ABSTRACT
This chapter attempts to critically evaluate the empirical power of the three dominant state-centric theories outlined by Goodwin—the state autonomy approach, the state capacity perspective, and the political opportunity approach—in light of the recent cross-national statistical research on violent political conflict. It attempts to assess the manner in which state institutions and structures impact the social grievances, organizational capacity, and political opportunities associated with violent collective action. While political opportunities theorists acknowledge the role of infrastructural power in their models of civil unrest, nevertheless, like state autonomy theorists, their central focus is on the distribution of despotic power within the polity. People rebel, according to the state autonomy perspective, when state elites are unwilling to liberalize their political institutions to effectively regulate and manage the economic inequities embedded within the capitalist social order. State capacity theorists posit that the onset, duration, and intensity of violent political action can best be explained by variations in the infrastructural power of the state.
