The Structure of Political Opportunities and Peasant Mobilization in Central America

The literature on the determinants of popular mobilization and social movements is rich with theoretical insights concerning the role of a variety of factors, from the generation of grievances by changing socioeconomic structures to the assistance of outside agents to the mobilization of resources. The crucial conditioning role of political systems themselves, however, has been too often understated or even ignored, whether the object of study has been urban movements in industrialized democracies' or peasant movements in the Third World.2 Even when scholars have recently attempted to address this deficiency, their efforts remain unsystematic. The intention of this project is, first, to elaborate a thorough conceptualization of the linkage between popular mobilization and the political system and, second, to demonstrate its utility through an explanation of the comparative mobilization of the peasantry in the five countries of Central America during the period from 1960 to 1984. The forms of peasant and government action and the resulting consequences for the peasantry have varied widely throughout Central America.3 The conceptual framework elaborated here should make clear why this has been so.