Knowra Charles Tilly Charles Tilly Charles Tilly (1929–2008) was an American sociologist and historian whose comparative research reshaped the study of social movements, state formation, and collective violence.
Contentious politics : Collective, public claim-making that involves governments or other power holders. This broad framework gathers Tilly’s work on protest, rebellion, and other forms of political contention.
Political opportunity structure : Features of a political environment that shape the prospects and costs of collective action. Tilly examined how shifts in access, alliances, and repression alter challengers’ opportunities.
Protest : Public action expressing opposition or making claims to authorities or other audiences. His work explains protest as a changing repertoire of collective political performances.
Coercion, Capital, and European States : Charles Tilly’s 1990 book comparing European state formation through rulers’ pursuit of war, coercion, and capital. This book presents his best-known argument about how warfare shaped modern states.
Collective behavior theory : A tradition that explains collective action as an emergent response to social strain and breakdown. Tilly rejected treating protest as irrational crowd behavior, emphasizing organized claims and political interaction.
Social movement : A sustained campaign in which people make collective claims on public authorities or other power holders. Tilly analyzed how campaigns, public performances, and organizations make social movements recognizable.
Mobilization : The process by which a group acquires control over resources and coordinates collective action. Mobilization links organization and resources to the capacity to make collective claims.
State formation : The historical process through which centralized states develop institutions, territory, and governing power. Tilly’s comparative account connected European state-building to war-making and resource extraction.
From Mobilization to Revolution : Charles Tilly’s 1978 book outlining a political-process model of collective action and revolution. It develops the concepts of mobilization, organization, opportunity, and collective action central to his theory.
Marxist state theory : Theories explaining the state through class relations, capitalist production, and struggles over economic power. Tilly’s account foregrounded warfare and extraction rather than deriving state development chiefly from class relations.
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