Regimes and Repertoires

Front Cover
University of Chicago Press, Feb 15, 2010 - Social Science - 240 pages

The means by which people protest—that is, their repertoires of contention—vary radically from one political regime to the next. Highly capable undemocratic regimes such as China's show no visible signs of popular social movements, yet produce many citizen protests against arbitrary, predatory government. Less effective and undemocratic governments like the Sudan’s, meanwhile, often experience regional insurgencies and even civil wars. In Regimes and Repertoires, Charles Tilly offers a fascinating and wide-ranging case-by-case study of various types of government and the equally various styles of protests they foster.

Using examples drawn from many areas—G8 summit and anti-globalization protests, Hindu activism in 1980s India, nineteenth-century English Chartists organizing on behalf of workers' rights, the revolutions of 1848, and civil wars in Angola, Chechnya, and Kosovo—Tilly masterfully shows that such episodes of contentious politics unfold like loosely scripted theater. Along the way, Tilly also brings forth powerful tools to sort out the reasons why certain political regimes vary and change, how the people living under them make claims on their government, and what connections can be drawn between regime change and the character of contentious politics.

 

Contents

1 What Are Regimes?
1
2 How Regimes Work
18
3 Repertoires of Contention
30
4 Repertoires Meet Regimes
60
5 Trajectories of Change
90
6 Collective Violence
118
7 Revolutions
151
8 Social Movements
179
9 Conclusions
209
References
217
Index
243
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Le développement durable
Fabrice Flipo
No preview available - 2007

About the author (2010)

Charles Tilly is the Joseph L. Buttenwieser Professor of Social Science at Columbia University. He is the author of several books, including, most recently, Contention and Democracy in Europe, 1650–2000 and Stories, Identities, and Political Change.

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