Dynamics of Contention

Abstract

In recent decades the study of social movements, revolution, democratization and other non-routine politics has flourished. And yet research on the topic remains highly fragmented, reflecting the influence of at least three traditional divisions. The first of these reflects the view that various forms of contention are distinct and should be studied independent of others. Separate literatures have developed around the study of social movements, revolutions and industrial conflict. A second approach to the study of political contention denies the possibility of general theory in deference to a grounding in the temporal and spatial particulars of any given episode of contention. The study of contentious politics are left to 'area specialists' and/or historians with a thorough knowledge of the time and place in question. Finally, overlaid on these two divisions are stylized theoretical traditions - structuralist, culturalist, and rationalist - that have developed largely in isolation from one another. This book was first published in 2001.

La estructura de oportunidad política transnacional y el giro relacional en el análisis de la participación política y el asociacionismo migrante

“…Para este autor, Dynamics of Contention, de McAdam et al (2001), es un claro compromiso con una mirada más relacional y dinámica de los factores que influyen en los movimientos sociales y, a pesar de las críticas que su propuesta ha recibido, contribuye sin duda a realizar una interpretación más compleja de la acción colectiva. McAdam et al (2001) plantean un modelo dinámico de movilización en el que se tienen en cuenta los aspectos siguientes: 1) No solo las estructuras de oportunidad, sino también las amenazas al estudiar el contexto. Considerando, además, las oportunidades y las amenazas como elementos construidos e interpretados durante la interacción.…”

Re-Imagining Revolutions

“…In ways we are delighted with, the articles speak to one another as well, such that Emma Goldman's or Rosa Luxemburg's concerns about gender resonate across more than a century to bubble up in the 1970s Japanese feminist movement, the Global Justice Movement or Revolutionary Feminism. Such a framing of revolutions challenges the compartmentalised categories through which politics-either institutionalised or non-institutionalised-and other formations, such as local or transnational social movements or strikes, as well as revolutions, are commonly studied (McAdam et al, 2001). Most importantly, it allows us to think through connections and interdependencies of events that might seem set apart, but that are in fact deeply intertwined.…”

Explaining How Political Culture Changes: Catholic Activism and the Secular Left in Italian Peace Movements

“…The figure of "broker", as discussed by McAdam, Tarrow and Tilly (2001), can be useful to look more the effective productive mechanism of new connections between previously unconnected or weakly connected sites. Among the more relevant brokers, we should recall Don Primo Mazzolari, an ex-military chaplain during the First World War, active against Fascism during the Resistance, later taking on radically anti-militarist and pacifist positions against Italian membership of NATO.…”

“…This would entail an attempt to integrate macro and micro-aspects, structures and processes, based upon a "sensitivity to history" in a dynamic and relational way (McAdam, Tarrow, Tilly 2001). This means that political culture takes shape through the negotiation of different components in contentious historical processes in constant evolution.…”