Publications by Michael Biggs


(with Juta Kawalerowicz) ‘Anarchy in the U.K.: Economic Deprivation, Social Disorganization, and Political Grievances in the London Riot of 2011’, Social Forces, forthcoming

‘Protest Campaigns and Movement Success: Desegregating the U.S. South, 1960-61’ (with Kenneth T. Andrews), American Sociological Review, forthcoming

‘Has Protest Increased Since the 1970s? How a Survey Question Can Construct a Spurious Trend’, British Journal of Sociology, online, 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


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

‘Size Matters: The Perils of Counting Protest Events’, under review

‘When Costs are Benefits: Communicative Suffering as Political Protest’, An Invitation to Social Mechanisms: Micro Foundations in Empirical Sociology, ed. Christofer Edling and Jens Rydgren, under review


‘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

‘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