Movements are primarily political, making demands of the state or trying to change / overthrow it, so opportunities can be crises (e.g. economy in Chile in 1989), internal divisions (e.g. British Cabinet in early 2003) and new state structures (e.g. Freedom of Information Act in UK, though not straightforwardly a good opportunity, or the Parliament Act or even the introduction of universal franchise).

Appraisal of opportunities must include the risks and the influence of the SMOs concerned. These can include:

• Access to authorities (e.g. a centralised, moderate, institutionalised SMO may suit the state)
• Levels of repression, both overt and subtle
• Levels of unity / division amongst political and economic elites
• Levels of sympathy within elites

Political opportunities can be objective and subjective (e.g. the civil rights movement in the 1950s was buoyed both by legal victories & rural-urban migration AND raised expectations and perceived opportunities that arose). In the 1979 Iranian Revolution there were no objective opportunities at first, but rather a perception followed by a lack of repression.