On Generations of Revolutionary Theory

Few things in academic life are as satisfying as encountering an engaged critique of one’s work. In that spirit, I was delighted to read the rigorous and thoughtful replies to my review essay ‘A Fifth Generation of Revolutionary Theory?’ by Ben Abrams (2019) and, responding to both of us, Colin Beck and Ritter (2021). Their critiques have prompted me both to rethink what I have got wrong–as well as clarify and defend what I still think I have right, as I argue below–and the limitations of the entire exercise of delineating ‘generations’ of social theory about revolutions. They also do so in ways that open up new directions for the study of revolution: a challenge I seek at least to begin to take up in this brief reply. (Figure 1) The Onset of Revolutionary Episodes (adapted from Beissinger, 2020) There is much common ground between us. In this reply I will focus first on my substantive disagreements with Abram’s contention that a fifth generation is yet to come –namely the implicit difference between ‘modelling’ explanatory variables and identifying interactive processes and a genuinely different object of investigation, both present in his ‘long’ fourth generation. I then take up Beck and Ritter’s advice to turn away from literature reviews and back to developing novel substantive questions that also (as Abrams rightly enjoins us) have some political bearing on the practice and outcomes of revolutions. Taking some issue with Beck and Ritter’s claim that the question of the object of study in revolution theory has been settled, I suggest that underlying all of this meta-debate is a deeper question: whatever happened to social revolution? I will sketch out the beginning of an answer based on the transformation of agrarian relations in the late 20th century, and the implications of this transformation not just for revolution but for its understudied correlate, counter-revolution. In doing so, even in preliminary and tentative form, I hope to advance the common project of substantive research on revolutions which this debate has revealed as the common concern amongst its participants. Abrams and Beck and Ritter’s response to my piece differ in their levels of critique. Abrams’ central case is that I am wrong to identify a fifth generation of revolutionary theory. Beck and Ritter that the endeavour of identifying such generations is itself misguided. Both make points that hit the mark, or with which I already agree, but before outlining those I will first defend my claim to identify a fifth generation. Abrams argues that I am wrong to identify a fifth generation for the following reasons: that I have conflated a putative fifth generation with a long extension of the fourth, the object of study I identify with the former ‘non-violent political revolutions’ forms ‘precisely the domain of the latter’; the relational-interactional approach I identify with the fifth generation in fact represents the ‘defining leap’ of the fourth and ‘an agenda to which fourth generation theorists have consistently returned over the past three decades’; and the processual understanding of revolution represent a ‘well-established fourth-generation perspective’ (Abrams, 2019, p. 379). Revolutions are sometimes distinguished by outcomes, sometimes by actors. Revolutions that transform economic and social structures as well as political institutions, such as the French Revolution of 1789, are called great revolutions; those that change only state institutions are called by political revolutions. Revolutions that involve autonomous lower-class revolts are labelled social revolutions (Skocpol, 1979), whereas sweeping reforms carried out by elites who directly control mass mobilization are sometimes called elite revolutions or revolutions from above (Trimberger, 1978). Revolutions that fail to secure power after temporary victories or large-scale mobilization are often called failed or abortive revolutions; oppositional movements that either do not aim to take power (such as peasant and worker protests) or focus on a particular region or subpopulation are usually called rebellions (if violent) or protests (if predominantly peaceful). Despite these differences, all of these revolutionary events have similar dynamics and characteristics. (Goldstone, 2001, p. 142) Whatever we make of the precision of this definition–and it includes six different categories of ‘revolution’ as well as four different axes (social-political, above-below, victory or success, power-oriented or rebellious) on which these can be distinguished–it cannot be reduced to one of the categories identified within it. ‘Political revolutions’ that ‘change only state institutions’ are covered by this domain but clearly not identical to it. Goldstone is clear here that the universe of ‘revolutionary events’ with which he is concerned are those that bear the ‘similar dynamics and characteristics’ he then outlines–not just one of the sub-categories of these. This point is not (merely) scholastic pedantry. The distinction between different types of revolution, particularly social or ‘great’ revolutions and more limited political revolutions was central to key works of the fourth generation (Foran, 2005, pp. 7–8; Goodwin, 2001, pp. 8–9; Parsa, 2000, p. ix). They may compare and contrast these two types of revolution to find the reasons why one results rather than the other but they do not restrict themselves to the domain of non-violent political revolutions. Moreover, where fourth generation theorists focus on political revolutions these tend to be not, for the most part, forms of non-violent regime change based among a diverse urban mass but rather anti-colonial guerrilla movements (Foran, 2005; Goodwin, 2001). Goldstone’s central work is concerned with what he calls ‘state breakdown’ in the early modern world, but it is clear that by this he means a ‘worldwide crisis of agrarian absolutist states that affected both Eastern empires and Western monarchies’ rather than non-violent political revolution (Goldstone, 1991, p. 2). These phenomena are different to the predominant object of study of the fifth generation, even if those forms of revolution are also discussed in fourth generation works. This point is important because this shift in focus in the literature reflects an actually-existing change in the world: the puzzle, to which I return below, of a near half-century of increasing levels of mass mobilization accompanied by a striking decrease in –indeed, disappearance of–instances of revolutionary social transformation. The shifting object of study between fourth and fifth generation is important not in its own right but because it indexes this empirical change: the ‘end of the Jacobin-Bolshevik revolutionary epoch’, in Abrams’ engaging phrase (Abrams, 2019, p. 385). The second part of Abrams’ objection to my claim to have identified a fifth generation of revolutionary theory is largely concerned with method. The processual, interactionist and relational ontology I identify in the fifth generation, Abrams argues, is more properly considered the defining characteristic of the fourth. In an acute critique of the methodological approach of the fourth generation, Abrams takes to task the latter for producing ‘models’ rather than, in the manner of the third generation of Skocpol et al, ‘theories’ (Abrams, 2019, p. 381). These are, indeed, different approaches–but the break between fifth and fourth generation in this regard represents a clarification as the fifth generation left behind the hybrid model-theorising of the fourth. A model is a form of ideal-typical thinking: a representation of a class of phenomena derived from experience. Theories, at least in the way that Abrams seems to be contrasting them to models, offer to explain rather than represent the world. In other words, they produce nomothetic explanations across cases or at least causal explanations of ‘robust processes’ (Goldstone, 1991, p. 54). The typical investigative strategies of the fourth-generation are best characterised not as model-building (although proclaimed as such) but rather quite intricate theories: under conditions y, conjunctions of factors x, z and a produce outcomes a, b or c and so on (for examples of exactly this form of reasoning, see Foran, 2005, pp. 16–17; Goldstone, 1991, pp. 10–11; Goodwin, 2001, pp. 3–5). That fourth generation theorists circumscribe the conditions in which these relationships apply, and greatly expand the number of explanatory factors (‘multi-causality’ in the idiom of these works) does not alter the basic logic. Antecedent conditions, duly specified, produce subsequent outcomes. The commitment of leading works of the fourth generation to the production of falsifiable hypotheses means necessarily implies this sort of argument (Goldstone, 1991, pp. 11–12; Goodwin, 2001, p. 9). the meaning and practice of revolutions has changed over time, depending on the contexts in which they emerge and how events unfold. This does not mean that revolutions share no similarities, just that these similarities are not timeless properties or fixed attributes. As such, the study of revolution requires a shift froman ‘attribute ontology’ to a ‘process ontology’ (Jackson 2010), premised on the particular sequences through which revolutionary events take place. From these sequences of events, it is possible to abstract causal pathways that serve as a baseline for examining diverse episodes of revolution. (Lawson, 2019, p. 44) ‘Causal pathways’ are clearly distinct from general causes here. If revolutions do not represent things in their own right, then they cannot be correlated with the presence or absence of other such things, however many of them there are in however specific a conjunction. ‘Pathways’ may offer a guide through the sequence of experiences that come to classified as revolutionary, but only that. The strongest version of this claim is found Charles Kurzman’s work on the Iranian revolution of 1979. Revolutions, Kurzman claims, being the outcome of the interactions of confused human subjects acting in situations of profound ignorance, any attempt to explain them in causal–retroactively to predict them in other words–is undermined by understanding this experience (Kurzman, 2004). I make no necessary case for either of these ontological and epistemological approaches. Indeed, Abrams’ call to return to bold theorising based on substantively different cases is an attractive one. My point here is merely that the two perspectives outlined above are different and therefore it is not unjustified to identify a fifth generation of revolutionary theory. Abrams is completely correct in his criticism of my unwarranted neglect of Charles Tilly (Abrams, 2019, p. 379). Tilly’s characterisation of revolutions as having regularities rather than laws, in which the only generalisable elements are mechanisms rather than causes, does indeed form a well-spring of the fifth generation approach (Tilly, 1996, p. 281). The continuing influence of Tilly throughout all of the ‘generations’ lends credibility to the thrust of Beck and Ritter’s critique of my piece: that thinking of revolutionary theory in terms of generations is no longer, if it ever was, very useful or desirable. The debate between myself and Abrams, Beck and Ritter claim, is based on ‘false premises.’ Repeating the method of Goldstone’s literature review, they write, imposes ‘a straitjacket that never fully represented the history of revolution theory in the definitive sense that has been assumed’ and ‘that limits our ability to assess what has been discovered about revolutions and prevents us from seeing where the future lies’ (Beck & Ritter, 2021, p. 1). A better alternative is to see not generations but recurrent themes and debates within the literature: the particular questions of what we are talking about when we talk about revolutions, whether to aim for depth of understanding or breadth of coverage of cases and whether to focus on ‘the distal causation of underlying conditions or the process of revolution itself’ (2021, p. 3). These recurring questions notwithstanding, Beck and Ritter argue that knowledge of revolutions has been accumulated and major issues settled. First, in a claim that I argue below bears more unpacking, the object of study has been established as ‘attempted and successful shifts in , at the very least, regimes or political structures that occur through mass mobilization’ (2021, p. 7). The question of which method to adopt has been settled, they argue, with the relatively pluralistic adoption of mixed methods by most researchers in the field. Unsettled is the issue of understanding revolution as ‘resulting from broad causal conditions’ versus ‘a dynamic process’: but this is a refraction of the broader question of structure versus agency in social enquiry, which is not going to be solved by revolution theorists on their own (2021, p. 9). Although I would contest Beck and Ritter’s claim that Abrams and I are debating on false premises–the body of literature to which we refer is certainly present and influential and both of us I believe are making reasonable, if in some cases incompatible, claims about it–their injunction to ‘free ourselves’ from generational thinking and ‘chart a more fruitful future for the study of revolution’ is a welcome one (2021, p. 11). Abrams’ reminder that ‘revolutions are not toys’ nor ‘scholarly miscellanea’ providing a ‘dataset for “productive” analysis’ but rather ‘bloody, brutal and dramatic social process’ is surely intended in the same vein (Abrams, 2019, p. 385). In my own piece, the claim about the fifth generation was intended–although clearly I did not succeed, given that this part of the article attracted little of the focus of my critics–as a hook upon which to hang an argument about the nature of the Arab revolutions of 2011. This common ground of turning away from meta-studies of the literature and back to substantive and politically relevant questions about actual revolutions is, it seems to me, the most important part of our exchange. In the spirit of developing the novelty called for by Beck and Ritter, I dedicate the rest of this piece to a preliminary sketch of what I argue is the big underlying puzzle of scholarship on revolution since the late twentieth century: whatever happened to social revolution? This is not a question I can hope to answer in the remaining sections of a brief rejoinder but I shall attempt some pointers at a way it might be asked. In doing so I hope to begin to develop some of the ‘new ways of understanding’ or ‘changing the direction of the conversation’ that Beck and Ritter encourage (Beck & Ritter, 2021, p. 14). Asking this question will, perhaps, help to restore some of the political relevance to the study of revolution upon which Abrams insists. In a world faced with multiple concurrent and congruent crises–of health and social reproduction, of growth and capitalist productivity, of white supremacy and of imperialism, and above all of total environmental collapse caused by anthropogenic climate change–social revolution as total and transformative change has surely never been a more relevant topic. Its apparent absence as a horizon of collective mobilization is therefore both a puzzling and an urgent question. Underlying the debate in Journal of Historical Sociology is a more interesting empirical and political puzzle1. If revolution means mass mobilization leading to, at a minimum, ‘attempted and successful shifts in ...regimes or political structures’, to borrow Beck and Ritter’s terms, then the world has been becoming steadily more revolutionary throughout the twentieth and twenty-first century. In fact, the first two decades of the twenty-first have proved more ‘revolutionary’ than any other. Across the world, anti-government protests increased by 11.5% year on year throughout the 2010s: all of the five in history the et p. 1). The Arab of represented not a but ‘a point in which two decades of of The to ‘a of through a second in and then a new beginning in late that the of the The a of protests and mass protests increased by an of 11.5% from the and the of and the of a in in with the of the Arab was by a of leading to more protests at the of the than at the et pp. the second of the twenty-first century, the world a more ‘revolutionary’ the sense of the of mass it been a of revolutionary situations an of this to the Arab with the the and of the in terms of new revolutionary episodes in this The first is the revolutionary that and then was by the Revolution in continuing the early the and more at the of the the at its in the early to the of anti-colonial and then in the latter part of the and the fourth beginning its after to in the collapse of the in the early of all is the general in revolutionary The first part of this of social Revolution for the and the revolution for the with the of the Iranian revolution, new and social forms to emerge from revolutionary one the regimes of Eastern as an of as I of state there is no question that the regimes that them after not of a new but rather of This is not to that mass have been The Arab revolutions of for they did not in producing social or political certainly the of being revolts from below that established situations of in the states in which they In fact, these the and movements in the history of of the states in which they and some of the in the world. the is in the those of revolutions such as in or in least four and the in their and some of the in In at least three and institutions the social was by for or a revolution’ in both and These very revolutionary about by mass revolts that and with the but did not issue in revolutionary This is a are than ever revolutionary situations more why do they issue in so of profound and social Whatever happened to social revolution? is this puzzle that the argument about generations of revolutionary theory and about the of revolution as an object of study on the one and, on the (Abrams, 2019, pp. of revolution with a object of political transformation and mass the past three decades has the former of elite and the latter the of Beck and Ritter’s of the object of study as ‘attempted and successful shifts at the very least, regimes or political structures that occur through mass mobilization’ reflects this change (Beck & Ritter, 2021, p. 7). the very is doing a of work in this because it shifts our focus to the between mass mobilization and in political structures or regimes rather than the of social transformation. is this a for that involve both a transformation of the and of the political of state but not in this rebellions or they are not revolutions’ p. the expand it by social the or in mass ‘revolutions from or revolutions’ The point is that social revolution has from in Beck and Ritter’s this reflects a and empirical process in the world, but one that therefore be might we about this I can no more than an here but in to the puzzle of increasing mobilization with social we return to the of about forms of called for by The of the twentieth and the first fifth of the twenty-first have been characterised by three such the of the question of certainly not of and of and then in the These with the of as a first a of limited revolutions as the most consistently social in and states in which the most consistently and in movements under their to merely political no the or to a and This social the limited revolutions of the late twentieth and early twenty-first century. the of the as in the Arab broader but more revolutionary have successful no based on agrarian might this history be revolutions two of and the same the of the revolution, the transformative revolutions of the twentieth and rebellions agrarian and for a of pp. the of these the to the power by either directly over and or through the of for the and in to the peasant it is from that anti-colonial movements power in their they the of the agrarian or from their in to in the of such greatly across the of most strategies of in the world 2004). In the second of the twentieth century, affected p. by revolutionary or to such the world of on the largely was under models, by the of which more and therefore by pp. nor the but rather the relationships that to social transformation by the latter and by the former no even in the these over to be but the of the agrarian which the of of p. p. These the that the leading of counter-revolution. In the revolutions of the and 20th in of social often based on over or who proved the most & pp. The of such a number of in the and of states the revolutionary transformation to be only by of recurrent of that characterised the history throughout the and 20th pp. In the and the same as the most and in the late twentieth century, so the most consistently social and urban et The of social revolutions, agrarian to in the world was and by the beginning of the twenty-first century, the with the point and decades before in many & to of revolutionary of revolutions in their after they urban This was accompanied in not all states by increased providing the social for the revolutions of the late twentieth century. the presence of is correlated with regimes and with the collapse or of this or a on p. This change a of the of social to as a that would and rather than those and which they to to such pp. The new of urban with with of and near of the of with the revolutions even of power in the growth of and their as and other class the same as their in as well as for by no means all the cases of revolution by the fifth generation as their but the of from the to the turn of the cases that did pp. The revolutions of the late twentieth in a in which the most consistently and social and been largely the most consistently urban still but under that to social revolution. much for the social conditions that the revolutions of the late twentieth and very early twenty-first century. The of the a new a continuing and in of based on but faced by to even limited The of the Arab revolutions of represents the case of this These largely in states which only or already it is that the one state in which an outcome to the was under the of the and the the between political and social transformation at the point of to the of these the the Arab already been to a means of rather than contest between substantively different of Western a means by which the of and social be subjects reduced to human for or even for p. In the Arab many such subjects for the of and the of a better The Arab did not have to as their an past in the the of a more model still within the of many of their in the of the and The in and to on the of and the class of political to some of the revolutionary to their In a the social in the revolution from above of the upon and to a of and much of the In the case of a amongst the Arab a more was to the and a of in those states that and and the of the revolutions from in the form of or the of the to to a in the The by a a is not from the with if not has been as a by the states of an one to be In the in which the Arab revolutions them was not these revolutions represented the late of the revolutions of which case they to be an by such or they a the of a project of regime change to that Both these a between a under and the events of 2011. The Arab in practice this Although the the regime in was certainly by a version of the regime it was by the nor the of the the The and its did some to but this by even with the in the same and in with the in of regime The of in the region after whether the in and or forms of in and This was so whether the states in them of the or the was by one in and one in and and political over social and Both the of anti-colonial revolutions of the early and century, and that of the revolutions that be upon as a of rather than and identifying with one the revolutionary This reply with a of for the to my with one of that the of return to substantive and politically relevant research on revolutions revealed as the common ground of the in this debate will be Although I am of to the of on the study of revolutions, I have in this piece to take up the challenge Abrams, Beck and Ritter and focus on a substantive question: whatever happened to social revolution? The of this reply no more than an answer to the but I hope it can an of how the study of revolution might be

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