Authority names for behavior do not certify coherent phenomena.

Evidence

The naming of a phenomenon provides no warrant that the phenomenon exists, much less that it is causally coherent. Many observers of violent contentious politics speak of street violence as “rioting.” Riot, however, is an authority’s name for public behavior of which the authority disapproves. … Did riots exist? Do they still exist? … This book opts emphatically for the third approach, remaining suspicious of such catchwords as riot, disorder, and disturbance. Yet I also lay out a number of concepts—for example, regimes, performances, and repertoires—with the claim that the phenomena they name exist, are observable, and exhibit enough causal regularities for us to consider them coherent and worth analyzing systematically. — Charles Tilly, Regimes and Repertoires, 292

Categorization

• DEFINE: Distinguishes ‘riot/terrorism’ as derogatory authority labels from genuinely coherent analytic concepts like regime and repertoire.
• XREF: Connects to social-constructionist critiques in Crime and the Construction of Risk (moral panic literature) and ‘Mugging was socially constructed as a crime before any statute defined it’. — connects to: An authority’s name for a gathering does not make that gathering causally coherent — Charles Tilly, Regimes and Repertoires, 292; Authority operates as an unexplained representation of complexity, not revealed wisdom — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 217; Ritual power depends on meaninglessness, not personal significance — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished…, 270 (+3 more)
• QUESTION: The asymmetry to test: does the author’s caution about authority-named phenomena apply when subordinate-group politicization is labeled ‘disorder’ but dominant-group ‘rights defense’ escapes the same suspicion?
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Charles Tilly, Regimes and Repertoires, 292

Broader Connections

• An authority’s name for a gathering does not make that gathering causally coherent #exemplifies (0.92) — Charles Tilly, Regimes and Repertoires, 292
• Possessing a political term does not make one a practitioner of it #exemplifies (0.90)
• Imposing diagnostic labels without systematic behavioral evidence undermines personality-and-politics research. #exemplifies (0.88)
• Authority operates as an unexplained representation of complexity, not revealed wisdom #expands (0.85) — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 217
• Naming-and-shaming policy fails when shame breeds no guilt or reparation #exemplifies (0.80) — Nyla R. Branscombe and Bertjan Doosje (eds.), Collective Guilt, 2081
• Ritual power depends on meaninglessness, not personal significance #corroborates (0.78) — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 270