This analysis of the relationship between democratization and contentious politics builds upon the model set forth in Dynamics of Contention (Cambridge, 2001). Comparing the Low Countries, Iberia, France, the British Isles, the Balkans, Russia, and other European regions over three and a half turbulent centuries, the book demonstrates how similar recurrent causal mechanisms in different combinations, sequences, and initial conditions produced contrasting trajectories toward and away from democracy in different parts of the continent. Also available: Dynamics of Contention 0-521-80588-0...

Rightly fearing that unscrupulous rulers would break them up, seize their resources, or submit them to damaging forms of intervention, strong networks of trust such as kinship groups, clandestine religious sects, and trade diasporas have historically insulated themselves from political control by a variety of strategies. Drawing on a vast range of comparisons over time and space, Charles Tilly asks and answers how, and with what consequences, members of trust networks have evaded, compromised with, or even sought connections with political regimes.

Dissatisfied with the compartmentalization of studies concerning strikes, wars, revolutions, social movements, and other forms of political struggle, McAdam, Tarrow, and Tilly identify causal mechanisms and processes that recur across a wide range of contentious politics. Critical of the static, single-actor models (including their own) that have prevailed in the field, they shift the focus of analysis to dynamic interaction. Doubtful that large, complex series of events such as revolutions and social movements conform to general laws, they break events into smaller episodes, then identify...