Rare violence in high-capacity democracies is politically magnified precisely because it is rare

Evidence

When it comes to high-capacity, democratic regimes such as Germany, Japan, India, and the United States, we generally find relatively low levels of violence in routine claim-making. We also discover highly selective— hence relatively rare—deployment of violent means by governmental agents. But in such regimes we also observe extensive involvement of government agents (as initiators, objects, or peacemakers) in such collective violence as does occur. Ironically, the net effect is to magnify the political impact of violence when it does happen in high-capacity, democratic regimes; each bit of damage dramatizes the significant political stakes over which participants are contending, more so than in regimes where collective violence occurs every day. — Charles Tilly, Regimes and Repertoires, 767

But in such regimes we also observe extensive involvement of government agents (as initiators, objects, or peacemakers) in such collective violence as does occur. Ironically, the net effect is to magnify the political impact of violence when it does happen in high-capacity, democratic regimes; each bit of damage dramatizes the significant political stakes over which participants are contending, more so than in regimes where collective violence occurs every day. Even in India, the great bulk of claimmaking occurs without violence, and violence across religious boundaries calls up an immediate political outcry. — Charles Tilly, Regimes and Repertoires, 767

Categorization

• XREF: Connects directly to the reader’s core question — in high-capacity democracies, all contentious politics is absorbed into rights-based, institutionalized repertoires, so whatever violence does escape gets read as fundamental rights-threat rather than routine struggle. — connects to: Treating all political violence as one class may obscure distinct causal types — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 4370; Electoral democracy can persist amid rampant police and gang violence — Charles Tilly, Regimes and Repertoires, 518
• SEED: Article angle: the very regimes that ‘absorb’ contention make the occasional spillover vastly more potent — an asymmetry where absorption raises, not lowers, the amplified cost of the forbidden performance (e.g. rights-defense policing that legitimizes dominant repertoires).
• corroborated: 3 independent passages support this claim — Charles Tilly, Regimes and Repertoires, 767

Broader Connections

• Treating all political violence as one class may obscure distinct causal types #complicates (0.75) — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 4370