Since the early European labour movements, one preferred action and organisational strategy of social movements has been to mobilize their followers in political parties. As an outgrowth of the environmental movement the Swedish Environmental Party was formed in 1980 and first entered the parliament in 1988, the same year that the Sweden Democrats, at that time a rather obscure sect within the Swedish neo-Nazi movement, was formed. In 2010 the party successfully mobilized voters and entered the Swedish parliament with 5.7% of the vote. However, voters were mobilized unevenly across the spread of Sweden’s 220 voting districts—more successful in some and less in others. In this paper I will utilize the notion of local political opportunity structure (POS) to interrogate these geographical differences in mobilization outcomes. The study will use multilevel modelling to assess the nature and extent of place effects on voter preferences. While the original concept of POS formulated by Eisinger in the early 1970s focused local government structures, the notion has been more commonly employed in Europe in cross-national research. By re-focusing on local political opportunity structures the aim of the paper is to contribute new insights as to its relevant aspects, which can further advance the notion as a viable instrument for comparative research on movement outcomes.
