Existing political institutions, not just pressure levels, shape contention.

Evidence

Contentious politics does not, however, operate like a hydraulic pump: increase the pressure or reduce the resistance and more water flows. South Africa brings out dramatically the influence of previously existing political institutions on forms and outcomes of contention. The boundaries about which South Africans mobilized and fought between 1948 and 2000 had emerged from the earlier operation of a racially oppressive regime, but continued to shift as the apartheid regime put new institutions into place. — Charles Tilly, Regimes and Repertoires, 631

Categorization

• XREF: This anti-hydraulic claim bears directly on the reader’s question about whether institutional absorption defuses politicization - institutional form matters more than raw pressure, which could support a regime-type rather than pressure explanation. — connects to: Institutions designed to divide subordinates instead create new arenas for struggle. — Charles Tilly, Regimes and Repertoires, 632; Contention is not a hydraulic response to pressure but shaped by prior institutions — Charles Tilly, Regimes and Repertoires, 631; A regime’s past path in capacity-democracy space shapes its contention practices. — Charles Tilly, Regimes and Repertoires, 145 (+8 more)
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Charles Tilly, Regimes and Repertoires, 631

Broader Connections

• Contention is not a hydraulic response to pressure but shaped by prior institutions #corroborates (0.97) — Charles Tilly, Regimes and Repertoires, 631
• Democratic institutions channel contention into electoral forms while autocracies push it underground #exemplifies (0.88)
• Contention forms are regime-bound but also historically embedded #corroborates (0.85) — Charles Tilly, Regimes and Repertoires, 231
• A regime’s past path in capacity-democracy space shapes its contention practices. #expands (0.82) — Charles Tilly, Regimes and Repertoires, 145
• Democratic high-capacity regimes exhibit distinctive patterned contention. #exemplifies (0.78) — Charles Tilly, Regimes and Repertoires, 378
• Laws of contention vary by regime type and era. #expands (0.75) — Charles Tilly, Regimes and Repertoires, 365
• Parties organize political conflict rather than merely reflecting preexisting disagreements #expands (0.72) — Russell Muirhead and Nancy L. Rosenblum, A Lot of People Are Saying, 193