Initial conditions shape but do not determine contentious processes

Evidence

Sambanis’s critique joins with this book’s main arguments. The South African struggles analyzed in chapter 5 came close enough to civil war for us to conclude that knowing the background conditions—at what point in time?—tells us little about the process by which South Africa divided into deeply hostile camps, then struggled its way to uneasy peace. … Initial conditions shape subsequent processes, but do not determine them. POS and repertoires vary in characteristic ways from one type of regime to another, and therefore produce differences in initial propensities to different forms of collective violence. Among other things, the availability of alternative paths to power affects the attractiveness of military insurgency even where material and organizational conditions make insurgency technically possible. — Charles Tilly, Regimes and Repertoires, 815

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Contingent events are non-random yet depend on aberrant chance conditions — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 4266; Contingency allows determinacy to be thought without closure; Contingency and inherency always mix but cannot both be equally basic — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 4270 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Contingency allows determinacy to be thought without closure #expands (0.80)
• Contingent events are non-random yet depend on aberrant chance conditions #expands (0.75) — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 4266
• Contingency and inherency always mix but cannot both be equally basic #qualifies (0.75) — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 4270