Challenging Authority: How Ordinary People Change AmericaWhat do the American Revolution, the abolitionist movement, the labor movement, and the Vietnam antiwar movement have in common? These are examples of the profound moments in American history when ordinary Americans collectively and persuasively told the government enough. Challenging 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 in fact precisely at those seismic moments when people act outside of self-restricting political norms that they become empowered to their full democratic potential. |
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Contents
Introduction | 1 |
The Nature of Disruptive Power | 19 |
The Mob and the State Disruptive Power and the Construction of American Electoral Representative Arrangements | 37 |
Dissensus Politics or the Interaction of Disruptive Challenges with Electoral Politics The Case of the Abolitionist Movement | 55 |
Movements and Reform in the American Twentieth Century | 81 |
The TimesInBetween | 109 |
Other editions - View all
Challenging Authority: How Ordinary People Change America Frances Fax Piven No preview available - 2008 |
Challenging Authority: How Ordinary People Change America, Volume 2 Frances Fox Piven No preview available - 2008 |
Common terms and phrases
Abolitionism abolitionists action African Americans American History American Political Development American Revolution antislavery authority 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 major mass ment Metzgar mobilization national government northern numbers organized Party System Paul Pierson percent Piven and Richard Plotke Polakoff Political Parties popular populist Princeton programs protest movements reform Republican response revolutionary Richard Cloward riots role rules S. N. Eisenstadt Skocpol slave slavery Social Movements Social Policy Social Security Society South southern strategies strikes Sundquist Theda Skocpol threat tion unions United University Press vote voters wages wealth Weir welfare workers York
Popular passages
Page 185 - And we define: the democratic method is that institutional arrangement for arriving at political decisions in which individuals acquire the power to decide by means of a competitive struggle for the people's vote.
Page 187 - A little patience, and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their spells dissolved, and the people recovering their true sight, restoring their Government to its true principles.
References to this book
The Leftmost City: Power and Progressive Politics in Santa Cruz Richard Gendron,G. William Domhoff No preview available - 2008 |
Bibliographic information
| Title | Challenging Authority: How Ordinary People Change America Polemics (Rowman and Littlefield, Inc.) Polemics Series |
| Author | Frances Fox Piven |
| Publisher | Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2006 |
| ISBN | 0742515354, 9780742515352 |
| Length | 195 pages |
| Subjects | › › History / General Political Science / Political Ideologies / Democracy |
| Export Citation | BiBTeX EndNote RefMan |