Call for Papers: 38th Annual Meeting of the Social Science History Association
Chicago, IL, November 21-24, 2013
Submission Deadline:  15 Febuary 2013

"Organizing Powers"

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As insurgencies mobilize, dictators fall, and established political institutions face sustained challenge, contemporary events underscore a central question of social science history: how are relations of power organized and disorganized?  How can we explain the emergence of distinctive forms of rule such as empires and nation-states? How does the consolidation of regimes and organized patterns of contention shape future trajectories of change and the capacity to imagine alternative forms of governance, social order, and collective action? These questions direct us to the terrain between the historical specificity of governing arrangements, the mechanisms behind the destabilization and durable reproduction of regimes, and the projects of change advanced by elites and insurgents alike.