Doowon Suh

AbstractSince the 1990s, scholars have paid attention to the role of social movements traversing the official terrain of politics by blending a "contention" strategy with an "engagement" strategy. The literature often highlights the contribution of institutionalized social movements to policymaking and sociopolitical change, but rarely addresses why and how specific social movement organizations gain routine access to formal politics. Using the Korean women's movement as a case study, I analyze

A longitudinal case study of Korean white-collar labor movements, which newly thrived in the democratizing atmosphere after the 1987 June Democratic Struggle, confirms that political opportunity is an important external factor that impels movement dynamics toward political protest and interunion solidarity. However, the impact of political opportunity is more complicated than the political process model suggests. First, it is not objective but perceived opportunity that is causal for movement dy

Since the late 1990s, the consequences of collective action have been subject to an expanded scholarly inquiry. In particular, a growing body of analysis has elaborated on the impact of social movements on policy, coupled with studies dealing with structural, organizational, and biographical changes. On the whole, however, the literature continues to under-recognize how unintended consequences affect the way social movements function. In order to illustrate the unanticipated yet profound impact

Economic prosperity and equitable economic distribution under authoritarian political repression began to be upended in Korea in 1987: democratic freedom replaced autarchy with a gradual economic slowdown. The financial crisis in 1997 further increased poverty and job insecurity. Post-crisis government welfare reform policies were too cumbersome to prevent worsening poverty and polarization, and a growing share of the lower class was left unprotected and remained social outcasts. The inability o

The end of long‐standing authoritarianism in the late twentieth century provoked a global resurgence of civil society in the Third World that has driven scholars increasingly to ask how revitalized social movements impact democratic progress. Despite daunting theoretical and methodological problems in studying movement outcomes, and disparate historical and social conditions producing diverse, contending views of movement effects, this article confirms that institutionalization of movements is a

This article investigates Tilly's (1978) long-neglected question of how collective action outcomes modify agents' interests and movement dynamics. A case study of the Korean white-collar union movement demonstrates how the framing of collective action outcomes influences movement trajectories in two ways. First, actors' subjective evaluation of whether collective action succeeds or fails to attain movement goals alters movement dynamics by changing goals, strategies, tactics, action repertoires,

A longitudinal case study of Korean white-collar labor movements, which newly thrived in the democratizing atmosphere after the 1987 June Democratic Struggle, confirms that political opportunity is an important external factor that impels movement dynamics toward political protest and interunion solidarity. However, the impact of political opportunity is more complicated than the political process model suggests. First, it is not objective but perceived opportunity that is causal for movement dy

The fact that white-collar workers share relatively similar experiences of economic hardship and proletarianization across nations but develop clearly different types of trade unionism renders the theoretical relevance of formalist and economist approaches to the class location and class character of whitecollar workers questionable. According to this perspective, notwithstanding ideological and logical variants, social class reflects an occupational conglomerate, and class constituents' conscio

Since the late 1990s, research on social movement outcomes has proliferated. Most studies have focused on policy outcomes, but other structural, organizational, and biographical consequences have also been identified. A still underexplored domain is the impact of unintended consequences on movement dynamics. Social movements do not always produce the outcomes that they intended, and these unintended consequences can influence movement dynamics in unexpected but significant ways. In this case stu

Abstract Social movements sometimes successfully attain their goals by implementing policies and laws that represent their claims. Movement leaders raise issues susceptible to enactment as policies or laws, exploit legally and institutionally assured resources, and even participate at times in governmental policymaking and parliamentary lawmaking processes. This engagement strategy maximizes a movement's power to achieve its goals only when it is combined with the conventional activities of mobi

Most scholars of social movements have been drawn to research on the politically contentious behavior of collective actors because of the conviction that social movements sometimes generate significant historical progress and social change. Yet movement outcome research has been least developed in the literature. This irony emanates from methodological and causal intricacies that fail to clearly explicate how social movements create change. The challenges encompass the heaped typologies, mutual

South Korean feminist activism has been a paradigmatic case of success in terms of legislating and amending laws and policies germane to gender equality. In explaining the dynamics of South Korean women's movements, however, existing research that highlights the importance of external structures falls short of analytic acumen. Even when propitious opportunities for movement vibrancy appear, they cannot become consequential gains unless movement participants perceive the opportunities as palpable