Cedar Revolution 2005. Social Movement Theory and Political Opportunity Structure in Lebanon (PDF)

Seminar paper from the year 2013 in the subject Politics - International Politics - Region: Far East, grade: 1,3, Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg (Lehrstuhl für Politik und Zeitgeschichte des Nahen Ostens), course: Revolt and Revolution in the Middle East, language: English, abstract: The social movement theory was being developed over a long period of time and still is, as an interdisciplinary study of the social sciences. Many scientists as well as scholars used this theory in order to explain why mobilization occurs, the emergence of movements, their revolutionary characteristics in general and the different types of movements in their different stages in specific.
It deals with the political opportunity structure and constraints for a movement within a system or regime, the existing resources for a movement or its members to mobilize for their or its claims and last but not least the framing of its goals and demands in order to gain as much support as possible from the public and political sphere.
Furthermore subject of these studies is the effect and the outcomes of mass mobilization and collective action on social, political and cultural spheres. There are different perspectives, in which e.g. the political opportunity structure is used as a variable to examine the social developments and the political outcomes and consequences. As the most important scholars who laid the framework for the today known theory have to be named Charles Tilly, Sidney Tarrow, Michael Mann, Doug McAdam.