Mapping success and failure: A comparative case study of South Asian separatist movements using lenses of contentious politics

Abstract

Friction among structure, culture and rationality paradigms is central to the field of Comparative Politics. Scholars of Contentious Politics are trying to bridge gap among them by converting episodes of contention into mechanisms and processes for analysis and then by connecting origin of contention to its outcome. They used lenses of Contentious Politics (i.e. structurally rooted political process approach, rationality based resource mobilization and collective action perspective as well as culturist based framing perspective) to explain social movements and bridge this gap (McAdam, Tarrow & Tilly, 2009). Using lenses of contentious politics, this study not only strives to further converge these paradigms but also aims to explain why and how separatist movements should be studied using umbrella of contentious Politics and social movement. It is a comparative case study of separatist movement of Baluchistan and Bangladesh. The literature regarding separatist movement is multidimensional. This research is also an attempt to develop a coherent and well organized approach to study separatist movements. Ample literature exists regarding take off and progression of social movements. However, no work has been done explaining what happens when a movement reaches to its tipping point. This research fills this gap by explaining how and why some separatist movements succeed while others don’t. This study is unique in that just as American scholars it focuses on one country but at the same time employs the European scholars’ tradition of comparing two movements but within the same country.