Explaining Ethnic Mobilization against Resource Extraction: How Collective Action Frames,Motives, and Opportunities Interact

The causal mechanisms linking natural resources and ethnic mobilization remain highly contested in the literature. Using novel data generated from interviews with ethnic representatives in Bolivia, the article addresses this research gap by combining a most similar systems design comparison of two local cases with a deviant case analysis. Results indicate that while resource-related grievances are a necessary motive for contention in terms of resource extraction, they have to concur with opportunity factors in the sense of strong local organizational capacities. Both explanatory conditions are, moreover, necessarily embedded in contentious collective action frames of a noncompliant and discriminatory state.