The Historical Making of Collective Action: The Korean Peasant Uprisings of 1946

This article presents a historical view of collective action with special attention to the role of protest experience. It argues that prior action develops a consciousness that becomes a resource in future action. However, this enhanced consciousness must be mobilized through a protest organization for action to occur. Data on 123 couties in South Korea that peasant uprisings in 1946 were functions of the degree of peasant experience in protest-particularly tenancy disputes in the 1930s-and the effectiveness of mobilization by people's committees. These findings demonstrate the relevance of resource mobilization theory in an authoritarian Third World context.