Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2brh9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-28T17:15:36.745Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

A community-based theory of rebellion

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Roger Petersen
Get access

Extract

Much literature has been written on why men rebel. However, the whole of human history can be characterized as a reason for why men rebel; the last four thousand years have presented us with one sorry set of oppression and exploitation after another. Basically, normal life for human beings has consisted of small groups of people taking advantage of larger groups of people. The real puzzle is why the larger groups of people don't rebel against the smaller groups of people more often. Perhaps the most important question is not why men rebel, but how they rebel. How does an individual gain the confidence or courage to take the tremendous risks involved in a rebellion? How does a rebellion sustain itself against the powers of the established regime?

Type
Research Article
Information
European Journal of Sociology / Archives Européennes de Sociologie , Volume 34 , Issue 1 , May 1993 , pp. 41 - 78
Copyright
Copyright © Archives Européenes de Sociology 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

Aspray, R., 1965. War in the Shadows, Vol. 1 (Garden City, N.Y., Doubleday and Company).Google Scholar
Davies, J. C., 1962. Toward a Theory of Revolution, American Sociological Review, XXVII, 5–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Elster, J., 1990a. The Cement of Society: A Study of Social Order (Cambridge, U.K., Cambridge University Press).Google Scholar
Elster, J., 1990b. When Communism Dissolves, London Review of Books, 01 25, pp. 3–6.Google Scholar
Granovetter, M., 1978. Threshold Models of Collective Behavior, American Journal of Sociology, LXXXIII, 1420–1443.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gurr, T. R., 1970. Why Men Rebel (Princeton, Princeton University Press).Google Scholar
Horowitz, D., 1985. Ethnic Groups in Conflict (Berkeley, University of California Press).Google Scholar
Johnson, C., 1982. Revolutionary Change (Stanford, Stanford University Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kuran, T., 1991. The Element of Surprise in the East European Revolution of 1989, World Politics, XLIV, 7–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marwell, G., Oliver, P. and Prahl, R., 1988. Social Networks and Collective Action: A Theory of the Critical Mass III, American Journal of Sociology, XCIV, 502–534.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Motyl, A., 1990. Sovietology, Rationality, Nationality (New York, Columbia University Press).Google Scholar
Olson, M., 1971. The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups (Cambridge, Mass, Harvard University Press).Google Scholar
Oliver, P. and Marwell, G., 1988. The Paradox of Group Size in Collective Action: A Theory of Critical Mass II, American Sociological Review, LIII, 1–8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Oliver, P., Marwell, G. and Teixiera, R., 1985. A Theory of the Critical Mass I: Interdependence, Group Heterogeneity, and the Production of Collective Action, American Journal of Sociology, XCI, 522–556.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Popkin, S., 1979. The Rational Peasant: The Political Society of Rural Society in Vietnam (Berkeley, University of California Press).Google Scholar
Popkin, S., 1988. Political Entrepreneurs and Peasant Movements in Vietnam, pp. 9–62in Taylor, M. (ed.) Rationality and Revolution (Cambridge, U.K., Cambridge University Press).Google Scholar
Taylor, M., 1982. Community, Anarchy, Liberty (Cambridge, U.K., Cambridge University Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Taylor, M., (ed.) 1988. Rationality and Revolution. (Cambridge, U.K., Cambridge University Press).Google Scholar