POLI 200 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Political Opportunity, Comparative Politics, Polity Data Series

• School: McGill University
• Department: Political Science
• Course: POLI 200
• Professor: Manuel Balan

Document Summary

In comparative politics contentious politics are understood differently. Similarities: both are collective action, both are political, involving power-relationship, both are largely outside of institutionalized politics: institutionalized (normal) politics: expression of political. Differences: social movements: sustained interactions between the state and others (at least one-side of negotiation involves the state, contentious politics: scope of phenomena is broader: such as one-time demonstration, civil disobedience, protests, guerrilla warfare, insurgency, terrorism, etc. The power relationship does not necessarily directly include the state, or obviously involving the state (e. g. collective looting in argentina) Why and how do social movements occur? (1) classic model of studying social movements: european tradition of class based analysis. Marxist: class exploitation + material incentives: american tradition, structural prerequisite to use the model, similarities between european and american traditions: reactive, social movements as linear process (discontent social movements) But social movements is not collective psychology or discontent, but collective. Action! (2) ressource mobilization (how/when does collective action occur?)