1014 online/12/030331 – 21 # 2012 South African Association of Political Studies http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02589346.2012.746184 Politikon, (December 2012), 39(3), 331–351