Are social movements normative?

Recent calls for "grounded" political theory often (some more than others) posit that the practice of social movements and/or the insights of their members, otherwise known as activists, should be regarded as, essentially, normative—as the sources of values and principles on which the theorist should then reflect and expand. Starting from, but taking in new directions and with far more detail, Rossi’s admittedly quick suggestions in "Fact-Centric Political Theory" (Political Studies, 2023), this paper will interrogate whether and how this makes sense. It will ask which social movements—and which people within social movements—should be regarded as possessing normative authority, why, and whether theorists can provide criteria for deciding. It will question whether it makes sense to ask theorists to use our own judgement as to which movements to follow or favour while deferring to movements on more first-order questions regarding justice, equality, oppression, and so on. It will examine the coherence of positing both that movements have in the past and present been essentially wise regarding all the big questions and that they are in need of the kind of praxis-oriented theory that academics can provide (which implies that their future decisions will *not* be fully wise absent this theory). And it will suggest that grounded normative theorists are more prone than they admit to smuggle their own views into discussions that allegedly defer to activists, via the process of promoting some activist insights as central or profound while ignoring others or else taking them as object lessons in how particular movement members have made errors. In all these ways, the paper will be skeptical of grounded theory as a "method" It will question whether grounded theory can yield well-supported normative conclusions in the absence of (hidden) argumentative premises. However, it will also defend the study of activist groups as likely to change the question-field of political theory in productive ways--bringing new issues and problems to our attention--even if such study cannot tell us directly how to address or settle them. The normative payoff of engaging with social movements is therefore indirect. Rather than taking, or pretending to take, activists’ insights as gospel, theory based on the study of movements should see itself as broadening and improving a largely independent debate, involving and informing activists and non-activists alike, regarding what matters and what should be done.