Back in 2001, three prominent sociologists published a groundbreaking book called Dynamics of Contention. Its authors, Doug McAdam, Sidney Tarrow and Charles Tilly, sought to develop a universal framework for studying "contentious politics" – protest movements, strikes, revolutions and the like.

The problem they were trying to address was that research in this area was very compartmentalised at the time. Different forms of contention – social movements and industrial conficts, for example – and struggles in different places tended to be studied in isolation from each other, by different kinds of specialists. There were also numerous "isms" – structuralism, objectivism, etc – which academics relied on to provide a theoretical framework.

McAdam, Tarrow and Tilly believed that "similar mechanisms and processes operate across the whole range of contentious politics" and illustrated this with a comparative survey of 15 examples of political contention from around the world, ranging from nineteenth-century nationalist movements to Tiananmen Square and the collapse of the Soviet Union.
  

At first sight it's an attractive approach and, where the Middle East is concerned, it helps to dispel the idea that the political dynamics in Arab countries are intrinsically different from those in Britain, say, or the United States. But how useful is it really, as a framework for studying the current upheaval in the Middle East?

This was the question addressed last night in what had been billed as a public debate between John Chalcraft from the London School of Economics and Charles Tripp from the School of Oriental and African Studies. There wasn't much debate, however, since Chalcraft and Tripp broadly agreed with each other.

Despite its influence in academic circles, Dynamics of Contention (or DoC for short) is not an easy read. I have dipped into it myself but can't claim to have read it. It's full of sociological jargon and even Chalcraft, an associate professor who got a starred first in history at Cambridge, describes parts of it as incomprehensible. If you want a summary of its content in plain English, this might be a good place to start.

To talk about "contentious politics" might seem a bit tautological since politics is contentious by nature, but DoC distinguishes between "contained contention" (political parties, elections, etc) and "transgressive contention" which takes place outside an institutional framework. The latter seems especially useful when trying to understand developments in the Middle East. In Chalcraft's words, it helps in analysing independent and creative forms of politics, and Tripp agreed that "transgressive contention" is the most important part of DoC. Chalcraft also noted that without transgression there can be no meaningful transformation.

Beyond that, both speakers saw weaknesses and limitations in the DoC approach. One problem, in Chalcraft's view, is that DoC tends to conflate causes and effects. Tripp found its understanding of power "rather thin" and thought it paid too little attention to history and context.

As far as DoC is concerned, Tripp said, "leadership seems not to matter". Charismatic figures can surface unexpectedly and influence events, messing up sociological theorising in the process.

DoC also seems to have difficulty explaining why some social movements succeed while others fail and why some, at different times, experience both failure and success. The ups and downs of the Muslim Brotherhood since its formation in 1928 are one example. Another is the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement (BDS) which existed on the margins for years but has recently started attracting more mainstream support, much to the alarm of the Israeli government.