Snarls, quacks, and quarrels: Culture and structure in political process theory

Political process theories of social movements have relied on a set of appo sitions between culture and structure that has limited their capacity to ca pture the supraindividual, durable, and constraining dimensions of culture. The solution is not to abandon an emphasis on "objective" political struct ures in favor of potential insurgents' ''subjective" perceptions of politic al opportunities, but rather to probe the (objective) resources and constra ints generated by the cultural dimensions of political structures, Such a p erspective would pay closer attention to the cultural traditions, ideologic al principles, institutional memories, and political taboos that create and limit political opportunities; and would link the "master frames" that ani mate protest to dominant political structures and processes.