Contentious Politics and Social Movements

Tarrow and Tilly 2007, The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Politics

1. What is the central problem or question?
2. What is the authors central argument or thesis?
3. How does the author construct his or her argument?
4. What methodology and sources does the author use?
5. How does this work relate to other works in the field? With whom does the author
argue? Agree?
Philippines, after heavy popular mobilizations, and under an impeachment process (which seems
to be very political) the president Joseph Estrada resigned.
The crisis began within the institution
Contentious Politics
Not all politics are contentious, most are not
Episodic, occurs in public, involves interactions between makers of claims and others, is
recognized by those others as bearing on their interests, and brings in government as mediator,
target, or claimant.
Contntious politics social movements
Contentious -> collective making od claims that conflicts with someone elses interests
Politics -> governments are involved in the claim (claimant, objects of the claim, allies of the
objects, or monitors)
Definition:
episodic, public, collective interaction among makers of claims and their objects when (a) at least
one government is a claimant, an object of claims, or a party to the claims and (b) the claims
would, if realized, affect the interests of at least one of the claimants.
Collective political struggle
The institutional boundaries are important here

Performances and Repertoires of Contention

Contentious performances:
relatively familiar and standardized ways in which one set of political actors makes collective
claims on some other set of political actors (Presentation of a petition, taking of a hostage, or
mounting of a demonstration for example)
Demonstration is the most common performance
Repertoires:
Claim-making routines that apply to the same claimant-object pairs

Social Movements

Definition:
a sustained challenge to power holders in the name of a population living under the jurisdiction
of those power holders by means of public displays of that population's worthiness, unity,
numbers, and commitment 4
Public selfrepresentation:
Movement participants make concerted public representations of worthiness, unity, numbers, and
commitment on the part of themselves and/or their constituencies
Inner core: Activists -> outer core: sympathizers

Dynamics of Contention

From the 60s through the 80s movements were seen as outcomes of structural constants and
variations vulgar structural approach
At the em of the 90s the concept of framing was added to the explanation

Mechanisms and Processes

Social mechanisms:
delimited events that change relations among specified sets of elements in identical or closely
similar ways over a variety of situations.
Environmental mechanisms:
externally generated shifts between the structure or process of concern and surrounding
structures and processes, for example, resource depletion
relational mechanisms:
mechanisms that alter connections among people, groups, and interpersonal networks
Those three mechanisms combing in the dynamic of contention
Mechanisms usually act together forming processes.

Processes are regular sequences of such mechanisms that produce similar (generally more
complex and contingent) transformations of those elements.
There are many types of processes, among them are: mobilization, political identity formation,
coalition formation, polarization

Contention, movements, and democracy

Contention increases with democracy, democracy channel contention

Social movements thrive with democracy
The same process the increases democracy promotes social movements, but democratization
itself promotes social movements

North and South in Contentious Politics

The Invention of the Social Movement Chapter 5

Charles Tilly, 2008
6. What is the central problem or question?
How did social movements start?
7. What is the authors central argument or thesis?
Social movements only came about in the 18th century in England with the abolitionist movement
and in the 19th century in the US and the rest of the world.
Social movements are a specifics type of contentious politics that is only possible in a
democratic environment
8. How does the author construct his or her argument?
Tilly develops historically through the American revolution and the other revolutions that came
after that to explain how social movements came about. The central point is that social
movements are only possible in democratic environments and are not violent. The first social
movement was the abolitionist movement in 18th century England.
9. What methodology and sources does the author use?
Historic accounts I think thats a historic institutionalism
10. How does this work relate to other works in the field? With whom does the author
argue? Agree?

What Are Social Movements

Social movement bases social movement itself

Every social movement depends on a base of potential participants in collective claims
Specialized based organizations are called social movements organizations (SMO)
In order to have a social movement you need a coalition of several bases
3 elements of social movements:
- Campaigns
- Repertoires
- WUNCs displays (public enactments of worthiness, unity, numbers and commitment)
Campaign:
Repeated and coordinated collective claims concerning the same issues and targets
Identity, standing, program
Repertoires:
Performances that participants in a campaign repeatedly use to make collective claims
WUNC displays:
Public displays of Worthiness, Unity, Numbers, and Commitment
18th century direct action repertoire vs. social movements
The difference is in the non-violent character of social movements
The difference between the 18th century movements and social movements is the
combination of campaign, repertoire and displays into an affective package before that
campaigns and displays existed separately
How to find social movements in a regime?
- Resemblance
- Combination of the 3 elements
- Availability
- Spread
According to those definitions, British anti-slavery movements were the first social movement

Revolutions and Social Movements

Although there is an overlapping between revolutionary situations and social movements,

revolutions are not social movements
Whats a revolution:
Revolutionary environment + revolutionary outcome

When social movements became politically available

Processes that promoted the development of social movements:

Commercialization
Communications
Parlamentarization
Because social movements require freedom of association, social movements are a phenomena
of democracies