Theory Flashcards

Question

Charles Kurzman: Political Explanation Summary [The Unthinkable Revolution in Iran]

Answer 1

Revolutions occur when a regime relaxes its pressure and offers opportunities for successful mobilisation In Iran, the monarch's repression relaxed somewhat in 1977. BUT the Islamists in Iran began their mobilisation only after the shah rescinded his liberalisation late in the year.

Answer 2

Revolutions occur when oppositional groups are able to mobilise sufficient resources to contest the regime's hold on the population. In Iran, the Islamists mobilised the nationwide "mosque network" against the regime. BUT the mosque network was not a pre-existing resource for the Islamists and had to be constructed and commandeered during the course of the mobilisation.

Answer 3

Revolutions occur when a movement can draw on oppositional norms, ideologies, beliefs and rituals in a society. In Iran, the revolutionary movements drew upon Shi'i Islamic themes and practices. BUT it modified these cultural elements, sometimes drastically, to make them conducive to protest.

Answer 4

Revolutions occur when economic problems worsen, especially after a period of relative prosperity. In Iran, the oil boom of the mid-1970s gave way to a troubling recession in 1977. BUT this recession was no more severe than previous ones, and the groups that suffered most were not the most revolutionary

Answer 5

Revolutions occur when the state's repressive capacity breaks down and is unable to suppress protest In Iran, the shah did not use the military to crack down definitively. BUT the military did not break down; it continued to repress protests actively up to the last moments of the revolution.

Answer 6

Koch asserted that the performance of Daniel Auber’s opera La muette de Protici catalyzed the revolution in Belgium in 1830, during which the audience members burst forth from the theatre and into the streets.

Answer 7

"Revolution is a term now in vogue, but it is perhaps more raddled (showing signs of age or fatigue) than its users’ would like to believe.”

Answer 8

Just when historians thought they were on the cusp of redefining the very meaning of the American Revolution, along comes “Hamilton,” the musical. The general public, and not a few academics, have embraced the show, which reaffirms the old Whiggish narrative that the revolution set the foundation for liberal democracy. Modern historiography has instead started to take more seriously the negative consequences the revolution had for marginalized groups Nicholas Guyatt argues that even the most liberal-minded founders laid the foundation for segregation. [Bind Us Apart: How Enlightened Americans Invented Racial Segregation 2016]

Answer 9

Follows revolutionary-era pamphlets, letters and novels as they made their way to and from Haiti, Sierra Leone, Poland, the U.S., Russia and France. Peoples of many different cultures, classes and genders, she argues, embraced and often transformed the meaning of “revolution” to fit their individual circumstances.But all of them shared a sense that the “age of Revolutions,” as Thomas Paine famously dubbed it, would usher in a more egalitarian world. What emerges is in some ways a retooling of the ideological approach—but one that is more sharply attuned to the revolution’s failures. When the dust settled, a new age of nations, of empires, emerged in the revolutions’ collective wake, leaving only the promise of freedom, not its realisation.

Answer 10

The word “revolution” is a human tool. At any point in time, its meaning has shifted to accommodate those wielding it.

Answer 11

One feature of revolutions transcends cultural differences- the notion of a revolutionary 'script.' Revolutions do not occur ex nihilo. Revolutionaries are extremely self conscious of and knowledgable about how previous revolutions unfolded. These revolutionary scripts offer frameworks for political action, and provide outlines on which revolutionary actors can improvise. Marx rewrote the script of the French Revolution; Lenin revised Marx; Mao revised Lenin, etc.

Answer 12

Massive popular protests in Egypt 25th January 2011. Ghonim proclaimed the advent of "Revolution 2.0". Revolution in Egypt a spontaneous movement led by nothing other than the wisdom of the crowd and coordinated via an anonymous page set up in the wake of the death of Khaled Saeed. Facebook as a revolutionary tool that could not be censored by the government unless they shut down the internet- which they tried to do. The role of the internet and technology in revolution and its relationship to the longer history of the revolutionary tradition.

Answer 13

1) Basic framework can be traced back to Marx 2) Class struggle as the motor for social change 3) Indebted to Marx's fundamental view that the true cause of revolutions are found in socio-economic conflict 4) Revolutions fated to occur due to structural conflicts, at either the social or state level 5) Political crises are just incidental triggers.

Answer 14

"The sociological search for a single, basic process that can explain the periodic state breakdowns in Europe, China and the Middle East from 1500-1850 is a quixotic pursuit."

Answer 15

- Sociologist Harold Farfinkel- why were people so focused on surprise? - Sought to reduce their anxiety about a world that seemed out of control by assiduously generating explanations that make the world make sense again-> After the Iranian Revolution, those who had considered the upheaval unthinkable became preoccupied with understanding how they could have been so mistaken.

Answer 16

1) Socio-economic modernisation: modernity is the period of historical change where time is speeding up, experience is de-centred, urbanisation, the agricultural sector and tradition are declining. 2 Ideas: Enlightenment, secularisation, Marxism -> the 'progressive soundtrack' of modern revolution 3) Taxonomy of revolutions- there are enough revolutions in the modern era that we can form a taxonomy, see the significance and role of factors such as empire, markets and socialism 4) Transmission and transnational- connections across borders increased in scope and possibility, which accelerates the possibility of revolution.

Answer 17

If the defining feature of revolutions is that they are completely unpredictable, they are better studied by historians used to contingency, rather than by other social sciences, who try and drive together artificial generalisations.

Answer 18

- Charles de Gaulle fled Paris in 1968 - Romanian President stood on the balcony of Bucharest to address the people December 1989, not realising that the crowd wanted to kill him not celebrate him.

Answer 19

War is the most easily comparable event to revolution, because of the scope of their consequences, and the ferocity of their destructive impact. War is the immediate consequence of decisions by rulers, politicians and generals- they start when someone orders their soldiers to attack. [Though Lenin not very good at this- wrote in 1913 that war between Russia and Austria, which would be useful for fermenting revolution, was hardly possible-oops]. Revolutions neither begin nor end because someone decides that they should. More like complex weather systems than other political events- we cannot predict, nor can we recognise them while they are happening, or even after they have finished.

Answer 20

Rosa Luxemburg “Letter to Clara Zetkin” April 13th 1917,

Answer 21

Mikhail Bukunin, Statism and Anarchy 1873. [Russian political philosopher and founder of collectivist anarchist]

Answer 22

Fidel Castro, speech on the second anniversary of the triumph of the revolution, January 2nd 1961.

Answer 23

Erich Fromm, Escape from Freedom 1941 [Frankfurt school]

Answer 24

Goethe, Conversations with Goethe, 1824.

Answer 25

Revolution is the forcible overthrow of a government through mass mobilisation (military or civilian or both) in the name of social justice to create new political institutions. The process by which visionary leaders draw on the power of the masses to forcibly bring into existence a new political order.

Answer 26

1) Peasant revolts (resisting local demands- seek help not to change governments) 2) Grain riots (seeking help not change) 3) Strikes (focused on workplace issues, not power changes) 4) Social movements (resolve the grievance of a particular group). 5) Coup d'etat (no mass mobilisation) 6) Rebellion (institutions of government stay the same)

Answer 27

Long term and large scale trends that undermine existing social institutions and relationships, seen as the fundamental causes of revolutions. 1) demographic change 2) shift in pattern of international relations 3) Uneven economic development 4) exclusion of particular groups 5) evolution of personalist regimes

Answer 28

Contingent events or actions by particular individuals or groups that reveal the impact of longer-term trends and often galvanise revolutionary opposition to take further actions. 1) Spikes in inflation 2) Defeat in war 3) Riots and demonstrations that challenge authority 4) State response to protest

Answer 29

+) Encountering free markets = inequality rises. Customary authority patterns break down- people demand new, more responsive political regimes. - ) Modernity was not a single package of changes that arrived everywhere in the same way. - ) Modernising changes as strengthening rulers - Germany under Bismark. - ) In some nations revolutions occurred long after modernisation was accomplished (1989-91) tl;dr: No consistent relationship between modernisation and revolution.

Answer 30

Downtrodden masses raised up by leaders who guide them in overthrowing unjust rulers. The people gain freedom and dignity. Revolutions are violent but this is necessary to destroy the old regime- birth pangs of a new order that will provide social justice. Rooted in Graeco-Roman traditions of founding republics- promoted by defenders of the American and French revolutions (Paine and Michelet), given a modern form as a theory of the inevitable triumph of poor > rich (Marx etc).

Answer 31

Revolutions are eruptions of popular anger. However well meaning, reformers who unleash the mob find the masses demand blood. These waves of violence destroy even revolutionary leaders. The unrealistic vision of revolutionary leaders leads to unwarranted death and destruction. Approach promoted by English critics such as Burke/Carlye, later taken up by critics of Russian/Chinese rev = human cost of Stalin/Mao.

Answer 32

The idea that a revolution is a fundamental break with the past that can create something entirely new using the principles of reason, as opposed to custom or religion, is something distinctly modern.

Answer 33

Where a loyal and determined military supports a financially strong and independent government, nonviolent resistance will usually fail, succumbing to harsh repression. Such was the fate of the attempted Green Revolution against clerical rule in Iran in 2009, the pro-democracy revolt in Burma in 1988, and the Tiananmen Square revolt in China in 1989.

Answer 34

YES: The violent use of state power to achieve order after revolutions displaced incompetent governments, common to both the French and Russian Revolutions, is a meaningful study with applications to contemporary situations. NO: The French and Russian Revolutions had fundamentally different ideologies, and comparisons between them are inaccurate.

Answer 35

Lenin 1917

Answer 36

Emerge because the imperial states became caught in cross-pressures between intensified military competition or intrusions from abroad and constraints imposed on monarchical responses by the existing agrarian class structures and political institutions. Culminated in administrative and military breakdowns. Once old regime states had broken apart, fundamental political and class conflicts were set in motion, which could not be resolved until new administrative and military organizations were consolidated in the place of the old.

Answer 37

All works of history are literary artefacts. Historians can't reconstruct the moment- some aspects of narrative are always ignored, or certain episodes passed over/truncated/lingered on: significance is often not justified by the distribution of time in an individual's life. Historical narratives therefore resemble literary narratives- historians tell stories: give plot structure to reconstructions of the past.

Answer 38

The bourgeoisie is a "revolutionary" class insofar as it works to overthrow feudal governments politically, but also because it "revolutionises" the economy, according to the Manifesto

Answer 39

'Nation' becomes an alternative focus for loyalty. The revolutionary faction that is most successful in presenting itself as embodying the true interests of the nation is generally the faction that is also most successful in mobilizing supporters, and thus the one that prevails in revolutionary struggles.

Answer 40

Vesalius 1543- challenges Galenic authority with new anatomical discovery- the only bit of medicine in histories of the scientific revolution. Not the full story of the history of medicine. Social history approach = less about grand narratives of discovery, more about everyday experiences from below- think about how knowledge is produced and assimilated, word 'revolution' disguises this.

Answer 41

1) role of ideology 2) role of political organisation 3) role of self conscious social action.

Answer 42

Lenin's April thesis justified the importance of immediate revolutionary action from an urban base; a reconfiguration of marxist theory, and the orientation needed for reconsolidating power. Bolshevism was a specific ideology that was an important factor in its own right in determining the outcome

Answer 43

Human beings might not make history under circumstances chosen by themselves, but they do make their own history

Answer 44

Normal scientific progress, rather than 'development by accumulation' of accepted facts, was actually an episodic model in which periods of conceptual continuity are interrupted by period of revolutionary science Scientific revolution therefore = paradigm shift

Answer 45

Copernican Revolution 1543 Dalton's atomic theory 18th century. Both were world view transitions, and under these new paradigms, revolutionary scientific proofs occurred.

Answer 46

There is no such thing as the scientific revolution

Answer 47

Term revolution in a modern sense = a sudden, fundamental change. This does not aptly describe the complex, drawn out processes of scientific practice and knowledge making

Answer 48

First use without any connotation of a backward revolving movement. Prior, revolution as an astronomical term had been understood as a force that could not be altered by human action; a cyclical movement. All revolutionary and counter-revolutionary upheavals since the French Revolution have been seen in terms of 'continuation' of that initial movement.

Answer 49

Even though the French tried to dissociate themselves from the past and from the autocratic old regime, they eventually reverted to a powerful central government. Instead of addressing the defects and problems of the old regime, post-revolutionary France only continued the same patterns of forsaking liberty for collectivism.

Answer 50

Divides into two (overlapping) categories Intellectuals - collective members of an occupation Intelligentsia- social stratum (inc. wives and children) In revolutionary marxism, the entire stratum is needed to a) prepare the ground for revolution and b) construct a new social order.

Answer 51

- anyone who opposes a revolution - act to overturn or reverse it, in full or in part - movement that would restore the state of affairs, or the principles, that prevailed during a pre-revolutionary era.

Answer 52

Success of Agis and Cleomenes of ancient Sparta in restoring the constitution of Lycurgus.

Answer 53

Vendée region, self styled Catholic and Royal army, aided and funded by Émigrés -'first modern genocride'

Answer 54

Thinkers who opposed themselves to the 1789 revolution, such as Charles Maurra, founder of the Action française movement.

Answer 55

The White Army and its supporters.

Answer 56

Supporters of Carlism joined forces against the Spanish Republic in 1936 - saw the Spanish Constitution of 1931 as a revolutionary document that defied Spanish culture, tradition and religion.

Answer 57

Bay of Pigs invasion conducted by counter-revolutionaries who hoped to overthrow revolutionary government of Fidel Castro

Answer 58

Reactionary counter-revolutionary can be a word used to describe opponents to specific regimens, even if those opponents were advocates of a revolution.

Answer 59

Condorcet- Enlightenment conception of revolution as a world historical event.

Answer 60

1) A system of ideas or ideals | 2) [archaic] older sense of the word as 'visionary speculation'

Answer 61

1) inherent part of the transformative ideology of 1789 | 2) 'series of accidents' ending in unintentional result [Doyle]

Answer 62

Structural conditions set the state for conflicts, but they do not determine the revolutionary process or outcome.'

Answer 63

Ruled by exclusivist regimes which eliminated moderate voices of dissent prior to revolution. Interventionist, with state centred economic development projects which made the state the target of economic grievances.

Answer 64

Interaction between different actors who engage in a historically and culturally specific revolutionary process.

Answer 65

Violence is the paramount effect of revolutionary politics. Revolution in France and Russia are made by self conscious revolutionaries open or sworn to new ideas. It is not the ideas themselves that create violence- but the efforts to transform society according to their premises are necessarily conflictual. Revolution = > Furies => 'just havoc against opposition to forces and ideas of the regime.

Answer 66

A longer term pattern of violence in Russia destabilizes the French-Russian comparison.

Answer 67

Economic explanation: theory of material, social and psychological scarcity/deprivation that leaves to violence.

Answer 68

Transformation of structures - Begin with a rupture - Normally has no serious consequences -These ruptures can spiral into transformative historical events when a sequence of interrelated ruptures disarticulates the previous structural network, makes repair difficult, and makes a novel re-articulation possible.

Answer 69

The defining aspect of the Marxist approach to historical time

Answer 70

It plays a crucial role in revolutions- as a cause and an outcome. Must be treated as anonymous, collective and constitutive of social order

Answer 71

Not because of his political talents but because he succeeded in becoming an embodiment of revolutionary ideology

Answer 72

A continuing dialectic between the notion of the general will & aristocratic plot, implicit in revolutionary ideology from the beginning.

Answer 73

As developing out of the ideology of the revolution. Revolutionaries borrowed from Rousseau's abstract notion of popular sovereignty, which insisted on the unity of the general will. - its important opposite was the prevalence of the aristocratic plot.

Answer 74

Abolition of feudal privileges/privileged corporate orders. For Sewell, symbolises the destruction of the ideology of the ancient regime and its replacement with enlightenment ideals of equal individual citizens governed by laws that expressed their general will.

Answer 75

Unlike 1614, when the EG was called in 1788, it was done in enlightenment terms- as a consultation of the national will and an invitation to revise the social contract. Sieyes pamphlet = 1789 met under new terms for an outdated political structure.

Answer 76

Conceive of enlightenment as a direct assault on the ideology of the French monarchical system - not divine right but a natural right - not privilege, but the universal applicability of reason.

Answer 77

The whole of an ideological structure is never present in the conscious of any single actor but in the collective- allows for inevitable contradictions.

Answer 78

Society as a set of privileged corporate bodies held together by the will of a semi-sacerdotal king.

Answer 79

Autonomous power of ideology in the revolutionary process.

Answer 80

-Private property is consolidated in France but abolished in Rusia. This cannot be explained without accounting for different ideological programmes of the French and Russian revolution.

Answer 81

Arab Spring.

Answer 82

Wael Ghonmin, significant revision of revolutionary program through technological innovation.

Answer 83

Historical [revolution as distinct] and sociological [revolutions as comparative] approach. Revolutionary script transcends cultural differences, and therefore constitutes a comparative framework.

Answer 84

Terror is not because a result of sociological 'phases', but because Bolsheviks consciously modelled actions on the Jacobin script.

Answer 85

analyse activity in 'phases', causal chains which connect collapse/war/terror - teleological, with the French rev wars as the 'natural outcome of revolutionary struggle.'

Answer 86

1848/French/Russia

Answer 87

Many nation states have their origins in revolution. America/France/1848 and attempt. Anti-communist 1989 loudly proclaimed nationalist credentials. Most clearly seen in anti-colonial r

Answer 88

Despite common origin, principles of revolution and nationalism are divergent: revolutions emphasise freedom and equality; nationalism emphasises integration and unification- these principles can clash.

Answer 89

1789/1848.

Answer 90

Krishan Kumar argues that the Russian revolution paradoxically and unintentionally institutionalised nationalism.

Answer 91

Krishnan Jumar 2015.

Answer 92

An ideology based on the premise that the individual's loyalty and devotion to the nation state surpasses other individual or group interests A sense of national consciousness.

Answer 93

enlightenment thought

Answer 94

as the 'age of ideology'

Answer 95

repeatedly failed attempts to establish a political space of public freedom

Answer 96

For Constant, the excesses of the revolution to be most heavily criticised stem from the Jacobin confusion of old style republican liberty, typical of small city states, with a liberty suited to modern times. Rousseau's general will was a collective sovereignty which belonged in other centuries.

Answer 97

Treats the entire Soviet period in terms of the vicissitudes of revolution.

Answer 98

Revolutions a process by which visionary leaders draw on the power of the masses to forcibly bring into existence a new political order.

Answer 99

Begin with multiple, often contradictory aims. Can be taken over by extremists exploiting political anger

Theory Flashcards

(123 cards)