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Opportunity/Threat Spirals In The U.S. Women's Suffrage And German Anti-Immigration Movements, Roger Karapin
Opportunity/Threat Spirals In The U.S. Women's Suffrage And German Anti-Immigration Movements, Roger Karapin
Publications and Research
Many have noted that protesters sometimes expand political opportunities for later protests, but there has been little analysis of how this occurs. The problem can be addressed by analyzing opportunity/threat spirals, which involve positive feedback among: actions by challengers (bold protests and the formation of alliances between challenger groups); opportunity-increasing actions by authorities and elites (elite divisions and support, procedural reforms, substantive concessions, and police inaction); and threat-increasing actions by authorities and elites (new grievance production and excessive repression). Interactions among these eight mechanisms are demonstrated in two cases of social movement growth, the U.S. women's suffrage movement of the …
Anti-Minority Riots In Unified Germany: Cultural Conflicts And Mischanneled Political Participation, Roger Karapin
Anti-Minority Riots In Unified Germany: Cultural Conflicts And Mischanneled Political Participation, Roger Karapin
Publications and Research
Anti-foreigner riots in eastern Germany in the early 1990s have usually been explained by ethnonationalism or racism, ethnic competition for scarce resources, and opportunistic political elites. If anti-minority riots are analyzed as a distinct phenomenon with a cross-sectional approach, local political processes emerge as more important causes. Cultural conflicts, the channeling of mobilization from nonviolent into violent forms, local political opportunities for success, and mobilization by social movement organizations convert ethnic conflict and violence into riots. A comparison of riot and non-riot localities in eastern Germany supports this argument.