Scholars interested in examining opportunities for movement emergence have
tended to focus attention solely on the political climate. Recently, however, attention has
turned to the independent role that cultural factors play in creating opportunities for
movement emergence (McAdam 1994; see also Gamson and Meyer 1996; see also
Whittier 2001). McAdam developed a theoretical framework for analyzing what he
called, “expanding cultural opportunities” or those distinct elements of culture that
stimulate collective action (McAdam 1994:39). In general, these factors include an
examination of the beliefs and practices of the culture, the impact of grievances that are
“suddenly imposed,” perceptions about the vulnerability of the political system for
challenges, and the availability of master frames that movements can borrow and
manipulate for their own purposes (McAdam 1994:39-45).
Such recent theorizing has begun to move our understandings of opportunities
into the realm of culture. However, several problems or gaps remain. First, separating
the political from the cultural factors becomes a sticky issue for the examination of the
independent role of culture. Since interpretation and cultural beliefs both precede and
follow structural political change, distinguishing the interpretive from the actual
structural change is a necessary challenge for social movement analysts. Second, to date
no explicit empirical work has attempted to test these new conceptions to determine their
usefulness in social movement analysis. Third, and finally, while McAdam’s work
begins to move the literature into the realm of culture, what is not covered is the added
dimension of an opposing movement with whom a movement often struggles for social or
political change. In this paper, I begin to address these problems by clarifying, testing,
and expanding on existing notions of cultural opportunities.
Convention