Contentious Politics from a Class-Based Perspective: Social Struggles in Burkina Faso

The paper discusses the relationship of different forms of organising and collective action by different oppositional organisations in Burkina Faso, including trade unions, social movement organisations, and political parties. Combining Charles Tilly’s concept on contentious repertoires and a class-based analysis, the factors that impact the means of (inter)action in contentious politics are examined. In a case study on recent social struggles in Burkina Faso, actors, means, and achievements of the popular struggles are analysed. It is argued that the variety of means of mobilisation and collective action present struggles by different segments of the popular classes that sometime use different means but emerge from the same structural causes and address the same problems. This form of unity among the popular classes, which builds upon the idea that the working class is not limited to those who sell their labour either under formal contracts or in the informal sectors, is fundamental to understanding why social mobilisation in Burkina Faso has been so vibrant and enduring, and how, in October 2014, and not for the first time, it succeeded in overthrowing a head of state.