Abstract: Safeguarding rights through litigation create the opportunity space for home owners in some dimensions:the home owners’ action is endowed with “legitimacy” by “legality”,providing opportunities for the venting of home owners’ discontent and increasing “law quantity” by the media.However,safeguarding rights through litigation limit the opportunity space for home owners in other dimensions,for it is hard for home owners to win the key litigations,to generate mobilizing effect,to enhance collective identity,and to generate leverage effect for home owners to bargain with government.Above all,in the current political opportunity structure and legal opportunity structure,litigations create the opportunity space for home owners in more symbolic dimensions while they fail to create the opportunity space in more substantive dimensions.Meanwhile,safeguarding rights through litigation relieve the grassroots government’s pressure of safeguarding stability and can deal with home owners’ safeguarding rights institutionally,which creates opportunity structure for the urban grassroots governance.

Key words: safeguarding rights through litigation, opportunity space, grassroots governance