Political Opportunity/Political Process
Certain political contexts should be conducive (or representative) for potential social movement activity. These climates may favor specific social movements or general social movement activity; the climate may be signaled to potential activists and/or structurally allowing for the possibility of social movement activity (matters of legality); and the political opportunities may be realized through political concessions, social movement participation, or social movement organizational founding. Opportunities may include:
- increased access to political decision making power
- instability in the alignment of ruling elites (or conflict between elites)
- access to elite allies (who can then help a movement in its struggle)
- declining capacity and propensity of the state to repress dissent
Read more about this topic: Social Movement Theory
Famous quotes containing the words political, opportunity and/or process:
“... feminism is a political term and it must be recognized as such: it is political in women’s terms. What are these terms? Essentially it means making connections: between personal power and economic power, between domestic oppression and labor exploitation, between plants and chemicals, feelings and theories; it means making connections between our inside worlds and the outside world.”
—Anica Vesel Mander, U.S. author and feminist, and Anne Kent Rush (b. 1945)
“If we have injured someone, giving him the opportunity to make a joke about us is often enough to provide him personal satisfaction, or even to win his good will.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“At the heart of the educational process lies the child. No advances in policy, no acquisition of new equipment have their desired effect unless they are in harmony with the child, unless they are fundamentally acceptable to him.”
—Central Advisory Council for Education. Children and Their Primary Schools (Plowden Report)