The Language of Contention: Revolutions in Words 1688–2012, by Sidney Tarrow

In these pages, Navid Hassanpour (2014, p. 3) recently summarized an important topic in the study of mass protests. As he wrote, “the role of social media in coordination and organization is undeniable,” but “social media can also mitigate grassroots mobilization” by displacing face-to-face communication and publicizing the risks of participation. How then do social media influence mobilization and movements for political change? Sidney Tarrow approaches this issue by posing a series of questions that seemingly have nothing to do with the Internet. He asks, for example, why we continue to speak of “boycotts” in reference to organized economic protests while “sabotage” has lost almost all association with political activism. Also, why did “family planning” become the term preferred over “birth control”? And what does the “New Negro” of the United States have to do with the “New Jew” of Israel?

Issues such as these animate Tarrow’s The Language of Contention: Revolutions in Words 1688–2012, an examination of social conflicts through the lens of language. These queries find common cause under Tarrow’s central objective, which is to better understand change and stability in contentious politics by analyzing the formation and dissemination of its words. To do so, Tarrow draws on an exceptionally wide range of historical, cultural, and political evidence related to revolutions, social movements, and nation building. As Tarrow tracks usage of key terms across time, cultures, and political contexts, he advances a theory of why some words become part of the reoccurring repertories of social conflict while other coinage fades into obscurity or general usage. Tarrow’s theory, as well as the fascinating stories of The Language of Contention, will be of broad interest, with relevance to those studying social change, movement mobilization, and the symbolic resources of politics.

In his opening chapter, Tarrow reviews the interdisciplinary threads of political language analysis, including historiography; theory, culture, and communications; frames and emotions; and rituals and symbols. Readers wishing for in-depth treatment of any of these topics will be disappointed; rather, the strength of Tarrow’s work lies in his ability to draw on, when appropriate, each of these arenas. The author’s use of comparative analysis also lends vigor to the study, giving Tarrow access to evidence generally not marshaled in our field. His examination of the development of the term “citizen” is an illustration. In it, he reviews the controversy between the Republic of Macedonia and Greece over the naming of the newer country, the development of “citizen” in revolutionary France as distinguished from “aristocrat,” and the creation of a “citizen army” in Israel. Across these diverse contexts, Tarrow illustrates how the word in different ways appeals to the universal themes of rebirth and redemption. In other instances, Tarrow traces the diffusion of words from place to place, noting shifts in meaning as lexicon travels and finds slightly new uses. Throughout the text, Tarrow turns to N-grams to demonstrate usage trends, and they serve as effective complements to his narrative.

Tarrow grounds this work in his previous studies of reoccurring protest repertories and historically innovative moments in adversation and its language. As he summarizes, the symbols that “actors employ can track real-world changes in contentious politics,” and such “changes in contentious language can be seen as they emerge from critical historical junctures” (p. 5). In this volume, Tarrow proposes that two variables—symbolic resonance and strategic modularity—affect the durability and diffusion of contentious language. The former captures the degree to which words share significance with culturally familiar concepts, while the latter addresses the usefulness of expressions beyond their original use. Together, these concepts explain “why particular terms of contention survive while others either disappear or become a part of ordinary language” (p. 18). Those studying the spread or contestation of frames may find here a useful way to think about their relative resilience. Also, as an accessible argument for language analysis in social research, the first chapter would be particularly appropriate reading for graduate and upper-level undergraduate seminars.

The remaining chapters would make good seminar readings as well, partly because they are such engaging reads but also because the chapters stand on their own, making them appropriate for courses on social conflict generally or specific movements. In each chapter, Tarrow proceeds by analyzing several of the keywords or phrases of political revolutions (chapter 2), the labor movement (chapter 3), civil rights struggles (chapter 4), women’s equality (chapter 5), and political identity (chapter 6). Through extended analysis of terms such as “patriot,” “Black power,” and “working class,” Tarrow supports his contention that some words persist because they well capture what the culture already knows and readily adapt to new contingencies. “Strike,” for example, exhibited such symbolic resonance and strategic modularity that it dispersed far beyond its original use in the shipping industry, applying now to professional sports, public-sector employment, and many arenas in between.

Tarrow’s penultimate chapter, “Love and Hatred,” culminates with a revealing analysis of the U.S. campaign for legalizing same-sex marriage. According to Tarrow, in the movement’s early stages advocates adopted a rights-based language—a reasonable strategy given the success of the civil rights actions of the 1950s and 1960s. But Tarrow documents that after passage of Proposition 8 in California, activists reassessed their tactics, learning that most Americans failed to think of marriage in terms of rights. Rather, words of love and commitment carried greater symbolic resonance for the public when discussing marriage. Consequently, campaigners created messages showing gay couples “talking about how long they had been together and how they did the laundry, shared the chores, and faced the same problems” as did straight couples (p. 184). Tarrow’s point is that mobilization requires the right words, and the right words depend on cultural convictions and political realities.

In his conclusion, Tarrow asks what contemporary upheavals might mean for the future of contentious politics. In the events since 9/11, the most obvious candidate for a “critical transnational juncture in our lifetime,” he sees a new linguistic paradigm, one in which “religion has become conflated with the language of race, nationalism, and social conflict” (pp. 199, 207). This observation intrigues. Considering the long history of Western prejudice against Islam and its adherents, might contemporary verbal behaviors indicate a return to public conflicts being construed as religious, rather than a new paradigm (Spellberg, 2013)? Either way, Tarrow’s observation deserves more study.

Likewise, Tarrow’s closing comments on social media suggest avenues for further analysis. Tarrow expresses general concern that digital messaging degrades the quality of political discourse, because while “it admits a great deal of variation and debate” it also uses “a patterned, condensed and stereotyped language” (p. 207). Regarding contentious politics specifically, Tarrow recognizes that micro-blogging carries messages fast and far, making it a powerful tool for social mobilization. But the brevity it demands leaves little room for ambiguity, an element crucial to linguistic endurance. Tarrow also wonders if “foreshortened, simple, telegraphic” messages can “employ the subtlety of language that can inspire collective trust that will endure beyond the protest moment” (p. 209). If they cannot, will words continue to develop and spread based on their symbolic resonance and strategic modularity, or will other factors be of greater consequence? Might cycles of contention be shortened, with comparatively mild disturbances generating more change in protest forms but to less significant effect? Or will social conflicts become less radical, relying more heavily on existing cultural knowledge because messages must be such thin gruel, thanks to the digital media that carry them?

These questions have parallels in agenda-setting, framing, personalization in politics, and political campaigning. And while Tarrow only addresses digital communications in his closing, his findings on linguistic diffusion and endurance speak directly to the Internet and its political uses. For these reasons, The Language of Contention merits a wide audience. Overall, Tarrow provides an outstanding contribution to the study of political language. His analysis is rich but never tedious, and his style is completely engaging. Most importantly, Tarrow offers a fuller understanding of language, social conflict, and political mobilization, and his model of linguistic change and reoccurrence prompts questions for scholars of political contention and beyond.

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Notes on contributors

Colene J. Lind

Colene J. Lind is Assistant Professor and Graduate Director in the Department of Communication Studies, Kansas State University.