Political opportunities under dynamic geopolitical pressure: A multi-level processual analysis of post-Sunflower Taiwan

This thesis examines how geopolitical dynamics reshape political opportunities for social movements, challenging the nation-state bias that has long structured political opportunity theory. While social movement scholarship recognizes the importance of political context in enabling or constraining mobilization, international processes are often treated as external background conditions rather than as constitutive forces shaping movement–State relations. This limitation is increasingly consequential as contemporary international rivalries intensify the securitization of domestic political life. To address this gap, the study develops a multi-level, processual framework that conceptualizes political opportunities as relational and dynamic, produced through interactions across international, inter-state, national, and movement arenas. Empirically, the work investigates Taiwan, a contested State under sustained geopolitical pressure shaped by China–U.S. strategic competition, focusing on the build-up to and aftermath of the 2014 Sunflower Movement. Drawing on Protest Event Analysis, in-depth interviews conducted during year-long fieldwork in Taipei, and documentary sources, it addresses the puzzle of declining street mobilization after 2016 despite escalating cross-Strait tensions and a more movement-friendly domestic government. It argues that international political dynamics can reconfigure political opportunities in ways that discourage visible mass mobilization when domestic institutions are perceived as aligned with movement goals, redirecting protests toward institutionalization, changes in repertoire and de-escalation of contention.