cy taty - Michael Mann

The outcome is dependent not on the depth of the crisis but on the organizational forms of the people being affected. Who precisely is affected by the crisis? With whom are they in communication? With whom do they share normative commitment and a stock of knowledge about the world? What contacts and social knowledge are likely to lead them to blame their rulers for the crisis and to conceive of practical alternatives? What power resources can they mobilize, against whom? These are the decisive questions about responses to crises and to other dramatic social changes, whether they are political, spiritual, or whatever.

[The Sources of Social Power, Vol. I, p. 310]