DISCURSIVE OPPORTUNITIES, FEELING RULES, AND THE RISE OF PROTESTS AGAINST AIRCRAFT NOISE * Christian Bröer and Jan Willem Duyvendak † Social movement researchers propose different ways to incorporate meaning into structural approaches, notably into political opportunity structure (POS) theory. In this article we further develop one of the recent attempts to do so: discursive opportunity structure theory (DOS) as proposed by Koopmans and Olzak. We pay particular attention to the role of feelings. Although the DOS model correctly points toward the discursive construction of political opportunities, it does not explain why certain events are experienced as opportunities by potential activists. We propose the reason is two-fold: 1) discourse contains feeling rules and 2) discourse resonance implies the shaping of protest subjectivity. Our model is applied to a specific case: protests against aircraft noise annoyance in two countries. We show that feeling annoyed by aircraft sound is shaped by specific policy discourses, which then prepares the ground for protests. Political process theory and political opportunity structure theory (POS) (Eisinger 1973; Tilly 1978; Kriesi, Koopmans, Duyvendak, and Guigni 1992; Kriesi, Koopmans, Duyvendak, and Giugni 1995; McAdam, Tarrow, and Tilly 2001) are not well suited to show what actually moves people to engage in political action (Eyerman and Jamison 1995; Jasper 1998; Goodwin, Jasper, and Polletta 2001; Ferree 2003; Goodwin and Jasper 2004; Meyer and Minkoff 2004). It is now widely accepted that political opportunities have to be perceived as such to affect political action. To understand how people conceive of political opportunities, scholars have attempted to combine political process theory with “identity” (Tilly 2005), “framing” (Snow, Rochford, Warden, and Benford 1986; Koopmans and Duyvendak 1995), discourse (Steinberg 1998, 1999; Ferree 2002), culture (for an overview see Polletta 2008), and emotion (Jasper 1998; Flam and King 2005). Discursive opportunity structure theory (DOS) as developed primarily by Koopmans and Olzak is an interesting attempt in this respect (Koopmans and Statham 1999; Koopmans 2004; Koopmans and Olzak 2004; Giugni, Koopmans, Passy, and Statham 2005). In this article we aim to elaborate on three aspects of their approach. First, we suggest more attention be paid to policy as a meaning-making process—policy discourses limit what can be said, felt, and demanded. Second, we think the DOS model should incorporate “feeling rules” (Hochschild 1979, 1983) into the analysis of the “working” of discursive opportunities—feeling rules and their changes are necessary to understand why and when people experience opportunities as such. Third, we show how policy discourse actually resonates in people’s everyday subjectivity. In the empirical section of the article we argue that the non-discursive POS approach cannot explain the rise of social movements against aircraft noise annoyance in the Netherlands and Switzerland. While many of the “opportunities” remained stable, the inci- dence of protests and the rise of social movements did not. This shows, as Koopmans and Olzak correctly argue, that to explain mobilization one needs to understand the “framing” or discursive construction of issues. To understand how this framing happens, we turn to changes * We thank James Jasper and two anonymous reviewers for their sharp and helpful comments. † Christian Bröer is assistant professor in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Amsterdam. Jan Willem Duyvendak is Professor of Sociology at the University of Amsterdam. Please direct all correspondence to the authors at c.broer@uva.nl and W.G.J.Duyvendak@uva.nl. © 2009 Mobilization: An International Journal 14(3): 337-356