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Article
Publication date: 1 January 2005

Takeshi Wada

Civil society has emerged as a contested concept in development. Some observers claim that economic restructuring has eroded the political hegemony of authoritarian regimes and…

Abstract

Civil society has emerged as a contested concept in development. Some observers claim that economic restructuring has eroded the political hegemony of authoritarian regimes and created a new space for autonomous associations. In Mexico, chronic economic crisis and economic adjustment policies generated widespread popular discontent in the 1980s. The authoritarian regime tried to channel popular dissatisfaction into the institutionalized political arena through a series of electoral reforms. Thus, economic liberalization in Mexico was paralleled by a slow and gradual process of liberalization of the Mexican political system. In the context of these economic and political changes, scholars have observed an awakened civil society in Mexico. They have chronicled the emergence of independent organizations of workers, peasants, and the urban poor. They have also documented new types of civic associations such as environmental groups, election‐watch groups, human rights organizations, debtors’ groups, and women’s movements. Numerous studies of social movements beginning in the 1980s appear to suggest the rise of civil society in the era of economic and political liberalization.

Details

International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, vol. 25 no. 1/2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0144-333X

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 March 2004

John Hollister

Investigates “cruising” (how homosexual men move around to various meeting sites), and how men keep this from intruding into their “normal” lives. Highlights how Laud Humphreys…

1542

Abstract

Investigates “cruising” (how homosexual men move around to various meeting sites), and how men keep this from intruding into their “normal” lives. Highlights how Laud Humphreys researched this phenomenon through, initially, observing 12 “tearoom” regulars, while acting as a lookout. Herein the author primarily observed a highway rest area, but also urban parks, tearooms and commercial sex clubs – interviewing 19 regulars. Gives more specific details in the article. Concludes that cruising sites are not constant and uniform.

Details

International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, vol. 24 no. 3/4/5
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0144-333X

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 1 March 2013

Marc W. Steinberg and Patricia Ewick

In his later works Charles Tilly extended his analysis of contention by scrutinizing the dynamics of contentious performances and the enactment of identities through them…

Abstract

In his later works Charles Tilly extended his analysis of contention by scrutinizing the dynamics of contentious performances and the enactment of identities through them. Complementing these investigations he analyzed the centrality of trust networks in sustained challenges to authority. On a somewhat detached track Tilly developed an examination of reason giving in social life and more particularly the ways in which people do critical transactional work through stories, often with the assessment of credit and blame. In this chapter, we quilt these various pieces to offer an analysis of how storytelling is vital to the construction of trust and blame in contentious performances, both in the face of threat and opportunity. We explain how these later works on storytelling, identities, and trust can be integrated fruitfully with his many writings on contention to expand the analysis of its culture dimensions. We draw on three years of field work with a chapter of the Voice of the Faithful, an organization of Catholics that formed in the wake of the priest sexual abuse crisis, to exemplify this integration of Tilly's work. Using data from field notes and interviews we demonstrate how chapter members engage in the telling standard stories of origin, legacy and transformation, and trust in their pursuit of change and in maintaining internal solidarity. We conclude that our integration of Tilly's later work can be added to other perspectives on narrative to broaden the cultural analysis of contention.

Details

Advances in the Visual Analysis of Social Movements
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78190-636-1

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 16 December 2009

Yu-Wen Fan

Charles Tilly argues that continuous wars and preparation for wars motivated early European rulers to extract resources from their subject populations, thereby expanding states’…

Abstract

Charles Tilly argues that continuous wars and preparation for wars motivated early European rulers to extract resources from their subject populations, thereby expanding states’ infrastructure and establishing mechanisms to enable negotiations with societies. State capacity was thus strengthened. Tilly's argument has inspired a wave of scholarship to reconsider state building in various regions of the Third World. Analysts of the Third World employ two theoretical elements inferred from Tilly to account for the failures of many Third World states. One is that without continuous international wars (as early modern Europe had), there would be no capable and effective states. The other element is that availability of foreign aid from the global powers so unique to the Cold War Era exempted Third World states from extracting resources from their societies. I call these analyses Tillian theories of the Third World.

Tillian analysts acknowledge that the capable state in Taiwan during the Cold War stood out from its Third World counterparts. However, the Tillian generalization of the Third World does not account for Taiwan's state-building path. Taiwan's experience is situated in a perplexity between the two variables above: On the one hand, Taiwan resembles early modern European state formation with high military expenditures and a huge standing army prepared for war. In the Tillian model, this condition enhances state capacity. On the other hand, Taiwan was a huge US aid recipient in the Cold War, second only to South Korea. In the Tillian model, this degrades the state's effectiveness, contrary to Taiwan's experience. Solving this puzzle will revise Tillian logics of state building. That, however, is beyond the scope of this paper. Instead, through literature review and presentation of empirical evidences, I suggest some analytical directions for future research to enhance our understanding of Taiwan's state-building trajectory in particular and of Third World states in general.

Details

Advances in Military Sociology: Essays in Honor of Charles C. Moskos
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-84855-893-9

Book part
Publication date: 22 September 2015

Oldrich Krpec and Vladan Hodulak

To discuss the historical roots of contemporary geopolitical economy, this paper aims to explore the complex and influential analysis of Tilly's formation of European national…

Abstract

To discuss the historical roots of contemporary geopolitical economy, this paper aims to explore the complex and influential analysis of Tilly's formation of European national states as a predominant type of territorial political organization in contemporary world. To do this, Tilly described different eras of dominant organization of warfare in relation to state organization: patrimonialism, brokerage, nationalization, specialization. In this paper, we explore the link between the organization of military power and trade policy. We are trying to answer the question, if it is possible to credibly state a connection between the trade policy types pursued by selected states in specific historical periods and Tilly’s eras of dominant form of organization of warfare. For this purpose, we developed a typology of trade policies of important states throughout the history, using the economic history research of leading experts in the field. Our conclusion is that such a connection – between trade policy and Tilly’s eras of organization of warfare – can be made and that this connection is solidly supported by economic history. Our analysis may be of value for any critical assessment of international trade relations in contemporary geopolitical economy – and of influential cosmopolitan interpretations of the liberal trade regime of 19th century or globalization in 20th century.

Details

Theoretical Engagements in Geopolitical Economy
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78560-295-5

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 1 March 2013

James C. Franklin

This study uses Tilly's concept of repertoires of contention as a lens to examine the utilization of eight distinct contentious tactics, ranging from nonviolent demonstrations to…

Abstract

This study uses Tilly's concept of repertoires of contention as a lens to examine the utilization of eight distinct contentious tactics, ranging from nonviolent demonstrations to rebellion. Using an original dataset on Latin America, I develop a measure of tactical fractionalization of 62 contentious campaigns in Latin America, and I find that, consistent with theory, the range of tactics within campaigns is limited, compared to the range of tactics found in the country or region as a whole. Second, an examination of the sample shows that the eight contentious tactics tend to coincide into three separate repertoires of contention: protest, strikes, and rebellion. Finally, I analyze two conflicting theories on the selection of contentious tactics: Tilly's regime theory and Lichbach's substitution model. The prevalence of the three repertoires depends a great deal on the regime type in place, the level of primary school enrollment (measuring state capacity), and the generalized level of repression. These variables were all suggested by Tilly's regime theory. Contentious challengers show no sign of shifting tactics in response to repression of that tactic in the past, which contradicts the substitution model.

Details

Advances in the Visual Analysis of Social Movements
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78190-636-1

Keywords

Abstract

Details

The Perspective of Historical Sociology
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78743-363-2

Book part
Publication date: 30 September 2010

Joseph Maslen

Despite the theoretical shortcomings of recent historical work on social processes, the historical discipline has a role to play in the theorization of social dynamics. As the…

Abstract

Despite the theoretical shortcomings of recent historical work on social processes, the historical discipline has a role to play in the theorization of social dynamics. As the work of the late sociologist Charles Tilly (2008, p. 9) has emphasized, the larger-scale theoretical type of social-process analysis may benefit from a more small-scale historical awareness of “the influence of particular times and places.” In Tilly's view, the sociological accounts of social processes that lack the sense of temporal transitions which characterizes historical analysis will “rarely identify the component mechanisms, much less their combinations and sequences.” By contrast, a historical approach to the “big structures, large processes, huge comparisons” (see Tilly, 1984) of social processes may put forward an analytical program that “couples a search for mechanisms of very general scope with arguments that […] lend themselves to ‘local theory,’ in which the explanatory mechanisms and processes operate quite broadly but combine locally as a function of initial conditions and adjacent processes to produce distinctive trajectories and outcomes.” These local elements of history may aggregate together into a more general pattern of theory: “Mechanisms compound into processes: combinations and sequences of mechanisms that produce some specified outcome at a larger scale than any single mechanism.” The temporal dimension of a historical analysis has a capacity to theorize social processes by telling a story of beginnings that carry forward into points of culmination.

Details

Theorizing the Dynamics of Social Processes
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-0-85724-223-5

Abstract

Details

The Comparative Study of Conscription in the Armed Forces
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-0-76230-836-1

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 27 October 2021

Kent Wan

This paper provides an analytical account detailing the historical linkages between Chinese on both sides of the Sino-Hong Kong border from 1841 onwards and examining important…

Abstract

Purpose

This paper provides an analytical account detailing the historical linkages between Chinese on both sides of the Sino-Hong Kong border from 1841 onwards and examining important incidents of collective actions in the colony and Canton.

Design/methodology/approach

Using annual reports published by the colonial administration in Hong Kong, especially those focusing on years that witnessed major incidents of anti-colonial agitations, this paper analyzes how British policymakers were confronted by collective actions mounted by Chinese in Canton and Hong Kong. Building on the works of prominent historians and utilizing the theoretical frameworks of analysts such as Charles Tilly (1978), the author examines if a Cantonese regional solidarity served as the foundation for popular movements, which in turn consolidated a rising Chinese nationalism when Canton and Hong Kong were the focal points of mass actions against imperialism.

Findings

Hong Kong Chinese workers were vanguards of the modern Chinese revolutions that transformed not just their homeland, but their lives, allegiances, and aspirations as Chinese in a domain under foreign jurisdiction on Chinese soil, as their actions were emulated by their compatriots outside of South China, thus starting a chain reaction that culminated in the establishment of the Nanjing regime.

Originality/value

This paper reveals that popular movements of Hong Kong Chinese possessed national and international importance, especially when they were supported by their Cantonese compatriots and the two leading Chinese political parties, the Kuomintang (KMT) and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

Details

Public Administration and Policy, vol. 24 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1727-2645

Keywords

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