Social Opposition Movement Analysis

Social opposition movements have been apart of the international relations world for centuries. According to Alain Touraine he describes these movements to be formed conflicts or conflicts between organized actors over the social use of a common value (Touraine 89). In recent years we have seen Latin America’s opposition movements on the headlines of the news. Whether it is Venezuelan opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez marching with millions of civilians as a cry for help to the world about the discomfort of the current regime in Venezuela or the outraged of Mexicans citizens about the magical disappearance of the two Mexican students who were found dead in September of 2014. These are just some of the few cries for help and discomfort of the …show more content…
This so called movement began in 1998 when Hugo Chavez Frias was elected president of Venezuela. This movement transitioned to the following by Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador, Guyana, Paraguay, Brazil, and Uruguay. During this time we have seen the opposition movements began to voice their opinions on their discomfort on the oppression of this regimes. There are various levels of oppression that have been studied by many scholars. One of the most common in scholarship literature of opposition movements is not just about the repressive nature of that specific government influences the opposition movement which is important but there is something more that gets cut out of the picture which is how the military’s infrastructure plays an important actor in being able armed forces of that specific repressive country played a vital role against the opposition movement. (Ortiz p.222).According to Goldstone and Tilly the state that if a ruler is vulnerable and they can perceive that the regime can be easily overthrown than most of the civilians would be willing to walk the mile and take the risk of going into the streets fighting. Where on the other hand if the regime has a strong armed forces that back up the government and they are more likely to crush them then many people will think twice about acting with violence. According to Skocpol due to the repressive conditions, the expansion of opposition movements are promoted when the opposition parties are able to act in the peripheral areas where the repressive regimes have greater challenges on exerting control with a weak military. Among scholarship there has been a consensus that if an extremely repressive regime has a weak military this can caused the opposition movements to increase and go out into the streets and protest about their discomforts against the