Land tenure inequality, harvests, and rural conflict ... - e-Archivo

of expectations and contagion in large social processes, given the obvious nonlinearity
of most aggregate social processes (Biggs, 2002, 2005; Freeman, 1998). In
this framework, small changes in material conditions or in political opportunities can
lead to large changes in collective participation.
Because collective action is difficult and mobilization is rare, authors like Eric
Wolf or Theda Skocpol have stressed the importance of organizations and their
capacity for autonomous collective action (Wolf, 1999: 115). In some cases,
autonomy appears out of historical accident, as it is for example the case when there
are institutions that govern common resources (Skocpol, 1979: 116). The more solid
the networks of solidarity among the peasants, the easier it is to organize collective
action. Although landowners traditionally controlled the administration of most of the
towns in the areas studied here before the 1930s (Tusell, 1976: 330-1), there is indeed
some evident vibrancy in the history of collective action in some areas of Andalusia
(Carrión, 1975: 57-59). In his classic book, Juan Díaz del Moral studied the spread of
anarchism in the last quarter of the 19 th century and the upheavals of the early 1870s,
early 1890s and the early 1900s that preceded the so-called Bolshevik triennium of
1918-1920 (Díaz del Moral 1973). Carmona and Simpson (2003) stress moral hazard
and problems of asymmetric information associated with Andalusian rural workers’
militancy (Carmona and Simpson, 2003: 110-11).
The role of changing expectations and the role of local leaders in organizing
collective action appears especially in detailed micro accounts of town life like
Collier (1987) and Fraser (2010), in regional studies like Montañés (1997) on Cádiz
and by del Rey (2008) or by Lisón Tolosana (1983) outside Andalusia. The story is
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