Brings together leading scholars from political science and sociology

Recent events—from the collapse of Leninist regimes in Eastern Europe to the democratization of South Asian and South American states—have profoundly changed our ways of understanding and studying contentious politics, particularly the relationship between state repression and political mobilization.

With case studies that range from Germany to the Philippines, the United States to Japan, Guatemala to China, the authors take up topics as varied as the dynamic interactions between protesters and policing agents, distinctions between “hard” and “soft” repression, the impact of media on our understanding of political contention, the timing and shape of protest and resistance cycles, and how measurements of social and geographic control influence states’s responses to insurgencies. Together these essays synthesize what we know about repression and mobilization and provide thoughtful insight for the future.

Contributors: Patrick Ball, Science and Human Rights Program of the American Association for the Advancement of Science; Vince Boudreau, City College of New York; Myra Marx Ferree, U of Wisconsin; Ronald A. Francisco, U of Kansas; Ruud Koopmans, Free U Amsterdam; Mark Lichbach, U of Maryland; John D. McCarthy, Pennsylvania State U; Clark McPhail, U of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign; Patricia Steinhoff, U of Hawaii; Charles Tilly, Columbia U; Gilda Zwerman, SUNY, Old Westbury.

Christian Davenport is associate professor and director of the Radical Information Project at the University of Maryland.

Hank Johnston is a lecturer in the Department of Sociology at San Diego State University.

Carol Mueller is professor of sociology in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences at Arizona State University West.

"This book will be of great interest to scholars of the mobilization-repression nexus. It offers an excellent collection of the latest work in this field and highlights both the multitude of questions that still beg further inquiry as well as the varied conceptual and methodological approaches that help us to better understand the casual linkages and mechanisms that lead to conflict and human suffering."—Extremism and Democracy Newsletter

"A timely and prophetic book."—Human Rights Quarterly

"Its contents represent the most significant advance in collective knowledge in some time."—Contemporary Sociology

"This volume gives us many mechanisms of protest/repression dynamics to consider and advances considerably our understanding of those dynamics. This book offers a new model of protest and contention that is far more actor rich, event- and regime-specific, and interactive than conventional models."—Journal of Peace Research

"An innovative combination of subtly nuanced theoretical insights backed by solid empirical case studies."—Canadian Journal of Sociology Online

"Recommended."—Choice

"Repression and Mobilization’s chapters are framed by a thorough introduction from one of the field’s best new scholars from the last decade or so, coeditor Christian Davenport, and by concluding contributions from two of the most distinguished scholars of conflict studies, Mark Lichbach and Charles Tilly."—American Journal of Sociology

"Written by some of the most distinguished scholars in the field of social movements and social conflict. They suggest new ways of approaching the phenomena of repression and mobilization and call us to broaden the object and enrich the means of our analysis. A stimulating and outstanding contribution not only for postgraduate students and academics with a special interest in the relevant literature, but for those interested in the broader issue of the object of social theory as well."—Political Studies Review