Ethnic Organisations and Social Movement Theory: The Political Opportunity Structure for Ethnic Mobilisation in Flanders

2005 ◽  
Vol 31 (5) ◽  
pp. 975-990 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marc Hooghe
Keyword(s):  
Social Movement ◽  
The Political ◽  
Social Movement Theory ◽  
Political Opportunity Structure ◽  
Political Opportunity ◽  
Opportunity Structure ◽  
Movement Theory

Enough!

2009 ◽  
Vol 42 (8) ◽  
pp. 1011-1039 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rabab El-Mahdi
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Social Movement ◽  
Democratic Transition ◽  
The Political ◽  
Direct Impact ◽  
Political Opportunity Structure ◽  
Political Opportunity ◽  
Opportunity Structure ◽  
Movement Theory ◽  
First Time

In 2004-2005, for the first time in more than five decades, Egypt witnessed the rise of a protest movement calling for the end of one-party rule. In 1 year, Egypt witnessed more oppositional demonstrations, rallies, and the organization of nonviolent dissident groups than it has seen in the previous 25 years. However, the outcome of this mobilization in terms of democratic opening remained limited and, some argue, negligible. Using social movement theory, which has been unduly ignored by students of democratic transition in the Middle East, and data from fieldwork, the article analyzes the rise, limitations, and potentials of this prodemocracy movement in Egypt. The article argues that changes in the political opportunity structure and relatively successful cultural framing and mobilizing structures pushed for the rise of this movement, but shortcomings on these same fronts limited the movement's expansion and concomitantly, its direct impact.

Nepal: Tarai/Madhesh Movements and Political Elites

2020 ◽  
pp. 002190962095488
Author(s):  
Abi Chamlagai
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Social Movement ◽  
Structure Theory ◽  
Federal State ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Elites ◽  
Political Opportunity Structure ◽  
Political Opportunity ◽  
Opportunity Structure

The purpose of this article is to compare Nepal’s two Tarai/Madhesh Movements using the political opportunity structure theory of social movements. Tarai/Madhesh Movement I launched by the Forum for Madheshi People’s Rights in 2007 became successful as Nepal became a federal state. Tarai/Madhesh Movement II launched by the United Democratic Madheshi Front of the Tarai/Madheshi parties and the Tharuhat Joint Struggle Committee of the Tharu organizations failed as political elites disagreed about the need to create two provinces in the Tarai/Madhesh. While Tarai/Madhesh Movement II confirms that a social movement is more likely to fail when political elites align against it, Tarai/Madhesh Movement II refutes the theoretical proposition. Tarai/Madhesh Movement I suggests that the sucess of a social movement is more likely despite the alignment of political elites against it if its central demand consistently sustains the support of its constituents.

The Epistemic Dimension of the Political Opportunity Structure

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
David J. Hess
Keyword(s):  
Social Movement ◽  
Climate Science ◽  
The Political ◽  
Genetically Modified Food ◽  
Political Opportunity Structure ◽  
Political Opportunity ◽  
Opportunity Structure ◽  
Colony Collapse ◽  
Epistemic Dimension ◽  
Basic Features

The concept of the political opportunity structure from social movement studies has undergone various expansions, including the development of a theory of the industry opportunity structure in social movement studies and of the intellectual opportunity structure in science and technology studies. The chapter then discusses how the theory of the political opportunity structure can be further developed through systematic consideration of its epistemic dimension. This dimension has two pairs of basic features: the level of scientization (the use of technical decision-making criteria) and the extent of public participation in the policy process, and the epistemic culture of risk evaluation (the preference of government regulators for narrow or inclusive methods) and the degree of precautionary preference when making decisions in situations of uncertain evidence. The framework is applied to cases of colony collapse disorder, the regulation of genetically modified food, nanotechnology, the smart meter movement, and climate science denialism.

The Complexity of Decline: Explaining the Marginalization of the East German Women's Movement

1998 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 245-263 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lynn Kamenitsa
Keyword(s):  
Social Movement ◽  
Women's Movement ◽  
The Political ◽  
Social Movement Theory ◽  
Political Opportunity ◽  
Political Transitions ◽  
Movement Theory ◽  
Political Opportunities ◽  
East German ◽  
Key Dimensions

The case of the East German women's movement is used to examine a understudied and undertheorized area of social movement research, movement decline. The political marginalization of this movement in 1990, only a few months after its promising beginning, can best be explained by integrating three fundamental concepts in social movement theory: political opportunity, mobilizing structures, and framing processes. Based on the analysis of movement documents and forty interviews with women's movement activists, it is demonstrated that none of these approaches by itself is sufficient to explain the decline of the East German women's movement. Instead, the symbiotic interrelationships among political opportunities, framing, and mobilizing structures are crucial to understanding movement decline. The analysis identifies key dimensions on which these three factors interact, and suggests that they can be used to explain other cases of movement decline, particularly in political transitions.

The Politics of Naming, Blaming and Claiming: HIV, Hepatitis C and the Emergence of Blood Activism in Canada

2002 ◽  
Vol 35 (3) ◽  
pp. 475-498 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Orsini
Keyword(s):  
Hepatitis C ◽  
Collective Identity ◽  
Political Action ◽  
External Environment ◽  
Policy Outcomes ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Opportunity Structure ◽  
Political Opportunity ◽  
Opportunity Structure ◽  
Movement Theory

The term ''blood activism'' describes the range of collective challenges that arose among victims of Canada's tainted-blood scandal in the 1990s. This article examines the emergence of blood activism in Canada from the perspective of social movement theory, paying particular attention to the tensions between victims who contracted HIV through tainted blood and those who contracted Hepatitis C, the so-called ''forgotten victims'' of the tragedy. This study discusses how changes in the ''political opportunity structure''—loosely defined in the literature as aspects of the movement's external environment—influenced the nature of political action pursued by victims of tainted blood, the negotiation of the movement's collective identity and policy outcomes.

Insularity or Solidarity? The Impacts of Political Opportunity Structure and Social Movement Sector on Alliance Formation

2011 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 303-324 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jung-eun Lee
Keyword(s):  
Social Movement ◽  
Negative Binomial ◽  
Negative Binomial Regression ◽  
Organizational Level ◽  
The Political ◽  
Social Movement Organizations ◽  
Political Opportunity Structure ◽  
Political Opportunity ◽  
Opportunity Structure ◽  
Movement Organizations

Past democratization processes revealed a rise of interorganizational collaboration between social movement organizations. This paper investigates this sociopolitical phenomenon by analyzing the conditions under which alliances form within or across social movement industries in the context of democratizing Korea. A negative binomial regression analysis examines the impacts of the political opportunity structure and the social movement sector on different forms of protests: single, intramovement, and intermovement protests. Statistical results show that various dimensions of the political opportunity structure render differential effects, rather than a uniform effect, on alliance patterns. At the organizational level, coalitions and organizational diversity positively affect all forms of protests. The establishment of a strong alliance structure broadly empowers movements by providing a locus of organizational interactions and supports.

DSA's Religion and Socialism Commission: A Social Movement Analysis

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 151-167
Author(s):  
Robert M Bosco
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Movement ◽  
Movement Analysis ◽  
The United States ◽  
Political Opportunity Structure ◽  
Political Opportunity ◽  
Opportunity Structure ◽  
Movement Theory ◽  
Frame Alignment ◽  
New Variables

This article examines religious socialism as an American social movement. It focuses on the most recent iteration of this tradition, the Religion and Socialism Commission, formed in the 1970s as a subgroup of the Democratic Socialists of America. Drawing on concepts from social movement theory such as frame alignment and political opportunity structure, it argues that the Religion and Socialism Commission ultimately failed in its attempt to transition from an organization into a social movement. It then considers various possibilities for the future of religious socialism in the United States, given new variables such as a changing political opportunity structure and the rise of social media.

How Students on College Campuses Created Opportunities for Workers in Sweatshops

Contention ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 21-52
Author(s):  
Matthew S. Williams
Keyword(s):  
Social Context ◽  
College Campuses ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Opportunity Structure ◽  
Political Opportunity ◽  
Opportunity Structure ◽  
College Administrators ◽  
Political Opportunities ◽  
Apparel Companies ◽  
A Chain

Political opportunity structure (POS) refers to how the larger social context, such as repression, shapes a social movement’s chances of success. Most work on POS looks at how movements deal with the political opportunities enabling and/or constraining them. This article looks at how one group of social movement actors operating in a more open POS alters the POS for a different group of actors in a more repressive environment through a chain of indirect leverage—how United Students Against Sweatshops (USAS) uses the more open POS on college campuses to create new opportunities for workers in sweatshop factories. USAS exerts direct leverage over college administrators through protests, pushing them to exert leverage over major apparel companies through the licensing agreements schools have with these companies.

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