Resistance and Rebellion
Lessons from Eastern Europe

This book explains how ordinary people become involved in resistance and rebellion against powerful regimes.

Roger D. Petersen (Author)

9780521035156, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 14 December 2006

340 pages, 29 b/w illus. 3 tables
21.6 x 13.9 x 2.1 cm, 0.442 kg

'… a good building block in development of a general approach to an important subject and contains a comprehensive bibliography.' Choice

Resistance and Rebellion: Lessons from Eastern Europe explains how ordinary people become involved in resistance and rebellion against powerful regimes. The book shows how a sequence of casual forces - social norms, focal points, rational calculation - operate to drive individuals into roles of passive resistance and, at a second stage, into participation in community-based rebellion organization. By linking the operation of these mechanisms to observable social structures, the work generates predictions about which types of community and society are most likely to form and sustain resistance and rebellion. The empirical material centres around Lithuanian anti-Soviet resistance in both the 1940s and the 1987–91 period. Using the Lithuanian experience as a baseline, comparisons with several other Eastern European countries demonstrate the breadth and depth of the theory. The book contributes to both the general literature on political violence and protest, as well as the theoretical literature on collective action.

List of figures and tables
Preface
1. Introduction
2. Mechanisms and process
3. Lithuania, 1940–1
4. Rebellion in an urban community: the role of leadership and centralization
5. The German occupation of Lithuania
6. Post-war Lithuania
7. More cases, more comparisons
8. Resistance in the Perestroika period
9. Fanatics and first actors
10. Conclusions
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Political economy [KCP], Regional studies [GTB]