Regime capacity and democracy jointly shape the violence level of domestic contention
Evidence
Here this chapter’s arguments concerning collective violence and the earlier analyses of regimes converge. The public politics of high-capacity, democratic regimes brings together widespread collective claim-making; low salience, coordination, and overall levels of collective violence; and impressively restrained domestic use of the government’s enormous coercive power. Less democratic and lower-capacity regimes experience more authoritarian and/or more violent forms of contentious politics. The relations illustrated in the chart above help us understand why. — Charles Tilly, Regimes and Repertoires, 898
Categorization
- XREF: Directly the regime-capacity/democracy matrix passage the reader is hunting; states Tilly’s core regularity that capacity plus democracy suppresses domestic collective violence while enabling widespread claim-making. — connects to: Higher regime capacity with some democratic freedoms produces intermediate contention — Charles Tilly, Regimes and Repertoires, 503; Regime capacity and democracy jointly shape prevailing contentious repertoires. — Charles Tilly, Regimes and Repertoires, 533; Regime type determines the forms and intensity of collective violence — Charles Tilly, Regimes and Repertoires, 689 (+10 more)
- QUESTION: This is where the reader’s untested asymmetry question bites: Tilly presents the capacity-democracy combination as uniformly pacifying claim-making, with no distinction between subordinate-group politicization (absorbed by institutional access) and dominant-group politicization (legitimated as rights defense). Can the framework be extended, or does it assume symmetrical uptake?
- ADDENDUM: Connects to ‘Complaints About Immodesty Go Way Back’ line of thought only loosely; more centrally it is the load-bearing matrix claim against which any constitutional-rights-absorption hypothesis must be tested.
- corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Charles Tilly, Regimes and Repertoires, 898
Broader Connections
- Democratic high-capacity regimes vary remarkably in domestic contention despite controlling violence
#qualifies(0.85) — Charles Tilly, Regimes and Repertoires, 895 - A regime’s past path in capacity-democracy space shapes its contention practices.
#expands(0.80) — Charles Tilly, Regimes and Repertoires, 145 - Regime capacity to mobilize violence depends on patron-client networks and assets
#expands(0.78) — Johan Brosché and Hanne Fjelde and Kristine Höglund, Electoral violence and the legacy of…, 83 - Regime coercion weakly deters protest while dissident coercive capacity strongly enables rebellion
#expands(0.75) - Democracies install baseline rights even where capacity is low and violence high
#complicates(0.74) — Charles Tilly, Regimes and Repertoires, 1303 - Inclusive versus exclusive authoritarian ruling coalitions shape electoral violence risk.
#expands(0.72) — Johan Brosché and Hanne Fjelde and Kristine Höglund, Electoral violence and the legacy of…, 94 - Exclusionary versus cooperative elite coalition legacies shape post-transition electoral violence risk.
#expands(0.72) — Johan Brosché and Hanne Fjelde and Kristine Höglund, Electoral violence and the legacy of…, 96