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Home , Ann Mische, Charles Tilly, Viviana Zelizer

Ó American Sociological Association 2018 DOI: 10.1177/0094306118792214 http://cs.sagepub.com FEATURED ESSAYS

The Contributions of to the Social Sciences 1 Cornell University [email protected]

Evaluating Charles Tilly’s contributions to the social sciences is not an easy task: ‘‘Chuck Collective Violence, Contentious , Tilly was a master of sociological thinking and : A Charles Tilly Reader, and methodology,’’ wrote two of his former edited by Ernesto Castan˜ eda and students when he passed away ten years Cathy Lisa Schneider. New York: ago; ‘‘But he was sufficiently concerned Routledge, 2017. 395 pp. $44.95 paper. about getting to the heart and dynamics of ISBN: 9781612056715. questions and topics that he never permitted the blinkers of disciplinary orthodoxy to Contested Mediterranean Spaces: Ethno- stand in his way’’2 (Michelson and Wellman graphic Essays in Honour of Charles Tilly, 2008). This breadth helps to explain Tilly’s edited by Maria Kousis, Tom Selwyn, greatness as a social scientist, although it and David Clark. New York: Berghahn makes synthesizing his contributions in his Books, 2011. 315 pp. $120.00 cloth. home discipline of somewhat ISBN: 9780857451323. challenging—especially for a political scien- tist whose home discipline thinks of him Regarding Tilly: Conflict, Power, and Collective Action, edited by Marı´aJ. Funes. Lanham, MD: University Press 1 Full disclosure: Before Tilly left us, the author of America, 2016. 302 pp. $29.00 paper. coauthored two books and five articles with ISBN: 9780761867845. him and served as copy editor for his last book, Contentious Performances, when he was too ill to carry out the task. I am grateful to Eitan Ali- more as student of war and state-building mi, Marı´a Jesu´ s Funes, , Joseph than as a general social theorist.3 But on LaPalombara, Doug McAdam, David S. the tenth anniversary of his death, it seems Meyer, , Susan Tarrow, Barry Well- like a good time to try. man, and for offering the sug- gestions that have helped me to undertake this review. Barry and Beverly Wellman generous- ly shared unpublished material that I have 3 An entire library of empirical essays and criti- quoted below. I have also drawn on three of cal reviews of Tilly’s work on the relations my own previous writings on Tilly’s contribu- between war and state-building followed his tions: Tarrow 1995, 1998, and 2008. publication of ‘‘War Making and State Making 2 Among the vast number of obituaries that fol- as Organized Crime’’ (1985) and Coercion, Cap- lowed Tilly’s death, perhaps the most telling ital, and European States (1990). After the publi- were those collected by the Social Science cation of his Coercion, Capital, and European Research Council (SSRC). See https:// States, an entire literature developed ‘‘correct- www.ssrc.org/fellowships/view/the-albert-o ing Tilly.’’ The most explicit ‘‘corrections’’ -hirschman-prize/charles-tilly-2008-prize-reci come from students of international relations. pient and the collections of articles published See, for example, Taylor and Botea (2008). It in The American Sociologist 41:423–428 (2010). is ironic that, of all the work that Tilly did on An essential source in scanning Tilly’s scholar- political processes, his puckish essay ‘‘War ly output is the online bibliography put Making and State Making as Organized together by the SSRC after his death. For the Crime’’ is his most-cited work in political sci- bibliography, go to http://essays.ssrc.org/til ence and probably the only one read by most ly/resources. international relations scholars.

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I will begin with Tilly’s fabled indifference on Tilly’s work from throughout his career to ‘‘disciplinary orthodoxy,’’ then turn to the but center on the broad field of contentious issue of whether there were one or many politics, leaving his contributions to the Tillys, stopping to point to a few lacunae in study of war and state-building somewhat his work, before examining some of the key in the background and, except for the Funes shifts in his approach to social reality. I will reader, giving little space to his ontological argue that—beginning in the 1970s—Tilly’s and epistemological writings. Scanning work evolved incrementally, but there was these books—as well as previous collec- a fundamental shift in his ontology in the tionsinspiredbyTilly’swork5—the ques- 1990s that dispensed with the remnants of tion that immediately arises is: ‘‘Was there his original structuralism and led to an out- an Essential Tilly behind his enormous pouring of ‘‘relational’’ work over the last scholarly production and constant change decade of his life. In the course of this discus- of genres?’’ Castan˜eda and Schneider’s sion I will draw selectively on the contribu- categorical approach suggests multiplicity; tions of these three books: Kousis and her colleagues’ ethnographic approach implicitly suggests it, too—if only because of what they leave out; only the  Ernesto Castan˜eda and Cathy Lisa introduction to the Funes reader makes Schneider’s Collective Violence, Conten- a claim for unity (p. 3). After examining the tious Politics, and Social Change, which connections and the hinges between the var- makes careful selections from the vast ious phases of Tilly’s work, I will hazard body of Tilly’s work, moving deter- a guess about whether there was one Tilly minedly from subfield to subfield, or many. from The Vende´e to his work on states, war, and democracy, to inequality, political violence, and urban studies, A Leaper over Barriers ending with some of the down-to-earth philosophical reflections he penned Tilly once described his attitude to disciplin- toward the end of his life; ary boundaries with his tongue deeply  Maria Kousis, Tom Selwyn, and embedded in his cheek, characterizing David Clark’s Contested Mediterranean historians as residents of a zoo. Watching Spaces, which takes a more specialized them at work, he joked, has approach to Tilly’s work, seeing him as an analyst of regional and urban interac- something in common with strolling tions and of the ‘‘clusters of interconti- from the polar bears to the emus to nental contacts and networks’’ that they the armadillos. Each species of histori- generate (pp. 1–2). an is confined to an artificially restrict-  Marı´a J. Funes’s Regarding Tilly, which ed habitat, fenced off from its natural is a collection of reflections on Tilly’s predators and prey. In the historical work by twenty scholars from different zoo, however, the inmates often leap parts of the world, which may be—as the barriers to run through the specta- the editors claim—’’possibly the most tors, to invade other cages, and even synthetic, diverse and ambitious hom- occasionally to change themselves age to Tilly published to date’’ (p. 15).4

5 A first effort, Michael Hanagan, Leslie Page All three volumes begin with substantial Moch, and Wayne te Brake’s edited book, Chal- introductions by the editors, and all draw lenging Authority, appeared in 1998, before the final phase of Tilly’s work was yet visible. A second was an unpublished conference, ‘‘The 4 More full disclosure: As an author, with Doug Tillyfest: An International Conference in Hon- McAdam, of one of the chapters in that book, I our of Charles Tilly,’’ organized by Barry Well- of course cannot comment on this claim; but, man and Beverly Wellman in October 1995. A as I argue below, Funes’s is the most provoca- third was a special issue of Social Science Histo- tive effort to comprehend Tilly’s contributions ry, ‘‘In Honor of Charles Tilly,’’ published in that I know of. 2010.

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from one sort of beast into another.’’ his last and very different book, Contentious (Hawtree 2008) Performances (2008), as his best. Will the real Chuck Tilly please step forward? Tilly certainly leapt over barriers between What kind of a social scientist was Tilly? disciplines, but he sometimes kicked them Sociologists such as his students John over as he did so. Look at his fabled intro- Krinsky and Ann Mische see him as a formal- duction to An Urban World (1975); except ist, pointing to his use of an evolving series for his intense interest in migration in that of formalisms.8 Anthropologists such as book, you might think him a sworn enemy those who contributed to the Kousis reader of sociology. Similarly, while much of his emphasize the local elements in his work. work on the state was friendly to political Political scientists remember him best— science, one of his early books, The Formation and criticize him most energetically—for of National States in Western Europe (1975), his historical work on war and state-build- took aim at the giants of that field at the ing. As for his reflections on social science, time.6 As for economics, his Durable Inequality they cut through all these subject areas, (1998) was a dramatic indictment of individ- ranging from down-to-earth discussions ualistic interpretations of persistent inequal- of how events should be coded9 to classify- ity. And together with this author and Doug ing the errors of ‘‘big structure’’ analysis McAdam (2001), he attacked what he saw as (1984) to the heights of ontology and the static structuralism of the social move- epistemology. ment field at the turn of the century. Tilly’s ecumenism meant that his achieve- The methodological breadth in Tilly’s ments were differentially received in the work lends strength to the ‘‘many Tillys’’ main disciplines to which he contributed. hypothesis. Over the length of his career, In the three books under review here we we find quantitative and qualitative, long- get very different mixes of these interests. term and short-term analyses of popular In Castan˜eda and Schneider’s reader, his and institutional contention, interactive contributions to ‘‘contentious politics’’ take work on states, capital, and contention, sur- pride of place;10 in Kousis, Selwyn, and vey work with immigrants, institutional Clark’s Contested Mediterranean Spaces, con- analyses of regimes, and, finally, linguistic tention is lodged in a number of other topics; analysis of protest repertoires.7 His work Funes’s Regarding Tilly, the most catholic of constantly shifted from the very macro to the books under review, devotes 79 pages determinedly micro levels of social reality, to his contributions to the social sciences, often trying to embed the latter within the 56 to and national states, 72 to former. This was a source of Tilly’s broad influence, but it also makes his work difficult 8 See Krinsky and Mische’s ‘‘Formations and to get a bead on. Consider that one of Tilly’s Formalisms: Charles Tilly and the Paradox of warmest admirers—William Sewell, Jr.— the Actor’’ (2013). Also see Mische’s ‘‘Relation- thought his first book, The Vende´e, was ‘‘the al Sociology, Culture and Agency’’ (2011), model’’ of how to do social (Sewell which places Tilly in what she calls the 2010), while another—this author—regarded ‘‘New York School’’ of relational sociologists. In a personal communication, Mische argues that Tilly was not a formalist, but ‘‘needed to 6 I refer to the Committee on Comparative Poli- use formalisms because his data and historical tics, led by Gabriel Almond, which, under the materials were so rich.’’ My thanks to Profes- aegis of the SSRC, published a series of books sor Mische for this enlightening reflection. on what was then the popular theme of ‘‘polit- 9 Tilly could even get theoretical leverage out of ical development.’’ With casual chutzpah, Tilly discussing how to code events: see his ‘‘Event published his noted Formation book within Catalogs as Theories,’’ the fifth chapter in Ex- that series. plaining Social Processes (2008). 7 Tilly’s breadth was even reflected in his taste 10 Over half of the Castan˜eda and Schneider se- in music. Not only did that range from jazz lections fit within this rubric. The other half is to Gregorian chants, but his favorite composer, divided roughly among state-making (34 as Viviana Zelizer recalls, was Mozart, because pages), inequality (40 pages), migration, race, he too contributed to many different fields and and ethnicity (64 pages), and ‘‘narratives and wrote in varying genres (2010:423). explanations’’ (28 pages).

Contemporary Sociology 47, 5 516 Featured Essays collective action and contemporary conten- again in Coercion, Capital, and European States tious politics, and 62 to the analysis of polit- (1990, Chapter 2), where cities are the key site ical violence.11 for the creation of modern democratic capital- Underlying Tilly’s contributions to the ism. A second reached out from his work on social sciences was his ability to bring differ- contentiouspoliticstohisbooksondemocra- ent methodological approaches, insights cy.13 Casten˜eda and Schneider’s subject-based from different disciplines, varying styles of approach also elides Tilly’s evolution from work, and an immense store of historical a largely structuralist ontology in the early knowledge to his work. That catholicity work to the interactional approach that he grew as his work shifted from the largely came to call ‘‘relational realism’’ during the archival approach of his first book, The Vende´e last decade of his life (more on this below).14 (1964), to the mixed methods employed Nor does the overwhelmingly ethno- in his work on contentious politics in the graphic approach of Kousis and her collabo- 1980s and 1990s, to the mechanism-laden rators fully capture the evolution of Tilly’s approach in Dynamics of Contention, to the oeuvre.15 In their introduction, the editors linguistic analysis in Contentious Perform- work hard to link their book to Tilly’s inter- ances toward the end of his life. est in the connections among politics, capi- When we turn the pages of Castan˜eda and tal, and identity (p. 1). But not much of this Schneider’s book, we can see why they comes through in the substantive contribu- chose a categorical approach to Tilly’s tions, which are rich and flavorful but have work: there is just so much material to select little to say about these connections. Of the from! But in doing so, they elide the question three books, only the Funes reader attempts of whether there was one or many Tillys. The to identify an essence in Tilly’s work, which Kousis reader draws mainly on contribu- she finds in two continuities: his recurring tions by anthropologists, so it is not surpris- interest in political violence and ‘‘the central- ing that much of the work in that book ity of the epistemological-theoretical dimen- comes from the local level.12 The Funes read- sion in his work’’ (pp. 13–14). Let us turn to er is the only one of the three that gives con- the ‘‘one or many Tillys’’ question now. certed attention to Tilly’s thinking about the social sciences. Is organizing Tilly’s work around his Will the Real Charles Tilly Please Step contributions to various subfields, as Forward? Schneider and Casten˜eda do, the best way One commonality in Tilly’s oeuvre was how to understand Tilly’s work? I’m not sure. he worked his way through material, for For one thing, it makes it hard to see how example, his famous knack for introducing often he transported insights from one genre even his most technical work with pithy his- of his work to another. A first example is 16 torical or literary anecdotes. Then there urbanization, which was a key process as was his unwillingness to reach closure on early as The Vende´e, again in his book An any of the subjects he worked on. Typical Urban World (1974, Chapter 2), and then was the preface to An Urban World, where he admitted that ‘‘A kind of impatience has 11 The volume closes with an excellent compila- tion and review of Tilly’s bibliography by year, compiled by Alberto Martı´nPe´rez. 14 The hinge in this transformation was Big 12 Surprisingly, there is little attention in the Structures, in which he still reads as a structur- Kousis et al. reader to Tilly’s favorite local alist but levels careful criticisms at subject—migration—which, for obvious rea- ultra-structuralists like sons, is a prime target for anthropologists (1984). today. 15 A symptom of this elision is that only three of 13 As Funes writes in her introduction, ‘‘the the contributors to the book actually reference analysis of contentious popular action Tilly’s work. throughout history and the formation and 16 How many sociologists do you know who development of democratic institutions fol- would introduce a textbook on the sociology low parallel paths that converge [in Tilly’s of the city with a quote from a play by Claudel work] in a common place’’ (p. 4). (An Urban World, pp. 1–2)?

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. . . driven me to construct a textbook-reader historiography he had employed in The when the time is not ripe’’ (p. ix).17 Also typ- Vende´e. How did he get there? ical was his indifference to the existing liter- ature when he entered a new field, as was Variations on a Methodological Theme true of his two books on , where—except for the work of Robert Tilly once reflected on a central theme in how Dahl—he could not be bothered to cite the he gathered data. ‘‘Over forty years or so,’’ he enormous canon on the topic.18 mused in 1995 at a conference in his honor, None of these conceits was central to Tilly’s contributions, but together they my professional work has consisted reveal a core feature of how he worked: he largely of collecting, coding, criticizing, regarded none of his books or articles as fin- recasting, analyzing, and explaining ished products, often returning to the same standard stories in the form of adminis- problem from a different angle and some- trative correspondence, newspaper times rejecting a conceptual distinction that reports, life-history interviews, histor- others continued to use.19 This was one rea- ians’ published accounts, and similar 21 son why he could write so fast—almost as materials [emphasis added]. fast as he read! But it also meant that he could return to an old subject years later What does Tilly mean by ‘‘standard with an approach he had learned in the stories’’? In the same speech, which would interim, as he did thirteen years after pub- appear four years later as a book chapter lishing Contentious Politics in Great Britain (1999b), he tells us: They are ‘‘sequential, when he carried out a linguistic analysis of explanatory accounts of self-motivated human the same dataset in Contentious Performances. action—which are common in historical analy- In the latter work, Tilly drew on the linguis- sis.’’ These he contasted to ‘‘superior stories,’’ tic coding methods pioneered by Roberto which he eventually translated into the search Franzosi, linking semantic grammars to net- for robust mechanisms and processes under work methods to get at the links among cul- the surface of the standard stories. ture, relations, and the political process.20 At first blush, this sounds like the method This was a long way from the archival Tilly employed as he gobbled up scads of data in the archives in France, first for The Vende´e, and then for The Contentious French (1986). But the later work introduced the event-based 17 This author can testify to Tilly’s impatience: methods that would influence generations of Dynamics of Contention, coauthored with Doug students of collective action—the systematic McAdam and myself, went to press much collection, enumeration, and analysis of con- sooner than it should have because Tilly had three other projects he was impatient to begin tentious events. These were never simple and was unwilling to wait while we put the event counts: in The Contentious French and book through the final tweaking it needed. in Popular Contention in Great Britain, Tilly 18 When Doug McAdam and I began working strove to place the ‘‘stories’’ of ‘‘contentious with Tilly on Dynamics of Contention,he gatherings’’ in their historical and institu- advised us not to begin our draft chapters tional contexts (Tarrow 1995). From The with reviews of the literature, using the argu- Vende´e onward, he was systematically ment that if we cited any of the works in the field we would have to cite all of them, lest embedding the events he studied in history, we insult some of the major figures in that rich a procedure that many of his followers and contentious field. neglected and one that enabled him to relate 19 An important example was his early distinc- events to institutional processes, to rulers’ tion among ‘‘proactive,’’ ‘‘reactive,’’ and strategies, to opposing actors, and even to ‘‘competitive’’ forms of contention, which he later discarded in favor of a new typology. 20 I am grateful to Ann Mische for helping me to understand Tilly’s ‘‘linguistic turn’’ in this 21 ‘‘Fluency through Fables,’’ Tilly’s address to way. For Franzosi’s contributions, which were the Tillyfest (1995). I am grateful to Barry also heavily in debt to Tilly’s work, see his Wellman and Beverly Wellman for unearthing From Words to Numbers (2005). a copy of this speech for my use in this article.

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‘‘Big Structures’’ like states and capitalism Contention in Great Britain. There, he refined (Tilly 1984). the concept into a set of cultural creations But in the course of his evolution, Tilly that both reflect structural developments and showed an increasing inclination to break take on a life of their own. The latter occurred, structures down into mechanisms and pro- for Tilly, as actors test the boundaries of the cesses. Thus, while The Contentious French possible, elites respond to these innova- took entire globs of French history as the tions, new performances are refined and contexts of analysis, Popular Contention in diffused, and new structures—like the social Great Britain placed the events he unearthed movement—evolve out of these interactions. within shorter cycles of contention. These ‘‘Political mobilization,’’ as Ramo´nMa´iz puts were not cycles in the traditional sense of, it in the Funes reader, ‘‘is considered [by Tilly] for example, political scientists’ electoral to be a phenomenon with its own autonomy cycles, but were defined by the institutional and not merely a descriptive reflection of the changes around which they clustered—for changes in the organization of the production example, the cycle of contention around the and structure of the state’’ (p. 50). first British reform act (Tarrow 1998). The importance of the repertoire, for Tilly, This conjuncture between the micro and the was to mediate between his macro-historical macro finds rich reflection in the Funes reader, persuasion and his micro-political investiga- especially in the contributions of Eduardo tions. At the macro level, he strove to show Gonza´lez Calleja and of Salvador Aguilar how the repertoire evolved from a set of and Funes (Introduction and Chapter 3). It practices that were locally based, particular was what set Tilly’s event catalogues apart to specific sites, and often sponsored by from both the ‘‘event history’’ approach of elites to a set of practices that were supra- a Susan Olzak (1989) and from the ‘‘Great local, modular, and based on specialized Events’’ of a Bill Sewell (1996). The linkage organization (1995a:45–52). At the micro lev- between micro-events excavated from primary el, he became interested in how contention sources and meso and macro processes was, was conceived at various times, which led from the beginning and to the end of his career, him to investigate the culture and language a hallmark of Tilly’s approach. Nowhere was of contention.22 this more evident than in his discovery and Culture, for Tilly, was not a brooding use of the ‘‘repertoire of contention.’’ omnipresence in the sky but was embedded in the relations between actors.23 New ways Regimes and Repertoires of acting are almost always accretions to known forms of action, rather than new inven- A major innovation in linking micro to mac- tions. This left Tilly with the knotty problem of ro was the elaboration of the concept of the how to explain the major shifts in repertoires repertoire of contention. On the surface there that occurred throughout history—for exam- was nothing new in this locution: Historians ple, the invention of the strike or airline had been studying rick burnings, charivaris, forced illuminations, food riots, strike waves, rebellions, and revolutions for 22 Because Tilly developed the concept of the decades. What was new was to deliberately repertoire within the broad framework of con- introduce cultural content into their study, tentious politics, some students of social with Tilly’s growing emphasis on the movements missed its profoundly cultural how—rather than the why—of episodes of content: for Tilly, the repertoire is not simply contention. The data he collected were how people engage in collective action but know how to do micro-centered, but they were embedded what they , and what they know is culturally encoded. The failure to grasp and in the evolution of forms of contention and operationalize the concept of the repertoire in their connections to different stages of capi- Tilly’s work is one of the puzzling lacunae in talism and forms of regime (2006). the literature. The concept of the repertoire was first 23 For an early recognition of the role of culture enunciated in Tilly’s From Mobilization to in Tilly’s work, see Ewa Morawska and Will- , published in 1978, but it was elab- fried Spohn, in their ‘‘‘Cultural Pluralism’ in orated systematically in the 1990s, in Popular : Recent Theoretical Di- rections’’ (1994).

Contemporary Sociology 47, 5 Featured Essays 519 hijacking. It also required him to collect In this work, Tilly deduced three variants data for long stretches of history, which of state-building: a coercion-based route few specialists had the resources or the where cities were rare and resources were energy to do. Only with the elaboration of extracted from the countryside; a capital- automatic computerized data collection— based route, where cities were important which came too late for Tilly to employ sources of revenue and capitalists came to it—can social scientists hope to elaborate dominate the state; and a capital-coercion and test his intuitions about the slow and route, which produced the most successful varied evolution of the repertoire. states in the international system (1990, Chapter 5). States developed internally, but they developed as a result of interstate com- From Structures to Relations petition and survival of the fittest in which What had changed in Tilly’s work? In the ‘‘the fittest’’ were those that could combine 1970s, there was a first shift from ‘‘mono- the coercive-rich and capital-rich paths. causal structuralism’’ to what what Ramo´n Ma´iz calls ‘‘interactive structuralism’’ (2016:43). In The Vende´e, urbanization had Relational Realism played the propulsive role; but by the In their book, Castan˜eda and Schneider 1970s and 1980s, Tilly was inferring point out that Tilly moved from a structural- a broader and more interactive set of ist to a culturalist understanding later in his changes in which economic transformations life (p. 10). However, the fundamental shift intersect with political organization and in Tilly’s ontology was not from structure international factors. This led him first to to culture—or even toward a blend of the question the ‘‘big structures’’ in much of the two—but in a full ripening of his interest in theoretical work on development (1984) and ‘‘the social fabric, or how human relations then to his work on war and state-building, are negotiated’’ (Funes 2016:83–91). first in ‘‘War Making and State Making as We see hints of this ontological shift as ear- Organized Crime’’ (1985) and then in Coer- ly as 1995. In the same Toronto speech in cion, Capital, and European States (1990). which he confessed to having been a teller ‘‘War Making and State Making as Orga- of ‘‘standard stories’’ for most of his career, nized Crime’’ was only an hors d’oeuvre writ- Tilly worried that ten to provoke those who saw the history of state-building in legal-rational terms. It was Few social processes actually have in Coercion, Capital, and European States that causal structures that conform to the Tilly went beyond provocation to deduce logical requirements of standard a variety of historical mechanisms that stories . . . . Analysts of social processes grew out of war: extraction of a surplus and who wish to explain them must there- construction of an administrative apparatus to fore translate material that comes to collect it; production of war-making materiel them largely in the form of standard by the state; protection of the population stories created in the course of social that supplied the surplus and managed the interaction . . . into other idioms that economy; adjudication of disputes; and distri- better represent their actual causal bution of ’s product, eventually lead- structure. (1995b:3) ing to the welfare state (1990:97). Although there had been inklings of these processes This realization held profound implica- in his past work, Coercion, Capital, and Euro- tions for the final decade of Tilly’s work. pean States was the true beginning of Tilly’s As he said in 1995: adhesion to an ontology of studying histori- cal mechanisms and processes, which occu- Teachers and writers of non-story soci- pied the last decade of his life. It also led ology therefore have a choice between him to reach outside nation-state develop- working within the stringent limits set ment to the international system in which by standard stories and instructing states and capitalism evolved in competition their audiences in the analysis of causal with each other. mechanisms and sequences that do not

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correspond to standard stories. mental accounting systems, of which (1995b:3) short-term quid pro quo exchanges con- stitute only one special type. People Where did this lead him? As Castan˜eda complement mental accounting systems and Schneider write; ‘‘Tilly advocated for with earmarking practices; they establish a that emphasizes social subdivisions within ostensibly homoge- relations as the crux of social life’’ (p. 6). neous money and other media by signal- ‘‘Relational realism’’ was built on mecha- ing commitment of media segments to nisms, which he defined as a delimited class distinct relations and transactions.24 of events that change relations among speci- (Zelizer and Tilly 2006) fied sets of elements in identical or closely similar ways over a variety of situations Readers who have followed Tilly’s career (2000). Mechanisms, for Tilly, can be envi- will recognize that—given such a broad ronmental, dispositional, or relational. They agenda—there had to be paths of investiga- congeal into processes, and processes are tion that he gestured toward but that were what lie behind the episodes that are the not quite taken. For the other side of the raw material of his historical sociology (p. coin of Tilly’s restless imagination was that 26). This distinction was found as early as he often left insights unexplored as he got his 1998 book, Durable Inequality, but ripened excited about some new problem or moved decisively in his Annual Review of Political away from blind spots when they proved Science article on mechanisms (2001), in recalcitrant to investigation. Three of these Dynamics of Contention (McAdam et al. lacunae are especially interesting. 2001), Politics of Collective Violence (2003), Regimes and Repertoires (2006), in his two Power and Other Problems books on democracy (2004 and 2007), and in Contentious Performances (2008). As Ma´iz An important area of investigation that summarizes this change in his chapter in remains mysteriously latent in Tilly’s work the Funes book, Tilly’s thinking came to be was the systematic and explicit study of increasingly based on ‘‘transactions, interac- power. This may surprise readers who—as tions, social bonds and exchanges, which are does this author—find power relations the common denominators of social life to be everywhere in his work: the power of rulers explained’’ (p. 56). to extract from citizens to fight their We find growing evidence of this ‘‘rela- wars; the power to penetrate the periphery tional realism’’ in his methodological writ- in order to control those citizens; the power ings, both those collected in Explaining Social to repress them when they refuse to pay Processes (2008) and in Identities, Boundaries, these taxes or to be conscripted into the and Social Ties (2005). We also find it in his lord’s army; and the power to constrain con- growing interest in boundaries and identi- tention by distinguishing behaviors that are ties. For if interactions are the stuff of forbidden from those that are permitted social life, so are the boundaries that people and those that are required. construct around them. In an important Moreover, in Tilly’s work on contention essay drawing on both of their work, we find power in movement, too: the power Tilly and Viviana Zelizer summed up the in numbers, in the forms of assembling for centrality of relations and transactions in rights, in the adoption of new and innova- social life: tive performances, in forging coalitions across different boundaries, and—most Social interaction generates, informs, important—the power to shape or reshape and then responds to a significant the forms of regimes. All of these are set of connected categories. Those cate- impregnated with or are affected by power. gories depend on interaction among If power is everywhere in Tilly’s work, three elements: (1) socially maintained why does it need to be specified? I guess boundaries, (2) relations within the boundaries, and (3) relations across the 24 I am grateful to Viviana Zelizer for calling this boundaries. They regularly involve key article to my attention.

Contemporary Sociology 47, 5 Featured Essays 521 the question is ‘‘what kind of power and how Drawing on the work of Eric Wolf, Alain is it exercised?’’ One of Tilly’s peers, Michael Desrosie`res, and Viviana Zelizer,25 he broad- Mann, spent the better part of three decades ened the concept of forms of knowledge typologizing different forms of power in his until they virtually blended into forms of magisterial Sources of Social Power (1986 to power. For example, he writes, 2013). Not only that: in a foundational piece published at the beginning of his journey, he When French regional governments of specified two main forms of state power— the seventeenth century faced rebel- despotic and infrastructural—by which he lions against new or increased royal distinguished the power of the state over taxes . . . they generally routed whatev- civil society from the power that the state er rebel forces had assembled, rounded exercises from within civil society (Mann up a few ringleaders, gave them spec- 1987; see Tarrow 2018 for an analysis). tacular public executions, held drum- Similarly, in the context of international head trials for some lesser participants, relations, Joseph Nye distinguished between but simultaneously worked out settle- ‘‘hard’’ and ‘‘soft’’ power. And, in a recently ments with regional and local leaders. published study, Lucia Seybert and Peter Katzenstein distinguish conceptually In the end, though possessed of definitive between ‘‘control power’’ and what they differences in power, ‘‘each side accommo- call ‘‘protean power,’’ which they define as dated to the other’’ (ibid.:346–7). ‘‘the effect of improvisational and innovative It is not that Tilly was indifferent to the responses to uncertainty that arise from power relations between states and their citi- actors’ creativity and agility in response to zens—far from it. But his historical and com- uncertainty’’ (2018:4). Though these authors parative scope was so broad that he never do not cite him, ‘‘protean power’’ is stopped to specify the different forms of power a remarkably Tillian idea, because Tilly that grow out of the complex relations of meant something very much like it when power in modern . Thus, he sees he examined the power of ordinary people the welfare state eventually growing out of to advance their goals through innovations the state’s efforts to build the infrastructure in the repertoire. it first needed to fight its wars; but his Specifying different forms of power might account elides the fact that distributing wel- have helped the ‘‘relational’’ Tilly to make fare endows the state with a new kind of clearer how power from above interacts power—infrastructural power. And this is with power from below, which is another why infrastructural power grows more way of saying how institutional politics extensive as the state becomes more civilian intersects with contentious politics. This in nature, while its despotic power—as was a distinction that Tilly made sharply in Mann was at pains to point out—oscillates a sweeping review of James Scott’s Seeing (Mann 1987). Like a State (1999a). In this book, Scott A second lacuna in Tilly’s work is that the famously distinguished between the abstract two main trunks of his lifetime of contribu- knowledge that leads states to engage in tions—contentious politics and the role of disastrous projects in the absence of the war in state-making—show a striking lack practical knowledge that resides at the base of connection.26 The former is at the core of of society. For Tilly, what Scott missed was how he is remembered in sociology, but the the interaction of power from above with latter gained him the most attention in polit- power from below. ‘‘In fact,’’ he writes, ical science. Yet beyond a few careful exami- ‘‘the two vary in partial independence, and nations of how wars trigger domestic in partial reinforcement, of each other’’ (Tilly 1999a:335). 25 See Desrosie`res 1998; Wolf 1999; Zelizer 1994. True, Scott’s concern in Seeing Like a State 26 was with knowledge and with the power I have tried to connect these two trunks of Tilly’s heritage in War, States, and Contention, to implement it. But Tilly was never happier which appeared too late for him to have than when he was expanding an author’s greeted it with his usual combination of wit ideas beyond what that author imagined. and appreciation.

Contemporary Sociology 47, 5 522 Featured Essays contention, Tilly never systematically him and asked if he had had time to read connected these two pillars of his work. the paper. In an attempt at humor, the pro- The key mechanisms of state-building in fessor responded, ‘‘No; I’m too busy being his Coercion, Capital, and European States— an important professor.’’ ‘‘Do you mean,’’ extraction, protection, and the adjudication responded Chuck, ‘‘that you don’t want to of conflicts—might have served as starting continue being an important professor?’’ points for such a connection; but by the Chuck always had time to read every- time that book was published, Tilly was body’s paper—always carefully and often already deeply engaged in his work on Brit- overnight; that was how he became, and ish contention, which set him on a new will remain, an important—and a very methodological path more oriented toward human—professor. the micro-politics of protest than toward the macro-politics of war and state-building. A final lacuna is Tilly’s failure to follow up References on the insights in Durable Inequality, just as it Desrosie`res, Alain. 1998. The Politics of Large Num- was to become a burning policy issue in bers: A History of Statistical Reasoning. the United States and elsewhere. Durable Cambridge, MA: Press. From Words to Numbers: Inequality Franzosi, Roberto. 2005. was the first of his books to put Narrative, Data, and Social Science. New York: the mechanism-based ontology he adopted Cambridge University Press. in the 1990s to work. Mechanisms like exploi- Funes, Marı´a J. 2016. ‘‘Introducing Tilly: AView of tation, emulation, opportunity hoarding, and His Work, an Approach to the Man.’’ Pp. 1–20 adaptation helped him to tell ‘‘superior in Regarding Tilly: Conflict, Power, and Collective stories’’ in which ‘‘complex processes pro- Action, edited by M. J. Funes. Lanham, MD: ducing social boundaries and collective iden- University Press of America. Hawtree, Christopher. 2008. ‘‘Charles Tilly.’’ The tity’’ produce durable inequalities (Ma´iz Guardian, May 22. Accessed May 26, 2018 2016:58). Had Tilly followed that book up (https://www.theguardian.com/education/ with more sustained empirical analyses, his obituary/story/0,,2281362,00.html). work might have provided important guide- Krinsky, John, and Ann Mische. 2013. ‘‘Forma- lines for students of inequality today. tions and Formalisms: Charles Tilly and the But these are cavils. Much more could be Paradox of the Actor.’’ Annual Review of Sociol- ogy 39:1–26. written about the contributions of this major Ma´iz, Ramo´n. 2016. ‘‘From Structures to Processes figure to the social sciences than I have had and Mechanisms: The Logic of Explanation in the space to explore here. I only want to the Work of Charles Tilly.’’ Pp. 41–68 in Regard- add one transversal comment to what has ing Tilly: Conflict, Power, and Collective Action, already been said: despite his enormous bib- edited by M. J. Funes. Lanham, MD: Universi- liography, Tilly’s attitude toward academia ty Press of America. The Sources of Social teacher. Mann, Michael. 1986–2013. was essentially that of a Much of Power. Vols. 1–4. New York: Cambridge Uni- his best work was pedagogical—working versity Press. things out on paper both for himself and for Mann, Michael. 1987. ‘‘The Autonomous Power of his readers. This was why some of the germs the State: Its Origins, Mechanisms and of future books and articles often emerged Results.’’ Pp. 109–36 in States in History, edited from comments at conferences, in seminars, by J. A. Hall. New York: Basil Blackwell. and even from after-dinner speeches, like McAdam, Doug, Sidney Tarrow, and Charles Tilly. 2001. Dynamics of Contention. the one that produced his metaphor about New York: Cambridge University Press. ‘‘standard’’ and ‘‘superior stories.’’ I want to Michelson, Bill, and . 2008. close this review with a typically Tillian ‘‘Always—and Uniquely—Chuck Tilly.’’ ‘‘superior story.’’ American Behavioral Scientist 51(21):1653–5. When he was a graduate student at Mische, Ann. 2011. ‘‘Relational Sociology, Culture, Harvard, Tilly asked a well-known professor and Agency.’’ Pp. 80–98 in The SAGE Handbook of Analysis, edited by J. Scott and (he never named him in my hearing) to look P. J. Carrington. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE at a paper he had written. Weeks went by, Publications. and when there was no response from the Morawska, Ewa, and Willfried Spohn. 1994. professor, never shy, Tilly walked up to ‘‘‘Cultural Pluralism’ in Historical Sociology:

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Recent Theoretical Directions.’’ Pp. 45–90 in Tilly, Charles, ed. 1975. The Formation of National The : Emerging Theoretical States in Western Europe. Princeton, NJ: Perspectives, edited by D. Crane. Cambridge, Press. MA: Blackwell. Tilly, Charles. 1978. From Mobilization to Revolu- Nye, Jr., Joseph S. 2004. Soft Power: The Means to tion. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley. Success in World Politics. New York: Public Tilly, Charles. 1984. Big Structures, Large Processes, Affairs. Huge Comparisons. New York: Russell Sage Olzak, Susan. 1989. ‘‘Analysis of Events in the Foundation. Study of Collective Action.’’ Annual Review of Tilly, Charles. 1985. ‘‘War Making and State Mak- Sociology 15:119–86. ing as Organized Crime.’’ Pp. 169–91 in Bring- Scott, James C. 1998. Seeing Like a State: How Cer- ing the State Back In, edited by P. B. Evans, D., tain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition D. Rueschemeyer, and T. Skocpol. New York: Have Failed. New Haven, CT: Cambridge University Press. Press. Tilly, Charles. 1986. The Contentious French. Sewell, Jr., William H. 1996. ‘‘Historical Events as Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Transformations of Structures: Inventing Rev- Tilly, Charles. 1990. Coercion, Capital, and European olution at the Bastille.’’ Theory and Society States, A.D. 990–1992. Cambridge, MA: Wiley- 25(6):841–81. Blackwell. Sewell, Jr., William H. 2008. ‘‘Early Tilly: The Tilly, Charles. 1993. ‘‘Contentious Repertoires in Vende´e and Historical Social Science.’’ Great Britain, 1758–1834.’’ Social Science History Presented at Contention, Change, and Explana- 17(2):253–80. tion: A Conference in Honor of Charles Tilly, Octo- Tilly, Charles. 1995a. Popular Contention in Great ber 4, New York. Britain. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Seybert, Lucia A., and Peter J. Katzenstein. 2018. Press. ‘‘Protean Power and Control Power: Concep- Tilly, Charles. 1995b. ‘‘Fluency through Fables.’’ tual Analysis.’’ Pp. 3–26 in Protean Power: Presented at Tillyfest: International Confer- Exploring the Uncertain and Unexpected in World ence in Honour of Charles Tilly, organized by Politics, edited by P. J. Katzenstein and L. A. Barry Wellman and Beverly Wellman. October Seybert. New York: Cambridge University 5–8, . Press. Tilly, Charles. 1998. Durable Inequality. Berkeley: ‘‘Special Issue: In Honor of Charles Tilly.’’ 2010. University of California Press. Social Science History 34(3). Tilly, Charles. 1999a. ‘‘Survey Article: Power— Tarrow, Sidney. 1995. ‘‘Cycles of Collective Top Down and Bottom Up.’’ Journal of Political Action: Between Moments of Madness and Philosophy 7(3):330–52. the Repertoire of Contention.’’ Pp. 89–116 in Tilly, Charles. 1999b. ‘‘The Trouble with Stories.’’ Repertoires and Cycles of Collective Action, edited Pp. 256–70 in The Social Worlds of Higher Educa- by M. Traugott. Durham, NC: Duke University tion: Handbook for Teaching in a New Century, Press. edited by B. Pescosolido and R. Aminzade. Tarrow, Sidney. 1998. ‘‘Studying Contentious Pol- Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications. itics: From Event-ful History to Cycles of Col- Tilly, Charles. 2001. ‘‘Mechanisms in Political Pro- lective Action.’’ Pp. 33–64 in Acts of Dissent: cesses.’’ Annual Review of New Developments in the Study of Protest, edited 4(1):21–41. by D. Rucht, R. Koopmans, and F. Neidhardt. Tilly, Charles. 2003. The Politics of Collective Vio- Berlin: Sigma. lence. New York: Cambridge University Press. Tarrow, Sidney. 2008. ‘‘Charles Tilly and the Prac- Tilly, Charles. 2004. Contention and Democracy in tice of Contentious Politics.’’ Social Movement Europe, 1650–2000. New York: Cambridge Uni- Studies 7:225–46. versity Press. Tarrow, Sidney. 2015. War, States, and Contention. Tilly, Charles. 2005. Identities, Boundaries, and Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Social Ties. Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers. Tarrow, Sidney. 2018. ‘‘Mann, War, and Cyber- Tilly, Charles. 2006. Regimes and Repertoires. space: Dualities of Infrastructural Power in Chicago: University of Chicago Press. America.’’ Theory and Society 47(1):61–85. Tilly, Charles. 2007. Democracy. New York: Taylor, Brian D., and Roxana Botea. 2008. ‘‘Tilly Cambridge University Press. Tally: War-Making and State-Making in the Tilly, Charles. 2008a. Contentious Performances. Contemporary Third World.’’ International New York: Cambridge University Press. Studies Review 10:27–56. Tilly, Charles. 2008b. Explaining Social Processes. Tilly, Charles. 1964. The Vende´e. Cambridge, MA: Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers. Harvard University Press. Wolf, Eric R. 1999. Envisioning Power: Ideologies of Tilly, Charles, ed. 1974. An Urban World. Boston: Dominance and Crisis. Berkeley: University of Little, Brown. California Press.

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Zelizer, Viviana A. 1994. The Social Meaning of Zelizer, Viviana A., and Charles Tilly. 2006. ‘‘Rela- Money. New York: BasicBooks. tions and Categories.’’ Psychology of Learning Zelizer, Viviana A. 2010. ‘‘Chuck Tilly and and Motivation 47:1–31. Mozart.’’ The American Sociologist 41(4):423–8.

The Arrival of Social Science Genomics

JEREMY FREESE Stanford University [email protected]

‘‘The genetics revolution may be well under- Social by Nature, and several other books way,’’ write Dalton Conley and Jason Fletch- along the way. er in The Genome Factor, ‘‘but the social genomics revolution is just getting started’’ (p. 11). They are not alone in their excitement Why is now different? for recent developments bringing together Social science genomics has so far unfolded social science and genetic research. Decades like a three-act play. Act I relied on the statis- from now, folks may well look back at this tical model of data on twins, adoptees, and time as the start of a golden age for the field. other familial relationships. The fundamen- Of course, declaring the rise of social tal empirical product was a heritability esti- genomics is bound to make many sociolo- mate, intended as the proportion of variation gists nervous. Sociology often identifies in an outcome among members of a popula- itself as a style of explanation, with refer- tion that is due, in one way or another, to ences to genetic differences considered the genetic differences. This paradigm generat- quintessential ‘‘Not Sociology’’ explanation. ed an enormous number of studies catalog- References to genetic differences are also ing substantial genetic influence nearly regarded, with abundant historical justifica- everywhere it looked. The same tools that tion, as dangerous for many of the moral and quantified the heritability of height and ideological commitments that sociologists schizophrenia also showed the heritability overwhelmingly share. Sociologists at the of abilities, attitudes, experiences, and intersection of critical race theory and sci- attainments. ence studies have been particularly vocal Act I proceeded without direct measures opponents of any role for genomic data in of genes themselves. This indirectness was social science. A recent book by Catherine one reason the field struggled to overcome Bliss, Social by Nature, contends that social its skeptics, who could latch onto one or science genomics needs a ‘‘wake-up call’’ another assumption as grounds for doubts about the naı¨vete´ of its approach and its about the enterprise. Worse, applying these implication in social harm. tools to more complex questions about Conley and Fletcher provide a commend- genetic influence required adding yet more able overview to social science genomics and assumptions, making already indirect infer- anticipate some of the criticisms that Bliss ences even more so. raises. But The Genome Factor is written for Act II opens with molecular data on genet- a broad audience, and here I wish to discuss ic differences becoming available. social science genomics in a way directed This phase began with researchers having more specifically to sociologists. I will focus data only on a very small number of sites especially on what I regard as the most on the genome, for only a few dozen promising development for social scientists: or hundred—later, a few thousand— polygenic scores. I will talk first about the participants. The logic of analysis was other- science of polygenic scores and then about wise familiar—more familiar than for the some of the policy and moral questions at variance decomposition methods that domi- hand, offering pointers to The Genome Factor, nated Act I. Papers posed hypotheses about

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