Revolutions Flashcards
How did Marx see revolutions?
As class struggles
How did Weber see revolutions?
As linked to rationalisation and administrative centralisation
What did Tocqueville see revolutions as rooted in?
Relative deprivation
How were revolutions perceived in the mid-20th century?
As cataclysmically destructive moments, when things go decisively wrong. Negative cases of the maintenance of social order
Who said that the study of revolutions should be more comparative?
Moore, 1960s
Who has stressed the historical specificity of revolutions?
Skocpol and Bonnel
What does Tilly argue we should look beyond?
The individual psyche
What does Goldstone focus on, rather than ideology and political culture?
A structural analysis
Who argued that modernisation destabilises regimes and causes revolutions?
Huntingdon
Who has seen post-revolutionary economic development as marked by increased inequality and status inheritance?
Kelley, Klein
What halts the potential for sweeping economic reforms?
World economy
How does Hobsbawm describe revolutions?
As “incidents in macro-historical change”. Breaking points.
What is Greiwank’s three pronged definition of revolutions?
1) violent and sudden shock - breaking through / overturning
2) Social - movement of groups and masses
3) Programmatic idea or ideology with positive objectives
How does Greiwank view revolutions?
Revolution = syndrome. Combination of symptoms
How did Lenin see things unfold during revolutions?
Planned action takes place in the context of uncontrollable forces
Who sees revolutions as the “forcible replacement of one regime by another”?
Calvert
How did Aristotle view revolutions?
As unexceptional. A necessary fact of political change.
What is the implication of Aristotle’s view of revolutions?
Revolutions as a political, not a social concept
What does Dunn argue revolutions need?
The notion of progress
How does Dunn view revolutions?
As a form of massive, violent and rapid social change
What two components did Tilly identify in revolutions?
Revolutionary situation and a revolutionary outcome
What defines the ‘revolutionary situation’?
Multiple sovereignty; competing claims
What does Goldstone see as a key motive behind revolutions?
Relative deprivation; when inequality/class differences are unbearable. Belief that conditions are not inevitable but arise from faults of the regime.
When was the modernisation thesis popular?
1960s and 1970s
How does Goldstone define revolutions?
“Observed mass mobilisation, institutional change, driving ideology carrying a vision of social justice”
What does Goldstone see as not being associated with revolutions?
Poverty; not acts of frustration
Why are peasant forces not enough to lead a revolution? What is needed?
Elites / military to stand aside
What three things are generally needed for revolutions to arise, according to Goldstone?
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
What 5 things do scholars agree create an unstable social equilibrium?
Economic/fiscal strain Alienation/opposition among elites Widespread popular anger at injustice Ideology providing persuasive shared narrative of resistance Favourable international relations
What has Goldstone pointed out as being a flaw in the approach taken to revolutions?
Implication that society is a passive structure that crumbles when sufficient pressure/force is applied; society continually reconstituted
What are Hobsbawm’s views on comparative study of revolutions?
Rarely based on satisfactory criteria of compatibility
What are 3 key problems in the study of revolutions?
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
What impact does Skocpol see revolutions as having had?
Given birth to more powerful nations
How does Skocpol define social revolutions?
As the basic transformation of a society’s state and class structures
What changes in political revolutions, according to Skocpol?
State structures
What are crucial problems with Skocpol’s interpretation?
France was not behind in the manufacturing and commercial sector; no rising cost of war (US WoI 18th century’s cheapest)
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?
Soboul, Labrousse
What differences did Goldstone identify between England and France, linked to the outbreak of the French Revolution?
France had a “baroque facade with the same weak foundations”.
How can structural causes be defined?
Long-term and large-scale trends
How can transient causes be defined?
Contingent events / actions
What are examples of structural causes?
Demographic change, shift in international relations, uneven economic development, exclusion/discrimination, personalist regimes
What are examples of transient causes, which push a society out of stability?
Inflation spikes, defeat in war, riots
What is a dominant idea/urge behind revolutions?
The urge to destroy the fabric of society because it falls short of the ideal
What does Dunn argue is necessary for a revolution to happen?
The collapse of social control by the existing political elite
Who forwarded ‘aggregate-psychological’ causes for revolutions?
Gurr (Why men rebel)
What idea is central to Gurr’s thesis?
Relative deprivation
How does Gurr see revolutions?
As internal war
On what grounds does Tilly challenge the ‘aggregate-psychological’ cause thesis?
Need for organised groups with access to some resources
What do not explain why people would be draw to dangerous new political ideas?
Ideological shifts
What is necessary for new ideologies to produce revolutionary action?
A shift in elite positions
What does Calvert argue revolutionaries are concerned to show?
That their movement is not mob led, but a reasoned movement
How does Dunn view revolutions?
As an attempt to embody a set of values in a new/renovated social order.
What does Dunn see as crucial in triggering successful revolutions? (think persuasion)
The ability to persuade vast masses of the already discontented that they have the right / ability to protest
As what are revolutionary leaders often lionised?
“Fathers of the nation”
Why are individuals important, even if historians are keen to minimise their role?
Requires skilful revolutionary leadership to take advantage of instability and disorder, and from chaos to construct a successful revolutionary movement
What are leaders needed for?
To articulate and spread a new vision of society
From what stratum do revolutionary leaders often come from
Middle - often have a radicalising experience
What does Dunn argue there is an inescapable necessity for in all revolutions?
1) Mass action
2) Responsible and effective political leadership
How does Kalyvas define civil wars?
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)
How are civil wars stereotyped?
Destructive and sterile
How are revolutions often stereotyped?
Progressive, fertile with innovation
What is one major difference between civil wars and revolutions?
Civil wars rarely end cleanly and likely to recur
How did Burke interpret the French Revolution?
Saw France as having fissured into 2 nations
Who has seen the Vendee as a localised civil war?
Martin, Andress
Whose main thesis is that “all major modern revolutions, are at their heart and for much of their course, civil wars”?
Armitage
What three things often lead to post-revolutionary struggles?
Inflation / economic collapse / civil-international law
How are moderates often negatively labelled?
Reactionaries / traitors
How do revolutions often begin?
With the government losing control of a portion of its population / territory?
What two things mark the 2nd stage of a revolution?
Central collapse and peripheral advance
What is the general trend of revolutions?
Order > Disorder > Order
What most commonly happens after the ‘terror’ stage of a revolution?
New institutionalised government adopts normal careerism, rather than ideologically driven passion as its approach to politics
After how long is there often a final burst of revolutionary energy?
2 decades
After how many years does a stable, new, and revolutionary regime emerge?
10-12 years
What often happens in social revolutions once they are confirmed?
Redistribution of large amounts of property
What often happens in response to counter-revolutions?
Often produce highly centralised, authoritarian states.
What do democratising revolutions aim at?
To overturn an authoritarian regime. Replacement by more accountable and representative regime.
What characterises a democratising revolution?
Cross-social spectrum support, lack ideological fervour, non-violent.
What do democratising revolutions often lead to?
Flawed democracies and corruption
