Structural Opportunity and Perceived Opportunity in Social-Movement Theory: The Iranian Revolution of 1979

Abstract

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.. American Sociological Association is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to American Sociological Review. 1 Tocqueville discusses social-structural factors in addition to state structure. I do not address this aspect of Tocqueville's analysis here. American Sociological Review, 1996, Vol. 61 (February: 153-170) 153 154 AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW point," he states, is that the political system can be more open or less open to challenge at different times (p. 41). But structural conditions, McAdam argues, do not automatically translate into protest: They are mediated by "cognitive liberation," an oppressed people's ability to break out of pessimistic and quiescent patterns of thought and begin to do something about their situation (pp. 48-51). McAdam's (1982) analysis shows the tight fit between subjective perceptions and the structure of opportunities. The optimism of African Americans in the 1930s (pp. 108-10) and early 1960s (pp. 161-63) reflected structural shifts in Federal policies (pp. 83-86, 156-60). Conversely, in the late 1960s, perceptions of diminishing opportunities reflected the actual diminishing of opportunities (p. 202). State structure and subjective perceptions are treated as closely correlated.Structural opportunities generally coincide with perceived opportunities in other recent studies in the Tocquevillean tradition. Tarrow (1994), for instance, recognizes the interplay between the macro-and micro-levels of analysis. He notes that "early risers"-protest groups at the beginning stages of a cycle of widespread protest activity-may make opportunities visible that had not been evident, and their actions may change the structure of opportunities (pp. 96-97). However, over most of the protest cycle, perceptions closely follow the opening and closing of objective opportunities (pp. 85-96, 99). "The main argument of this study," Tarrow emphasizes, "is that people join in social movements in response to political opportunities" (p. 17).Goldstone (1991a, 1991b) also combines aspects of the state's structure (state breakdown) and subjective factors (ideology and cultural frameworks) in his analysis of the early modern revolutions of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. State breakdown, the result of nonsubjective causes like "material and social change" (Goldstone 1991a: 408), is accompanied during revolutions by subjective perceptions of breakdown, namely "widespread loss of confidence in, or allegiance to, the state" (Goldstone 1991b:10). Subjective perceptions do not play an independent role until after the state has broken down.These Tocquevillean analyses recognize that structural opportunities and perceived

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“…Perceived Opportunities.---Another way in which scholars have tried to improve the traditional view of political opportunities consists in acknowledging that opportunities must be perceived in order to be seized (Banaszak 1996;Gamson and Meyer 1996;Kurzman 1996;McAdam et al 1996). Consequently, we need to acknowledge that opportunities can be there "objectively," but they can simply be either ignored or not perceived as such by challengers.…”