Revolutions

Question 1

How did Marx see revolutions?

Answer 1

As class struggles

Question 2

How did Weber see revolutions?

Answer 2

As linked to rationalisation and administrative centralisation

Question 3

What did Tocqueville see revolutions as rooted in?

Answer 3

Relative deprivation

Question 4

How were revolutions perceived in the mid-20th century?

Answer 4

As cataclysmically destructive moments, when things go decisively wrong. Negative cases of the maintenance of social order

Question 5

Who said that the study of revolutions should be more comparative?

Answer 5

Moore, 1960s

Question 6

Who has stressed the historical specificity of revolutions?

Answer 6

Skocpol and Bonnel

Question 7

What does Tilly argue we should look beyond?

Answer 7

The individual psyche

Question 8

What does Goldstone focus on, rather than ideology and political culture?

Answer 8

A structural analysis

Question 9

Who argued that modernisation destabilises regimes and causes revolutions?

Answer 9

Huntingdon

Question 10

Who has seen post-revolutionary economic development as marked by increased inequality and status inheritance?

Answer 10

Kelley, Klein

Question 11

What halts the potential for sweeping economic reforms?

Answer 11

World economy

Question 12

How does Hobsbawm describe revolutions?

Answer 12

As “incidents in macro-historical change”. Breaking points.

Question 13

What is Greiwank’s three pronged definition of revolutions?

Answer 13

1) violent and sudden shock - breaking through / overturning
2) Social - movement of groups and masses
3) Programmatic idea or ideology with positive objectives

Question 14

How does Greiwank view revolutions?

Answer 14

Revolution = syndrome. Combination of symptoms

Question 15

How did Lenin see things unfold during revolutions?

Answer 15

Planned action takes place in the context of uncontrollable forces

Question 16

Who sees revolutions as the “forcible replacement of one regime by another”?

Answer 16

Calvert

Question 17

How did Aristotle view revolutions?

Answer 17

As unexceptional. A necessary fact of political change.

Question 18

What is the implication of Aristotle’s view of revolutions?

Answer 18

Revolutions as a political, not a social concept

Question 19

What does Dunn argue revolutions need?

Answer 19

The notion of progress

Question 20

How does Dunn view revolutions?

Answer 20

As a form of massive, violent and rapid social change

Question 21

What two components did Tilly identify in revolutions?

Answer 21

Revolutionary situation and a revolutionary outcome

Question 22

What defines the ‘revolutionary situation’?

Answer 22

Multiple sovereignty; competing claims

Question 23

What does Goldstone see as a key motive behind revolutions?

Answer 23

Relative deprivation; when inequality/class differences are unbearable. Belief that conditions are not inevitable but arise from faults of the regime.

Question 24

When was the modernisation thesis popular?

Answer 24

1960s and 1970s

Question 25

How does Goldstone define revolutions?

Answer 25

"Observed mass mobilisation, institutional change, driving ideology carrying a vision of social justice"

Question 26

What does Goldstone see as not being associated with revolutions?

Answer 26

Poverty; not acts of frustration

Question 27

Why are peasant forces not enough to lead a revolution? What is needed?

Answer 27

Elites / military to stand aside

Question 28

What three things are generally needed for revolutions to arise, according to Goldstone?

Answer 28

1) rulers weak and isolated 2) elites attack government 3) when people see themselves as part of a numerous, united, righteous group that together create change

Question 29

What 5 things do scholars agree create an unstable social equilibrium?

Answer 29

``` Economic/fiscal strain Alienation/opposition among elites Widespread popular anger at injustice Ideology providing persuasive shared narrative of resistance Favourable international relations ```

Question 30

What has Goldstone pointed out as being a flaw in the approach taken to revolutions?

Answer 30

Implication that society is a passive structure that crumbles when sufficient pressure/force is applied; society continually reconstituted

Question 31

What are Hobsbawm's views on comparative study of revolutions?

Answer 31

Rarely based on satisfactory criteria of compatibility

Question 32

What are 3 key problems in the study of revolutions?

Answer 32

Public opinion committed to foundational myths, government authority and policy committed to particular interpretations of the past, time-lag between occurrence nad possibility of dispassionate historical analysis

Question 33

What impact does Skocpol see revolutions as having had?

Answer 33

Given birth to more powerful nations

Question 34

How does Skocpol define social revolutions?

Answer 34

As the basic transformation of a society's state and class structures

Question 35

What changes in political revolutions, according to Skocpol?

Answer 35

State structures

Question 36

What are crucial problems with Skocpol's interpretation?

Answer 36

France was not behind in the manufacturing and commercial sector; no rising cost of war (US WoI 18th century's cheapest)

Question 37

Who, other than Goldstone, has stressed the inability of the economy, taxation system and mechanisms of elite recruitment to cope with population growth as a cause of the French Revolution?

Answer 37

Soboul, Labrousse

Question 38

What differences did Goldstone identify between England and France, linked to the outbreak of the French Revolution?

Answer 38

France had a "baroque facade with the same weak foundations".

Question 39

How can structural causes be defined?

Answer 39

Long-term and large-scale trends

Question 40

How can transient causes be defined?

Answer 40

Contingent events / actions

Question 41

What are examples of structural causes?

Answer 41

Demographic change, shift in international relations, uneven economic development, exclusion/discrimination, personalist regimes

Question 42

What are examples of transient causes, which push a society out of stability?

Answer 42

Inflation spikes, defeat in war, riots

Question 43

What is a dominant idea/urge behind revolutions?

Answer 43

The urge to destroy the fabric of society because it falls short of the ideal

Question 44

What does Dunn argue is necessary for a revolution to happen?

Answer 44

The collapse of social control by the existing political elite

Question 45

Who forwarded 'aggregate-psychological' causes for revolutions?

Answer 45

Gurr (Why men rebel)

Question 46

What idea is central to Gurr's thesis?

Answer 46

Relative deprivation

Question 47

How does Gurr see revolutions?

Answer 47

As internal war

Question 48

On what grounds does Tilly challenge the 'aggregate-psychological' cause thesis?

Answer 48

Need for organised groups with access to some resources

Question 49

What do not explain why people would be draw to dangerous new political ideas?

Answer 49

Ideological shifts

Question 50

What is necessary for new ideologies to produce revolutionary action?

Answer 50

A shift in elite positions

Question 51

What does Calvert argue revolutionaries are concerned to show?

Answer 51

That their movement is not mob led, but a reasoned movement

Question 52

How does Dunn view revolutions?

Answer 52

As an attempt to embody a set of values in a new/renovated social order.

Question 53

What does Dunn see as crucial in triggering successful revolutions? (think persuasion)

Answer 53

The ability to persuade vast masses of the already discontented that they have the right / ability to protest

Question 54

As what are revolutionary leaders often lionised?

Answer 54

"Fathers of the nation"

Question 55

Why are individuals important, even if historians are keen to minimise their role?

Answer 55

Requires skilful revolutionary leadership to take advantage of instability and disorder, and from chaos to construct a successful revolutionary movement

Question 56

What are leaders needed for?

Answer 56

To articulate and spread a new vision of society

Question 57

From what stratum do revolutionary leaders often come from

Answer 57

Middle - often have a radicalising experience

Question 58

What does Dunn argue there is an inescapable necessity for in all revolutions?

Answer 58

1) Mass action | 2) Responsible and effective political leadership

Question 59

How does Kalyvas define civil wars?

Answer 59

As armed combat within the boundaries of a recognised, sovereign entity, between subjects bound to a common authority at the outset (organised, collective violence within a single polity)

Question 60

How are civil wars stereotyped?

Answer 60

Destructive and sterile

Question 61

How are revolutions often stereotyped?

Answer 61

Progressive, fertile with innovation

Question 62

What is one major difference between civil wars and revolutions?

Answer 62

Civil wars rarely end cleanly and likely to recur

Question 63

How did Burke interpret the French Revolution?

Answer 63

Saw France as having fissured into 2 nations

Question 64

Who has seen the Vendee as a localised civil war?

Answer 64

Martin, Andress

Question 65

Whose main thesis is that "all major modern revolutions, are at their heart and for much of their course, civil wars"?

Answer 65

Armitage

Question 66

What three things often lead to post-revolutionary struggles?

Answer 66

Inflation / economic collapse / civil-international law

Question 67

How are moderates often negatively labelled?

Answer 67

Reactionaries / traitors

Question 68

How do revolutions often begin?

Answer 68

With the government losing control of a portion of its population / territory?

Question 69

What two things mark the 2nd stage of a revolution?

Answer 69

Central collapse and peripheral advance

Question 70

What is the general trend of revolutions?

Answer 70

Order > Disorder > Order

Question 71

What most commonly happens after the 'terror' stage of a revolution?

Answer 71

New institutionalised government adopts normal careerism, rather than ideologically driven passion as its approach to politics

Question 72

After how long is there often a final burst of revolutionary energy?

Answer 72

2 decades

Question 73

After how many years does a stable, new, and revolutionary regime emerge?

Answer 73

10-12 years

Question 74

What often happens in social revolutions once they are confirmed?

Answer 74

Redistribution of large amounts of property

Question 75

What often happens in response to counter-revolutions?

Answer 75

Often produce highly centralised, authoritarian states.

Question 76

What do democratising revolutions aim at?

Answer 76

To overturn an authoritarian regime. Replacement by more accountable and representative regime.

Question 77

What characterises a democratising revolution?

Answer 77

Cross-social spectrum support, lack ideological fervour, non-violent.

Question 78

What do democratising revolutions often lead to?

Answer 78

Flawed democracies and corruption