ABSTRACT
Charles Tilly (1978: 56) offers a simple model of collective action that appears to be causal or at least nonrecursive and appears to be Marxist or at least materialist. At various points, however, Tilly (1978) muddies the water. First, his Marxist model of collective action (1978: 43) fails to specify the relationship between class consciousness and collective action. Second, his discussion of interests includes both objective (predicted by class relations) and subjective (expressed) interests without much concern for the relationship between the two (1978: 61). Finally, after specifying how interest and organization predict mobilization, opportunity threat, and power, which, in turn, predict collective action, Tilly (1978: 57) concedes that many if not most of these effects are “reciprocal over the longer run.”
