Social unrest

Over the past five decades, a body of scholarship in political science and sociology has coalesced around a theme commonly referred to as contentious politics. Generally, such scholarship has focused on non-institutionalized interactions between states or governments and various social actors—be they political parties, religious groups, social movement organizations, or simply citizens acting collectively in pursuit of redress of their grievances. The core attributes of contentious politics, then, are: that it engages the state in some form; that it involves collective (rather than individual) mobilization; and that the tactics employed go beyond the quotidian avenues of political participation (like voting).