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The inadequate consideration of how forms of the state variously structure politics is identified as a significant flaw in political opportunity theory. This deficiency leads to conceptual “stretching” and frustrating contradictions between research findings in the social movement literature. For political opportunities to be correctly specified, differences in the mobilization contexts across democracies and non-democracies must be explicitly addressed. This article suggests how the institutional differences between democracies and non-democracies influence the prospect, form, and impact of social mobilization against the state. It also suggests the crucial role of social networks for mobilization in non-democracies. A reformulation of the research problem and a set of sensitizing propositions based on the theoretical reconceptualization are offered.

In the growing field of nonviolent social movement studies, questions of power are often layered in inquiries into drivers of mobilization and dynamics of success, from the individual to the societal level. The different ways marginalized groups utilize power are not adequately theorized, however. Here I address paradigmatic approaches to understanding power in nonviolent movements, identifying conceptual limitations to explaining stratification among nonviolent resisters. In response, I develop a framework for better understanding the socially constructed origins of nonviolent power among different mobilized groups. I first provide a sociology of knowledge survey of common theories of power in nonviolent mobilization. I also review literature on mobilization among marginalized populations to identify valuable insights lacking in nonviolent movements studies. I then explore one case of marginalized nonviolent resistance, that of the Mothers of the Plaza Mayo who mobilized for an end to the Argentine Dirty War. Through this case, I develop a social constructionist framework that can be generalized to better understand how stratification shapes nonviolent resistance differently for different actors. I conclude by proposing a general framework of inquiry, guiding scholars to pay attention to four dimensions of conflict and resistance when examining the power dynamics of nonviolent movements: the temporal context of conflict, the degree of repression, actor status and positionality, and how nonviolent strategies and tactics correspond to each of these dimensions.

The national immigrant rights campaign of 2006 stands as one of the largest mobilizations by people of color in US history, yet less scholarly attention has been given to systematically comparing these mobilizations at the local level. To develop an understanding of what led to sustained mobilization, a comparative case study analysis of seven cities in California's San Joaquin Valley is employed. The empirical evidence is based on interviews with key organizers and participants, newspaper documentation of protest events, census data, and other secondary sources. I find that the presence and size of policy threats explained the initial protest during the spring of 2006 in all localities, but cities with elaborate resource infrastructures (preexisting organizations, histories of community organizing, and coalitions) had more enduring levels of collective action.

This chapter examines the potential corelation between technologically led changes in media ecologies and changes in mediated mobilisation compared to the traditional forms of citizen mobilisation, namely political protest mobilisation. Based on previous empirical research on the Aganaktismenoi movement (Zestanaki, 2019), I investigate the effect this new form of mass mobilisation has on participants' political sophistication with an emphasis on the measurable indication or political efficacy, a recognised political communication tool. I argue that mobilising large crowds within an ideological void enabled by the heavily mediatised current environment is becoming a challenging democratic endeavour. This approach opens new possibilities for a multiparadigm, more advanced research on media sociology and political communication, from a critical intellectual perspective.

Introducing the concept of intra-social movement backlash this chapter explores the “legacy phase” of legal action focusing on conflicts and debates within a social movement that has mobilized. Using a legal mobilization framework attuned to the recursive relationship between rights, rights-claiming activities, and collective identity, the chapter analyzes the mixed legacies of movement strategic litigation. Empirically, the chapter offers two illustrative case studies of intra-movement backlash in the women's and the disability rights movements in Canada. The findings suggest that while this form of backlash can have negative, disempowering effects, it also offers opportunities to challenge hegemonic structures within a social movement and re-imagine collective identities.

Existing research argues that repression hindered the ability of local civil rights movements to influence the development of local War on Poverty programs; however, the Virginia civil rights struggle defies this pattern. This comparative county-level study melds institutionalist accounts of welfare state development with an analysis of movement repression in order to explain this paradox. A distinction is made between situational and institutional repression. While scholars focus on the former and its negative impact on mobilization, this study suggests that institutional repression can have the opposite effect, unifying movements and facilitating their influence on the formation and implementation of poverty policy.

Environmental justice activism is increasingly globalized, multi-faceted and multi-scaled (Bickerstaff & Agyeman, 2009; Walker, 2009a, 2009b). The existence or perception of injustice triggers the development of social activism in increasingly diverse contexts. The present contribution seeks to assess the explanatory value of resources in understanding activism (Freeman, 1979). In place of justice, the under-studied social movement theory of resource mobilization is explored as a complementary and partly oppositional account of justice activism. The highly controversial anti-GMO movement in France is selected as an invigorating context for evaluating activism. The perceived injustice of lifting restrictions on the importation of GM maize into France inspired the mobilization of a nationwide movement. In sharp contrast to existing literature, ideology is considered as a resource that effectively promotes or hinders social activism. Significant conclusions are developed for environmental justice activism research around emphasizing instability, heterogeneity, cultural sensitivity and above all, the limitations of agency-centric arguments.

Based on a lexical analysis of publications on 529 Facebook pages, published between 2013 and 2017, this research explores how Brazilian left-wing activist groups participate on Facebook to coordinate their opposition and engage in social struggles. This chapter shows how activist groups set up two main digital network repertoires of action when mobilizing on Facebook. First, in direct connection with major political events, the platform is used as a media arena to challenge governments’ political actions and second, it is employed as a tool to coordinate mobilization, whether these mobilizations are demonstrations on the street or at cultural events, such as at a music concert. These repertoires of action exemplify ways in which contemporary Brazilian activism is carried out at the intersection of online and offline engagements. While participants engage through these two repertoires, this network of activists is held together over time through a more mundane type of event, pertaining to the repertoire of action allowing the organization of mobilization. Stepping aside from opposition and struggles brought to the streets, the organization of cultural activities, such as concerts and exhibitions, punctuates the everyday exchanges in activists’ communications. Talk about cultural events and their related social agendas structures activist networks on a medium-term basis and creates the conditions for the coordination of (future) social movements, in that they offer the opportunities to stay in contact, in addition to taking part in occasional gatherings, between more highly visible social protests.

This chapter presents a case study of the lesbian and gay rights movement following the Supreme Court's decision in Bowers v. Hardwick, which was a critical defeat in the campaign for sodomy repeal. Activists responded with a dramatic wave of mobilization by staging protests, successful appeals for organizational donations, building coalitions, and shifting institutional venues. This case provides a paradox for the dominant perspectives within social movement theory and legal mobilization literature, which often traces mobilization back to the expansion of political opportunities. The defeat in Bowers signaled a closing of political opportunities for activists. Drawing from a growing body of literature on political threats and heeding the call to specify the mechanisms of movement dynamics, I show how the defeat in Bowers was translated into proactive mobilization.

As social movements engage in transnational legal processes, they have articulated innovative rights claims outside the nation-state frame. This chapter analyzes emerging practices of legal mobilization in response to global governance through a case study of the “right to food sovereignty.” The claim of food sovereignty has been mobilized transnationally by small-scale food producers, food-chain workers, and the food insecure to oppose the liberalization of food and agriculture. The author analyzes the formation of this claim in relation to the rise of a “network imaginary” of global governance. By drawing on ethnographic research, the author shows how activists have internalized this imaginary within their claims and practices of legal mobilization. In doing so, the author argues, transnational food sovereignty activists co-constitute global food governance from below. Ultimately, the development of these practices in response to shifting forms of transnational legality reflects the enduring, mutually constitutive relationship between law and social movements on a global scale.