attempt to explain the rise of extremism abroad. The central claim of mass society theory is that socially isolated people are more vulnerable to extremism. An important underpinning of this theory is Émile Durkheim's analysis of modern society and the rise of individualism. Durkheim stated that the emergence of the industrial society caused two problems: Anomie: There were insufficient ways to regulate behavior due to the increasing size and complexity of the modern society. Egoism: The excessive individuation of people due to the weakening of local communities. These problems signify a weakened restraining social network to control the behavior of individuals. According to Durkheim, this will lead to dysfunctional behavior, such as suicide. Arthur Kornhauser applied this theory to social movements in his book The Politics of Mass Society. He stated that in a mass society, anomie and egoism cause small local groups and networks to decline. What is left after this are powerful elites, massive bureaucracies, and isolated individuals? In this society, intermediate buffers between the elite and the non-elite erode and normal channels for non-elites to influence elites become ineffective. This makes non-elites feel more alienated, and therefore more susceptible to extremism. Relative deprivation People are driven into movements out of a sense of deprivation or inequality, particularly (1) in relation to others or (2) in relation to their expectations. In the first view, participants see others who have more power, economic resources, or status, and thus try to acquire these same things for themselves. In the second view, people are most likely to rebel when a consistently improving situation (especially an improving economy) stops and makes a turn for the worse. At this point, people will join movements because their expectations will have outgrown their actual material situation (also called the "J-Curve theory"). See the work of James Davies, Ted Gurr, and Denton Morrison. Contemporary approaches During the 1960s there was a growth in the amount of social movement activity in both Europe and the United States. With this increase also came a change in the public perception around social movements. Protests were now seen as making politics better and essential for a healthy democracy. The classical approaches were not able to explain this increase in social movements. Because the core principle of these approaches was that protests were held by people who were suffering from structural weaknesses in society, it could not explain that the growth