Environmental movements and political opportunities: the case of China

Political opportunity structures (POSs) largely determine the different impacts of environmental and other social movements in political and policy-making processes. It is argued that POSs in capitalist and (post-)socialist countries basically share the same set of core variables. During the last fifteen years China's POS has changed dramatically in terms of access points for social movements. This is illustrated by means of a comparative analysis of two environmental movement campaigns: the campaign against the Three Gorges dam (early 1990s) and that against the Nu River dam project (2002-04).