Polarization and convergence in academic controversies
Author(s) Sidney Tarrow
DOI 10.1007/s11186-008-9065-1
Online since June 07, 2008
Page 513 - 536
Volume 37 Number 6 of Theory and Society
Sidney Tarrow1
(1) Government Dept., Cornell University, 202A White Hall, Ithaca, NY
14853-3501, USA
Published online: 7 June 2008
Abstract Not many years ago both anthropology and political science
experienced internal disputes—in the first case over the publication
of a book accusing a noted anthropologist of endangering indigenous
subjects and in the second over the nature of the field. While the
first led to polarization, the second produced a partial convergence
and modest reforms. This article examines the two processes and seeks
the key mechanisms that produced those differences, closing with a
call for broadening the study of contentious politics to cover non-
public controversies like the ones examined in this article.
Sidney Tarrow
Email: sgt2@???
Sidney Tarrow teaches Political Science and Sociology at Cornell
University, where he specializes in social movements and contentious
politics. Tarrow’s first book was Peasant Communism in Southern Italy
(Yale, 1967). His next project on contentious politics was a
reconstruction of Italian protest cycle of the late 1960s, Democracy
and Disorder (Oxford, 1989). With Cambridge Press, he published Power
in Movement (1998), Dynamics of Contention (2001, along with Doug
McAdam and Charles Tilly), and The New Transnational Activism (2005).
His latest book (with Charles Tilly) isContentious Politics (Paradigm,
2007). Tarrow is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and
Sciences. He is currently working on a project on “human rights at war.”
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