Repertoires Of Contention Research Articles

The Social Movement as Political Party: The Northern Ireland Women's Coalition and the Campaign for Inclusion

For about 10 years beginning in the mid 1990s, Northern Ireland had its own women's political party. The Northern Ireland Women's Coalition (NIWC) was created by members of the women's movement to achieve “equitable and effective political participation” for women. Despite being small, marginal and short-lived, the party increased access for women in nearly all the other political parties in the system. I connect the scholarship on social movements with that on political parties by examining the impact a social movement can have through the venue of its own political party. I argue three main points. First, the success of the NIWC means political parties may be an under-employed tactic in the repertoires of contention used by social movements. Second, the way the movement had an effect as a party is under-theorized in the literature on social movements because it requires consideration of party-system variables such as competition and issue-space. Third, as an identity-based movement, the women's movement in NI construed its goal of access differently than social-movement literature typically does. This under-utilized and under-theorized tactic of movement qua party delivered gains with the potential for long-term influence over policy and cultural values. In short, the movement-party may be an effective mechanism for changing the patterns of democratic representation of marginalized groups.

How Repertoires Evolve: The Diffusion of Suicide Protest in the Twentieth Century

Although "repertoire of contention" is a ubiquitous term in the literature, the concept remains undertheorized and untested. The crucial implication, I argue, is that instances of a tactic belong to one or a few lineages, each radiating from a single invention and comprising a series of adoptions and repetitions. This implication is tested by examining suicide protest: killing oneself, without harming others, for a collective cause. The decline in cruel public punishment and the growth of news media increased the potential utility of this tactic. There were multiple inventions of suicide protest, but only in Japan was there a recognizable lineage in the early twentieth century. The sacrifice of a Vietnamese monk in 1963 created a model, which was adopted in many different countries for varied collective causes. Almost all subsequent acts can be traced—directly or indirectly—back to this origin.

Cycles of Land Grabbing in Central America: an argument for history and a case study in the Bajo Aguán, Honduras

The lack of historical perspective in many studies of land grabbing leads researchers to ignore or underestimate the extent to which pre-existing social relations shape rural spaces in which contemporary land deals occur. Bringing history back in to land grabbing research is essential for understanding antecedents, establishing baselines to measure impacts and restoring the agency of contending agrarian social classes. In Central America each of several cycles of land grabbing—liberal reforms, banana concessions and agrarian counter-reform—has profoundly shaped the period that succeeded it. In the Bajo Aguán region of Honduras—a centre of agrarian reform and then counter-reform—violent conflicts over land have been materially shaped by both peasant, landowner and state repertoires of contention and repression, as well as by peasants’ memories of dispossession.

‘Repertoires of Contention’ in Movements Against Hydropower Projects in India

Applying Charles Tilly's notion of ‘repertoires of contention’, this paper discusses strategies and modes of protest carried out by the movements against hydropower projects in India. It compares the Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA; Save Narmada Movement) in Madhya Pradesh and the Shramik Mukthi Dal (SMD; Labour Liberation Party) led mobilisations against hydropower projects in Maharashtra. It explains the more dramatic repertoires deployed by NBA as opposed to moderate and pragmatic movement repertoires of SMD. The paper concludes that the differences in ideology, organisation and cultural–historical legacy of the two organisations, as well as their different modes of interaction with the state, are the causes behind different contentious repertoires deployed by them, which resulted in different trajectories and outcomes.

Social Movement Theory and the Onset of the Popular Uprising in Syria

This article takes stock of my attempt to scrutinize the onset of the Syrian uprising with the help of some key analytical concepts derived from social movement theory, including “opportunity” and “threat,” “social networks,” “repertoires of contention,” “framing,” and “diffusion.” These tools allow me to identify and disentangle the mechanisms of early mobilization and the uprising and explain why they commenced in relatively peripheral areas. Social networks and framing processes are argued to have been key in mobilization, by transmitting opportunities derived from the “Arab Spring,” by mediating the nexus between repression and mobilization, by creating and feeding a rich new repertoire of defiant protest acts and claims-making, and by aiding the diffusion or agglomeration of mobilization throughout the country.

Student resistance to neoliberalism in Chile

For 40 years, Chile has been implementing a series of free-market reforms that can best be described as a neoliberal revolution. This article discusses neoliberalism in Chile as it relates to secondary and higher education. Based on documentary sources and selected interviews with student leaders and others involved, it examines the arguments and actions of the Chilean students within the conceptual framework of social movements, looking into such issues as repertoires of contention, networks and alliances. It traces the evolution of student mobilisation from the initial ‘Penguin Revolt’ in 2006 to the nationwide disruptions of 2012. The article pays particular attention to the evidence and arguments presented by students in their opposition to the neoliberal policies and examine the response of the Chilean state, noting counterarguments as well as points of compromise and rejection. The student movement is found to be extremely creative in the ways it presents opposition to the government; moreover, it has learned to persist in its transformative demands, even though success has so far been modest. Since Chile continues to endorse a neoliberal model, the article ends with a balance of education policy accomplishments and failures, highlighting which social groups have benefited and which have not.

International Statebuilding as contentious politics: the case of post conflict Bosnia and Herzegovina

The post-conflict space in Bosnia and Herzegovina has been marked by a multiplicity of statebuilding projects: in addition to the much-analyzed internationally-led statebuilding process, parallel Bosniak, Bosnian Serb and Bosnian Croat statebuilding trajectories exist. They seek to undermine and challenge the international statebuilding venture by appropriating and adapting the liberal statebuilding processes. This is carried out through the institutions and processes of governance put in place by international statebuilders to subvert the statebuilding trajectory. Focusing on the local appropriation of processes and institutions of governance, the paper maps out the repertoires of contention entailing boycotts, walk-outs, protests and refusals to co-operate in an attempt to explain and understand how local contention vis-à-vis the international statebuilding trajectory is carried out.

Paradox of Globalization: New Arab Publics? New Social Contract?

AbstractBecause social media is playing an irrefutable role in the Arab Spring uprisings the central question in this article is to what extent Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in general, and social media in specific, are contributing to the democratization of the public sphere and shifting the monopoly on agenda setting in the Arab Gulf, particularly in the case of Bahrain? How will these technologies continue to shape contentious politics in the Middle East and will their utility for democratizing and expanding the public sphere persist in the aftermath of the Arab Spring? Or will the increasing liberalization of media and freedom of expression that had preceded the Arab Spring experience a repressive backlash as authoritarian states attempt to clamp down on social and traditional media—or even harness them for their own purposes as seen by Facebook intimidation campaigns against activists in Bahrain last Spring. Finally—using the lens of social movement theory—what repertoires of contention and political opportunity structures will pro-democracy activists use to keep their campaigns alive? Activists in the Gulf have not only incorporated the ICTs into their repertoire, but have also changed substantially what counts as activism, what counts as community, collective identity, democratic space, public sphere, and political strategy. Ironically this new technology has succeeded in reviving and expanding the practice of discursive dialog that had once characterized traditional tribal politics in the Arabian Peninsula.

Repertoires of Contention: White Separatist Views on the Use of Violence and Leaderless Resistance

Particularly since the early 1990s, some white power movement leaders have advocated abandoning leader-led organizations in favor of leaderless resistance. We examine the events leading up to this call that illustrate how threat is intertwined with the adoption of leaderless resistance. Using a combination of interview and questionnaire data collected primarily from white power movement followers, we examine views on leaderless resistance as well as the use of violence to advance movement goals. Our findings suggest that while there is support for leaderless resistance, most respondents believe that this strategy should be used in conjunction with leader-led organizations. While most of our respondents supported the use of violence, holding this view does not explain a strategy preference (leader-led organizations or leaderless resistance). Respondents who feared infiltration were more likely to support leaderless resistance. Although not significant, those favoring an electoral-politics strategy were more likely to prefer leader-led organizations over leaderless resistance.

Legal opportunity structure and social movement strategy in Northern Ireland and southern United States

The Civil Rights Movements in the southern United States and Northern Ireland were able to mobilize African Americans and Irish Catholics respectively against minority discrimination. These movements initially displayed very similar goals and tactics, looking at courts to counter institutional discrimination, but in successive stages of contention their trajectories fundamentally diverged. While legal mobilization in the United States constituted one of the pillars of the civil rights strategy of contention, in Northern Ireland legal tactics were supplanted by a transgressive (and at times violent) repertoire of contention. To explain this discrepancy, this article relies on the concept of legal opportunity structure (LOS) as an analytical tool to investigate how a state’s legal structure affects social movement legal mobilization. Accessibility to courts, availability of justiciable rights and judiciary receptivity are identified as the three core dimensions of the LOS shaping its degree of openness/closure. The paired comparison of these movements reveal that a closed LOS may narrow down the array of tactical options available to social movements, redirecting activists’ efforts towards protest. Conversely, an open LOS may encourage legal mobilization as a viable tactical option and, under certain circumstances, even promote contentious activities.

Authoritarian Learning and Authoritarian Resilience: Regime Responses to the ‘Arab Awakening’

The spread of protests throughout the Arab world can be viewed as the product of social learning by Arab citizens—a wave effect facilitated by the rapid diffusion of ideas, discourses, and practices from one country to another and their adaptation to local contexts. Yet it less commonly recognized that Arab regimes' counter-revolutionary strategies have also been shaped by processes of learning and diffusion among regime elites, especially among those where protests began later in the sequence of events that constitute the Arab awakening. Accordingly, there have been two parallel processes at work in the unfolding and the potential unraveling of the Arab awakening: one at the level of Arab societies and the other among authoritarian regimes. Initially, the first of these processes worked to the advantage of protestors. As regimes adapted to the repertoires of contention developed by protesters and assessed the direction of regional and international trends, the advantage shifted in their direction. Several incumbents in the region became increasingly persuaded that their best bet lay in strategies of repression, and, in essence, in hunkering down and pursuing a range of measures to ride out uprisings which themselves seemed to confront diminishing probabilities of success. La difusión de protestas a través del mundo árabe puede verse como un producto de aprendizaje social por ciudadanos árabes—un efecto de oleaje facilitado por la rápida difusión de ideas, conversaciones y prácticas de un país a otro y su adaptación a contextos locales. Sin embargo, es menos reconocido que las estrategias contrarrevolucionarias de los regímenes árabes se hayan formado por procesos de aprendizaje y difusión entre regímenes elitistas, especialmente entre aquellos a donde las protestas empezaron más tarde en la secuencia de eventos que constituyen el despertar árabe. En consecuencia, ha habido dos procesos paralelos en función de la revelación y desenredo potencial del despertar árabe: uno al nivel de las sociedades árabes y el otro entre los regímenes autoritarios. Inicialmente, el primero de estos procesos trabajó en ventaja de los manifestantes. En cuanto los regímenes se adaptaron a los repertorios de opinión desarrollados por los manifestantes, y evaluaron la dirección de tendencias regionales e internacionales, la ventaja cambió en su dirección. Varios de los mandatarios en la región aumentaron su persuasión de que su mejor opción radicaba en estrategias de represión y fundamentalmente en refugiarse y perseguir una serie de medidas para superar los levantamientos que ellos mismos parecían hacerle frente, disminuyendo las probabilidades de éxito. 遍及阿拉伯世界的抗议浪潮可被视为阿拉伯各国公民进行社会学习的产物——一种由观念的迅速扩散、演讲、从一国到另一国的实践以及对当地环境的适应等助推下的波浪效应。然而人们较少认识到，阿拉伯各国政权反革命的策略已经由政权精英之间，尤其是那些在构成阿拉伯觉醒的事件序列中较晚出现抗议的政权之间的学习和扩散过程塑造成形。相应地，在展现着的和潜在瓦解着的阿拉伯觉醒中，有两个平行的进程：一个是阿拉伯社会这一层面的进程，另一个是统治政权中间的进程。起初，第一个进程有利于抗议者。当各政权适应了抗议者提出的各种论争并评估地区和国际趋势的方向后，有利地位就转到了它们一边。该地区一些现任领导人已日益相信，他们最好的办法是实行镇压策略，根本上说是着手控制并采取一系列措施，以平安渡过这些起义，而它们自身似乎也面临成功概率下降的问题。

Charles Tilly and American Pragmatism

Charles Tilly’s work on repertoires of contention and social mechanisms was pathbreaking. In this article, I argue that his understanding of both concepts overlaps with social-theoretical work informed by the philosophical tradition of classical American pragmatism. There is no evidence that Tilly was influenced by pragmatism, but I argue that the overlap is substantial enough that large portions of his oeuvre can serve as illustrations of the explanatory power of pragmatist social science—and that Tilly’s theorization of mechanisms in particular would have been even stronger had he engaged pragmatism directly.

Elections, Repertoires of Contention and Habitus in Four Civil Society Engagements in Malaysia's 2008 General Elections

The general elections in Malaysia in 2008 saw the ruling coalition, which has ruled Malaysia uninterrupted since independence in 1957, lose control of a number of states and become significantly weakened at the federal level. Amongst the reasons often cited for this was significant and diverse civil society participation in these elections which was often critical of the incumbent government. This article examines four different engagements in the 2008 elections by civil society actors. Through this examination, it is demonstrated that distinctions between types of collective action, from social movements to political parties, are especially likely to be blurred in the context of repressive states such as Malaysia. This examination in turn sees Charles Tilly's concept of repertoires of contention defended against both Nick Crossley's criticisms of it and his preference of Pierre Bourdieu's concept of habitus.

Farmers’ Use of the Courts in an Anti-Land Acquisition movement in India’S West Bengal

In 2006 Singur in West Bengal, India, was chosen as the location for a new far factory that was to produce what would ostensibly become the world’s cheapest car. To make way for the factory approximately 1,000 acres of farmland were expropriated by the state government. Farmers unwilling to relinquish their land refused to comply with the acquisition and organised politically to challenge the legitimacy, both moral and legal, of the government’s exercise of the right of eminent domain. While these farmers relied on a broad repertoire of contention during their prolonged agitation, the courts and the law provided them with perhaps the most important arena for challenging the state. This paper discusses various aspects of the Singur farmers’ use of the courts, asking: (1) How have the farmers in practice gone about accessing the courts and the legal system? (2) What has been their experience of engaging with such a complex system of procedures and institutions that rely on a language with which few farmers are familiar? (3) Given that many other options have been available, why have the Singur farmers chosen to repose such faith in the courts?

Disruption or Convention? A Process-based Explanation of Divergent Repertoires of Contention Among Opponents to Low-level Radioactive Waste Disposal Sites

Violence, disruption and convention constitute three well established categories of collective action repertoires available to contemporary social movements. What factors shape differences in repertoire selection across social movement groups? I take a process-based approach to answer this question, examining two grassroots opposition movements to the disposal of low-level radioactive waste in the United States. The two rural New York State counties I consider each faced a state-imposed low-level radioactive waste site proposal in 1988. Activists in each county mounted vigorous collective opposition to the proposed facility, while exhibiting distinct repertoires of collective action. Activists in Allegany County pursued disruptive civil disobedience, while activists in Cortland County pursued a conventional repertoire of citizen lobbying and litigation efforts. Similarities across a variety of demographic, political, and social characteristics in these two counties leave the standard explanations for repertoire selection put forth in the social movement literature wanting. I argue that the relationship developed between the respective county governments and citizen activists during the waste-site proposal dispute had a dramatic effect on the dominant repertoire of collective action adopted by each community. More specifically, identifying the presence or absence of the social mechanism of brokerage between local government and activists is crucial to understanding the different trajectories of these movement groups. This article highlights the utility of fine-grained process-based analysis as a complement to variable-based approaches for explaining social movement activity, and the importance of the mechanism of brokerage among local government and activists for understanding bottom-up movements responding to proximate grievances, such as the environmental justice movement.

The Very Access of Democracy: The Internet, Blogs, and On-Line Repertoires of Contention

This paper examines how Charles Tilly's theory of a repertoire of contention can be applied to emerging communications technologies on the Internet in general, and blogs specifically.

Introduction to the Special Issue on Political Violence

The cover photo for this special issue on political violence depicts a peaceful street demonstration, perhaps the most studied tactic in the modern “repertoire of contention” (Tilly 1978, 1986, 1995a, b). The scene is non-violent, but as Julie Stewart explains in her article in this issue “A Measure of Justice: The Rabinal Human Rights Movement in Postwar Guatemala,” the demonstration was staged in response to a 30-year-long campaign of state-sponsored political violence that took the lives of more than a thousand members of the Rabinal Mayan community in the 1980s. This peaceful demonstration is thus embedded in a complex, decades-long cycle of political violence. Political violence is a broad term for deeply contested actions, events, and situations that have political aims and involve some degree of physical force. The same events may be called by many other names: terrorism, insurgency, guerrilla warfare, counter-insurgency, self-defense, retribution, security policing, national defense, national liberation, statesponsored terrorism, or even genocide, depending on the circumstances and who is doing the naming. Using the neutral term “political violence” allows us to take a sociological approach that focuses on the socio-political sequences of action and contexts in which violence is embedded, and makes the naming of acts and the interpretation of their meaning an essential part of the analysis. The methodological tools of qualitative sociology are particularly well-suited to study of the unfolding of dynamic social processes and interactive meaning-making that occurs in messy, contested real-world contexts. The five articles we have selected for this special issue reflect the breadth of research that this approach invites. We begin with an essay by Donatella della Porta, “Research on Social Movements and Terrorism: Some Reflections” that provides an overview of the study of political violence by social scientists since the 1960s and helps to locate the other four articles in relation to Qual Sociol (2008) 31:213–220 DOI 10.1007/s11133-008-9111-3

The Problem of Lasting Change: Civil Society and the Colored Revolutions in Georgia and Ukraine

Abstract: Civil society played a vital role in the revolutions of Georgia and Ukraine, exemplified by the activism of the youth groups Kmara and Pora. As democratic reform has stalled, however, these groups have found themselves increasingly marginalized because of the reemergence of authoritarian practices and elites. Only the renewed inclusion of civil society can restore the democratization process. Keywords: civil society, democratization, protest, public sphere, social movements ********** Since the collape of the Soviet Union, popular mobilization has played a key part in effecting change in the post-Soviet states. The first instances were seen during the collapse of Soviet power in Eastern Europe, epitomized by the activism of Solidarity in Poland, but as post-Soviet states disappointed expectations of democratic change, such activism has been redirected at the successor regimes, often to great effect. The most recent events that fit this description have been generally referred to as the colored revolutions, arguably inaugurated with the electoral revolutions in Bulgaria (1996-97), Slovakia and Croatia (1998-99), and the nonviolent ouster of Slobodan Milosevic in Serbia in 2000. (1) Partly inspired by the Serbian example, nonviolent regime changes occurred in Georgia in 2003 (the Rose Revolution), Ukraine in 2004-05 (the Orange Revolution), and Kyrgyzstan in 2005 (the Tulip Revolution). There were also unsuccessful attempts in Uzbekistan and Belarus in 2005 and 2006. These events have captured the attention and imagination of many international observers, who have speculated that the revolutions might represent the beginning of a new wave of democratization. This article's purpose is twofold. First, I examine the role of social movements and civil society in sparking the revolutions in Georgia and Ukraine, focusing specifically on the activities of the youth groups Kmara (Enough) and Pora (It's Time). Most conventional accounts of the two revolutions focus primarily on the proximate causes (fraud, corruption, etc.) or the nature of the organized political opposition, spending less time on the strategies and tactics employed by civil society and social-movement actors. I will use new social movement theory to explore how these groups took advantage of political opportunities, acquired and used repertoires of contention, and interacted with conventional actors and the media. This requires examining how the post-Soviet period shaped the revolutions' political context. Second, I look at each revolution's aftermath to determine how successful each has been in promoting effective change. Both Georgia and Ukraine experienced problems with democratization because of the new regime's actions while in office (Georgia) or the resurgence of the previous authoritarian elites (Ukraine). It is important to account for these difficulties, and determine what role (if any) civil society has played in the post-colored revolution political environment. If accounts of the revolutions rely too heavily on analysis of the regime and the opposition, this interpretation is even more prevalent in postrevolution political developments. Does this empirical silence mean civil society is no longer seeking an active role in the political process or does it mean that the state is actively excluding civil society from playing such a role? Could it indicate that the revolutionary governments have effectively coopted civil society, absorbing it into political society? I aim to answer these questions to create a more complex picture of the type of change that has resulted from the revolutions. Theoretical Framework This article, and the theoretical framework that undergirds it, is divided into two parts--prerevolution and postrevolution. Examining the prerevolution situations in Georgia and Ukraine, I use the new social movement theory, as characterized by Sidney Tarrow's book Power in Movement, to provide a framework for understanding popular and political mobilization and how such mobilization can effect political change. …

The Spatial Dynamics of the May 1968 French Demonstrations

The article studies the May 68 demonstrations in four cities: Paris, Lyon, Saint-Etienne and Roanne, and relies mainly on the archives of the French police. Its main aim is to show that what happened in French streets in May and June 1968 largely depended on the dynamics of the interactions between different contending groups—students, workers, police, radical-right groups, and government supporters—and that an important part of these interactions was determined by the significance these groups gave to the various settings where the events took place, and by the ownership they claimed to have over them. The article relies on the recent interest of social movement scholars for the spatial location of contention, but also on Goffman's theory of the territory of self, to analyze together the symbolic and the strategic dimensions of the May 68 repertoire of contention.

Up-dating Its Strategies and Amplifying Its Frames: The Landless Rural Workers' Movement in Brazil and the Displacement of the Struggle for Land

AbstractThe present article examines the possible loss of prominence of land occupations as a strategy of struggle within the Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais sem Terra's (Landless Rural Workers' Movement or MST) repertoires of contention. I argue that this possible decline began during Cardoso's government and that the movement is in the process of institutionalizing other strategies of struggle, which have yet to prove as effective as land occupations. Some legal amendments during Cardoso's administration undermined the effectiveness and even the usefulness of land occupations. The MST has nevertheless updated its frames and its strategies of struggle, and reinforced its role as a national and global social movement. Findings in the present article are supported by several interviews collected during field research, academic and newspaper articles, and general sources about the matter.