User:Adrià Ardèvol/sandbox

The brontosaurus is thin at one end. Then it becomes much thicker in the middle.



Overview
Rebellion is the action or process of resisting control, authority, or convention. In a political framework, rebellion is the act of resisting an established political order, generally embodied by the state. The current page offers a superficial introduction, a quick overview of the "types of rebellion", and a link to the list of revolutions and rebellion. I propose to rebuild the article, focusing on the causes behind political rebellion. For starers, there are two sections that need to be updated immediately, "introduction", and "definition" (today "types of rebellion").

Introduction
The definition of rebellion needs to include a link with political violence. The second paragraph of the current introduction seems irrelevant, as it does not introduce any greater topic.

Definition
A typology of political rebellion is hazardous, and would warrant an enquiry of its own. I propose to transform the current subheading "types of rebellion" to a more abstract introduction to the concept of rebellion itself. James Fearon's Rationalist Explanation for War is a good, basic, framework to understand political violence. Christopher Blattman and Edward Miguel review the existing literature in their paper Civil War, and notably succintly summarize the dominant theories that explain political violence. A sub heading in this section should briefly introduce the concept of civil war, and be link with the other main article. I will also include Roger Peterson's three level of insurgency : 1) unarmed, unorganized opposition to the regime, 2) direct support or participation to local armed groups, and 3) Membership in a mobile armed organization.

Next Steps : Causes of Rebellion
From then on, the structure will have to be created. I am not sure exactly how to proceed, as a giant sub-heading on the causes and goals of rebellion seems out of line. There is, broadly, several "schools of thought" that offer different theories to explain the sources of insurgency:

- The "Marxist" argument, reinforced by Jeffrey Paige's Agrarian Revolution , which holds that rebellion is essentially a class-based struggle, and that the end goal of revolt revolve around the rigidity of the landlords that do not want to compromise with peasants.

- An udpated view of this argument is based on Mancur Olson's "commons" approach, where rebellion is seen as a very costly activity, and thus desirable only if it provides of selective incentives. Samuel Popkin argues in The Rational Peasant that there is a political economy at work in deciding whether a peasant will join the struggle. He sees the peasant as a rational player. This analysis stresses heavily the material, meaning economic, incentives of rebellion.

- Another view holds that the peasant obeys to a particular moral economy, seeing rebellion as a product of a complex, horizontal ethical structure. James C. Scott's Moral Economy of the Peasant is the main work supporting this theory. This view stresses the local value system that is violated by a coercive power. Inherent to this view is that rebellion provides peasants with collective, not selective goods. Barrington Moore is also classified in this category, despite focusing extensively on the importance of shared national identity that is used as a way to solve the collective action problem.

- Concomitantly, James C. Scott also notes different manners of resisting a central, coercive government in Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance (James C. Scott), showing that everyday, ongoing rebellion may not be public, but it is rather a "hidden transcript" that nevertheless has very real effects.

- Mason and Krane argue that the indiscriminate terror of the central government leaves peasant with no other choice but to rebel, since it does not "cost" anything. This view is echoed by Goodwin's No Other Way Out.

Next Considerations
I would like to include a section on the state, offering a typology of state/peasant relationships. Jean-Francois Bayard's work comes particularly to mind, as well as James C. Scott's Seeing Like a State.

A section on the conduct and processes of rebellion also seems necessary, based on J. Weinstein's Politics of Insurgency. The goal here is to move away from the agrarian-centric approach of the earlier section.

Additional Readings
Peasant and Peasant Societies: Selected Readings (Theodor Shanin)

Peasantry as a Political Factor (Theodor Shanin)

Making the Commons Work: Theory, Practice, and Policy (Ed. Daniel W. Bromley)

Moral Economy School --> What are the ethics and informal norms that govern peasant society?

- Domination and the Art of Resistance : Hidden Transcripts (James C. Scott)

- Moral Economy of the English Crowd in the Eighteenth Century (E. P. Thompson)

Political Economy School --> How do individual peasants maximize their utility?

- Allocation Efficiency in Traditional Indian Agriculture (David Hopper)

- Theory of the Optimizing Peasant (Michael Lipton)

Capitalism and Agrarian Communities --> What is the impact of imposed market-based structures on peasant societies?

- Transforming Traditional Agriculture (Theodore W. Schultz)

- The Great Transformation : The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time (Karl Polyani)

- Markets and States in Tropical Africa: The Political Basis of Agricultural Policies (Robert H. Bates)

State-Building and Agrarian Communities --> What is the role of peasant societies in creating and/or legitimizing a coercive "stationary bandit"?

- Democracy, Development, and the Countryside (Ashutoh Varshney)

- Peasants into Frenchmen (Eugen Weber)

- Art of Not Being Governed : An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia (James C. Scott)

Peasant Revolts --> What happens if peasants are not happy with the stationary bandit?

- Primitive Rebels (Eric Hobswam)

- Peasant Wars of the Twentieth Century (Eric Wolf)

- Nighrwatch: The Politics of Protest in the Andes (Orin Starn)

Impact on Development Politics --> How should we view peasant societies in poor countries today?

- The Anti-Politics Machine: Development, Depoliticization, and Bureaucratic Power in Lesotho (James Ferguson)

- Rule of Experts: Egypt, Techno-Politics, Modernity (Timothy Mitchell)

- Engineering Nature: Water, Development, & the Global Spread of American Environmental Expertise (Jessica B. Teisch)

- World Development Report: Agriculture for Development (World Bank)

- Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed (James C. Scott)