Week 12: After Revolutions

Question 1

What happens after revolutionary contention ends?

Answer 1

They come with 2 goals:
1) to gain power
2) to enact substantive change after gaining power
- the explosion of hopes and the inevitability of disappointment
- the mixed record of post-revolutionary change
- the unanticipated consequences of overthrowing a government through revolution
The enormous challenges of post-revolutionary governance
- all fundamental questions of government and society are potentially raised as a result of the revolutionary overthrow of an old regime – potentially everything is on the table

Question 2

Aftermaths vs. legacies of revolution

Answer 2

• aftermaths: political, social, and economic developments in the immediate wake of a revolutionary seizure of power (could fade, or could become a legacy)
• legacies: more long-lasting patterns of political and social behavior that result from revolution (reproduced over time)

Question 3

What does Levitsky & Way (2022) have to say about post-revolutionary regime survival?

Answer 3

• social revolutions have produced particularly durable authoritarian regimes. If they survive the violent regimes. If they survive the violent crises that unfold at their origins, state institutions are strengthened, laying the foundation for durable authoritarian rule

Question 4

What does Slater & Smith (2016) say about post-revolutionary regime survival?

Answer 4

• counter-revolutionary regimes that have faced credible social revolutionary threats cause elites to coalesce, producing durable authoritarian regimes

Question 5

What does Beissinger (2022) say about post-revolutionary regime survival?

Answer 5

• the durability of post-revolutionary regimes is related to the length of revolutionary contention. Revolutionary episodes that are compressed in time tend to produce governments that do not last long in power

Question 6

Governments produced out of urban civic revolutions have what kind of impact?

Answer 6

• old regimes had high levels of corruption
• inherit the state of the old regime and leave old social forces largely in place
• exert a marginal and temporary impact on corruption that declines over time and is not too dissimilar to regimes experiencing failed urban civic revolutions

Question 7

Governments produced out of social revolutions have what kind of impact?

Answer 7

• old regimes had lower levels of corruption on eve of revolution
• construct a new state apparatus and exercise a deeper impact on corruption
• the effect fades over time, but it still lower than countries experiencing failed social revolutions

Question 8

What explosions in criminality occur irrespective of revolution type?

Answer 8

• due to the weakening of police institutions and breakdown of prison systems
• can undermine the legitimacy of the new regime or foster a violent crackdown

Question 9

Do revolutions matter?

Answer 9

• Yes. But as social revolutions have grown marginalized and urban civic revolutions based on the power of numbers have proliferated, the substantive impact of revolutions has declined.

Question 10

Do movements matter?

Answer 10

1. groups with more narrow objectives were relatively more successful than groups whose goals were more all-encompassing
2. groups that are hierarchically organized and that wielded selective incentives were more successful than those that did not
3. violent or unruly groups achieved more success than nonviolent groups or groups that pursued conventional tactics

Question 11

What are the issues in judging movement ‘success’?

Answer 11

1. should we judge movement success by whether it achieves it articulated goals?
2. in what time-frame should we judge the impact of movements?
3. what are the biographical impact of movements?

Question 12

What are the challenges of facilely assigning causality to movements?

Answer 12

1. identifying the independent effect of movements (gov. decision-makers may have enacted certain legislation even without movement activity & adoption may have been due to other factors rather than the movement per se)
2. if a policy change came about because of social movement activity, what was it about the movement’s activity that brought about the change

Question 13

What are the four forces shaping the future of revolutions and social movements?

Answer 13

1. globalization (boundaries of states no longer contain social movement and revolutionary activity + both are becoming increasingly transnational processes)
2. the normalization of the social movement (Tarrow: “the social movement society” + squeezing out the disruptive character of movements)
3. Technology – especially digital media (highly corrosive of movement organization + empowers extremist groups + government efforts to harness digital technologies for purposes of control)
4. Democratic backsliding and populist movements (undermines social movements but may make revolution more rational + polarization renders social movements influence over government more difficult)