The Politics of Collective Violence

Cambridge Studies in Contentious Politics

by Charles Tilly

Are there any commonalities between such phenomena as soccer hooliganism, sabotage by peasants of landlords' property, road rage, and even the events of September 11? With striking historical scope and command of the literature of many disciplines, this book seeks the common causes of these events in collective violence. In collective violence, social interaction immediately inflicts physical damage, involves at least two perpetrators of damage, and results in part from coordination among the persons who perform the damaging acts. Charles Tilly argues that collective violence is complicated, changeable, and unpredictable in some regards, yet also results from similar causes variously combined in different times and places. Pinpointing the causes, combinations, and settings helps to explain collective violence and also helps to identify the best ways to mitigate violence and create democracies with a minimum of damage to persons and property. Charles Tilly is the Joseph L. Buttenwieser Professor of Social Science at Columbia University. He has published more than twenty scholarly books, including twenty specialized monographs and edited volumes on political processes, inequality, population change and European history.

Genres: Politics, Sociology, Political Science, History, Nonfiction, International Relations, War

290 pages, Paperback

First published March 17, 2003

About the author

Charles Tilly was an American sociologist, political scientist, and historian renowned for his pioneering contributions to the study of social change, state formation, and contentious politics. A prolific scholar, Tilly authored over 600 articles and more than 50 books, shaping disciplines ranging from sociology and history to political science. His research was grounded in large-scale, comparative historical analysis, exemplified by his influential works Coercion, Capital, and European States, Durable Inequality, and Dynamics of Contention.
Tilly began his academic career after earning his doctorate in sociology from Harvard University, where he studied under noted figures like George C. Homans and Barrington Moore Jr. He taught at several major institutions, including the University of Michigan, The New School, and ultimately Columbia University, where he held the Joseph L. Buttenwieser Professorship of Social Science.
He developed a distinctive theoretical approach that rejected simplistic, static models of society, instead emphasizing dynamic processes and relational mechanisms. Tilly’s theories of state formation, particularly his provocative comparison of war-making and state-making to organized crime, remain central in political sociology. He also played a key role in the evolution of historical sociology and the relational sociology movement, especially through his collaborations and influence on the New York School.
A leading theorist of social movements, Tilly outlined how modern protest became structured around campaigns, repertoires of contention, and public displays of unity, worthiness, numbers, and commitment. His work with scholars like Sidney Tarrow and Doug McAdam further redefined the field by linking social movements to broader political processes.
Tilly received numerous honors, including membership in the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, as well as multiple honorary doctorates. His legacy endures through awards bearing his name and through continued influence on generations of social scientists.

Reviews

[Colin · Rating 3 out of 5]

The subject of study is collective violence, and how to explain and categorize its various forms. The basic dimensions of comparison for these types of violent collective action are the level of coordination and level of salience of violence.

The categories:
• highest coordination, high salience of violence - “violent rituals” that operate within carefully circumscribed settings;
• high-coordination, high violence - “coordinated destruction”; depending on the levels of force parity between combatants, this takes the form of war, terrorism, etc;
• medium coordination, high violence - “opportunism”; looting and other forms of attacks principally characterized by the withdrawal of routine controls or surveillance;
• low coordination, high violence - “brawls”; the rapid shift of a normally nonviolent interaction into violence, often spurred by high uncertainty and a spiral of signaling between participants;
• low coordination, low violence - “scattered attacks” or sabotage; a resort to violence in what are otherwise generally nonviolent interactions, usually a “weapon of the weak” used by actors facing overwhelming force from their opponents;
• low coordination, medium violence - “broken negotiations”; a (generally temporary) escalation of nonviolent political interactions such as demonstrations into violent confrontation

Tilly goes through these chapter by chapter, discusses the situations in which shifts are observed between different types of collective violence, and situates each within political regimes (which are categorized along axes of democracy and capacity).

The argument underscores the importance of collective action, organization, and the behavior of political brokers and violent entrepreneurs in shaping outcomes both in contentious politics generally and in collective violence specifically. With theoretically limitless social boundaries and grievances through which people can be divided and spurred to violence, it is these actors that actually determine when outcomes turn violent.

Despite the high-theory content, there were rewards to reading; the book is sprinkled through with interesting little mini-histories and asides from Tilly, giving a sense of what I imagine his teaching style must have been like. Do you love political science typologies? If so, this is a book for you. Otherwise, this can probably be skipped safely.

[Dan Myers · Rating 2 out of 5]

A few hot spots, but mostly doesn't go anywhere. I published a detailed review in Mobilization 10(3).

[Tobi ﾄﾋﾞ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tilly is quite obviously heavily into Typology, which is fine, and makes a good opportunity for working on improving your academic english and learning more academic vocabulary- this book is almost like an extensive dictionary of vocabulary and research related to the politics of collective action. However if I’m correct Tilly has since written newer works or editions (compared to the one I’ve read) where it’s even better? It’s a shame I didn’t have access to that one.

This was a very difficult read and I’m not going to mention my opinions on his theory and definitions and assumptions because I’d recommend this to everyone doing political science despite it.

[J.M. Hushour · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tilly is always so refreshing to read because he openly, brazenly refuses to come to any but the most hesitant of conclusions on his work. What he presents here are some new ways of charting collective violence and attempting to discern common features between some of them. He uses brawls, rituals, gang violence, protection rackets and other forms of violent action to tease out the common denominators, the roles of governments and/or other state-sanctioned actors, and individuals. A nice introductory discussion to understanding non-warfare types of violence.

[Dasha · Rating 3 out of 5]

In The Politics of Collective Violence, Charles Tilly, a historian and sociologist, aims to explain variations within collective violence, common cause-effect links within each type of collective violence, and how they transition from one variety into another. The focus is on underlying combinations of mechanisms and processes that cause routine non-violent interactions to turn violent and how, in-turn, they morph into different violent types. Tilly does not intend to define strict measurements and rules to be used to predict such events. Instead, he hopes to “develop new lines of explanation that apply across…times, places, groups, social settings, and forms of action."
Importantly, Tilly punctuates his sociological analysis of collective violence with a wide array of historical events. These illustrations include events ranging from Jamaican elections to brawling factions of French journeymen. The lively examples from around the world and throughout time bring to life the categorizations outlined early in the book. Such carefully picked examples work as evidence to reinforce his ideas. In one instance, when discussing coordinated violence, Tilly discusses violence in Ulster, Ireland. Using a Western, high capacity democratic regime demonstrates that destructive events are not unique to a particular culture, such as non-Western cultures, nor to only undemocratic, tyrannical regimes.
Despite the overall strength of his historical examples, a weakness emerges as well. Tilly states, “if forced to choose between a non-violent tyranny based on stark inequality and a rough-and-tumble democracy, I would choose the democracy." Readers should be aware of Tilly’s bias because, as a result, many examples skew towards pointing out the minimal damage of democratic regimes in contrast to petty, tyrannical undemocratic regimes. This issue could be addressed if Tilly discussed in more detail the commonly used violence within democratic regimes, such as “their external enemies as well as against excluded political actors and population categories within their jurisdictions."
The Politics of Collective Violence is an essential contribution to understanding processes underling collective violence in a variety of political atmospheres. The book successfully explains variations and transitions within and between the typologies of collective violence. Tilly backs up his work with an assortment of statistical and historical work. The minor bias towards democratic regimes does not detract from Tilly's excellent explanations and collective violence examples. His clear writing easily breaks down the complex mechanisms and processes underlying collective violence, which allows for readers previously unaware of the topic to understand the topic.

[Jared Donis · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was a struggle to try and understand this work. I hated the style of writing which crammed every chapter with new and convoluted jargons. Second, the concepts are overlapping and confusing. It is as if he was deliberately trying to avoid being clear. In the end, I just skimmed through it all.

That said, I liked the detailed explanation of each of his chapters. The lessons in history were also interesting.

Overall, for anyone who is interested in dry, academic work, this could be the best stuff. However, for me, it was a bit too tedious. No offence to Professor Tilly.

[Ahmet Tezel · Rating 2 out of 5]

Kitabın Türkçesi Phoenix yayınevinden çıkmış. Ancak çeviri akıcı değil. Anlamak için cümleleri çok kez tekrar okumak zorunda kaldım.

[Kassidy Wheeler · Rating 4 out of 5]

we must indeed have a more demanding definition of democracy

[Cara Lynn]

Read for school

[Sunny Moraine · Rating 5 out of 5]

A classic. Extraordinarily useful for anyone interested in wars, conflicts, and states, and accessible to the layperson and scholar alike.

[Will · Rating 3 out of 5]

More of a kind of sociological look at the causes of collective violence, its forms, as well as the reasons that people take part in group violence.

[The Reader · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good social analysis of very different forms of collective violence in very different countries/regions/settings. As we would like more IR and PS scholars to write.
Charles Tilly is always good

[Katie Durow · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very repetitive book which contains some really good theories on why collective violence occurs.

[Miles Xavier · Rating 5 out of 5]

a comprehensive analysis of collective violence in all its forms - a must read for scholars of violence.