Develops & tests the concept of organizational opportunity, analogous to political opportunity, to examine how nonactivist organizations become committed to social movement goals. Considering organizational opportunity in terms of the attitude & authority of organizational leaders, four religious organizations (African American Baptist Christianity, Latin American Catholicism, Iranian Shi'I Islam, & Burmese Theravada Buddhism) were examined along with the social movements that challenged their political quiescence (civil rights movement, Latin American liberation theology, the Iranian revolutionary movement, & prodemocracy activism, respectively). Qualitative comparative-historical study, based on secondary sources & writings of major players & journalistic accounts, shows a strong correlation between organizational opportunity & organizational mobilization for social movement purposes, suggesting that the concept of organizational opportunity is useful in the study of social movements. 1 Table, 1 Figure, 153 References. Adapted from the source document.
1. A quick history of modern democracy -- 2. States, social movement challengers, and elite reformers -- 3. Eighteenth-century revolution, nineteenth-century eddies -- 4. Twentieth-century pendulum swings -- 5. Semidemocracy, pseudodemocracy, democracy -- 6. Beyond the great democratic wave -- 7. Into the twenty-first century : new challenges, new opportunities.
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The February 20th movement shows new modes of engagement with feminism, despite a striking absence of feminist organizations from the protest movement. Nevertheless, and in sharp contrast with most accounts that posit the irrelevance of feminism for Moroccan youth's identifications and political subjectivities, I argue that feminism has not only penetrated the social imaginary of a new generation of activists, but has also informed their practices. What kind of tension does this appropriation of feminism by the youth of February 20th bring about with traditional feminist circles? Does this high visibility of women in February 20th indicate the rise of a new feminism? I will first briefly locate February 20th in a genealogy of feminist activism in Morocco showing places of friction, influence and tensions. Second, I will provide some indications of what I call a new feminism. Third, I will analyze the gender dynamics among the various components of February 20th, notably the secular and Islamist. I will conclude by sketching a new map of protests led by women and not necessarily intelligible under the old cartography of feminism.
Researchers studying right‐wing authoritarianism (RWA) have discussed the need to distinguish authoritarian followers from leaders. Altemeyer's (2003) studies raise several issues about political leadership in the real world. First, are most leaders of authoritarian social movements high on both RWA and social dominance (SDO)? Second, is it possible to be an authoritarian leader of a repressive social movement without being high on SDO? Third, it would be useful to develop techniques to assess SDO at a distance. Fourth, what roles do the psychological motives of need for power, need for affiliation and intimacy, and need for responsibility play in motivating leadership behavior in high SDO leaders? Finally, does social dominance exist in countries with non–Western value systems? Understanding the psychology of leaders of repressive social movements may help us develop ways to limit access to the power they crave and to mitigate the damage that they do.
Reviews Stuart L. Hills (ed.), Corporate Violence: Injury and Death for Profit. Totowa, New Jersey: Rowman and Littlefield, 1987, and Francis T. Cullen, William J.Maakestad, and Gray Cavender, Corporate Crime Under Attack: the Ford Pinto Case and Beyond. Cincinnati, Ohio: Anderson, 1987. (PFB)
Lawyers and social movements now : critical traditions and new directions -- A history of lawyers in social movements -- Movement lawyering in the new millennium -- The law-politics problem -- Legal liberalism and its discontents -- The empirical path of law and social movements -- The promise and problems of Mmovement liberalism -- Division : fault lines and fundamental problems -- Synthesis : integrated theory for integrated advocacy -- Reframing the foundational critiques -- Rethinking the progressive canon -- Past as future? reclaiming legal liberalism in illiberal times.
In the past three decades, China has witnessed the emergence of new social movements, particularly the weiquan movements, which took place simultaneously with legally significant developments. In contrast to their counterparts in democratic countries, social movements in China have emerged in a legal environment characterized by a thin rule of law with a low level of liberal political morality. Against this background, this thesis explores the interaction between social movements and the law in contemporary China, and with reference to the experience of Taiwan and South Korea during their authoritarian periods and transitions to democracy. By applying the political opportunity and the resource mobilization theories of social movements to the field of law, this thesis analyzes the opportunities and constraints embedded in the legal structure of China that encourage or discourage social movements, and it also examines how rights advocates organize and mobilize legal resources for social campaigns given the existing legal opportunities and constraints. This thesis first surveys the developmental trajectories of social movements and the legal structure in China, Taiwan and South Korea under different constitutional modes. Then, following the rights support structure approach put forth by Charles Epp, the thesis is organized into three main components, with focus on rights lawyers, rights NGOs, and their legal mobilization (primarily strategic litigation and citizen petition). Generally speaking, the findings of this research show that social movements and the law have interactive impacts on each other in contemporary China. The law has played a Janus-like role in social movements in China by both facilitating and restricting the mobilization of social movements. On the other hand, social movements have sought to steer the thin rule of law in China toward the direction of greater protection of human rights and more constraint on the power of the state. However, the interactions between social movements and the law show that it is hardly possible to achieve a full-fledged thin rule of law without a parallel development of liberal political morality. Although legal development in China has provided some room for legal mobilization in social movements, the party-state and its legal structure prevents the escalation of social movements in China to a higher level of mobilization and politicization, in comparison with their counterparts in Taiwan and South Korea during their authoritarian periods. The rights support structure in the civil society of China hardly has any external partners from political society in promoting greater public mobilization. Based on a comparative study, the research casts doubts on the hypothetical sequence of the development of the rule of law to democratization. This study is significant in several aspects. First, it enriches the studies on social movements and the law in authoritarian societies. Second, it contributes to a better understanding of the rule of law under the party-state authoritarianism of China. Third, the comparative study helps to provide a better understanding of the different types of authoritarianism and relevant constitutional and legal practices, especially party-state authoritarianism. The study shows the peculiarities of the legal complex in the party-state context of China, which can be distinguished from that in other types of authoritarian systems. Finally, this study sheds light on the relationship between the development of the rule of law and democratization as well as the prospects for social movements in the future in China. ; published_or_final_version ; Law ; Doctoral ; Doctor of Philosophy
In August 2020, the German capital of Berlin became the stage for political manifestations organized by regional and relatively unknown groups of individuals with diverse political agendas. The German government and the public observed smaller and bigger agglomerations of up to 40.000 citizens of different backgrounds articulating themselves critically towards the political and legal measures taken by the government to address the crisis caused by COVID-19. The public perception of these newly identified networks and organizations and their diverging political agendas posed questions to traditional understandings of political mobilization. While policy makers, researchers, the media and the general public are often categorizing political groups or movements into specific sections including left, right, center and others, the newly growing so called "anti-corona" or "corona-sceptical" movement in Germany did not allow an easy categorization at first sight. This chapter will give an overview and a first insight into this newly evolving movement, its political agenda and into its mechanisms of political mobilization. It will be shown, how a heterogeneous mixture of middle class citizens, peace movement activists, right wing extremists, antisemitic conspiracy theorists and others joined a common platform strengthened by social media activism and so called alternative media channels.
Shows that the strategy of the Dutch political system is integration, and that the dominant party on the left went through a process of transformation which opened it up to new challengers at precisely the moment when the cycle of protest of the new social movements took off. (Abstract amended)
