Democratic states and social movements: Theoretical arguments and hypotheses

In this paper we theorize the impact of democratic stales on state-oriented challengers. We argue that aspects of states influence the overall mobiliz ation of state-oriented challengers and the forms of their mobilization and collective action. We develop 12 hypotheses about the impact of stale poli tical institutions, democratic processes, bureaucracies, and policies on mo bilization and provide illustrative evidence for each from studies of socia l movements. We also discuss the implications of the hypotheses for U.S. so cial movements. One key implication is that the U.S, stale, comparatively s peaking, has discouraged and continues to discourage social mobilization. A nother is that the U.S. state has important systematic influences on forms of mobilization and collective action.