Protest Repertoires Research Articles

Popular Politics, the New State and the Birth of the Iranian Working Class: The 1929 Abadan Oil Refinery Strike

Popular Politics, the New State and the Birth of the Iranian Working Class: The 1929 Abadan Oil Refinery Strike

Cultural Strategies and the Political Economy of Protest in Mid-Qing China, 1740-1839

In the historical study of contentious politics, political economy theories see the transformation of the dominant form of contention from reactive violence to proactive demonstration in early modern Europe as a result of large-scale political-economic processes like state formation and market expansion. Culturalist theories emphasize instead the significance of large-scale cultural reconstitutions in forging such transformation. Judging between these two theories is no easy task, as macropolitical-economic and cultural changes were concurrent in most cases. Mid-Qing China (c. 1683-1839), which experienced state centralization and commercialization in conjunction with a relatively stable neo-Confucianist hegemony, constitutes a telling case that helps resolve the debate. By analyzing a catalog of political protest events derived from archival sources, I find that Chinese protest changed from predominantly reactive violence in the seventeenth century to proactive demonstration in the mid-eighteenth century and back to reactive violence in the nineteenth century. The general direction of change can be explained by the cyclical trajectories of state formation and market development alone. At the same time, the specific claims and repertoires of protest were always delimited by the cultural idioms available in the overarching neo-Confucianist orthodoxy of the time. This study suggests an integrated perspective synthesizing both culturalist and political economy accounts to offer a fuller explanation of macrohistorical changes in contentious politics.

From ‘Ban‐the‐Bomb’ to ‘Ban‐the‐Increase’: 1960s Street Politics in Pre‐Civil Rights Belfast

This paper illuminates two forms of street politics – ‘ban‐the‐bomb’ and housing tenants’ protests – prevalent in Belfast in the 1960s prior to the civil rights movement (CRM). This is done to highlight the role they played in developing forms of non‐violent direct action which directly contributed to the repertoires of protest utilised by the CRM. This has hitherto been downplayed in existing literature on the development of CRM. The paper also contextualises the ambivalent position that these street politics occupied regarding the question of Northern Ireland’s constitutional status, which meant that they could be co‐opted by the metanarratives of groups representing nationalism and unionism. Finally, the extent to which such grassroots collective action can be viewed as part of ‘right to the city’ struggles is also examined.

Vulnerability and disobedience: New repertoires in French environmental protests

The emergence of the counter-globalisation movement in France has been accompanied by an apparent diversification of social protest repertoires. Protest events carried out by groups associated with a wide array of issues have been remarkable for their use of spectacular and novel actions, while civil disobedience campaigns have been prominent features of environmental and civil rights protests in particular. Drawing on a number of examples of contemporary environmental and global justice campaigns, opposing advertising, four-wheeled drive vehicles, nuclear energy and, especially, open field trials of genetically modified crops, this article discusses the rise of such new forms of protest, placing them in the wider context of transformations in protest repertoires in France. It identifies key examples of innovation, before discussing the twin processes of diffusion and domestication that shape them. It is argued that, although transnational agents and processes are key determinants of repertoire innovation, it is vital to identify the national, movement and sectoral contexts and discourses which enable the naturalisation and legitimisation of new action forms.

The British public and political attitude expression: the emergence of a self-expressive political culture?

In Britain public opinion has been conceived as entering the public sphere via certain set channels, for instance via protest repertoires, such as strikes, public meetings and demonstrations; via t...

Social Movements: Changing Paradigms and Forms of Politics

▪ Abstract Theories of collective action have undergone a number of paradigm shifts, from “mass behavior” to “resource mobilization,” “political process,” and “new social movements.” Debates have centered on the applicability of these frameworks in diverse settings, on the periodization of collective action, on the divisive or unifying impact of identity politics, and on the appropriateness of political engagement by researchers. Transnational activist networks are developing new protest repertoires that challenge anthropologists and other scholars to rethink conventional approaches to social movements.

Crime and State Surveillance in Nineteenth-Century France

Historians and other social scientists argue that cultural change and increasing civility generated a five-century decline in rates of violent crime. This study presents a structural perspective that indicates that, as emerging nation-states consolidated power, they also extended surveillance, and this deterred cirme. The proposition is tested in France, between 1865 and 1913, where rates of major crimes declined and minor offenses increased as state surveillance expanded in the form of two national police forces. A time-series anlaysis suggests that, although the growth of policing initially increased charges for all types of crime, for major crimes the long-run effect was deterrence and declining rates. Subsequent deterrent effects failed to compensate for the initial inflationary effect on minor offenses, so rates increased. The effect of policing on major property crime holds when the possibility of reclassification of such crimes as minor offenses is controlled, but the deflationary effect of policing on major crimes of violence disappears when urbanization is introduced as a control. The other relationships persist, further supporting the idea that policing contributed to the decline in serious property crime. A reversal of the equations shows that crime rates had little or no effect on the growth of national policing. This, and historical evidence, suggests that state surveillance expanded less from a specific intent to control crime that from a broader interest in repressing "dangerous classes," new repertoires of social protest, and politcal challenge to the state.