Starting in the early nineteen seventies, there were mainly two opposed perspectives in the sociological debate on social
movements, illustrated on the one hand by Charles Tilly and on the other by Alain Touraine, which this article follows.
The concept of ‘social movement’ has been used to analyse the working class movement, the new social movements and
global movements. Is it useful to analyse the struggles that developed recently within the Muslim and/or Arab world,
and the actors that have been called indignados in Spain and that appeared in many countries? Is there any unity in these
movements?