The Production of Social Order in the Royal Navy

Abstract

Abstract : Mutiny is a high-risk form of collective action because when it is discovered, the penalty is often death by hanging. The dataset we have been collecting is unique in the study of such insurgencies for two reasons. (1) Whereas most other such studies examine only positive instances of insurgency (e.g. cases where an insurgency has already occurred), ours includes both positive and negative instances. (2) Whereas most other studies are forced to rely on collective data (numbers of people involved in insurgencies), ours is based on individual-level data. We have collected data on every single individual on every voyage in the Royal Navy (RN). These two features of the study will enable us to provide much stronger causal evidence about insurgency than has been available in previous studies. We also systematically assessed the transcripts of around 175 courts-martial relating to individual mutinies and the mass mutiny at the Nore. This provides us with unprecedented insight into the genesis and criminology of naval mutinies and the principal actors in their instigation, conduct, and suppression. There simply never was a comparable study of mutiny in history or the social sciences and it provides extraordinarily rich and compelling data.