FROM MOBILIZATION TO REVOLUTION Charles Tilly University of Michigan ,PROM MOBILIZATION TO REVOLUTION .. .........................March 1977 by Charles Tilly CRSO Working Paper 8156 Copies available through: Center for Research on Social Organization University of Michigan 330 Packard Street Ann Arbor, Michigan 48104 CONTENTS CENERAI. PLAN OF THE BOOK preface .................................i Chapter 1: Introduction general plan of the hook ........................iv Chapter 2: Theories and Descriptions of Collective Action table of contents............................ v Cl~apter3: Interests. Organization and Mobilization list of tables .............................ix Chapter 4: The Opportunity to Act Together listoffigures............................. Chepter 5: Changing Forms of Collective Action Chapter 1: Introduction ........................1.1 Cl~npter6: Collective Violence The Stuff of Collective Action ..................1.1 Chapter 7: Rmrolutlonand Rebellion Studying Collective Action ....................1.7 Chapter 8: Concludivns and llew Beginnings The Components of Collective Action ................1.10 Groups. Events and Movements ...................1.12 Appendices What You Will Find Here ......................1.15 Bibliography Chapter 2: Theories and Descriptions of Collective Action .......2.1 Marxon1848 ............................2-1 Durkheim .............................2-7 The Durkheiminn Tradition .....................2.12 Mill and the Utilitarians .....................2.19 Collective Choice .........................2.22 Strategic Interaction .......................2.29 Mill and Pseudo-Mill .......................2.35 Weber ...............................2.38 Social Movements .........................2.42 Marxian Analyses since Marx ....................2.48 Collective History of Collective Action ..............2.53 Our Task .............................2.58 Chapter 3: Interests. Organization and Mobilization ..........3.1 The Elementary Models .......................3-1 iii iv Violence: Concept and Reality .................6.4 A Simple Account of Collective Action ............... 3.6 Some Lineaments of Violence ..................6.8 Interests............................. 3.12 Violence in America .......................6.10 Organization ...........................3.17 Political Action and Involvement in Violence .........6-13 Mobilization ...........................3.26 Changing Contexts for Collective Violence ...........6.20 Measuring Moblization....................... 3.41 Chapter 7: Revolution and Rebellion ..................7.1 General Conditions for Moblization ................3.45 Revolutionary Situations and Revolutionary Outcomes ......7.1 From Moblization to Collective Action ...............3.50 Revolutionary Situations................... 7-3 The Detection and Measurement of Collective Action ........3.58 Revolutionary Outcomes ....................7-7 Chapter 4: The Opportunity To Act Together ............... 4.1 Situations and Outcomes Combined ...............7-9 From Mobilization to Opportunity ................. 4.1 Proximate Causes of Revolutionary Situations......... 7-18 Repression and Facilitation ....................4.3 Alternatives to the Existing Polity ..............7-20 Repressive and Tolerant Governments................ 4.14 Acceptance of Alternative Claims ...............7-24 Power ...............................4.27 Governmental Inaction...................... 7.32 Parties ..............................4-29 Proximate Causes of Revolutionary Outcomes ..........7-36 Interests............................. 4-31 Coalitions between Members and Challengers.......... 7-38 Interactions ...........................4.33 Control of Substantial Force .................7-41 The Measurement of Power .....................4.34 Revolutionary Sequences and Collective Violence ....... 7-44 Power and Polity Membership ....................4.41 Revolutionary Outcomes and Further Structural Changes .....7-50 Detecting Changes in Polity Membership ..............4.44 Chapter 8: Conclusions and New Beginnings ...............8-1 Opportunity/Threst ........................4.53 Back to the Eighteenth Century ................8-1 The Interplay of Mobilization and Opportunity ...........4.60 Theorizing About Collective Actions ..............8.8 Chapter 5: Changing Forms of Collective Action ............. 5.1 The Importance of History ...................8-13 The Forms of Contention ...................... 5.1 The History of Collective Action in Modern France .......8.19 Repertoires of Collective Action .................5.14 A Last Case in Point: Rural Collective Action in Burgundy ...8.25 A Case in Point: The Strike ....................5.25 Appendices ...............................A.O' Elections, Demonstrations and Political Systems.......... 5.38 Appendix 1: Procedures for the Studies of Strlkes and Collective Chapter 6: Collective Violence .....................6.1 Violence in France ................A. I. British Brawls as Collective Violence ...............6.1 TABLES Appendix 2: Mntcrials from the Study of Collective Violence in France .........................A-14 Table 3-1: Kerr 6 Siegel's Smary of Strike Propensities. .......3-22 Appendix 3: Procedures for the Study of Contentious Gatherings Table 3-2: French Strike Rates by Industry. 1890-1960. .........3-24 in Great Britain. ...................A-36 Table 4-1: Groups Figuring in 1906-07 Roll Calls of French Chamber Appendix 4: Materials Prom the Study of Contentious Gatherings of Deputies .........................4-49 in Great Britain. ...................A-55 Table 6-1: Percent of All Political Events Preceding the Cermsn ElectiollS Bibliography. ......................a*... B-1 of September 1930 and July 1932 Involving Different:,Types of Action............. ...............6-16 Table 7-1: D.E.H. Russell's Armed Force Disloyalty Scale ........7-43 vii viii Idealized Sketch of Conditions for Action of a run-of-the-mill Contender . .4-61 Unita in the Study of Collective Action. 1-13 Idealized Sketch of Conditions for Inaction of a run-of-the-mill Competi~igAnalyses of Collective Action . .2-6 Contender...... ......................4-64 Durkheim'a Analyaia of Collective Action. .2-11 nypothetical Effects of Lowered Coats of Collective Action on lluntington'a Basic Argument. , . 2-14 aZealot............................. 5-11 Trajectories of Slow nnd Rapid Social Change in Huntington's Four Models of Croup Readineaa to Adopt New Means of Collective Argument. .2-14 Action. .5-18 One of Douglas Hibba' Causal Models of Political Violence. 2-37 The Alteration of French Strike Shapes, 1890-1954 . .5-32 Thepolity Model. .,. .3-2 Combinations of Revolutionary Situationa and Revolutionary Out- The Mobilization Model. .3-7 comes . .7-11. Components of Organization. .3-18 Syndicalist. Marxist and Brintonian Mapa of Revol~ltionory Pour Ideal Patterns of Collective Action. .3-57 Reality .............................7-13 Snyder's Code for Labor Support of Candidates. 3-61 Situations and Outcomes in Different Typea of Power Transfers . .7-15 Repression, Toleration, Facilitation and Coercion. 4-16 The Timing of Collective Violence in Tension-Release and Con- Repression in Egalitarian and Oli8archic Governments. .4-17 tention Models of Revolution. .7-47 Tolerance va. Rebreaaion. .4-19 Repressive Patterns in Different Typea of Regime. .4-20 , Repression as a Function of Scale and Power. 4-23 llypothetical distribution of governmental repression as a function of the scale of collective action and the power of the actor. .4-24 Intereats and Returna from Collective Action for an Opportunist Contender ...........................4-35 Hypothetical Schedule of Returna from Collective Action. 4-37 Gainin8 va. Losing Schedules of Returna. 4-38 llow Mobilization Limita Collective Action. 4-40 Collective Action as a Function of Threats and Opportunities. .4-54 Asymmetrical Effect of Threat and Opportunity on Collective Action. .4-56 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTLON petition for government intervention against high food prices, country- The Stuff of Collective Action men seized and sold food at their own prices, townsmen.attacked the col- 1765 was a lively year in England. as it was in America. News coming lectors appointed for England's own version of the Stamp Act. in from the American colonies described the usunl conflicts: run-ins between That was not all. Near lpswich, on the 12th of August: smugglers and customs men, skirmishes of Indians with settlers, attempts Several persons riotously assembled to pull down the house. of frontiersmen to tnke the law into their own hands. But the big news of industry, lately erected at Nncton carried their bold- from America was the resistance to the British-imposed Stamp Act. The use . ness to such length that, neither the expostulations of the of costly stamped paper for official transactions was supposed to begin on magistrate8 against the illegnlity of their design, which they the first of November. Long bePore.then, anonymous notices and determined openly avowed, the consequences of the riot proclamation act crowds threatened anyone who showed signs of willingness to comply with the being read, which were explained to them, nor the appearance of Stamp Act. In Roston and elsewhere,'groups of citizens produced colorful a body of regular horse end foot, called in as port of the posse street theater, complete with gallows, hand-lettered signs, and effigies comitatus, seemed to make the least impression on them; nny, of royal officials. Sometimes they sacked