Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-mkpzs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T16:55:34.810Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Cycles of Collective Action: Between Moments of Madness and the Repertoire of Contention

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 January 2016

Sidney Tarrow
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Moments of madness—when “all is possible”—recur persistently in the history of social movements. In such turbulent points of history, writes Aristide Zolberg, “the wall between the instrumental and the expressive collapses.” “Politics bursts its bounds to invade all of life” and “political animals somehow transcend their fate” (1972: 183). Such moments are unsettling and often leave even participants disillusioned—not to mention elites and political authorities. But they may be “necessary for the political transformation of societies,” writes Zolberg, for they are the source of the new actors, the audiences and the force to break through the crust of convention (1972: 206). In Kafka’s parable: “Leopards break into the temple and drink to the dregs what is in the sacrificial pitchers; this is repeated over and over again; finally it can be calculated in advance, and it becomes a part of the ceremony.”

Type
Special Section: Historical Perspectives on Social Movements (part 1)
Information
Social Science History , Volume 17 , Issue 2 , Summer 1993 , pp. 281 - 307
Copyright
Copyright © Social Science History Association 1993 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Aron, Raymond (1968) La revolution introuvable: Reflexions sur la revolution de mai. Paris: Fayard.Google Scholar
Beccalli [Salvati], Bianca (1971) “Scioperi e organizzazione sindacale: Milano 1950-1970.” Rassegna Italiana di sociologia 12: 83–120.Google Scholar
Bordogna, Lorenzo, and Provasi, Giancarlo (1979) “Il movimento degli scioperi in Italia, 1881–1973,” in Cella, Gian Primo (ed.) Il movimento degli scioperi nel XX secolo. Bologna: Il Mulino: 169–304.Google Scholar
Buerklin, Wilhelm (1987) “Why study political cycles: An introduction.” European Journal of Political Research 15: 131-43.Google Scholar
Della Porta, Donatella (1991) Il terrorismo di sinistra in Italia. Bologna: II Mulino.Google Scholar
Della Porta, Donatella, and Tarrow, Sidney (1987) “Unwanted children: Political violence and the cycle of Protest in Italy, 1966-1973.” European Journal of Political Research 14: 607-32.Google Scholar
Dubois, Pierre (1978) “New forms of industrial conflict, 1960-74,” in Crouch, Colin and Pizzorno, Alessandro (eds.) The Resurgence of Class Conflict in Europe since 1968, vol. 2. London: Macmillan: 1–34.Google Scholar
Franzosi, Roberto (1981) “Strikes in Italy in the postwar period.” Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Johns Hopkins University.Google Scholar
Gamson, William (1988) “Political discourse and collective action,” in Klandermans, Bert, Kriesi, Hanspeter, and Tarrow, Sidney (eds.) From Structure to Action: Social Movement Participation Across Cultures, International Social Movement Research I. Greenwich, CT: JAI Press: 219-46.Google Scholar
Gitlin, Todd (1987) The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage. New York: Bantam.Google Scholar
Golden, Miriam (1988) Labor Divided: Austerity and Working-Class Politics in Contemporary Italy. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Hobsbawm, Eric (1978) “The left and the crisis of organization.” New Society 44 (13 April): 63–66.Google Scholar
Horn, Nancy, and Tilly, Charles (1986) “Catalogs of contention in Britain, 1758–1834.” Center for the Study of Social Change Working Paper No. 32, New School for Social Research.Google Scholar
Jenkins, J. Craig, and Eckert, Craig (1986) “Channeling black insurgency: Elite patronage and professional social movement organizations in the development of the black movement.” American Sociological Review 51: 812-29.Google Scholar
Kafka, Franz (1937) Parables and Paradoxes, translated by Ernst Kaiser et al. New York: Schocken.Google Scholar
Klandermans, Bert (1988) “The formation and mobilization of consensus,” in Klandermans, Bert, Kriesi, Hanspeter, and Tarrow, Sidney (eds.) From Structure to Action: Social Movement Participation Across Cultures, International Social Movement Research I. Greenwich, CT: JAI Press: 173-96.Google Scholar
Klandermans, Bert (1990) “Linking the ‘old’ and the ‘new’: Movement networks in the Netherlands,” in Dalton, Russell and Kuechler, Manfred (eds.) Challenging the Political Order. New York: Oxford University Press: 123-36.Google Scholar
Lefebvre, Henri (1965) La Proclamation de la Commune, 26 mars 1871. Paris: Gallimard.Google Scholar
Lumley, Bob (1983) “Social movements in Italy, 1968-78.” Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Birmingham, Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies.Google Scholar
Lumley, Bob (1990) States of Emergency: Cultures of Revolt in Italy from 1968 to 1978. London: Verso.Google Scholar
Maguire, Diarmuid (1990) “Parties into movements.” Unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Cornell University.Google Scholar
Morin, Edgar, Lefort, Claude, and Coudray, Jean-Marc (1968) La Breche: Premières réflexions sur les événements. Paris: Fayard.Google Scholar
Ortoleva, Peppino (1988) Saggio sui movimenti del 1968 in Europa e in America. Rome: Editori Riuniti.Google Scholar
Perlmutter, Edward (1987) “Modelling the polity: Autoriduzione in Turin.” Unpublished paper.Google Scholar
Perlmutter, Edward (1988) “Intellectuals and urban protest: Extraparliamentary politics in Turin, Italy, 1968-1976.” Unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Harvard University.Google Scholar
Piven, Frances Fox, and Cloward, Richard (1977) Poor People’s Movements: How They Succeed and Why They Fail. New York: Vintage.Google Scholar
Pizzorno, Alessandro (1978) “Political exchange and collective identity in industrial conflict,” in Crouch, Colin C. and Pizzorno, Alessandro (eds.) The Resurgence of Class Conflict in Western Europe since 1968, vol. 2. London: Macmillan: 277-98.Google Scholar
Project on Social Protest and Policy Innovation (1985) Project Manual. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University.Google Scholar
Regalia, Ida (1979) “Delegati e consigli di fabbrica nelle ricerche degli anni Settanta,” in Annali della Fondazione Luigi Einaudi, vol. 13. Turin: Fondazione Einaudi.Google Scholar
Regalia, Ida (1985) Eletti e abbandonati: Modelli e stili di rappresentanza in fabbrica. Bologna: Il Mulino.Google Scholar
Rudé, George (1964) The Crowd in History: A Study of Popular Disturbances in France and England, 1730-1848. New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Rupp, Leila J., and Taylor, Verta (1987) The American Women’s Rights Movement from 1945 to the 1960s. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Shorter, Edward, and Tilly, Charles (1974) Strikes in France. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Snow, David, and Benford, Robert (1988) “Ideology, frame resonance and participant mobilization,” in Klandermans, Bert, Kriesi, Hanspeter, and Tarrow, Sidney (eds.) From Structure to Action: Social Movement Participation Across Cultures, International Social Movement Research I. Greenwich, CT: JAI Press: 197–218.Google Scholar
Stinchcombe, Arthur L. (1986) “Milieu and structure updated.” Theory and Society 15: 901-13.Google Scholar
Stinchcombe, Arthur L. (1987) Review of The Contentious French. American Journal of Sociology 93: 1248-49.Google Scholar
Tarrow, Sidney (1989) Democracy and Disorder: Protest and Politics in Italy, 1965-1975. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Tarrow, Sidney (1991a) “Kollektives handeln und politische gelegenheitsstruktur.” Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie 43: 647-70.Google Scholar
Tarrow, Sidney (1991b) Struggle, Politics and Reform: Collective Action, Social Move ments and Cycles of Protest. Ithaca, NY: Western Societies Occasional Paper No. 21.Google Scholar
Tarrow, Sidney (1993) “Collective action and the rise of the social movement: Why the French Revolution was not enough.” Politics and Society 22: 69–90.Google Scholar
Tilly, Charles (1978) From Mobilization to Revolution. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.Google Scholar
Tilly, Charles (1986) The Contentious French: Four Centuries of Popular Struggle. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Tocqueville, Alexis de (1942) Souvenirs d’Alexis de Tocqueville. Paris: Gallimard.Google Scholar
Tsebelis, George, and Sprague, John (1989) “Coercion and revolution: Variations on a predator-prey model.” Mathematical Computer Modelling 12: 547-59.Google Scholar
Zolberg, Aristide R. (1972) “Moments of madness.” Politics and Society 2 (Winter): 183–207.Google Scholar