Dynamics of Contention

In recent decades the study of social movements, revolution and democratization has flourished. This book was first published in 2001.

Doug McAdam (Author), Sidney Tarrow (Author), Charles Tilly (Author)

9780521805889, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 10 September 2001

410 pages, 12 b/w illus. 3 tables
22.9 x 15.2 x 2.7 cm, 0.77 kg

'Dynamics of Contention - written by three of the leading scholars of social movements and 'contentious politics' - is undoubtedly the most ambitious, and arguably the most important, book on social movements (and related phenomena) written in the past two decades.' Sociology

In recent decades the study of social movements, revolution, democratization and other non-routine politics has flourished. And yet research on the topic remains highly fragmented, reflecting the influence of at least three traditional divisions. The first of these reflects the view that various forms of contention are distinct and should be studied independent of others. Separate literatures have developed around the study of social movements, revolutions and industrial conflict. A second approach to the study of political contention denies the possibility of general theory in deference to a grounding in the temporal and spatial particulars of any given episode of contention. The study of contentious politics are left to 'area specialists' and/or historians with a thorough knowledge of the time and place in question. Finally, overlaid on these two divisions are stylized theoretical traditions - structuralist, culturalist, and rationalist - that have developed largely in isolation from one another. This book was first published in 2001.

Part I. What's the Problem?: 1. What are they shouting about
2. Lineaments of contention
3. Comparisons, mechanisms, and episodes
Part II. Tentative Solutions: 4. Mobilizations in comparative perspective
5. Contentious action
6. Transformations of contention
Part III. Applications and Conclusions: 7. Revolutionary trajectories
8. Nationalism, national disintegration, and contention
9. Contentious democratization
10. Conclusions.

Subject Areas: Politics & government [JP], Sociology & anthropology [JH]