Why didn’t slaves revolt more often during the Middle Passage?

Contemporary models of political economy suggest that reforms intended to reduce grievances should curtail unrest, a perspective at odds with many traditional accounts of reform and rebellion. We explore the impact of reform on rebellion with a new data set on peasant disturbances in 19th-century Russia. Using a difference-in-differences design that exploits the timing of various peasant reforms, we document a large increase in disturbances among former serfs following the Emancipation Reform of 1861, a development counter to reformers' intent. Our analysis suggests that this outcome was driven by peasants' disappointment with the reform's design and implementation-the consequence of elite capture in the context of a generally weak state-and heightened expectations of what could be achieved through coordinated action. Reform-related disturbances were most pronounced in provinces where commune organization facilitated collective action and where fertile soil provoked contestation over land.

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“… 15. Marcum and Skarbek (2014) present evidence that slave revolts were more likely on small than on large ships traveling the Middle Passage. …”

mentioning

confidence: 66%

Does Reform Prevent Rebellion? Evidence From Russia’s Emancipation of the Serfs

Finkel

Gehlbach

Olsen

2015

Comparative Political Studies

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“…Following Tullock’s example, we model an actor’s net expected payoffs from participating in a revolt, as in Olsson-Yaouzis, 2010 , 286) and Marcum and Skarbek (2014 , 239): where A is the gross individual expected payoffs of mobilization for revolts in case of success. These payoffs refer to positions of power, financial resources, and social prestige: privileges that are awarded to mobilized actors after a successful revolt.…”

Section: Kinship Ties Private Interests and Mobilization For Revoltsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The private interest theory, as presented in equation ( 3 ), suggests that people are mobilized for revolts if A > B : if the gross expected individual payoffs in case of success exceed the gross expected individual payoffs in case of failure ( Marcum and Skarbek, 2014 , 239; Olsson-Yaouzis, 2010 ; Tullock, 1971 , 286). With C > 0, the problem of free-riding arises: all actors face positive costs of mobilization and, thus, not mobilizing should be the rational choice.…”

Section: Kinship Ties Private Interests and Mobilization For Revoltsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Explaining mobilization for revolts by private interests and kinship relations

Armandola,

Doehne,

Rost

2023

Rationality and Society

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Mobilization for revolts poses a significant challenge for rational choice theory because revolts are vulnerable to free-riding, which disincentivizes rational actors from mobilizing. Strong, informal relations such as kinship ties have been identified as factors that can shift the rational calculations of individuals and lead to mobilization for revolts. In social networks that are polarized by the presence of mobilized individuals, such as rebels, and actors opposing the mobilization effort such as the elite, kinship relations have not only a bridging effect but also a diverging one. Building on Tullock’s private interest theory, we develop a framework in which kinship relations determine the extent of individual’s payoffs and costs of mobilization for revolts against an elite. We posit that distant kin of the elite expect high payoffs of mobilization for revolts and face the lowest costs of mobilization for revolts by virtue of their position in the network of kinship relations. Using a unique, hand-collected dataset that reconstructs a revolt in Basel, Switzerland, in 1691, we test our framework and contribute to a better relational understanding of the mechanisms that lead rational actors to mobilize for revolts. Our analyses show that mobilization for revolts is mainly driven by distant kinship relations to the ruling elite rather than close kinship relations to the rebels.

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