In the last ten years, there has been a resurgence of interest in repression and violence within states. Paths to State Repression improves our understanding of why states use political repression, highlighting its relationship to dissent and mass protest. The authors draw upon a wide variety of political-economic contexts, methodological approaches, and geographic locales, including Cuba, Nicaragua, Peru, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Israel, Eastern Europe, and Africa. This book is invaluable to all who wish to better understand why central authorities violate and restrict human rights and how states can break their cycles of conflict.

This work seeks to improve our understanding of why states use political repression, highlighting its relationship to dissent and mass protest. The authors draw upon a variety of political-economic contexts, methodological approaches, and geographic locales

Does democracy reduce state repression as human rights activism, funding, and policy suggest? What are the limitations of this argument? Investigating 137 countries from 1976 to 1996, State Repression and the Domestic Democratic Peace seeks to shed light on these questions. Specifically, it finds that electoral participation and competition generally reduces personal integrity violations like torture and mass killing; other aspects of democracy do not wield consistent influences. This negative influence can be overwhelmed by conflict, however, and thus there are important qualifications for the peace proposition.

This book examines information reported within the media regarding the interaction between the Black Panther Party and government agents in the Bay Area of California (1967-1973). Christian Davenport argues that the geographic locale and political orientation of the newspaper influences how specific details are reported, including who starts and ends the conflict, who the Black Panthers target (government or non-government actors), and which part of the government responds (the police or court). Specifically, proximate and government-oriented sources provide one assessment of events, whereas proximate and dissident-oriented sources have another; both converge on specific aspects of the conflict. The methodological implications of the study are clear; Davenport's findings prove that in order to understand contentious events, it is crucial to understand who collects or distributes the information in order to comprehend who reportedly does what to whom as well as why.

The Death and Life of State Repression addresses a problem that dates back at least 75 years, if not before. Since World War II, individuals and institutions from around the world have been concerned with state repression/human rights violations and since about 1990, a robust empiricalliterature has emerged to investigate what drives this behavior up or down (i.e., exploring variation). While useful, this work has generally ignored important aspects of the "Death/Life cycle" of state repression: i.e., its onset, escalation, termination and recurrence. Such an approach isimportant because different explanations and policies might be relevant for different parts of the cycle. Exploring a new database of repressive spells from 1976-2006 and new theory regarding spells, The Death and Life of State Repression breaks new ground in a variety of different ways.The book argues that repression is a sticky process that is largely slow-moving and non-adaptive. Consequently, change in this behavior is rare unless the ruling cohort is perturbed in some manner. What perturbs is somewhat surprising. The authors do not argue or find support for the predominantvariables/policies advanced by the international community (i.e., naming/shaming, international law, military intervention and economic sanctions). Rather, their research advances and finds that political democratization plays a crucial role in reducing and stopping most aspects of repressivespells, and democratization itself is influenced by non-violent direct action. The book has major implications for those who wish to study state repression, as well as those who have an interest in trying to reduce and stop it from occurring across the Death/Life cycle. The path to less repressivebehavior has never been clearer.

The Handbook presents a most updated and comprehensive exploration of social movement research. It not only maps, but also expands the field of social movement studies, taking stock of recent developments in cognate areas of studies, within and beyond sociology and political science. While structured around traditional social movement concepts, each section combines the mapping of the state of the art with attempts to broaden our knowledge of social movements beyond classic theoretical agendas, and to identify the contribution that social movement studies can give to other fields of knowledge.

This book argues that social movement death is the outgrowth of a coevolutionary dynamic whereby challengers, influenced by their understanding of what states will do to oppose them, attempt to recruit, motivate, calm, and prepare constituents while governments attempt to hinder all of these processes at the same time.

The Death and Life of State Repression addresses a problem that dates back at least 75 years, if not before. Since World War II, individuals and institutions from around the world have been concerned with state repression/human rights violations and since about 1990, a robust empirical literature has emerged to investigate what drives this behavior up or down (i.e., exploring variation). While useful, this work has generally ignored important aspects of the "Death/Life cycle" of state repression: i.e., its onset, escalation, termination and recurrence. Such an approach is important because different explanations and policies might be relevant for different parts of the cycle. Exploring a new database of repressive spells from 1976-2006 and new theory regarding spells, The Death and Life of State Repression breaks new ground in a variety of different ways. The book argues that repression is a sticky process that is largely slow-moving and non-adaptive. Consequently, change in this behavior is rare unless the ruling cohort is perturbed in some manner. What perturbs is somewhat surprising. The authors do not argue or find support for the predominant variables/policies advanced by the international community (i.e., naming/shaming, international law, military intervention and economic sanctions). Rather, their research advances and finds that political democratization plays a crucial role in reducing and stopping most aspects of repressive spells, and democratization itself is influenced by non-violent direct action. The book has major implications for those who wish to study state repression, as well as those who have an interest in trying to reduce and stop it from occurring across the Death/Life cycle. The path to less repressive behavior has never been clearer.

This classic manual on repression by revolutionary activist Victor Serge offers fascinating anecdotes about the tactics of police provocateurs and an analysis of the documents of the Tsarist secret police in the aftermath of the Russian revolution. With a new introduction by Howard Zinn collaborator, Anthony Arnove. “Victor Serge is one of the unsung heroes of a corrupt century.” —Adam Hochschild, author of King Leopold’s Ghost As we approach the 100th anniversary of Victor Serge’s (1926) classic exposé of political repression, the specter of fear as a tool of political repression is chillingly familiar to us in world increasingly threatened by totalitarianism. Serge’s exposé of the surveillance methods used by the Czarist police reads like a spy thriller. An irrepressible rebel, Serge wrote this manual for political activists, describing the structures of state repression and how to dodge them—including how to avoid being followed, what to do if arrested, and tips on securing correspondence. He also explains how such repression is ultimately ineffective. “Repression can really only live off fear. But is fear enough to remove need, thirst for justice, intelligence, reason, idealism…? Relying on intimidation, the reactionaries forget that they will cause more indignation, more hatred, more thirst for martyrdom, than real fear. They only intimidate the weak; they exasperate the best forces and temper the resolution of the strongest.” —Victor Serge

In The State of State Theory: State Projects, Repression, and Multi-Sites of Power, Glasberg, Willis, and Shannon argue that state theories should be amended to account both for theoretical developments broadly in the contemporary period as well as the multiple sites of power along which the state governs. Using state projects and policies around political economy, sexuality and family, food, welfare policy, racial formation, and social movements as narrative accounts in how the state operates, the authors argue for a complex and intersectional approach to state theory. In doing so, they expand outside of the canon to engage with perspectives within critical race theory, queer theory, and beyond to build theoretical tools for a contemporary and critical state theory capable of providing the foundations for understanding how the state governs, what is at stake in its governance, and, importantly, how people resist and engage with state power.