| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 109.5

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| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 109.5 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Methods/Theory

Charles Tilly. Contention and Democracy in Europe, 1650–2000. (Cambridge Studies in Contentious Politics.) New York: Cambridge University Press. 2004. Pp. xiv, 305. Cloth $60.00, paper $22.00.

This book inhabits history's borders with sociology and political science. As the title suggests, it centers on the inadvertent causal connection that Charles Tilly claims exists between contention and the historically "rare" advent of democracy, and also the more frequent occurrence of its opposite. Focusing primarily on relatively detailed overviews of French, British, and Swiss history since 1650, Tilly builds on Barrington Moore's claims about the centrality of conflict in the histories of even the most stable democratic states. Tilly's tests of democratization are far more demanding than the minimal ones (free and fair elections for example) offered by other scholars. Democratization consists of "increases in the breadth and equality of relations between government agents and members of the ... subject population, in binding consultation of a government's population with respect to governmental personnel, resources, and policy, and in protection of that population (especially minorities within it) from arbitrary action by governmental agents" (p.13). More briefly stated, democratization comprises increasingly wide and deep levels of "protected consultation."

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