Proximity to democratic regimes spreads social-movement forms into nondemocratic settings

Evidence

Nevertheless, when democratic and nondemocratic regimes connect closely with each other, claimants in the nondemocratic regimes more frequently borrow social-movement forms in making their own claims. Colonial India provides a striking case in point: for all the distinctiveness of India’s contentious repertoires, from late in the nineteenth century the subcontinent’s nationalist leaders organized associations, meetings, demonstrations, delegations, and petitions. The Indian National Congress (INC, founded in 1885) originated in just such an effort. During its early years, the INC made its claims in the manner of an orderly British pressure group, by meeting, lobbying, petitioning, and drafting addresses; it acted as a social-movement organization (Bose and Jalal 1998, 116–17; Johnson 1996, 156–62). Today, mass media have made the performances of social movements—especially their demonstrations—so visible throughout the world that dissidents in nondemocratic regimes often emulate their forms. — Charles Tilly, Regimes and Repertoires, 1179

Categorization

• SEED: Repertoire diffusion across regime boundaries — the INC adopting orderly ‘British pressure group’ forms to claim rights against an empire that itself claimed democratic legitimacy — offers a concrete case where subordinate-group politicization is channeled into the metropole’s own repertoire, relevant to the reader’s absorption question.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Charles Tilly, Regimes and Repertoires, 1179
• XREF: connects to: High-capacity semi-democratic regimes generated the social-movement repertoire that channeled revolutionary contention — Charles Tilly, Regimes and Repertoires, 1071; Demonstrations detached from social movements and diffused into nondemocratic regimes — Charles Tilly, Regimes and Repertoires, 1232; Social-movement activity depends on regime-backed rights to endure retaliation — Charles Tilly, Regimes and Repertoires, 1178

Broader Connections

• Demonstrations detached from social movements and diffused into nondemocratic regimes #expands (0.85) — Charles Tilly, Regimes and Repertoires, 1232
• Social-movement activity depends on regime-backed rights to endure retaliation #qualifies (0.75) — Charles Tilly, Regimes and Repertoires, 1178