EPB: Contentious Politics

POLS 209

Explanatory Blog Post

Samuel W. Warren

Q: How do people cross the barrier of fear in many authoritarian states?

The following is based on a reading “Now Out of Never: The Element of Surprise in the East European Revolution of 1989”, written by Tilly Charles and Sidney Tarrow.

The reading provided considered what factors encouraged people to cross the barrier of fear in authoritarian states. The discussion begins by using Thomas Clarkson, a young English divinity student, as a case in point. Clarkson organised an anti-slavery movement in the late 1700s, becoming the world’s first professional advocate-organiser in modern times. By writing thousands of letters, organising petitions, and coordinating a transnational movement, he and his supporters boycotted slave-made sugar in Europe. In doing so, Clarkson played part in the eventual end to the slavery campaign, illustrating how one man can have an effect in the real world.

The reading then discusses other cases through more recent history, including the citizen movements in Kiev of 2004 in protest of the corrupt Ukrainian leader, Kuchma. This event is known as the “Orange Revolution”. The revolution was almost a failure when the military armed itself to meet the protest with force, however, a number of factors cam into play behind the scenes; namely that many higher-ups protected opposition figures, and senior intelligence officers persuaded troops to turn back. The result: people marched through the city peacefully chanting about repression and corruption.

But what do these two cases have in common, and how do they relate to the topic at hand? Essentially, they are both acts against forms of authorities and incorporate collective power to do so. The key words to this concept are “contentious politics”, where actors (such as Clarkson) are involved in coordinated political efforts on the behalf of the interest of the people. Three key elements to “contentious politics” are: contention, collective action, and politics.

Contention involves the idea of “bearing someone else’s interests”. Collective action, as mentioned before, is the combined effort that is coordinated through similar interests. The realm of politics is then tied into the concept, and entails any form of
engagement with entities like governments and authoritative bodies.

Charles and Tarrow go into further deep about each of the three aforementioned components of contentious politics, discuss and analysing each branch to explain how they are incorporated into social movements calling for political change, including in British anti-slavery and Ukrainian government opposition movements via the two case studies.

To my understanding, the authors aim to illustrate that it takes a variety of elements that can bring social change, however, it is historically achievable with just one person to set the change into motion. With each branch of contentious politics satisfied, protestors are in a far greater position to achieve their goals in the most effective form.

I like to look at the Russian Revolution in 1917, where the people overthrew the 300-year-old Tsarist regime. At the time, Russia was in an appalling state with illiteracy, poverty and an oppressive structure of class systems that would not allow movement between the two. Several factors came into play, such as the October revolution years before, however, contentious politics came into play where rebels overthrew a political system. These rebels, of course, were the Communist Party and lead by Lenin. Each branch of contentious politics was fulfilled. Collective action involving a mass of the peasants and left aligned stormed through the palaces to invoke action. Contention, aimed at demolishing the class systems to bring about equality. And of course, the politics was directed at the Tsarist Monarchy itself.

 

Tsar Nicholas

There are numerous cases similar to the above three throughout history. A clear pattern emerges with the play of contentious politics being a central factor to the success of social movements calling for political change.