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Papers by Donagh Davis

The Routledge Handbook of Social Change, Aug 8, 2022

The world is experiencing myriad crises, from global climate change to a major pandemic to runawa... more The world is experiencing myriad crises, from global climate change to a major pandemic to runaway inequality, mass impoverishment, and rising sectarian violence. Such crises are not new, but have been recurrent features of past societies. Although these periods have typically led to massive loss of life, the failure of critical institutions, and even complete societal collapse, lessons can be learned from societies that managed to avoid the more devastating and destructive outcomes. Here, we present a preliminary analysis of outcomes from periods of crisis in 50 historical societies and examine closely four cases of averted crisis in world history, highlighting common features. A key observation is that the structural-demographic cycles that give rise to societal crises typically incorporate a ‘gilded age’ during which more future-minded governance could avert future crises. To accomplish more forward-thinking public policy, capable not just of ‘flattening the curve’, but of actual...

Defence date: 19 May 2015Examining Board: Professor Dr. Dr. h. c. Donatella della Porta (EUI Supe... more Defence date: 19 May 2015Examining Board: Professor Dr. Dr. h. c. Donatella della Porta (EUI Supervisor); Professor Lucy Riall, European University Institute; Professor Jack A. Goldstone, George Mason University; Doctor Bill Kissane, London School of Economics.This thesis is a historical-sociological study of the Irish independence struggle, which culminated in the partition of Ireland in 1920, and the secession of most of the island from the United Kingdom in 1922. It asks how the Irish separatist project was able to go from political marginality up to 1916, to the attainment, with widespread popular support, of an essentially independent state covering most of Ireland just a few years later - a violent and unexpected process. Focusing on the years 1916-1921, the thesis explains what happened as a path dependent reactive sequence - that is, a chain of events initiated by a highly contingent happening, setting in motion a series of reactions and counter-reactions. That highly contingent happening was the Easter Rising of 1916 - a surprise attack on British rule in Dublin - and it was the product of the agency of a small band of rebels. The sequence it set in motion brought deep structural tensions to the boil - but this might never have happened were it not for the agency of the rebels. The thesis examines this classic paradox of the structure-agency relationship via a focus on the strategic interaction of the Irish rebels and the British state, and attempts to identify the key causal mechanisms involved. These mechanisms were shaped by key British policy choices as much as by rebel action - from the British government's initial decision to back-pedal on meaningful Irish autonomy, to the subsequent policy drift towards brutal and indiscriminate repression in Ireland. The thesis suggests that were it not for the crucial transformative event that started this fateful sequence in 1916, Ireland might well have stayed within the United Kingdom

Cliodynamics: The Journal of Quantitative History and Cultural Evolution, Dec 31, 2017

Mobilization: An International Quarterly, 2017

This article investigates the role of agency in the causation of transformative events by looking... more This article investigates the role of agency in the causation of transformative events by looking at the competition between rival strands within social movements. The creative activity involved in the elaboration and execution of rival strategies is used as a proxy for agency. We present a paired comparison of two very different transformative events in twentieth-century Ireland—the Easter Rising of 1916 and the Long March from Belfast to Derry in 1969—and the strategic interactions preceding them. The comparison shows how agency and structure can interact around transformative events. High levels of agency were instrumental in making the events, and in turn these events catalyzed powerful social forces. These forces were structural—that is, they reflected divisions, tensions, and power relations that were deeply engrained in the social structure over the long term. However, these structural forces could have remained dormant had it not been for the bursts of agency that brought ab...

Encyclopedia of Modern Political Thought

Though not its main focus, Goldstone's Revolution and Rebellion in the Early Modern World (1991) ... more Though not its main focus, Goldstone's Revolution and Rebellion in the Early Modern World (1991) threw considerable new light on 19th century Europe's revolutions and near-revolutions. While Goldstone stresses the role of an expanding and industrializing economy in absorbing 19th century England's demographic shocks, we accept this analysis but argue alongside it for similar attention to the vector of emigration, settler-colonialism, and imperial state expansion into which at least some of the exhaust fumes of the population explosion were vented. Furthermore, it is important to note the crucial role of a highly interventionist state and 'big' government in the background to these dynamics—a far cry from the light-touch, laissez-faire qualities with which the 19th century British state is often associated.

To make our case, this article takes advantage of secondary literature and raw data not available prior to the publication of Goldstone's book. Of crucial importance here is our unique dataset of fatality-inducing political violence events in Britain and Ireland from 1785 to 1900. This is the first research paper to utilise this dataset. We draw upon this in the following section, which seeks to establish what the real level of political instability was in 19th century Britain—thus cross-referencing Goldstone's account with more recent data—before moving on in the following section to a more detailed overview of the socio-economic conditions underlying events at the political level. This is followed by our account of the emigration-settler-colonialism-imperial state expansion vector and the interventionist state policy behind it, which we argue was crucial to making 19th century Britain relatively 'revolution-proof'—alongside the expanding economic opportunities rightly highlighted by Goldstone. Lastly come our brief concluding remarks, which lay out the implications, as we see them, of this article's findings for research on revolutions, political violence and instability, demographic-structural theory, state-building, migration, and imperialism-colonialism.

This article investigates the causation of transformative events by taking competition between ri... more This article investigates the causation of transformative events by taking competition between rival
strands of the same social movements as a window onto the role played by agency in this process. It
presents a paired comparison of two very different transformative events in twentieth-century Ireland —
the Easter Rising of 1916 and the Long March from Belfast to Derry in 1969 — and the strategic
interactions preceding them. The comparison shows how agency and structure can interface around
transformative events: high levels of agency were instrumental in making the events; but while the events
brought powerful structural forces to the boil, those forces might well have remained dormant had it not
been for that initial agency. We also see that the balance between structure and agency is dynamic,
sometimes shifting from one moment to another rather than remaining constant.

The subject of temporality has received little systematic attention in the study of political vio... more The subject of temporality has received little systematic attention in the study of political violence, leaving certain important issues unaddressed. In cognate

Book Reviews by Donagh Davis

Conference Presentations by Donagh Davis

La coesistenza di una perdurante crisi economica e di una crescente globalizzazione dei processi ... more La coesistenza di una perdurante crisi economica e di una crescente globalizzazione dei processi economici, sociali e politici stanno comportando cambiamenti nel modo in cui politica e democrazia sono concepite, con evidenti ripercussioni sul concetto stesso di cittadinanza democratica, configurato in origine nella dimensione storica degli Stati nazionali. In questo quadro è l'idea stessa di democrazia a essere messa in discussione, almeno nella sua concezione statica formalistico-liberale, imponendo, nello studio delle forme del potere, un approccio dinamico e processuale che ponga al centro la relazione, sovente conflittuale, tra società civile, autorità politiche e attori economici. Tipici di questo scenario di mutamento sono alcuni fenomeni già ampiamente indagati, ma raramente messi tra loro in connessione: astensionismo elettorale, antipolitica, nascita di nuovi soggetti populisti, derive post-democratiche.

The Routledge Handbook of Social Change, Aug 8, 2022

The world is experiencing myriad crises, from global climate change to a major pandemic to runawa... more The world is experiencing myriad crises, from global climate change to a major pandemic to runaway inequality, mass impoverishment, and rising sectarian violence. Such crises are not new, but have been recurrent features of past societies. Although these periods have typically led to massive loss of life, the failure of critical institutions, and even complete societal collapse, lessons can be learned from societies that managed to avoid the more devastating and destructive outcomes. Here, we present a preliminary analysis of outcomes from periods of crisis in 50 historical societies and examine closely four cases of averted crisis in world history, highlighting common features. A key observation is that the structural-demographic cycles that give rise to societal crises typically incorporate a ‘gilded age’ during which more future-minded governance could avert future crises. To accomplish more forward-thinking public policy, capable not just of ‘flattening the curve’, but of actual...

Defence date: 19 May 2015Examining Board: Professor Dr. Dr. h. c. Donatella della Porta (EUI Supe... more Defence date: 19 May 2015Examining Board: Professor Dr. Dr. h. c. Donatella della Porta (EUI Supervisor); Professor Lucy Riall, European University Institute; Professor Jack A. Goldstone, George Mason University; Doctor Bill Kissane, London School of Economics.This thesis is a historical-sociological study of the Irish independence struggle, which culminated in the partition of Ireland in 1920, and the secession of most of the island from the United Kingdom in 1922. It asks how the Irish separatist project was able to go from political marginality up to 1916, to the attainment, with widespread popular support, of an essentially independent state covering most of Ireland just a few years later - a violent and unexpected process. Focusing on the years 1916-1921, the thesis explains what happened as a path dependent reactive sequence - that is, a chain of events initiated by a highly contingent happening, setting in motion a series of reactions and counter-reactions. That highly contingent happening was the Easter Rising of 1916 - a surprise attack on British rule in Dublin - and it was the product of the agency of a small band of rebels. The sequence it set in motion brought deep structural tensions to the boil - but this might never have happened were it not for the agency of the rebels. The thesis examines this classic paradox of the structure-agency relationship via a focus on the strategic interaction of the Irish rebels and the British state, and attempts to identify the key causal mechanisms involved. These mechanisms were shaped by key British policy choices as much as by rebel action - from the British government's initial decision to back-pedal on meaningful Irish autonomy, to the subsequent policy drift towards brutal and indiscriminate repression in Ireland. The thesis suggests that were it not for the crucial transformative event that started this fateful sequence in 1916, Ireland might well have stayed within the United Kingdom

Cliodynamics: The Journal of Quantitative History and Cultural Evolution, Dec 31, 2017

Mobilization: An International Quarterly, 2017

This article investigates the role of agency in the causation of transformative events by looking... more This article investigates the role of agency in the causation of transformative events by looking at the competition between rival strands within social movements. The creative activity involved in the elaboration and execution of rival strategies is used as a proxy for agency. We present a paired comparison of two very different transformative events in twentieth-century Ireland—the Easter Rising of 1916 and the Long March from Belfast to Derry in 1969—and the strategic interactions preceding them. The comparison shows how agency and structure can interact around transformative events. High levels of agency were instrumental in making the events, and in turn these events catalyzed powerful social forces. These forces were structural—that is, they reflected divisions, tensions, and power relations that were deeply engrained in the social structure over the long term. However, these structural forces could have remained dormant had it not been for the bursts of agency that brought ab...

Encyclopedia of Modern Political Thought

Though not its main focus, Goldstone's Revolution and Rebellion in the Early Modern World (1991) ... more Though not its main focus, Goldstone's Revolution and Rebellion in the Early Modern World (1991) threw considerable new light on 19th century Europe's revolutions and near-revolutions. While Goldstone stresses the role of an expanding and industrializing economy in absorbing 19th century England's demographic shocks, we accept this analysis but argue alongside it for similar attention to the vector of emigration, settler-colonialism, and imperial state expansion into which at least some of the exhaust fumes of the population explosion were vented. Furthermore, it is important to note the crucial role of a highly interventionist state and 'big' government in the background to these dynamics—a far cry from the light-touch, laissez-faire qualities with which the 19th century British state is often associated.

To make our case, this article takes advantage of secondary literature and raw data not available prior to the publication of Goldstone's book. Of crucial importance here is our unique dataset of fatality-inducing political violence events in Britain and Ireland from 1785 to 1900. This is the first research paper to utilise this dataset. We draw upon this in the following section, which seeks to establish what the real level of political instability was in 19th century Britain—thus cross-referencing Goldstone's account with more recent data—before moving on in the following section to a more detailed overview of the socio-economic conditions underlying events at the political level. This is followed by our account of the emigration-settler-colonialism-imperial state expansion vector and the interventionist state policy behind it, which we argue was crucial to making 19th century Britain relatively 'revolution-proof'—alongside the expanding economic opportunities rightly highlighted by Goldstone. Lastly come our brief concluding remarks, which lay out the implications, as we see them, of this article's findings for research on revolutions, political violence and instability, demographic-structural theory, state-building, migration, and imperialism-colonialism.

This article investigates the causation of transformative events by taking competition between ri... more This article investigates the causation of transformative events by taking competition between rival
strands of the same social movements as a window onto the role played by agency in this process. It
presents a paired comparison of two very different transformative events in twentieth-century Ireland —
the Easter Rising of 1916 and the Long March from Belfast to Derry in 1969 — and the strategic
interactions preceding them. The comparison shows how agency and structure can interface around
transformative events: high levels of agency were instrumental in making the events; but while the events
brought powerful structural forces to the boil, those forces might well have remained dormant had it not
been for that initial agency. We also see that the balance between structure and agency is dynamic,
sometimes shifting from one moment to another rather than remaining constant.

The subject of temporality has received little systematic attention in the study of political vio... more The subject of temporality has received little systematic attention in the study of political violence, leaving certain important issues unaddressed. In cognate

La coesistenza di una perdurante crisi economica e di una crescente globalizzazione dei processi ... more La coesistenza di una perdurante crisi economica e di una crescente globalizzazione dei processi economici, sociali e politici stanno comportando cambiamenti nel modo in cui politica e democrazia sono concepite, con evidenti ripercussioni sul concetto stesso di cittadinanza democratica, configurato in origine nella dimensione storica degli Stati nazionali. In questo quadro è l'idea stessa di democrazia a essere messa in discussione, almeno nella sua concezione statica formalistico-liberale, imponendo, nello studio delle forme del potere, un approccio dinamico e processuale che ponga al centro la relazione, sovente conflittuale, tra società civile, autorità politiche e attori economici. Tipici di questo scenario di mutamento sono alcuni fenomeni già ampiamente indagati, ma raramente messi tra loro in connessione: astensionismo elettorale, antipolitica, nascita di nuovi soggetti populisti, derive post-democratiche.

Morning Star, 2018

https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/brazil-populist-revolt-elites-against-people

Though not its main focus, Goldstone's Revolution and Rebellion in the Early Modern World (1991) ... more Though not its main focus, Goldstone's Revolution and Rebellion in the Early Modern World (1991) threw considerable new light on 19th century Europe's revolutions and near-revolutions. While Goldstone stresses the role of an expanding and industrializing economy in absorbing 19th century England's demographic shocks, we accept this analysis but argue alongside it for similar attention to the vector of emigration, settler-colonialism, and imperial state expansion into which at least some of the exhaust fumes of the population explosion were vented. Furthermore, it is important to note the crucial role of a highly interventionist state and 'big' government in the background to these dynamics—a far cry from the light-touch, laissez-faire qualities with which the 19th century British state is often associated.

To make our case, this article takes advantage of secondary literature and raw data not available prior to the publication of Goldstone's book. Of crucial importance here is our unique dataset of fatality-inducing political violence events in Britain and Ireland from 1785 to 1900. This is the first research paper to utilise this dataset. We draw upon this in the following section, which seeks to establish what the real level of political instability was in 19th century Britain—thus cross-referencing Goldstone's account with more recent data—before moving on in the following section to a more detailed overview of the socio-economic conditions underlying events at the political level. This is followed by our account of the emigration-settler-colonialism-imperial state expansion vector and the interventionist state policy behind it, which we argue was crucial to making 19th century Britain relatively 'revolution-proof'—alongside the expanding economic opportunities rightly highlighted by Goldstone. Lastly come our brief concluding remarks, which lay out the implications, as we see them, of this article's findings for research on revolutions, political violence and instability, demographic-structural theory, state-building, migration, and imperialism-colonialism.