Repertoires of Contention and
Revolution
9 May 2008
Review: Models of Democratization
• Boix
– Transitions between two kinds of dictatorship and
democracy
– Economic structure/political agency
• Modernization theory
– Transitions between dictatorship and democracy
– Economic structure only
• Geddes
– Transitions between several kinds of dictatorship and
democracy
– Political structure/political agency
Causal explanations
• Slow causes (structure)
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Ideological change
Inequality, asset specificity (Boix)
Income increases (modernization theory)
Institutional structure
Ecological degradation, other
• Fast causes (opportunities for agency)
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Defeat in war
Splits in ruling class
Fiscal crisis
External intervention
The mechanics of regime change
• Mechanisms
– We want to figure out the how of regime
change, not just the why
• Processes (stories)
– Chains of events causally linked through
mechanisms
– We are especially interested in the process of
mobilization and its mechanics
Making political claims
Making political claims
Making political claims
• A lot of politics involves making collective claims
that impact others’ interests
• Claims can be about
– Identity (e.g., we are indigenous peoples, and
therefore entitled to a certain kind of recognition)
– Standing (e.g., we represent indigenous peoples, and
are hence entitled to a hearing on this or that issue)
– Program (e.g., we want better treatment for
indigenous peoples, an end to this or that practice)
Making political claims
• Claims are made through performances
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Strikes
Petitions
Cacerolazos
Demonstrations
Sit-ins
Seizure of land
Attacks on government buildings
Booth capture and ballot-stuffing
• Performances follow basic “scripts” that people
improvise on
Example: The Strike
Example: The Strike
• Depends on a certain context of worker-employer relations
• Emerged in the 18th century when sailors in London ““struck” the
top-gallant sails of merchant ships, crippling them” (Tilly and Tarrow;
Wikipedia)
• Innovations gradually made it into the typical performance we find
today:
– Workers stop working at the same time and gather in front of the
workplace with signs (the “picket line”)
– Speeches are made and chants are sung
– Local political leaders often make appearances
• There are many local variations: strikers “improvise” on a basic
script
– E.g., the “work to rule” strike or the “sickout”
• Makes a programmatic claim: we are workers, we are entitled to X
or Y which management should provide
Example: the Cacerolazo
• Possibly invented in the 1970s in Chile by
women opposed to the Allende government
(Wikipedia)
• Used extensively by the opposition to Chavez in
Venezuela
• Typically involves banging pots and pans at a
preset time for a specific period
• Requires a dense urban environment to work
• Makes a claim to “identity”: we are traditional
families, entitled to consideration (certain rights
or privileges)
Repertoires of contention
• In given times and places, people have only a
limited repertoire of related performances they
are likely to use to make political claims
– This repertoire may be fairly rigid (“ritual”) or it may
allow for lots of innovation (“weak repertoire”)
– The performances in the repertoire may be
• Quite tied to a particular context (booth capture in Pakistan)
• Or they may be “modular” – useful in many contexts and
cultures (the modern mass demonstration, with local
variation)
• The repertoire is like the toolkit that activists use
to make their claims
Example: The Repertoire of
Workplace Claims
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Complaining
Formal bargaining
Work slowdown
Striking
Breaking machinery
Lawsuits
Repertoires of contention
• Repertoires change in a manner reminiscent of biological
evolution
– Mutation: There are innovations in the means people use to
make claims
– Selection: some of these innovations prove adapted to a
particular environment, others are abandoned
– Reproduction and colonization of new contexts:
Performances may be adopted by agents in other contexts if
they promise to be useful, and they are used repeatedly until
they are no longer useful
– Competition: claims are met by counterclaims, and affected
actors often learn to respond to particular performances with
counter-performances of their own that may also change the
environment
• The “environment” is ultimately the political regime
Regimes and repertoires
• The political regime provides a changing landscape of
opportunity that makes some claim-making
performances more or less useful, and is in turn changed
by the success or lack of success of claims
– Specific performances may be forbidden (more or less
effectively), tolerated, or prescribed
– Sudden changes in state capacity, the repertoire of repression,
or divisions among the rulers often make it possible to deploy
previously suppressed claim-making performances so as to
change the regime
– Technological changes may also make possible new claimmaking or repressive performances
– Innovations in claim-making performances may sometimes get
around existing state capacity so as to change the regime
An example: performances and
counter-performances
• The strike becomes useful as a claimmaking performance for workers
• Employers learn about it and resort to
various actions to diminish its usefulness
• The struggle may shift levels (e.g., laws
may be passed, lawsuits filed)
• Eventually, the usefulness of the strike
may diminish so much, workers turn to
other tactics
An example: armed insurrection
• Armed insurrection is a composite claimmaking performance aimed at changing a
regime that is therefore universally forbidden
and vigorously suppressed
– Possible only in low-capacity states
• As a result, actors wishing to make similar
claims on high-capacity states tend to resort
to
– Non-violent means
– Asymmetrical warfare (terrorism, low-level
guerrilla warfare)
Regime change and revolution
The “coup” vs. the “revolution”
Coups vs. revolutions vs. civil wars
• Coups
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Agents make claims on power
Do not necessarily challenge the justification of political authority
Do not mobilize the population
Are relatively self-contained performances
• Revolutions
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Agents make claims on power
Always challenge the justification of political authority
Always mobilize large sectors of the population
Consist of a wide variety of performances linked together in processes
of mobilization
– Sometimes profoundly change the social structure (the great
revolutions)
• Civil wars
– Do not always challenge the justification of political authority
The evolution of the repertoire of
revolution
• Consider:
– The English Civil War
– The American Revolution
– The French Revolution
– The revolutions of 1848
– The great Russian Revolution
– The Revolutions of 1989
– The “Color” revolutions
Changes in the repertoire
• From violent to non-violent performances
– Changing regime contexts:
• Increased capacity
• Hybrid regimes
– Successful innovators: Gandhi, Otpor, etc.
– Useful “modular” performances: the
demonstration, etc.
– Changing international context and
technologies