POL 102 Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: Political Opportunity, Euromaidan, Yulia Tymoshenko
Document Summary
Social movements (cont. : country"s political opportunity structure allows for the growth or constraint of social movements, depending on the openness of the state. Cont: nuclear movement and level of openness from most closed to most open. Most closed state : france (1970"s) anti nuclear movement physically occupied nuclear plants and access roads. West germany: many large scale demonstrations and protests. Us: the anti-nuclear movement lobbied congress and federal agencies such as the epa. Sweden (most open to nuke power) : organized into political interest groups and worked through the established party group system. The center party and the swedish communist party. Groups degree of procedural responsiveness: 2 examples if social movements in non-democratic states: solidarnosc (polish federal union)(poland) and otpor (serbia, before serbia became democratic. In communist poland, the labor union solidarity turned into an anti-communist social movement. Solidarity participated in poland"s first semi-free parliamentary elections in 1989, and beat the communist party at the ballot box.
