Publications by Michael Biggs


‘Size Matters: Quantifying Protest by Counting Participants’, Sociological Methods and Research, vol. 47, no. 3, 2018, pp. 351–83; DOI 10.1177/0049124116629166

(with Neil F. Ketchley) ‘The Educational Contexts of Islamist Activism: Elite Students and Religious Institutions in Egypt’, Mobilization, vol. 22, no. 1, 2017, pp. 57–76; DOI 10.17813/1086-671X-22-1-57

(with Juta Kawalerowicz) ‘Anarchy in the U.K.: Economic Deprivation, Social Disorganization, and Political Grievances in the London Riot of 2011’, Social Forces, vol. 94, no. 2, 2015, 673–98, 2015; DOI 10.1093/sf/sov052

‘Protest Campaigns and Movement Success: Desegregating the U.S. South in the Early 1960s’ (with Kenneth T. Andrews), American Sociological Review, vol. 80, no. 2, 2015, pp. 416–43; DOI 10.1177/0003122415574328

‘Has Protest Increased Since the 1970s? How a Survey Question Can Construct a Spurious Trend’, British Journal of Sociology, vol. 66, no. 1, 2015, pp. 141–62; DOI 10.1111/1468-4446.12099

‘How Repertoires Evolve: The Diffusion of Suicide Protest in the Twentieth Century’, Mobilization, vol. 18, no. 4 (Frontiers in Social Movement Methodology), 2013, pp. 407–28

(with Raheel Dhattiwala) ‘The Political Logic of Ethnic Violence: The Anti-Muslim Pogrom in Gujarat, 2002’, Politics and Society, vol. 40, no. 4, 2012, pp. 481–514; DOI 10.1177/0032329212461125

‘Explaining Membership in the British National Party: A Multilevel Analysis of Contact and Threat’ (with Steven Knauss), European Sociological Review, vol. 28, no. 5, 2012, pp. 633–46; DOI 10.1093/esr/jcr031

‘From Protest to Organization: The Impact of the 1960 Sit-Ins on Movement Organizations in the American South’ (with Kenneth T. Andrews), The Diffusion of Social Movements: Actors, Frames, and Political Effects, ed. Rebecca Kolins Givan, Sarah A. Soule, and Kenneth M. Roberts, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010, pp. 187–203

‘Self-Fulfilling Prophecies’, The Oxford Handbook of Analytical Sociology, ed. Peter Bearman and Peter Hedström, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009, pp. 294–314

‘Who Joined the Sit-ins and Why: Southern Black Students in the early 1960s’, Mobilization, vol. 11, no. 3, 2006, pp. 241–56

(with Kenneth T. Andrews) ‘The Dynamics of Protest Diffusion: Movement Organizations, Social Networks, and News Media in the 1960 Sit-Ins’, American Sociological Review, vol. 71, no. 5, 2006, pp. 752–77

‘Dying without Killing: Self-Immolations, 1963–2002’, Making Sense of Suicide Missions, ed. Diego Gambetta, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005 (revised paperback ed. 2006), pp. 173–208, 320–24; Spanish translation: ‘Morir sin matar: las autoinmolaciones, 1963–2002’, El sentido de las misiones suicidas, Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2009

‘Strikes as Forest Fires: Chicago and Paris in the Late 19th Century’, American Journal of Sociology, vol. 110, no. 6, 2005, pp. 1684–1714

‘Positive Feedback in Collective Mobilization: The American Strike Wave of 1886’, Theory and Society, vol. 32, no. 2, 2003, pp. 217–54

‘Strikes as Sequences of Interaction: The American Strike Wave of 1886’, Social Science History, vol. 26, no. 3, 2002, pp. 583–617—awarded biennial prize for the best article by a graduate student published in Social Science History

‘Putting the State on the Map: Cartography, Territory, and European State Formation’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, vol. 41, no. 2, 1999, pp. 374–411


'How Protesting Depends on Peers: U.S. Students in the Late 1960s'

(with Neil F. Ketchley) ‘When Regimes Attack: The Repression of Protest after the Egyptian Coup of July 2013’

‘When Costs are Benefits: Communicative Suffering as Political Protest’


‘The Open Society Foundations and the Transgender Movement’, 4thWaveNow, 25 May 2018

Review of Emily Beaulieu, Electoral Protest and Democracy in the Developing World, Mobilization, vol. 21, no. 1, 2016, pp. 137–8

(with Kenneth T. Andrews) ‘Sit-ins and Desegregation in the U.S. South in the Early 1960s’, ICPSR 35630, Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research, 2015

(with Neil Ketchley) ‘Who Actually Died in Egypt’s Rabaa Massacre’, Washington Post Monkey Cage Blog, 14 August 2015

(with Neil Ketchley) ‘What Is the Egyptian Anti-Coup Movement Protesting for?’, Washington Post Monkey Cage Blog, 4 April 2014

‘Self-Immolation in Context, 1963-2012’, Revue d’Etudes Tibétaines, no. 25, 2012, pp. 143–50

Review of Matthew Lange, Educations in Ethnic Violence: Identity, Educational Bubbles, and Resource Mobilization, British Journal of Sociology, vol. 64, no. 1, 2013, pp. 184–85

‘Prophecy, Self-Fulfilling/Self-Defeating’, Encyclopedia of Philosophy and the Social Sciences, ed. Byron Kaldis, Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage Publications, 2013, vol. 2, pp. 765–66

‘Storm in a Teacup? A Comment on Ullmann-Margalit’, Norms and Values: The Role of Social Norms as Instruments of Value Realisation, ed. Michael Baurmann, Geoffrey Brennan, Bob Goodin, and Nicholas Southwood, Baden-Baden: Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft, 2010, pp. 143–48

‘Dying for a Cause—Alone?’, Contexts, vol. 7, no. 2, 2008, pp. 22–27

Review of Matthias Reiss (ed.), The Street as Stage: Protest Marches and Public Rallies since the Nineteenth Century, Cultural and Social History, vol. 6, no. 2, 2009, pp. 250–52

Review of Stathis N. Kalyvas, The Logic of Violence in Civil War, American Journal of Sociology, vol. 113, no. 2, 2007, pp. 558–60

Review of Marek M. Kaminski, Games Prisoners Play: The Tragicomic Worlds of Polish Prison, American Journal of Sociology, vol. 110, no. 6, 2005, pp. 1820–22

Review of Maryjane Osa, Solidarity and Contention: Networks of Polish Opposition, Social Forces, vol. 83, no. 1, 2004, pp. 447–49

Review of Beverly J. Silver, Forces of Labor: Workers’ Movements and Globalization since 1870, Contemporary Sociology, vol. 33, no. 4, 2004, pp. 467–69

'A Century of American Exceptionalism: Review Essay on Seymour Martin Lipset and Gary Marks, It Didn’t Happen Here: Why Socialism Failed in The United States', Thesis 11, no. 68, 2002, pp. 110–21

Review of James C. Scott, Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed, Comparative Studies in Society and History, vol. 44, no. 4, 2002, pp. 852–54

Review of Stephen K. Sanderson, Social Transformations: A General Theory of Historical Development, Contemporary Sociology, vol. 26, no. 1, 1997, pp. 47–48

Contributor to New Zealand Historical Atlas, ed. Malcolm McKinnon, Wellington: David Bateman in association with Historical Branch, Department of Internal Affairs, 1997

Kevin Hince, with Kerry Taylor, Jacqui Peace, and Michael Biggs, Opening Hours: History of the Wellington Shop Employees Union, Wellington: Wellington Shop Employees Union, 1990

Michael Biggs, Department of Sociology, University of Oxford