De Gruyter Handbook of Political Control

This book establishes a new, and much-needed, interdisciplinary field of Political Control.

The Earl and Braithwaite layered model of repression integrates previously siloed areas into a larger study of Political Control, connecting research spanning a variety of disciplines (Sociology, Political Science, Communication), interdisciplinary fields (Law and Society, Internet Studies, Surveillance Studies), and various area studies (American studies, China studies).

Instead of treating the study of repression as beginning and ending with the direct surveillance and suppression of social movements, nonviolent resistance, and violent contention (e.g., civil wars, terrorism), the layered model of repression broadens the lens to examine how quiescence may be produced and maintained through political controls directed at entire societies and/or minoritized populations and operating through political institutions and/or civil society. This more comprehensive understanding of political control allows scholars to identify the broader strategies and tactics that governments and non-governmental authorities use to prevent, and lacking that, reduce or eliminate dissent. The layered model also highlights how activists and dissidents have countered these attempts at control.

By organizing and relating these literatures using the layered model under the umbrella of political control, this volume provides the most comprehensive and wholistic view of the context in which movements form, operate, and dissolve and the overall control complex movements face.

Jennifer Earl is Professor and Chair of Sociology and Criminal Justice at the University of Delaware. Her research, writing, and outreach focuses on understanding levers and barriers to social and political change and activism by blending research on social movement repression, digital and social media usage and impacts, and young people’s political participation.

Jessica Maves Braithwaite is an Associate Professor of Political Science in the School of Government and Public Policy at the University of Arizona. Braithwaite’s teaching and research interests relate to various dynamics of civil war and nonviolent resistance, with an emphasis on organizational mobilization in contexts of state repression and domestic unrest, as well as civilian experiences during conflict.

“Featuring contributions from leading figures as well as rising stars, this handbook goes far beyond a summation of well-established findings and frameworks, shifting the paradigm for scholars studying state repression and political control. Easily this millennium’s most ambitious leap forward for the field!”

David Cunningham, Professor of Sociology, Washington University in St. Louis

“This important handbook shifts focus beyond coercive crackdowns, revealing the pervasive mechanisms that sustain political quiescence across democratic and authoritarian systems.”

Jennifer Pan, Sir Robert Ho Tung Professor of Communication, Stanford University