Despite extensive theoretical debates over the utility of "political opportunities" as an explanation for the rise and success of social movements, there have been surprisingly few serious empirical tests. Contention in Context provides the most extensive effort to date to test the model, analyzing a range of important cases of revolutions and protest movements to identify the role of political opportunities in the rise of political contention.With evidence from more than ...

This landmark volume brings together some of the titans of social movement theory in a grand reassessment of its status. For some time, the field has been divided between a dominant structural approach and a cultural or constructivist tradition. The gaps and misunderstandings between the two sides-as well as the efforts to bridge them-closely parallel those in the discipline of sociology at large. This book aims to further the dialogue between these two distinct approaches to social moveme...

Despite extensive theoretical debates over the utility of "political opportunities" as an explanation for the rise and success of social movements, there have been surprisingly few serious empirical tests. Contention in Context provides the most extensive effort to date to test the model, analyzing a range of important cases of revolutions and protest movements to identify the role of political opportunities in the rise of political contention.With evidence from more than ...