William T. Barndt
September 2005
Princeton University
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Please do not cite or circulate without author permission.
19
So which (if any) positions did each social actor take towards each of the eighteen executive
assaults I observed in Ecuador? For each assault, I recorded the position taken by each actor as
“Supports the assault,” “Opposes the assault,” “Divided over the assault,” or “Uninvolved.” [More
detailed coding rules are contained in Table 10.] Table 6 lists the percentage and number of times
that each actor adopted each position. The final two columns indicate how often the associations
that compose each actor cohere and take a position on assaults.
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Table 6: Frequency with which Social Actors Emerge During Assaults in Ecuador
Support Oppose
Divided
Uninvolved
Emerges as Social Actor
(Support or Oppose)
Does Not Emerge
as Social Actor
(Divided or
Uninvolved)
State Security
Forces
56%
a
10
0%
0
22%
4
22%
4
56%
10
44%
8
Business
28%
5
0%
0
33%
6
39%
7
28%
5
72%
13
Property-Less
0%
0
56%
10
17%
3
28%
5
56%
10
44%
8
The Law
0%
0
44%
8
11%
2
44%
8
44%
8
56%
10
Human
Rights
Networks
0%
0
44%
8
6%
1
50%
9
44%
8
56%
10
The Media
0%
0
33%
6
0%
0
67%
12
33%
6
67%
12
a
This indicates that the major organizations that make up The State Security Forces gave their support to 56% of the
executive assaults I observe in Ecuador (10 out of 18 assaults)
Only when a broad coalition of associations from multiple sectors of the actor take the same position on the assault can
we say that the social actor has taken a position. For state-based social actors, on the other hand, the question is whether –
once one institution takes a stand on the assault – the other institutions that make up the sector allow the opinion of that
one institution to be officially binding. The basic insight here is that state institutions are related to one another
differently than social associations. Claims made by a particular social association are rarely binding on other
associations. Yet state (particularly legal) claims are different in that the position of one institution tends to be officially
binding if it is not challenged by another institutions.
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Empirically identifying the positions taken towards assaults by Ecuadorian social actors brings a simple fact
into stark relief: the associations that compose an actor do not always come together around a position during an assault conflict.
When this is the case – if the associations that compose an actor are bickering among themselves over the assault (or
could care less about it) – one cannot reasonably claim that the social actor has taken a position on the assault. For
example, if Ecuadorian industrialists, commercial farmers, and financiers disagree over whether an executive assault is
justified, it would be ridiculous to claim that Business had taken a defined position on the assault.
In such instances, I
contend, one should instead infer that the social actor simply does not exist as a protagonist in the conflict.
Convention