Challenging Authority: How Ordinary People Change AmericaChallenging Authority argues that ordinary people exercise extraordinary political courage and power in American politics when, frustrated by politics as usual, they rise up in anger and hope and defy the authorities and the status quo rules that ordinarily govern their daily lives. By doing so, they disrupt the workings of important institutions and become a force in American politics. Drawing on critical episodes in American history, Frances Fox Piven shows that it is precisely at those seismic moments when people act outside of self-restricting political norms that they become empowered to their full democratic potential. |
Other editions - View all
Challenging Authority: How Ordinary People Change America, Volume 2 Frances Fox Piven No preview available - 2006 |
Challenging Authority: How Ordinary People Change America, Volume 2 Frances Fox Piven No preview available - 2006 |
Common terms and phrases
Abolitionism abolitionists action African Americans American Political Development American Revolution antislavery Barrington Moore Cambridge campaign Capitalist century chap Charles Tilly civil rights Cloward coalitions Colin Crouch colonial compromise conflict Congress Constitution Deal Democracy Democratic Party disruptive power E. P. Thompson economic elec election electoral politics electoral-representative arrangements elites employers federal force Frances Fox Piven income industrial inequalities influence institutional interdependent power issues Kevin Phillips Kleppner leaders legislatures major mass ment mobilization national government northern numbers officials organized Parties in American Party System percent Piven and Richard Plotke Polakoff Political Parties poor popular populist Princeton programs protest movements reform Republican response revolutionary Richard Cloward riots role rules Skocpol slavery slaves Social Movements Social Policy Social Security Society South southern strategies strikes Sundquist Theda Skocpol threat tion unions United University Press V. O. Key vote voters wages wealth Weir welfare workers York