POLI 333B. Issues in Comparative Politics: Social Revolutions

POLI 333B. Issues in Comparative Politics:

Social Revolutions

Agustín Goenaga Department of Political Science

University of British ColumbiaSummer 2013

SESSION 2. STUDYING SOCIAL REVOLUTIONS

MAP OF THE LECTURE1. Explaining social revolutions. What does this

mean?2. What is a social revolution? Definitions.3. The evolution of the study of social revolutions4. Knowledge accumulation: Insights and issues

(*Lecture based on three main sources: • Skocpol, Theda. 1979. “Explaining Social Revolutions. Alternatives to Existing Theories”, Chapter 1 of States and

Social Revolutions: A Comparative Analysis of France, Russia, and China. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; • Goldstone, Jack A. (2003). “Comparative Historical Analysis and Knowledge Accumulation in the Study of

Revolutions”, Chapter 2 of Mahoney, James & Dietrich Rueschemeyer (eds.), Comparative Historical Analysis in the Social Sciences, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press;

• Goodwin, Jeff, “Revolutions and Revolutionary Movements” in Janovski, Alford, Hicks & Schwartz (eds.). 2005. The Handbook of Political Sociology. States, Civil Societies and Globalization, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.)

EXPLAINING REVOLUTIONS. WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?

Skocpol: “understanding and explaining the generalizable logic at work in the entire set of revolutions under discussion” (1979:6).Answering a number of theoretical, analytical and normative questions, beyond “what happened?”:

• Why do revolutions happen?• When and where do they happen?• What kind of outcomes do they produce?• Are there different kinds of revolutions?• Are they always/usually/rarely/never liberating or oppressing?• Are they always/usually/rarely/never progressive or regressive?• Are their outcomes worth their costs?• What can we do to prevent them or push them further?

WHAT IS A SOCIAL REVOLUTION? THEDA SKOCPOL’S DEFINITION

SKOCPOL: “Social Revolutions are rapid, basic transformations of a society’s state and class structures; and they are accompanied and in part carried through by class-based revolts from below” (1979:4).

KEY:Complex interaction between factors=few cases in history.

Emphasis on successful social revolutions=actual change.

WHAT IS A SOCIAL REVOLUTION? JACK A. GOLDSTONE’S DEFINITION

GOLDSTONE: “An effort to transform political institutions and the justifications for political authority in a society, accompanied by…mass mobilization and non-institutionalized actions that undermine existing authorities” (Goldstone 2001, p. 142).

KEY: Attack on authorities’ right to rule and mass involvement in that attack.

-Includes successful and unsuccessful challenges.

-Excludes coups, civil wars, reform

movements, etc. (requires mass-mobilization and

structural change)

WHAT IS A SOCIAL REVOLUTION? JEFF GOODWIN’S DEFINITION

BROADER DEFINITION: “Revolution (or political revolution) refers to any and all cases in which a state or political regime is overthrown, supplanted, and/or fundamentally transformed by a popular movement in an irregular, extra-constitutional, and / or violent fashion” (2005:404).

REVOLUTION= POLITICAL change + popular mobilization + non-institutionalized contention

NARROWER DEFINITION: “A revolution (or social revolution) entails not only mass mobilization and regime change but also more or less rapid and fundamental social, economic, and/or cultural change during or soon after the struggle for state power” (2005:405).

REVOLUTION= SOCIAL change + popular mobilization + non-institutionalized

contention

RECAP:• Points of agreement:

– Requires mass-mobilization outside of established institutional channels

Revolutions are different from coups, “revolutions from above” and reformist change.

– Attempts to transform society and not just to replace rulers Revolutions are different from civil wars.

• Differences:– Positive & negative cases

Is success in transforming society an empirical issue to be explained?

– Violence Is the degree of violence an empirical

issue to be explained?

Consequences of having different definitions:

Determining the universe of cases that you can explain:

• Skocpol (1979): a handful of cases. • Goodwin (2001): 18 social revolutions (1789-1989). • Goldstone (1998) over 150 revolutionary movements.

Definitions often depend on the question that you want to answer:

• Revolutionary upheaval. Why and when do people mobilize against their rulers? (Goodwin, Goldstone)

• Revolutionary change. Why do certain revolutions produce more repressive regimes than others? (Moore, Skocpol) or Why do certain revolutionary movements consolidate and institutionalize their power and others can’t? (Selbin)

• Revolutionary failure. Why do certain revolutionary movements succeed and others fail in transforming society? (Skocpol)

• Revolutionary outcomes. Why do certain revolutions protect property rights while others don’t? (Skocpol, Pincus, North, Levi)

THE EVOLUTION OF THE STUDY OF SOCIAL REVOLUTIONS:

1. Marxist Theories2. Natural History of Revolutions3. Modernization Theories4. Social-Structural Theories5. Rational-Choice Theories6. Ideational-Cultural Theories

Natural History of Revolutions• Lyford P. Edwards (1927), George Sawyer Pettee (1938), Crane Brinton (1938). • Sequences of events in classic cases of revolutions:

– Intellectuals cease to support the regime.– The regime attempts to meet these criticisms through major reforms.– The fall of the regime begins with an acute political crisis brought on by the

government’s inability to deal with some economic, military, or political problem rather than with the action of a revolutionary opposition.

– Conflicts begin to emerge among revolutionaries after the fall of the old regime.– First, moderates gain power reproducing some organizational forms from the old

regime.– Then, radicals gather popular support and push them out of power. This is when

the greatest revolutionary changes occur.– Forced imposition of order through coercive rule, often state-imposed terror. – Pragmatist phase: moderate pursuit of progress within the status quo, but with an

enlarged and more centralized state.

Marxist Theories• STRUCTURALISM: “Revolutions result from objective-structural contradictions

within historically developing and conflict-ridden societies” (Skocpol 1979:5).

• MAIN CONTRADICTION: A disjunction between the mode of production and relations of production: class conflict.

CLASS-CONFLICT: A new mode of production is born in an old one, giving birth to a new proto-revolutionary class: capitalism develops within feudalism and the bourgeoisie is born, socialism develops within capitalism and the working class is born. • TOPICS: Karl Marx (Historical materialism), Vladimir Lenin (the role of the party in

solving collective action problems), Eric R. Wolf, Jeffrey M. Paige (who represents the revolutionary class?—the issue of the peasantry in the 1960s and 70s)

• CRITICISMS: – Communist revolutions happened where Marxists did not expect them to happen, and

did not occur where expected.

Modernization TheoriesA teleological view of History: “traditional” societies undergo processes of change to become “modern” societies. Since these changes are often disjointed, they produce instability.

Two landmark examples:

– Aggregate-psychological theories (relative deprivation): Ted Gurr– Systems/value consensus theories (functionalists): Chalmers Johnson (value-

consensus), Samuel Huntington (the problem of political order)

Implications:

– The assumption of shared universal processes made it amenable for large-n statistical tests (Gurr 1968, Feierabend et al. 1969, Hibbs 1973).

– As societies become modern, we should observe a decrease in the number of revolutions in the world.

– Why do only some societies undergoing modernization experience revolutionary upheavals?

Criticisms of early studies of revolutions:

• Variation in causes, patterns and dynamics of revolutions: Are all revolutions the same?

• Causal mechanisms? Who does what? (against Marxist and Modernization theories)

• Finding: best predictor of political violence is previous experience of political violence: some countries—regardless of their level of modernization—were more prone to violence than others (against large-n modernization arguments).

• Why do revolutions occur in certain times and places but not others (against Natural History tradition)?

• Organization (Tilly 1978): Quoting Trotsky, if popular misery and frustration lead to revolution by themselves, the masses would be in revolt at all times and everywhere.

Social-Structural Theories• What is “a structuralist approach”?• Assumptions about social life:

– Marx: “Men make history but not in circumstances of their own choosing.”– Major social transformations occur “behind the backs” of individuals: actors cannot always be

aware of phenomena occurring at the collective level or foresee the unintended consequences of their actions.

• Topics: – Macro-historical processes of change and continuity (path-dependence)– Big causes and big outcomes: droughts, wars, demographic change, industrialization,

urbanization, etc.

• Methods: Comparative Historical Analysis, large-n statistical analysis, case studies• Examples:

– Barrington Moore: Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy– Theda Skocpol: States and Social Revolutions– Jack A. Goldstone: Rebellion and Revolution in the Early Modern World– Jeff Goodwin: No Other Way Out: States and Revolutionary Movements, 1945-1991

Rational-Choice Theories• What is a “rationalist approach”?• Assumptions about social life:

– Collective outcomes are different from individual outcomes (collective action dilemmas)– Micro-foundations or methodological individualism: social life is shaped by the actions of

individuals– Individuals are rational: try to maximize utility function (most benefits, least costs)

• Topics:– Solutions to collective action dilemmas– Difficulties to predict social revolutions– Games of transition

• Methods: Formal modeling, analytical narratives.• Examples:

– Mancur Olson: The Logic of Collective Action– Gordon Tullock: The Social Dilemma– Mark Lichbach: The Rebel’s Dilemma– Adam Przeworski: “The Games of Transition”– Timur Kuran: “Sparks and Prairie Fires: A Theory of Unanticipated Political Revolution”

Ideational-Cultural Theories• What is an “ideational” or “culturalist” approach?• Assumptions about social life:

– Constructivism: social reality is largely constructed by the words and concepts that we use to describe it.

– Human beings usually know what they are doing, and they are not only motivated by utilitarian calculations but also by passions, emotions, beliefs, norms, convictions, etc.

• Topics:– Cultural context in which revolutions occur– New ideas and ideological resources – Leadership roles

• Methods: cultural anthropology, in-depth case studies, cultural studies (literary criticism, intellectual history, philosophical commentary)

• Examples:– Lynn Hunt: Politics, Culture and Class in the French Revolution– Eric Selbin: Modern Latin American Revolutions – James Scott: Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance– Gilbert Joseph & Daniel Nugent: Everyday Forms of State Formation: Revolution and

Negotiation of Rule in Modern Mexico

Map of the Literature on Revolutions

19th C.

1910

1920

1930

1940

1950

1960

1970

1980

1990

2000

2010

Classical Marxism (Marx & Engels)

Natural History of Revolutions (Edwards, Pettee, Brinton)

Marxism-Leninism & Maoism

Modernization Theory (Gurr, Johnson, Huntington)

Classical Sociology: Durkheim & Weber

Neo-Marxists (Althusser, Paige, Wolf, Moore)

Structuralists:Skocpol GoldstoneGoodwin

Culturalists:Thompson, Hunt, Furet, ScottJoseph & Nugent

Rationalists:OlsonTuckerKuranPrzeworskiLichbach

Pincus

KNOWLEDGE ACCUMULATION: INSIGHTS AND PENDING ISSUES

Insights (Goldstone 1)1. Many different events can trigger revolutionary episodes:

a. International military pressuresb. Demographic pressuresc. Elite alienation due to political exclusiond. Elite and popular alienation due to striking repression or cultural

and religious deviation by the regimee. Economic downturns or natural disastersf. Cross-class or multiclass coalitions of oppositiong. Widespread ideologies of oppositionh. Emergence of leadership of oppositioni. Mobilization networks that forge oppositional identities

Insights (Goldstone 2)2. Five key conditions for a revolutionary episode:

• A crisis of state authority in which the state is widely perceived by elites and popular groups as both ineffective and unjust.

• A crisis of elite relationships in which elites become divided, alienated, and polarized into factions that disagree over how to reconstitute state authority.

• A crisis of popular welfare in which urban and / or rural groups find it difficult to maintain their customary standard of living through accustomed means.

• The emergence of an elite-popular coalition to attack the authority of the state.

• An ideology of opposition that binds elite and popular groups in their attack on the authorities, justifies that attack, and suggests alternative bases for authority.

Insights (Goldstone 3)

3. Change the question: What are the conditions of stability?

1. Rulers (or ruling organizations) are widely perceived as both effective and just;

2. Elites are unified and loyal to the regime;3. Popular groups are able to secure their customary

standard of living in a reliable manner.

Insights (Goodwin 1)The state must play a central variable in our analysis of revolutions because:

1. State breakdown is a necessary condition for revolution (by definition).2. Certain state structures and practices actively albeit unintentionally help to for or construct revolutionary movements:

– People will not join or support revolutionary movements when they believe that the central state has little to do with their everyday problems.

– Few people join or support revolutionaries if they feel that doing so will simply make them the targets of state violence or if they believe that they can obtain much or even some modicum of what they want, politically speaking, through some routine, institutionalized, and therefore low-risk channel for political claim making.

– Other things being equal, the political context that is most conducive to the formation of strong revolutionary movements is found in those societies in which indiscriminately repressive and disorganized states possess geographically and socially delimited power, that is, low-capacity authoritarian regimes.

Goodwin: states that are most prone to produce revolutionary movements

Insights (Goodwin 2)• Why do revolutions and revolutionary movements occur when and where

they do? More specifically: “Why are groups sometimes able to attract broad popular support?”

• Five state practices (a state-centered view) contribute:

– State sponsorship or protection of unpopular economic and social arrangements (bureaucratic or patrimonial state structures).

– Exclusion of mobilized groups from state power or resources (inclusive versus exclusive regimes).

– Indiscriminate, but not overwhelming, state violence against mobilized groups and oppositional political figures (state capacity).

– Weak policing capacities and infrastructural power (state capacity).– Corrupt and arbitrary personalistic rule that alienates, weakens, or

divides counterrevolutionary elites (combination of all three dimensions).

Discuss:

Goodwin claims that (1) there have been no revolutions in the Post-Cold War Era (after 1989), and (2) that this can be explained by either globalization (it diminishes and hollows out state power) OR democratization (p. 417-420).

Discuss in the light of the Arab Spring.

Pending Issues:• According to Goldstone:

• The role of women and gender issues in revolution (Moghadam 1997; Tétreault 1994; Wasserstrom 1994).

• Macrolevel theories of revolution still need to be harmonized with social-psychological theories of individual behaviour.

• According to Goodwin:• Anomalous cases: cases where revolutions happen when they shouldn’t,

and cases where they don’t happen when they should.• Culture (including emotions): The role of culture and ideas in shaping

the outcomes or achievements of revolutions.• Islamist movements: Islam as a new military ideology.• Strategy and tactics