Since the 1990s, scholars have paid attention to the role of social movements traversing the official terrain of politics by blending a "contention" strategy with an "engagement" strategy. The literature often highlights the contribution of institutionalized social movements to policymaking and sociopolitical change, but rarely addresses why and how specific social movement organizations gain routine access to formal politics. Using the Korean women's movement as a case study, I analyze the conditions for movement institutionalization. As I perceive it as the consequence both of social movements' decision to participate in government and of the state's desire to integrate such movements into its decision-making process, movement institutionalization appears when the three factors are combined: (1) pressure from international organizations, (2) democratizing political structures, and (3) cognitive shifts by movement activists toward the role of the state.

A longitudinal case study of Korean white-collar labor movements, which newly thrived in the democratizing atmosphere after the 1987 June Democratic Struggle, confirms that political opportunity is an important external factor that impels movement dynamics toward political protest and interunion solidarity. However, the impact of political opportunity is more complicated than the political process model suggests. First, it is not objective but perceived opportunity that is causal for movement dynamics: Opportunity is filtered through participants' interpretations, which shape their responses to it. The effect of political opportunity is mediated by participants' subjective conclusion (often inaccurate) that a movement goal has been promoted or obstructed by a particular source (source attribution). Without this framing mediation, the impact of political opportunity remains indeterminate, as a single opportunity structure may produce disparate movement dynamics and, conversely, movements may mobilize under both contracting and expanding opportunities. Second, the causal impact of perceived opportunity-whether perceived contraction or expansionis contextually specific and contingent. When union members consider their attempts to achieve goals a failure and ascribe the failure to government intransigence, antigovernment sentiments facilitate political protest. In contrast, success attributed to the efficacy of collective action nurtures solidarity consciousness and labor collectivity. In either event, movement dynamics improve.Authoritarian regimes had been in place in South Korea (hereinafter Korea) since liberation from Japanese colonialism in 1945. They stifled most white-collar attempts to unionize and brutally repressed blue-collar unions until the 1987 June Democratic Struggle. Only a few white-collar unions were organized, while blue-collar unions, though their number was small and their collective power was weak due to persistent state repression, mounted a sporadic but mass radical antigovernment insurrection against it. In addition, a long heritage of enterprise unionism (which I will elaborate below) and legal restrictions fragmented labor movements by confining union activities Direct all correspondence to Doowon Suh,

A longitudinal case study of Korean white-collar labor movements, which newly thrived in the democratizing atmosphere after the 1987 June Democratic Struggle, confirms that political opportunity is an important external factor that impels movement dynamics toward political protest and interunion solidarity. However, the impact of political opportunity is more complicated than the political process model suggests. First, it is not objective but perceived opportunity that is causal for movement dynamics: Opportunity is filtered through participants' interpretations, which shape their responses to it. The effect of political opportunity is mediated by participants' subjective conclusion (often inaccurate) that a movement goal has been promoted or obstructed by a particular source (source attribution). Without this framing mediation, the impact of political opportunity remains indeterminate, as a single opportunity structure may produce disparate movement dynamics and, conversely, movements may mobilize under both contracting and expanding opportunities. Second, the causal impact of perceived opportunity-whether perceived contraction or expansionis contextually specific and contingent. When union members consider their attempts to achieve goals a failure and ascribe the failure to government intransigence, antigovernment sentiments facilitate political protest. In contrast, success attributed to the efficacy of collective action nurtures solidarity consciousness and labor collectivity. In either event, movement dynamics improve.Authoritarian regimes had been in place in South Korea (hereinafter Korea) since liberation from Japanese colonialism in 1945. They stifled most white-collar attempts to unionize and brutally repressed blue-collar unions until the 1987 June Democratic Struggle. Only a few white-collar unions were organized, while blue-collar unions, though their number was small and their collective power was weak due to persistent state repression, mounted a sporadic but mass radical antigovernment insurrection against it. In addition, a long heritage of enterprise unionism (which I will elaborate below) and legal restrictions fragmented labor movements by confining union activities Direct all correspondence to Doowon Suh,

This article investigates Tilly's (1978) long-neglected question of how collective action outcomes modify agents' interests and movement dynamics. A case study of the Korean white-collar union movement demonstrates how the framing of collective action outcomes influences movement trajectories in two ways. First, actors' subjective evaluation of whether collective action succeeds or fails to attain movement goals alters movement dynamics by changing goals, strategies, tactics, action repertoires, and collective identities. Second, to whom the cause of the collective action outcome is attributed mediates these transformations. The evaluation of outcomes and attribution of causes is ongoing. They occur throughout the development of social movements and dynamically shape their trajectories. The case study confirms these observations: in early stages of collective action, when union members considered union efforts to improve their economic well-being fruitless and blamed government intervention for their failures, union activities evolved into political protest against the state and struggle for democratization. At a later stage, when agents successfully achieved economic and political goals and credited their union activism for the victory, union movements progressed by intensifying interunion solidarity.

Since the late 1990s, the consequences of collective action have been subject to an expanded scholarly inquiry. In particular, a growing body of analysis has elaborated on the impact of social movements on policy, coupled with studies dealing with structural, organizational, and biographical changes. On the whole, however, the literature continues to under-recognize how unintended consequences affect the way social movements function. In order to illustrate the unanticipated yet profound impact of unintended consequences on movement dynamics, I examine the Korean women’s movement as a case study. My analysis focuses on establishing the following three propositions. First, unintended results motivate movement participants to react promptly; this leads them to voluntarily or involuntarily alter their organizational infrastructures, thereby effecting changes in movement dynamics. Second, the impact of unintended consequences is transmitted to movement participants through the process of framing; it is one’s personal assessment rather than a detached appraisal of collective action outcomes that influences movement dynamics. Third, a negative evaluation of the unintended consequences may generate an impetus for reinvigorating collective action.