| Most previous studies on social movements have failed to explain why and how political opportunities influence social movements differently , since they do not pay enough attention to the role of activists. This study seeks to formulate a new theoretical framework that, by focusing on activists, can map out the causal mechanism behind social movements' interactions with changing political environments. On the empirical level, it aims to explain the different trajectories of social movements in Taiwan's transitory politics. The central argument is twofold: first, activists' demographic profiles shape the movement's organizational repertoire, tactics, and issue choice. Second, changing political opportunity structures, especially the shift from authoritarian regime to democracy, alter activists' demographic characteristics. Consequently, activists become the main intervening variable exerting an overall powerful impact on the movements' interactions with political opportunities.;Drawing on the quantitative survey data of 147 activists and qualitative in-depth interviews with activists in the labor, environmental and women's movements, this study demonstrates that the role of activists is crucial in understanding how and why these three movements have gone through very different trajectories during Taiwan's political transition. While the labor and environmental movements have experienced a transition from partisan toward nonpartisan during the democratic transition, the trajectory of the women's movement has gone the opposite direction from politics without parties toward politics with parties. To explain such a difference, two mechanisms that link activists to changing political opportunities are identified: first, a differentiation mechanism drawing activists with different biographical backgrounds into the movements, and second, a shift mechanism working between movements and electoral politics. By analyzing how both mechanisms altered activists' demographic profile, this study investigates the ways activists' demographic profiles cause the ideological transformation of labor movement leadership, the distinctive repertoire of tactics in national and local levels of environmental movement, and the women's movement's distinctive interaction with changing political opportunities. After examining activists and their influences on movements' trajectories, this study finds that social movements have facilitated the emergence of interest group politics, resurrection of civil society and experimenting novel ways of civil participation, which jointly contribute to a robust consolidated democracy in Taiwan. |
