This study examined the process of gender policy reform. It sought to explain how and when gender policy reform has taken place in Venezuela across time. The study entailed observations of gender policy reform during specific periods of Punto Fijo democracy (1958-1998) characterized by democratic consolidation and deconsolidation, and during the transition towards a new type of hybrid democracy, the Chávez era (1999-2007). The policies considered were the ones addressing women’s equality at home and at work, reproductive rights, women’s economic rights, and political participation. The analysis showed that the likelihood of gender policy reform depends on the combination of certain institutional configurations that provide women access to the decision-making process of the state, but most importantly to women’s groups’ capacity to organize a broad coalition of women from civil society and from within the state apparatus behind to push for a reform by using frames based on international agreed norms that legitimized their struggle. In addition, the analysis reveals the negative influence of religious groups with decision-making power on the process of gender policy reform.

Including civil society organizations in the policy process is a distinctive trait of democratic governance. But, while being highly valuable from a democratic point of view, not all civil society organizations are represented in the policy process. This dissertation draws attention to the role of the government in shaping the representation of civil society organizations in the Swedish government consultation referred to as the ‘remiss procedure’. The overall aim is to increase empirical and theoretical understanding of civil society organizations’ access to the national Swedish policy process. Drawing on various empirical data sources, it analyzes how access has changed during the second half of the 20th century, the factors influencing access, and the significance of the access provided by the government. The results are based on four empirical studies, and show that the government has encouraged an increasing number and more diverse types of civil society organizations to be represented in the remiss procedure. In addition, organizations with plenty of resources, such as labor and business organizations, are not overrepresented. However, access is slightly skewed in favor of civil society organizations with an insider position within other access points at national government level, which is consistent with a privileged pluralistic pattern of interest representation. In addition, civil society organizations seem to be invited into an arena for political influence of less relevance. Theoretically, the dissertation moves beyond the neo-corporatist perspective that dominated Swedish research during the second half of the 20th century by drawing attention to five different theoretical lenses: pluralism, neo-corporatism, political opportunity structures, policy network theory, and resource exchange theory. It concludes that a variety of theories are needed for access to be understood.

This paper explores femicide and social movements impact on politics, a phenomenon where national, international and transnational politics overlap. The Mexican anti-femicide movement belongs to the global justice movement and struggle for women’s right to life. This study highlights the differences the movement faces even within a state, on the subnational level, through a comparative and theory developing case study. The variables of mobilization structure and political opportunity are examined in the three cases of the Mexican states Chihuahua, Yucatán and the Federal District. The study indicates the movement’s alliances and its connection between the local and international level in the post-2007 context. The hypothesis which connects the anti-femicide movement as part of the political opportunity on subnational level and varying rates of femicide is explored. The study concludes that the aspects of repression, threats of violence and impunity, aspect most prominent in Chihuahua, impact the anti-femicide movement and consequently femicide rates to some extent.

Uppsatsen ämnar undersöka huruvida politiska möjlighetsstrukturer och inramningar i sociala medier kan förklara det ökade stödet för miljöorganisationen Sierra Club. De politiska möjlighetstrukturerna har analyserats utifrån McAdams (1996) fyra dimensioner för att förstå den politiska strukturen i USA. Inramningsperspektivet har använts som verktyg i innehållsanalysen av Sierra Clubs Twitterinlägg som systematiskt valts ut under en treveckorsperiod under 2015 respektive 2016. Inramningsperspektivet inom rörelseforskningen utvecklades av David Snow och Robert Benford som en anpassning av Erving Goffmans ramteori, för att möjliggöra analys på gruppnivå. För att kunna urskilja förändringar i Sierra Clubs retorik har två olika tidsintervaller granskats. Innehållsanalysen visar att Twitter-inläggen ändrat karaktär 2016 och bär på stridslystna undertoner med en tydligt definierad skuldbärare. I analysen av de politiska möjlighetsstrukturerna framkommer en bild av att valet 2016 bidragit till instabilitet i elitgrupperingar. De valda teoriperspektiven har möjlighet att kombinerat förklara Sierra Clubs ökade stöd. Med detta sagt betyder det inte att dessa perspektiv utgör den enda förklaringsmodellen. / This study explores the evolution of the environmental organisation Sierra Club, in relation to the United States presidential election in 2016, through a theoretical perspective. It examines if the theories of framing and political opportunity structures can explain the organisation’s success. The political context was analysed using McAdam’s four dimensions of political opportunity structures in order to determine its restrictions for social movements. A content analysis was applied to Sierra Club’s Twitter posts from a three week period in 2016 and 2015 respectively for the purpose of comparing the rhetoric during the two different time periods based on the key concepts of Benford and Snow’s framing theory. The results show that the election itself contributed to instability between elite alignments while Sierra Club’s Twitter-posts changed tone to become more aggressive and more specific in focusing the blame. The chosen theories proved suitable for analysing the occurrence but we cannot however disregard the possibility of other results emerging when using a different theoretical approach.

I applied McAdam's political process model for social movement analysis to examine the level of collective resistance to high stakes testing in California, Massachusetts, New York, South Carolina, and Texas from 1985 to 2005. Data on protest occurrences in those states were gathered from online news reports, anti-testing organization websites, and electronic interviews from individuals associated with the anti-testing movement. Variables used in the analysis included each state's key educational accountability legislation, political affiliations of state political leaders, state political leaders' support of accountability issues, student ethnicity profiles, poverty indicators, dropout rates, and collective bargaining laws. I examined the relationship between those variables and protest development in terms of the political process model's three components: framing processes, mobilizing structures, and political opportunity. I concluded California and Massachusetts, with their strong networks of anti-testing organizations, showed more instances of protest than any other state. Slightly fewer protests occurred in New York. Texas showed few instances of anti-testing protests and there were no reports of protests in South Carolina. There was evidence of framing efforts from both proponents and opponents of high-stakes testing, with proponents' framing efforts tending to be more covert. I found that anti-testing protests were primarily initiated by middle-class and affluent groups of citizens, who demonstrated greater political access but whose major concerns differed by state. Evidence showed that although all five states have Republican governors, protests emerged more readily in the three states whose legislatures had a Democratic majority. I found that protest efforts were inhibited when protesters faced serious consequences as a result of their actions. In addition, state political leaders began to take part in the anti-testing protest movement once the state became subject to sanctions under the strict performance requirements imposed by No Child Left Behind. Overall, the political process model proved to be a highly efficient analytical tool in this context.

For the last fifty years the liberal feminist approach has been gaining grounds on the national state level, instituting women’s agencies, gender quotas and gender mainstreaming within nation states. Encouraged by larger international institutions, such as the United Nations, liberal feminism has come to be adopted broadly world-wise advocating for a close relationship between the state and the civil society (Squires, 2007 and McBride & Mazur, 2013). In the advancement of liberal feminism, questions of genuine political parity between these two actors - the state and civil society organizations - has been raised, as well as the state’s capability to promote equal change in accordance with the organizations’ many agendas and beliefs. The aim of this study is to describe and gain understanding of the political environment of the women’s rights organizations in Argentina and the possibilities and challenges that they experience in relation to this development. By using an interpretive research design and theoretical perspectives of social movement theory, this study addresses the ways in which women’s rights organizations in Argentina experience their political opportunities to participate in decision-making processes. Particularly women’s rights organizations that have experience of the state on a national, provincial and local level in Argentina and across political parties in power are addressed in this study. This study presents a novel contribution to the discussion of State Feminism concerning the subject of working from the inside or outside the state, to social movement theory with the conceptualization on political opportunity and by instantiating the discussion with a case study in which it is contextualized and tested.

As the need for action to tackle climate change grows, it has been stated that the corona pandemic mightconstitute a political opportunity for social movement organisations to advocate societal transformation. Thisthesis investigates the issue by answering if and how the young climate movement organization Fridays ForFuture Sweden has changed their framing of the climate crisis after the outbreak of Covid-19. Through aninductive frame analysis based on the collective action frames of Benford and Snow and applied on social mediaposts by the youth movement, the results show that a change in framing indeed has taken place. The mainfindings include how Fridays For Future Sweden has increased and dispersed their framing activity, intensifiedtheir use of a crisis frame and decreased the emphasis they put on intergenerational injustice. The studytherefore contributes empirically with an example of how a social movement organisation adapts to the politicalopportunities arising with the Covid-19 pandemic.

The thesis explores the unique structure of political opportunity that emerged in front of Czech civil society organizations during the Czech presidency to the Council of the EU. Case study analyses how the Czech section of Amnesty International (AI CR) influenced public- policy agenda in the area of human rights. The starting point for the thesis is the formulation of the problem which is considered to be the weak influence of civil society organizations over public policy agenda as well as in-adequate use of the structure of political opportunity. Based on the structure of political opportunity theory we sought to determine whether the organization succeeded in mobilization of its internal structure and resources. We also focused on the transnational aspect of the opportunity. We tested the validity of hypotheses in a quantitative way when we measured the indicators of transactional capacity and mobilization capacity. According to the results AI CR was not able to mobilize enough activists. On the other hand, it was able to use the opportunity for transnational mobilization and networking. The most successful methods of activism proved to be those without confrontation. Further, the organizational structure of the organization is affected by bureaucracy which impedes its mobilization potential.

Social conflict, as opposed to armed conflict, has received less attention in the field of quantitative research. This paper investigates the structural causes of political violence in 35 African states using data from the Social Conflict in Africa dataset and the Beck and Katz panel corrected standard errors time series regression model. Theoretically, a closed political opportunity structure, combined with a weak state unable to provide public goods, should together produce high levels of social conflict. The independent variables attempt to operationalize these concepts from four different angles. In this analysis Access to Education and Infrastructure (AEI), Ethno Linguistic Fractionalization (ELF), Freedom in the World Political Rights (FIW), and National Material Capabilities (NMC) were all significant predictors of social conflict. This study found that as the level of ethnic fractionalization and material capabilities within states rose, the frequency of social conflict events also increased. However, as access to infrastructure and political rights declined, the number of social conflict events increased. Wald chi-square and R-square values suggest that the model is complete and has substantial explanatory power.

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