Contemporary articles citing Tilly C (1990) Coercion Capital Eur

state, states, modern, key, forms, historical, power, development, concept, change

Manza, Jeff & Clem Brooks. 2012. "How Sociology Lost Public Opinion: a Genealogy of a Missing Concept in the Study of the Political." Sociological Theory. 30:2 89-113. Link

In contemporary sociology the once prominent study of public opinion has virtually disappeared. None of the leading theoretical models in the closest disciplinary subfield (political sociology) currently provide ample or sufficiently clear space for consideration of public opinion as a possible factor in shaping or interacting with key policy or political outcomes in democratic polities. In this article, we unearth and document the sources of this curious development and raise questions about its implications for how political sociologists have come to understand policy making, state formation, and political conflict. We begin by reconstructing the dismissal of public opinion in the intellectual reorientation of political sociology from the late 1970s onward. We argue that the most influential scholarly works of this period (including those of Tilly, Skocpol, Mann, Esping-Andersen, and Domhoff) face an underlying paradox: While often rejecting public opinion, their theoretical logics ultimately presuppose its operation. These now classical writings did not move toward research programs seeking engagement with the operation and formation of public opinion, even though our immanent critique suggests they in fact require precisely this turn. We address the challenge of reconceptualizing how public opinion might be productively integrated into the sociological study of politics by demonstrating that the major arguments in the subfield can be fruitfully extended by grappling with public opinion. We conclude by considering several recent, interdisciplinary examples of scholarship that, we argue, point the way toward a fruitful revitalization.

Jansen, Robert. 2011. "Populist Mobilization: a New Theoretical Approach to Populism." Sociological Theory. 29:2 75-96. Link

Sociology has long shied away from the problem of populism. This may be due to suspicion about the concept or uncertainty about how to fit populist cases into broader comparative matrices. Such caution is warranted: the existing interdisciplinary literature has been plagued by conceptual confusion and disagreement. But given the recent resurgence of populist politics in Latin America and elsewhere, sociology can no longer afford to sidestep such analytical challenges. This article moves toward a political sociology of populism by identifying past theoretical deficiencies and proposing a new, practice-based approach that is not beholden to pejorative common sense understandings. This approach conceptualizes populism as a mode of political practice-as populist mobilization. Its utility is demonstrated through an application to mid-twentieth-century Latin American politics. The article concludes by sketching an agenda for future research on populist mobilization in Latin America and beyond.

Jepperson, Ronald & John Meyer. 2011. "Multiple Levels of Analysis and the Limitations of Methodological Individualisms." Sociological Theory. 29:1 54-73. Link

This article discusses relations among the multiple levels of analysis present in macro-sociological explanation-i.e., relations of individual, structural, and institutional processes. It also criticizes the doctrinal insistence upon single-level individualistic explanation found in some prominent contemporary sociological theory. For illustrative material the article returns to intellectual uses of Weber's ``Protestant Ethic thesis,'' showing how an artificial version has been employed as a kind of proof text for the alleged scientific necessity of individualist explanation. Our alternative exposition renders the discussion of Protestantism and capitalism in an explicitly multilevel way, distinguishing possible individual-level, social-organizational, and institutional linkages. The causal processes involved are distinct ones, with the more structural and institutional forms neither captured nor attainable by individual-level thinking. We argue more generally that ``methodological individualisms'' confuse issues of explanation with issues about microfoundations. This persistent intellectual conflation may be rooted in the broader folk models of liberal individualism.

Beland, D. 2005. "Insecurity, Citizenship, and Globalization: the Multiple Faces of State Protection." Sociological Theory. 23:1 25-41. Link

Adopting a long-term historical perspective, this article examines the growing complexity and the internal tensions of state protection in Western Europe and North America. Beginning with Charles Tilly's theory about state building and organized crime, the discussion follows with a critical analysis of T. H. Marshall's article on citizenship. Arguing that state protection has become far more multifaceted than what Marshall's triadic model suggests, the article shows how this protection frequently transcends the logic of individual rights while increasing the reliance of citizens on the modern state. The last section formulates a critique of the idea formulated by theorists like Manuel Castells that globalization favors a rapid decline of state power. Yet, state protection may not necessarily grow indefinitely, and tax cuts, for example, the ones recently enacted in the United States, could seriously jeopardize a state's capacity to raise revenues and effectively fight older and newer forms of insecurity.

Li, JL. 2002. "State Fragmentation: Toward a Theoretical Understanding of the Territorial Power of the State." Sociological Theory. 20:2 139-156. Link

In existing theories of revolution, the state is narrowly defined as an administrative entity, and state breakdown simply refers to the disintegration of a given political regime. But this narrow definition cannot deal with this question: Why, in a revolutionary situation, do some states become fragmented and others remain unified? I would therefore argue for the broadening of the concept of state breakdown to include the territorial power of the state and to treat the latter as a key analytical dimension in the study of state fragmentation. The dynamics of territorial state power involve the control of critical territories and valuable resources associated with the spatial position of a given state in the interstate system. A strong territorial state is able to maintain its organizational coerciveness and territorial integrity, whereas a weak territorial state is vulnerable to fragmentation. The overall state crisis derives from the accumulated effects of geopolitical strain by which territorial fragmentation unfolds.

Eisenstadt, SN. 1998. "The Paradox of Democratic Regimes: Fragility and Transformability." Sociological Theory. 16:3 211-238. Link

In most of the vast scholarly literature on constitutional-democratic regimes, the major emphasis has been on the broader social, economic, or cultural conditions conducive to their development, breakdown, or consolidation and continuity (Diamond 1993b; Diamond, Lint, and Lipset 1989, 1990). The major thesis of this essay is that fragility and instability are inherent in the very constitution of modem constitutional-democratic regimes, and are rooted in (I) the tensions between the different conceptions of democracy (especially between constitutional and participatory democracy) and (2) the central aspects of the political and cultural program of modernity. The common core of these premises is the openness of the political process (particularly with regard to protest) and the concomitant tendency toward continual redefinition of the political realm. Openness is an important contributor to the fragility of modern democratic regimes; paradoxically, it also allows for their continuity. The key question, then, is how and under what conditions non-zero-sum conceptions of the ``game'' of politics develop. The second part of this essay takes up this question, with special emphasis on the development and reproduction of trust among different sectors of society, the relationships between such sectors and the centers of society, and the construction of different types of collective identity.

Torpey, J. 1998. "Coming and Going: on the State Monopolization of the Legitimate ``means of Movement''." Sociological Theory. 16:3 239-259. Link

Following the imagery of ``expropriation'' used by Marx to describe the process of capitalist development and by Weber to characterize states' monopolization of the legitimate use of violence, I argue that modern states have also ``expropriated the legitimate means of movement'' and monopolized the authority to determine who may circulate within and cross their borders. Against this background, we should reconsider the metaphor of ``penetration'' typically used to discuss the enhanced capacity of modern states relative to their predecessors, and instead think of states as ``embracing'' populations, identifying persons unambiguously in order to control their movements and to distinguish members from nonmembers.

NEE, V & P LIAN. 1994. "Sleeping With the Enemy - a Dynamic-model of Declining Political Commitment in State Socialism." Theory and Society. 23:2 253-296. Link

ADAMS, J. 1994. "The Familial State - Elite Family Practices and State-making in the Early-modern Netherlands." Theory and Society. 23:4 505-539. Link

VANDERGEEST, P & NL PELUSO. 1995. "Territorialization and State Power in Thailand." Theory and Society. 24:3 385-426. Link

Campbell, JL. 1996. "An Institutional Analysis of Fiscal Reform in Postcommunist Europe." Theory and Society. 25:1 45-84. Link

Soysal, YN. 1997. "Changing Parameters of Citizenship and Claims-making: Organized Islam in European Public Spheres." Theory and Society. 26:4 509-527. Link

Torpey, J. 1997. "Revolutions and Freedom of Movement: an Analysis of Passport Controls in the French, Russian, and Chinese Revolutions." Theory and Society. 26:6 837-868. Link

Loveman, M. 1999. "Making ``race'' and Nation in the United States, South Africa, and Brazil: Taking Making Seriously." Theory and Society. 28:6 903-927. Link

Martin, JL. 2005. "The Objective and Subjective Rationalization of War." Theory and Society. 34:3 229-275. Link

Perhaps the most engaging theories in historical sociology have been those pertaining to the rationalization of Western society. In particular, both Max Weber and Michelle Foucault point to the unique nature of societal rationalization in the early modern period, a thorough-going upheaval both in forms of social organization and in individual subjectivity. These correlative changes led to the nature of the modern state and its citizens. One example used by both is the rationalization of warfare. Close attention to the question of rationalization and the history of infantry warfare, however, suggests that far from representing a watershed change from non-rationalized to rationalized war, the early-modern period was more like other rapid expansions of armies based on recruitment of commoners, and had little to do with the distinctive characteristics of the emerging nation-states.

Kyriazis, N. 2006. "Seapower and Socioeconomic Change." Theory and Society. 35:1 71-108. Link

The present essay examines the concepts of path dependence and change of political and economic regimes. Starting from the debate of the influence of the so called military revolution on the emergence of modern states, the neglected aspect of the influence of seapower on socioeconomic change is presented, using a formal model. It is maintained that the choice of seapower by a state leads to a different regime than the choice of land military power, because sustainable seapower necessitates a wide alliance of interests, which brings with it more democratic regimes, develops new more efficient and complex forms of organizations, requires the acquisition and diffusion of new knowledge and expertise, which brings with it institutional change and economic growth. The essay concludes with a short presentation of the United Provinces' (the Dutch Republic) turn to the sea.

Thornhill, Chris. 2008. "Towards a Historical Sociology of Constitutional Legitimacy." Theory and Society. 37:2 161-197. Link

This article has two primary objectives. First, it sets out the methodological argument that the conventional antinomy between normative and sociological approaches to questions of state legitimacy depends on a series of false constructions, and that normative and sociological - or specifically historical-sociological - analyses of states and the processes by which they obtain legitimacy can be (and ought to be) mutually reinforcing. This argument hinges on the claim that historical sociology should renounce some of its common presuppositions regarding the coercive functions of state power and reformulate itself as a normative social science, identifying and promoting models of statehood likely to obtain legitimacy in modern differentiated societies. Second, it sets out the more substantive argument that the legitimization of states can be observed both as an evolutionary or adaptive dimension of state formation and as a process of theoretical self-reflection in which the societies where states are located construct and refine the most adequate form for the transmission of the power they designate as political. In this respect, the article questions common assumptions about politics and legitimacy and makes a case for a change of paradigm in the analysis of these concepts. Through this change of paradigm, politics itself and the methods used for securing legitimacy for politics are constructed as abstracted articulations of a society's own needs and exigencies. The article borrows elements from the systemic-functionalist sociology of Niklas Luhmann to develop the argument. In this context, the article also uses historical case studies to outline a theory of constitutions and constitutional rights. This theory explains how constitutions and constitutional rights help to generate legitimacy for states by enabling modern political systems, both normatively and functionally, to reflect and stabilize their position in society, to control the volume of politics in a society, and to elaborate socially adequate techniques for applying and restricting political power. The article concludes by suggesting that historical-sociological analyses of the functions of rights and constitutions can provide a key to proposing both normatively and sociologically founded models of legitimate statehood.

Fukase-Indergaard, Fumiko & Michael Indergaard. 2008. "Religious Nationalism and the Making of the Modern Japanese State." Theory and Society. 37:4 343-374. Link

This article explores the role of religious nationalism in the making of the modern Japanese state. We describe a process of adaptation featuring bricolage, as an alternative to imitation accounts of non-Western state formation that privilege Western culture. The Meiji state, finding it could not impose Shinto as a state religion, selectively drew from religio-nationalist currents and Western models for over two decades before institutionalizing State Shinto. Although we see some similarities to Europe, distinctive features of the Japanese case suggest a different path to modernity: a lack of separation between state and religion, an emphasis on ritual and a late (and historically condensed) development of popular religious nationalism, which was anchored by State Shinto disciplinary devices including school rituals and shrines deifying the war dead.

Campbell, Alec. 2010. "The Sociopolitical Origins of the American Legion." Theory and Society. 39:1 1-24. Link

The American Legion was one of the most politically consequential organizations in the twentieth-century United States. It was a local bedrock of anti-communism in two post-war red scares and throughout the cold war. It also built a lavish and cross-nationally unique welfare state for American veterans. In this article, I examine the origins of the American Legion and demonstrate that it was organized by rentier capitalists acting in their intraclass and interclass interests. Most importantly, the Legion was an organization that fought the ``battle over class'' by denying the importance of class as a social concept and proposing ``Americanism'' as an alternative. I also argue that the Legion's extreme anti-communism combined with its dedication to welfare provision for American veterans altered the course of American welfare state development.

Hanagan, Michael & Chris Tilly. 2010. "Cities, States, Trust, and Rule: New Departures From the Work of Charles Tilly." Theory and Society. 39:3-4, SI 245-263. Link

In the light of his essay ``Cities, States and Trust Networks,'' contributors to this collection were asked to consider ways of building on or departing from the late Charles Tilly's work. The authors in this collection addressed four major themes: (1) historicism and historical legacies, (2) trust networks and commitment, (3) city-state relations, and (4) democracy and inequality. Authors concentrating on historicism examined how, despite unanticipated consequences, social action nonetheless produced systematic, durable, social structures; they particularly focused on processes of identity formation and cultural reproduction. In regard to trust networks, contributors discovered a striking variety of forms and relationships and they investigated their origins and their relationship to institutions and culture. Looking at city-state relations, authors uncovered the richness and intricacy of the ties linking cities and states and showed that city-state relations were important not simply in terms of the autonomy or dependence of mutual ties, but also in the quality of these relationships. Besides the ties between cities and states other authors sought to focus on empires and wondered about the degree to which empire formation involved similar processes as state formation. Several authors developed this theme. Authors pursuing themes of democracy and inequality stressed how changes in citizenship and the expansion of parliamentary democratic forms might have complicated effects. The relationship between democracy and inequality was mediated by elites and institutions. Democracy constrained inequality but inequality also constrained democracy. Increased state capacity might enable states to remedy old inequities but it might also allow them to perpetrate new ones. The authors' varied responses suggest promising directions for research on cities, states, and trust networks.

Barkey, Karen & Ira Katznelson. 2011. "States, Regimes, and Decisions: Why Jews Were Expelled From Medieval England and France." Theory and Society. 40:5 475-503. Link

This article explores the relation between the expulsion of Jews from medieval England and France and state building, geo-politics, regime styles, and taxation in these countries. Jews were evicted as a result of attempts by kings to manage royal insecurity, refashion relations between state and society, and build more durable systems of taxation within the territories they claimed as theirs. As they engaged in state building and extended their ties, often conflictual, to key societal and political actors, Jews became financially less important but more visible as outsiders, becoming a liability for the crown. Similar mechanisms were at work despite important differences distinguishing England's growing regime of rights and representation and France's emergent absolutist patrimonialism.

Lainer-Vos, Dan. 2012. "Manufacturing National Attachments: Gift-giving, Market Exchange and the Construction of Irish and Zionist Diaspora Bonds." Theory and Society. 41:1 73-106. Link

This article explores nation building as an organizational accomplishment and uses the concept of boundary object to explain how the groups that compose the nation cooperate. Specifically, the article examines the mechanisms devised to secure a flow of money from the Irish-American and Jewish-American diasporas to their respective homelands. To overcome problems associated with conventional philanthropy, Irish and Jewish nationalists issued bonds and sold them to their American compatriots as a hybrid of a gift and an investment. In the Irish case, disagreements about the entitlement to the proceeds resulted in the termination of the bond project. In the Jewish case, the bond served as a boundary object allowing American and Israeli Jews to cooperate despite ongoing tensions. The Israeli bond provided Jewish-Americans with an additional way to invest themselves financially and emotionally in Israel. This bond is an example of a socio-technical mechanism used to create national attachments.

Anderson, Elisabeth. 2013. "Ideas in Action: the Politics of Prussian Child Labor Reform, 1817-1839." Theory and Society. 42:1 81-119. Link

This article explains the political origins of an 1839 law regulating the factory employment of children in Prussia. The article has two aims. First, it seeks to explain why Prussia adopted the particular law that it did. Existing historical explanations of this particular policy change are not correct, largely because they fail to take into account the actual motivations and intentions of key reformers. Second, the article contributes to theories of the role of ideas in public policymaking. Ideas interact with institutional and political factors to serve as motivators and as resources for policy change. As motivators, they drive political action and shape the content of policy programs; as resources, they enable political actors to recruit supporters and forge alliances. I offer a theory of the relationship between ideas, motivation, and political action, and I develop a methodological framework for assessing the reliability of political actors' expressed motivations. Further, I explain how political actors use ideas as resources by deploying three specific ideational strategies: framing, borrowing, and citing. By tracing how different understandings of the child labor problem motivated and were embodied in two competing child labor policy proposals, I show how the ideas underlying reform had significant consequences for policy outcomes.