New Left

Wide range of radical political theories and movements that emerged in the late 1950s, largely in reaction to the perceived failures of traditional left-wing organizations. Inspired by the US civil-rights movement, the New Left favoured political activism as a way of challenging the dominance of state institutions. Since the 1980s, its influence was decreasing in the socialist parties of Western Europe.

It appealed to the young, educated middle class more than to the politically dispossessed, and was a major influence on the developing green movement as well as on gay rights movement and the women's movement.