About the Book
This volume comprises key essays by Ted Robert Gurr on the causes and consequences of organized political protest and rebellion, its outcomes and strategies for conflict management.
From the Castro-inspired revolutionary movements of Latin America in the 1960s to Yugoslavia’s dissolution in ethnonational wars of the 1990s, and the popular revolts of the Arab Spring, millions of people have risked their lives by participating in protests and rebellions. Based on half a century of theorizing and social science research, this book brings together Gurr’s extensive knowledge and addresses the key questions surrounding this subject:
- What grievances, hopes and hatreds motivated the protesters and rebels?
- What did they gain that might have offset myriad deaths and devastation?
- How effective are protest movements as alternatives to rebellions and terrorism?
-What public and international responses lead away from violence and toward reforms?
The essays in the volume are updated and are organized around the evolving themes of the author's research, including theoretical arguments, interpretations and references to the evidence developed in his empirical research and case studies. The concluding essays bring theory and evidence to bear on the past and future of political violence in Africa.
This book will be of much interest to student of rebellion, political violence, conflict studies, security studies and IR.
Table of Contents:
Introduction PART I: The Why Men Rebel Project: Theories of Rebellion, Repression, and Responses to Scarcity 1. Psychological Factors in Civil Violence 2. War, Revolution and the Growth of the Coercive State 3. On the Political Consequences of Scarcity and Economic Decline PART II. The Minorities at Risk Project: Patterns, Causes and Management of Ethnopolitical Conflict 4. Peoples against States: Ethnopolitical Conflict and the Changing World System 5. Minorities, Nationalists, and Islamists: Explaining Communal Conflict in the Twenty-first Century 6. Attaining Peace in Divided Societies: Five Principles of Emerging Doctrine PART III: Protest, Rebellion, Terrorism: Outcomes and Alternatives 7. On the Outcomes of Violent Conflict 8. Self-Determination Movements and Their Outcomes 9. Terrorism in Democracies: When it Occurs, Why it Fails 10. Nonviolence in Ethnopolitics: Strategies for the Attainment of Group Rights and Autonomy PART IV. Post-Colonial Africa 11. Explaining Political Violence and Revolution in Africa 12. How Africa’s Civil Wars Ended: Lessons for Prevention? 13. The Security Challenges of Somalia: Toward a Confederal Solution 14. Why Men Rebel Revisited: Observations on Revolution in Contemporary Africa
About the Author :
Ted Robert Gurr is Distinguished University Professor Emeritus in the Department of Government and Politics, University of Maryland, USA. He is internationally-recognized for his theoretical, comparative, and historical studies of societal conflict, and is author of the award-winning books Why Men Rebel (1970, 2010) and Violence in America (19769, 1979, with Hugh Davis Graham). His most recent book is Crime-Terror Alliances and the State (Routledge 2013, with Lyubov Mincheva ).
Review :
'For many years, Ted Gurr has been one of our most important and innovative thinkers about revolution, rebellion, ethnic violence, and regime change. Much of what we know, and can measure, about discrimination, democratization, and political crises we owe to his work. And yet, the sum is even more than the value of the parts. Gurr's work across topics from civil war to terrorism builds a rich theory of political conflict. Scholars who have read only portions of Gurr's work will find new insights and pleasures here; thanks to Routledge for making these treasures available in one volume.' -- Jack Goldstone, George Mason University, USA
'The volume brings together the fruits of a lifetime of research on political violence and conflict by one of the intellectual pioneers in the field of comparative politics. Ted Gurr has been the mentor of generations of young political scientists and he will continue to inspire a new generation of academics with this work that shows the evolution of his original ideas and the architecture of a remarkable research program.' -- Alex P. Schmid, International Centre for Counter-Terrorism, The Netherlands
‘Ted Gurr has brought more than half a century's body of knowledge generated from his own research, and elsewhere, on political violence and the causes of rebellion, their manifest and latent outcomes in society, to bear in this collection of essays. Furthermore he shows that general theories provide insights into Africa's pervasive conflicts which take account of the continent's distinctive traits - environments, societies, and politics’. -- E.C. Ejiogu, University of the Free State, South Africa
'Routledge has pulled together the collected wisdom from decades of research by one of the most influential scholars of his generation. …By exhibiting the breathtaking scope of Gurr's contributions, Political Rebellion shows us how social science is done, while teaching us much about the complex politics of rebellion. PhD students, who are learning their craft, will especially do well to study this book. But all who believe they know Gurr's work will learn that their view was partial. You will want a copy.' -- Will H. Moore, Florida State University, USA
'Political Rebellion is a welcome update and extension of this great scholar’s pioneering theories about the causes of political violence, the prediction of genocide, and the efficacy of nonviolent solutions. With violence again on the rise in the Middle East, Africa, and elsewhere, Gurr’s work has lost none of its power to provoke and enlighten. Students in half a dozen fields (conflict and peace studies, genocide prevention, sociology, history, psychology, and politics) should find it an indispensable addition to their libraries.' – Richard Rubenstein, George Mason University, USA
