States and Collective Action The European Experience [Hardcover]

Birnbaum argues that it is only through divergent state-formation that regional and national state variations can be explained.It has become something of an orthodoxy of contemporary sociology that modern democratic industrial societies are essentially alike, and that they are confronted by uniform challenges, whether industrial (strikes and demonstrations), social (the 'crisis of the welfare state'), or political. In this important collection of studies Professor Birnbaum asserts, however, that the very existence of differentiation, challenge such a hypothesis.It has become something of an orthodoxy of contemporary sociology that modern democratic industrial societies are essentially alike, and that they are confronted by uniform challenges, whether industrial (strikes and demonstrations), social (the 'crisis of the welfare state'), or political. In this important collection of studies Professor Birnbaum asserts, however, that the very existence of differentiation, challenge such a hypothesis.It has become something of an orthodoxy of contemporary sociology that modern democratic industrial societies are essentially alike, and that they are confronted by uniform challenges, whether industrial, social, or political. In this important collection of studies, Professor Birnbaum asserts, however, that the very existence of differentiated states within the western world must, by definition, challenge such a hypothesis. Linking historical and sociological investigation, Birnbaum argues that it is only through divergent state-formation that regional and national state variations can be explained.Acknowledgements; Introduction; 1. Mobilisation theory and the state: the missing element; 2. States, free riders and collective movements; 3. The state and mobilisation for war: the case of the French Revolution; 4. Ideology, collective action and the state: Germany, England, France; 5. Individual action, collective action and worker's strategy: the United States, Great Britain anlS&