Anti-state political opportunities

The anarchist movement utilizes non-statist and anti-statist strategies for radical social transformation, thus indicating the limits of political opportunity theory and its emphasis upon the state. Using historical narratives from present-day anarchist movement literature, I note various events and phenomena in the last two centuries and their relevance to the mobilization and demobilization of anarchist movements throughout the world (Bolivia, Czech Republic, Great Britain, Greece, Japan, and Venezuela). Labor movement allies, failing state socialism, and punk subculture have provided conditions conducive to anarchism, while state repression and Bolshevik triumph in the Soviet Union constrained success. This variation suggests that future work should attend more closely to the role of national context, and the interrelationship of political and non-political factors. Additionally, the key question of what constitutes movement “success” for revolutionary movements that “move forward”, yet do not achieve revolutionary transformation (indeed, who conceive of a final, complete transformation to be theoretically impossible), seems to be a problem faced uniquely by anarchist movements. Instead, thinking of opportunity as being global, non-politically-based, and unattached to “ultimate objectives” like revolution, help to make these ideas more useful for understanding anarchist mobilization.

HOW DO POLITICAL CONTEXTS SHAPE UNDOCUMENTED YOUTH MOVEMENTS? EVIDENCE FROM THREE IMMIGRANT DESTINATIONS*

Drawing on research spanning ten years in three immigrant destinations—Los Angeles, Denver, and Atlanta—we address the question, “How do political contexts shape undocumented youth movements?” To do so, we bring into dialogue social movements and immigration scholarship by providing a framework for understanding undocumented youth activism. Building on political opportunity theory in social movements and segmented assimilation theory in migration studies, we advance the notion of localized political contexts: contexts of varying levels of antagonism and accommodation toward immigrants, which shape the emergence and character of undocumented youth movements. We argue that variegated political, legal, and discursive landscapes shape undocumented activism in three ways: (1) the claims that are made; (2) the targets for these claims; and (3) the strategies and tactics the movement adopts. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of undocumented youth movements given the increasingly hostile political context unfolding at the national level.

Conclusion

This chapter summarizes the arguments, discusses them within the context of the literature on protest mobilization, and explains the theoretical implications of the book. It reviews the intersection between the Synthetic Political Opportunity Theory and the Collective Action Research Program, the importance of political opportunity structures, mobilizing structures, and framing processes and how they relate to rational decision-making, and the relationship between structure and emotions in individual decisions to protest or not protest. The chapter examines the political climate in 2016‒2017 under President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, including increased repression and monitoring of social media, and the potential for future political mobilization and protest in Egypt.

Aiming to Overthrow the State (Without Using the State): Political Opportunities for Anarchist Movements

The anarchist movement utilizes non-statist and anti-statist strategies for radical social transformation, thus indicating the limits of political opportunity theory and its emphasis upon the state. Using historical narratives from present-day anarchist movement literature, we note various events and phenomena in the last two centuries and their relevance to the mobilization and demobilization of anarchist movements throughout the world (Bolivia, Czech Republic, Great Britain, Greece, Japan, Venezuela). Labor movement allies, failing state socialism, and punk subculture have provided conditions conducive to anarchism, while state repression and Bolshevik success in the Soviet Union constrained success. This variation suggests that future work should attend more closely to the role of national context, and the interrelationship of political and non-political factors.

"Making Her Own Way": The Individualization of First-Wave Feminism, 1910-1930

Scholars of the women's movement often postulate that it dissipated after winning suffrage in 1920, but empirical studies about the movement's post-victory transformation remain scarce. We use the first wave of the women's movement to explore the conditions under which movement frames change during periods of decline. Drawing on political opportunity theory, we hypothesize that waning political and cultural opportunities for collective action should lead to a rise in individualist frames. To that end, we examine how a prominent movement organization's use of collectivist versus individualist frames changed over time. We conducted a systematic analysis of 1,735 articles from the feminist publication The Woman's Journal, spanning the pre- and post-suffrage period (1910-1930). Our analyses generally support the political opportunity framework, suggesting that trends towards individualization emerge during periods of diminishing political and cultural opportunities, which in turn challenge movements' ability to galvanize constituents for collective goals.

Signals or Mixed Signals: Why Opportunities for Mobilization are not Opportunities for Policy Reform

Drawing on political opportunity theory, the theory of legislative logic, and political mediation theory, we hypothesize differential effects of the political environment on the actions of challengers (suffragists) and state actors (legislators) in the women's suffrage movement. We use sequential logistic regression to assess the effects of explanatory variables on two intermediate stages of mobilization and policy change. In the case of challengers, we estimate the likelihood a state-level organization is present in any given legislative year. In the case of state actors, we estimate the likelihood a bill passes one legislative house given the presence of a state-level suffrage organization and that a bill has been introduced. Mixed signals are apparent in that challengers and legislators respond to the same environmental factors differently. Challengers respond to perceived opportunities for change. Legislators seek to enhance their political careers and are responsive to the demands of challengers when they perceive challengers as politically powerful or when social and cultural change signals a demand for policy reform. Legislators, in the end, are much more conservative in their response to the political context.

Mobilization Forum: Response to Mcadam, Tarrow, and Tilly. Contentious Maps of Contentious Politics

This essay responds to McAdam, Tarrow, and Tilly's synthesis of the field of contentious politics (Mobilization I: 17-34). My intention is to stimulate a dialogue between two competing approaches—the rationalist's collective action research program (CARP), which I favor (Lichbach 1994; 1995; 1996) and the structuralist's synthetic political opportunity theory (SPOT), which McAdam, Tarrow and Tilly advocate. After outlining the basic presuppositions of SPOT and CARP, I criticize the possibility of a grand synthesis in the field of conflict studies or contentious politics by demonstrating the specific tensions of a CARP-SPOT consortium and the general problems of any synthesis. I conclude that we should take McAdam, Tarrow, and Tilly's call for contention in the field of contentious politics more seriously than their call for cumulation in a single crowning achievement, SPOT: We need creative confrontations, which should include well-defined and historically specific combinations, rather than a grand theoretical synthesis of the competing and conflicting research communities in the field.

Struktur politik dan deradikalisasi pendidikan agama bagi anak muda di Indonesia

This paper addresses the issue of youth succeptability to radicalization that has been a major concern since report finding suggesting high number of youth support and participation in radical group. Using political opportunity theory in social movement studies, this paper discusses the macro context of radicalization among youth. It shows that changes of social and political landscape in Indonesia has motivated the shift of focus of Islamist movement toward mobilization at the social level as an alternative to failing political activism in parliament. In addition to this macro context, this paper illustrates the forms of social millie in schools that are critical to radicalization in schools. It concludes that the key to radicalization in school does not parimarily lay in religious teaching curricullum, but on condition and activities outside classroom that allow transmision of radical naratives among students.Banyaknya anggota kelompok radikal yang berusia muda memunculkan pertanyaan tentang kerentanan pengaruh ideologi radikal di kalangan anak muda. Tulisan ini menjelaskan konteks makro berupa lanskap sosial-politik di Indonesia yang memungkinkan terjadinya transmisi ideologi radikal di kalangan anak muda. Menggunakan teori gerakan sosial, konteks makro ini diidentifikasi sebagai struktur peluang politik (political opportunity structure) yang memberi ruang bagi mobilisasi