Am Soc (2010) 41:375–381 377 politics. His later accounts of social movements and contentious politics highlighted their identitarian and performative dimension, the ways in which they “not only ... make specific claims on power-holders, but also act out statements of the type We are Alpha, We speak for Beta, or We insist on being recognized as Gamma” (2002: 12). Linking nationalism to social movements and seeing both as forms of contentious politics illustrates Chuck’s characteristic and fruitful habit of always striving to locate the phenomenon of immediate interest as an instance of a broader and more general class of phenomena, and seeking to identify similar mechanisms, processes, and properties underlying a wide range of seemingly disparate phenomena. Another cultural element in Chuck’s later formulations focused on cultural modeling, or what he called emulation (1998:174). This was an important theme or “mechanism”—though the appropriateness of mechanismal imagery may be debatable—in much of Chuck’s later work. Like Benedict Anderson (1991), who emphasized the “modularity” of nationalism, Chuck emphasized the “visible, prestigious, transferable models” created by successful nationalisms, both state-led and state-seeking (1998:180). The result—and here Chuck’s theory converges with new institutionalist accounts of organizational isomorphism and the cultural dimensions of the “world polity” (Meyer 1987)—was a world in which “administrative structures, constitutions, and declared commitments of regimes to development, stability, and democracy came to resemble each other far more than did the diversity of their populations, material conditions, and actual accomplish- ments” (1998:180). Chuck’s theory of nationalism is elegant and parsimonious. It connects his earlier work on the historical sociology of state formation with his later more general theoretical interests and ambitions. And it interestingly illustrates the way in which he sought to incorporate discourse, representation, stories, and performance into his theories in response to culturalist and constructivist challenges to “structural realism” (Tilly 2002: Chapter 1). I could go on and list other virtues of Chuck’s theory. But it would be a poor sort of homage indeed to abstain from critical engagement with the theory. Chuck thrived on critical exchange. He was a brilliant critic, and he expected and demanded criticism of his own work in return (McAdam 2008). So I will sketch here a few lines of criticism. Despite Chuck’s turn towards culture, his account of nationalism remained state- centered, materialist, and instrumentalist. The cultural elements in his account— performances, representations, and emulation—were subordinated to an underlying structural logic. That logic turned on the changing incentives created by the development of the modern state (or by state collapse or reconfiguration). Resource- intensive warfare gave central rulers incentives to develop more intensive and direct forms of rule. But the development of an increasingly powerful and intrusive state threatened regional power-holders or cultural brokers and gave them incentives to demand a state of their own. For in a world of increasingly powerful and directly ruling states, “those who control the state apparatus enjoy enormous advantages of power and wealth over those who do not” (1991:575). These changing incentives do a good job explaining why regional elites, cultural brokers, and others whose power and position are threatened by increasingly direct and centralized forms of rule (or by some other change in the political environment)