Political Opportunity Structures and Political Protest: Anti-Nuclear Movements in Four Democracies

1986 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 57-85 ◽  
Author(s):  
Herbert P. Kitschelt
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Political Protest ◽  
Political Opportunity ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Protest Movements ◽  
Opportunity Structures ◽  
Industrial Democracies ◽  
Political Opportunity Structures ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Cross National

Since the 1960s, successive protest movements have challenged public policies, established modes of political participation and socio-economic institutions in advanced industrial democracies. Social scientists have responded by conducting case studies of such movements. Comparative analyses, particularly cross-national comparisons of social movements, however, remain rare, although opportunities abound to observe movements with similar objectives or forms of mobilization in diverse settings.

Protest Movements Against Sanctuaries in Odisha: Politics with Other Means

2021 ◽  
pp. 026272802110348
Author(s):  
Sthitapragyan Ray
Keyword(s):  
Identity Construction ◽  
Collective Actions ◽  
Political Opportunity ◽  
Protest Movements ◽  
Opportunity Structures ◽  
Indian State ◽  
Political Opportunity Structures ◽  
Context Specific ◽  
Political Economic

This study seeks to counter interpretations of tribal movements as reflecting parochial and perverse ethno-territorial aspirations, mostly in irrational violent forms. It compares two peaceful protest movements against wildlife sanctuaries located in different geographical and political-economic settings in the eastern Indian state of Odisha. As rational collective actions, both movements relied on the agency of project-affected persons who questioned state attempts to de-politicise development in the name of scientific conservation. The study shows how the legitimate concerns of such project-affected citizens were overshadowed by politics and the context-specific dialectical interface between three different factors, namely availability of indigenous organisational resources, political opportunity structures and identity construction.

Left-Libertarian Parties: Explaining Innovation in Competitive Party Systems

1988 ◽  
Vol 40 (2) ◽  
pp. 194-234 ◽  
Author(s):  
Herbert P. Kitschelt
Keyword(s):  
Democratic Party ◽  
New Left ◽  
Party Systems ◽  
Political Opportunity ◽  
Economic Data ◽  
Electoral Success ◽  
Opportunity Structures ◽  
Political Opportunity Structures ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Western Democracies

Since the 1960s, new left-socialist or ecology parties have appeared in approximately half of the advanced Western democracies. These parties have a common set of egalitarian and libertarian tenets and appeal to younger, educated voters. The author uses macropolitical and economic data to explain the electoral success of these left-libertarian parties. While high levels of economic development are favorable preconditions for their emergence, they are best explained in terms of domestic political opportunity structures. There is little evidence that these parties are a reaction to economic and social crises in advanced democracies. The findings suggest that the rise of left-libertarian parties is the result of a new cleavage mobilized in democratic party systems rather than of transient protest.

Anti-system Contentions and Authoritarian Response in China: Evolution and Mechanisms

2017 ◽  
Vol 53 (3) ◽  
pp. 401-419 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jingkai He ◽  
Zhenhua Su
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Political Opportunity ◽  
Social Actors ◽  
Opportunity Structures ◽  
Political Opportunity Structures ◽  
New Challenges ◽  
Empirical Case Studies ◽  
New Framework

This paper proposes a new framework to analyze social contentions in China from the perspectives of contention motives and mobilization channels, explains why traditional forms of contention do not undermine the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) rule, and identifies anti-system contention as a distinctive form of contention that poses the greatest challenge to the CCP’s rule. Through analysis of political opportunity structures and mobilization mechanisms that allowed anti-system contentions to rise, this paper argues that since such contentions mainly consist of value-oriented social actors mobilized via informal channels, it would require the Chinese regime to adapt to a more targeted and coordinated model of repression to address the new challenges. The paper further provides empirical case studies to show the effectiveness of the regime’s adaptive repression and shows that anti-system contentions in China face their own hurdle to develop into more prominent contentions.

The Dynamics of Social Movement Development: Northern Ireland's Civil Rights Movement in The 1960s

2006 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 81-100 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lorenzo Bosi
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Social Movement ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
Political Context ◽  
Political Opportunity ◽  
Northern Irish ◽  
Opportunity Structures ◽  
Political Opportunities ◽  
Political Opportunity Structures ◽  
The 1960S

This article extends our understanding of social movement development through a qualitative longitudinal analysis of Northern Ireland's civil rights movement during the 1960s. It applies Diani's (1996) approach that links categories of master frames with political opportunity structures. The analysis chronicles how political context shaped the evolution of the moveSment's dominant message and traces how political opportunities imparted advantages to a reformist civil rights message that reflected a realignment master frame in early stages of Northern Irish mobilization. Later, changes in political context—police repression, lack of political responsiveness, and countermobilization—rendered reformist political realignments impossible and gave advantages to elements in the civil rights network that stressed the traditional ethnonational divisions and revanchist, antipartitionist messages. Specifically, this article asks how the inclusive and reformist mobilizing messages of the 1960s Northern Irish civil rights movement came about and then reverted to the exclusivist Nationalist message of the 1970s, and how the shifting political opportunities brought about these changes.

Occupy Movement, Religion and Social Formations

2014 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 17-24
Author(s):  
Matt Sheedy
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Public Space ◽  
Religious Communities ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Opportunity ◽  
Social Formation ◽  
Beliefs And Practices ◽  
Opportunity Structures ◽  
Occupy Movement ◽  
Political Opportunity Structures

The Occupy movement was an unprecedented social formation that spread to approximate 82 countries around the globe in the fall of 2011 via social media through the use of myths, symbols and rituals that were performed in public space and quickly drew widespread mainstream attention. In this paper I argue that the movement offers a unique instance of how discourse functions in the construction of society and I show how the shared discourses of Occupy were taken-up and shaped in relation to the political opportunity structures and interests of those involved based on my own fieldwork at Occupy Winnipeg. I also argue that the Occupy movement provides an example of how we might substantively attempt to classify “religion” by looking at how it embodied certain metaphysical claims while contrasting it with the beliefs and practices of more conventionally defined “religious” communities.

‘It Is a Tradition in the Nuclear Industry . . . Secrecy’: Political Opportunity Structures and Nuclear Knowledge Production in France

2021 ◽  
pp. 136078042110250
Author(s):  
Julie Schweitzer ◽  
Tamara L Mix
Keyword(s):  
Knowledge Production ◽  
Nuclear Energy ◽  
Nuclear Industry ◽  
Political Opportunity ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Nuclear Program ◽  
Opportunity Structures ◽  
Shaping Process ◽  
History Of ◽  
Political Opportunity Structures

Employing the example of France’s civil nuclear program, we connect political opportunity structures (POSs) to mechanisms of knowledge production, identifying how opposing stakeholders generate knowledge about a controversial technology. A history of nuclear dependence in France creates a context that praises, normalizes, and rationalizes nuclear energy while stigmatizing attempts to question or contest the nuclear industry’s dominant position. Integrating Bond’s knowledge-shaping process with Coy and colleagues’ concept of oppositional knowledge, we consider how the broader social, political, and economic context influences opposing stakeholder assessments of nuclear energy. Employing qualitative semi-structured interviews, we offer unique insight into the French nuclear debate, discussing the role of POS in shaping knowledge production.

scholarly journals It's Not Just Structural: Social Movements are not Homogenous Responses to Structural Features, but Networks shaped by Organisational Strategies and Status

2009 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 26-41 ◽  
Author(s):  
Clare Saunders
Keyword(s):  
Structural Features ◽  
Political Opportunity ◽  
Opportunity Structures ◽  
Government Institutions ◽  
Political Opportunities ◽  
The Status ◽  
Political Opportunity Structures ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Different Characteristics ◽  
Environmental Organisation

Political opportunity structures are often used to explain differences in the characteristics of movements in different countries on the basis of the national polity in which they exist. However, the approach has a number of weaknesses that are outlined in this article. The article especially stresses the fact that such broad-brush approaches to political opportunity structures fail to account for the different characteristics of movement organisations within the same polity. The article therefore recommends using a more fine-tuned approach to political opportunities, taking into account that the strategies and status of organisations affect the real political opportunities they face. This fine-tuned approach is used to predict how the status and strategy of environmental organisations might influence the extent to which different types of environmental organisations in the UK network with one-another. We find that organisations that face an open polity - those with a moderate action repertoire and a constructive relationship with government institutions - tend not to cooperate with those with a radical action repertoire and negative relations with government institutions. On the other hand, those that vary their action repertoires, and which have variable status according to the issues involved or campaign targets, have a much broader range of network links with other types of organisations. Thus, there is much more diversity in types of environmental organisation in the UK than the broad-brush to political opportunity structures would account for. Nonetheless, it does seem that environmental organisations are aware of how their own behaviours might influence (non-structural) political opportunities, and that they mould their strategies and networking patterns around this awareness.

May Day Demonstrations in Five European Countries

2012 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 281-300 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abby Peterson ◽  
Mattias Wahlström ◽  
Magnus Wennerhag ◽  
Camilo Christancho ◽  
José-Manuel Sabucedo
Keyword(s):  
Political Orientation ◽  
Political Opportunity ◽  
Power Structures ◽  
Cultural Traditions ◽  
Opportunity Structures ◽  
The Past ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
May Day ◽  
Political Opportunity Structures ◽  
Political Demonstrations

In this article, we argue that there is an element of rituality in all political demonstrations. This rituality can be either primarily oriented toward the past and designed to consolidate the configuration of political power—hence official—or oriented towards the future and focused on challenging existing power structures—hence oppositional. We apply this conceptual framework in a comparison of May Day demonstrations in Belgium, Switzerland, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom in 2010. The demonstrations display significant differences in terms of officiality and oppositionality. Our study provides strong evidence that these differences cannot be explained solely—if at all—by stable elements of the national political opportunity structures. Instead, differences in degrees of oppositionality and officiality among May Day demonstrations should be primarily understood in terms of cultural traditions in combination with volatile factors such as the political orientation of the incumbent government and the level of grievances.

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