ABSTRACT
The thesis of this chapter is that political elites and dissidents can best establish and maintain enduring social support by providing patterns of action that have predictably rewarding consequences for their followers. The chapter analyzes some sources of institutional support and its effects on the outcomes of politicized discontent. When politicized discontent is widespread and intense, organizations that ordinarily serve instrumental functions tend to be used by their members to channel protest and if they are not under direct regime control, as an organizational base for political violence. The basic relationship proposed is that, given the existence of politicized discontent, magnitudes and forms of political violence vary with the balance of institutional support between regimes and dissident organizations. Regimes can minimize support for dissidents and channel political discontent to constructive, or at least nondestructive, purposes insofar as they offer stable, effective institutional alternatives to violent dissent.
