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:
“It is the genius of our Constitution that under its shelter of enduring institutions and rooted principles there is ample room for the rich fertility of American political invention.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)
“I am firmly opposed to the government entering into any business the major purpose of which is competition with our citizens ... for the Federal Government deliberately to go out to build up and expand ... a power and manufacturing business is to break down the initiative and enterprise of the American people; it is the destruction of equality of opportunity amongst our people, it is the negation of the ideals upon which our civilization has been based.”
—Herbert Hoover (1874–1964)
“If thinking is like perceiving, it must be either a process in which the soul is acted upon by what is capable of being thought, or a process different from but analogous to that. The thinking part of the soul must therefore be, while impassable, capable of receiving the form of an object; that is, must be potentially identical in character with its object without being the object. Mind must be related to what is thinkable, as sense is to what is sensible.”
—Aristotle (384–322 B.C.)