The Continuity of Violence in the Stages of the Shi-Shi Movement of Nineteenth-Century Japan
Year: 1997
Type: article
Abstract: Some scholars place violence as prominent in an earfy stage of a social movemel1t, whereas others argue that violence is cbaraaenstic of a later stage.This paper addresses the question of whether there is a specific movement stage that is particular!J charaaen•i!d I!J violence through an analYsis of the shi-shi movement (1858-1864).The shi-shi movemelzt helped create the revolutionary situation which cubnil1ated in Japan's Meiji Restoration (1868).Violence wasprominent andconsequential in theshishi movement and wasfound throughout the career ofthemovement.This stutfy of a single case is by no means suiJicient to claim primary over existing models of theplace of violence in social movements.The shi-shi movement, however, signijical1tlY varies from theoretical models that link violent actions to a specific movement stage.Social movements have careers.They go through stages as they emerge, develop, and decline.Scholars have characterized successive stages of social movements as indicated by the forms of action found in each stage.Violence is one of the indicators used to identify the action said to typify particular social-movement stages.In this paper, I examine the pattern of violence in stages of the shi-shi movement in 19th century Japan in comparison with two ways in which scholars have linked violence to phases of social movements.Violence is one type of action often associated with social movements.Research on violent actions in social movements mainly addresses two issues.One line of exploration focuses on the causes of violent actions.For example, violence has been explained as an effect of relative deprivation (Gurr 1970;Davies 1962), resource allocations (McCarthy and Zald 1977; Oberschall1973, 1993 or political conditions (Snyder 1979;Snyder and Tilly 1972;Tilly 1978; Tilly et.al. 1975).The other issue concerns the phase of a social movement in which violent
Source: Social Thought and Research
Author: Yuichi Tamura
Institutions: University of Cambridge, Cambridge University Press
Language: English
Topic: Japanese History and Culture
Subfield: Cultural Studies
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W2140266992