Why does austerity confront varying degrees of popular resistance? While prior research primarily addresses the economic threat of austerity as the stimulus for anti-austerity protest, a growing volume of studies highlights the roles of external environments in moderating the mobilizing effect of austerity. This study challenges the recent literature on the moderating role of external environments, pointing out that it tends to overlook the distinction between structural and contingent aspects of external environments. I undertake a paired comparison of carefully chosen cases, South Korea in 1997–1998 and Greece in 2009–2010, to examine the moderating roles of the two aspects of external environments—each aspect is characterized through the notion of political opportunity drawing on Rootes’ work. Results reveal that structural and contingent opportunities played distinct roles in promoting (Greece) and hampering (South Korea) the growth of anti-austerity movements, initially triggered by the economic threat of austerity in both countries.

为什么紧缩政策会面对不同程度的民众抵抗？尽管先前的研究主要针对紧缩的经济威胁作为抗紧缩抗议的刺激手段，但越来越多的研究突显了外部环境在减轻紧缩的动员作用中的作用。这项研究对有关外部环境的调节作用的最新文献提出了挑战，指出它倾向于忽略外部环境的结构性和偶然性之间的区别。我对精心选择的案例（1997-1998年的韩国和2009-2010年的希腊）进行了成对比较，以考察外部环境两个方面的调节作用-每个方面的特征都在于借鉴了Rootes的政治机会概念。工作。