‘’Better Death than Humiliation’’ "المـــــــوت ولا المـــــــذلة"

Abstract

Political opportunity structure theorists have paid more attention to either the structural factors or to the agential ones while studying social movements. Through the nexus of structure and agency this research aims to explain the collective action of the students of Aleppo University as one episode of the Syrian uprising. I argue that structures alone are not enough to facilitate a social movement. It is the agency of the activists that mend the structures to open more opportunities. Through applying Tilly and Tarrow’s properties of a regime to the Syrian case I explore the opportunities that the challengers took to advance their claims to sustain their movement for three years. I argue, however, that the properties of the regime were not equally significant. I point to the prominence of some properties over others and how these properties eventually led to the end of the movement inside the University in 2013.