Political Science 300
The Politics of Revolutionary Change
Instructor: William Crowther
Office: Curry 329
Office Hours: MWF 10:00-11:00
email: wecrowth@uncg.edu
Telephone: 256-0519
COURSE DESCRIPTION: This course examines twentieth and twenty first century revolutions. It
will introduce students to the theoretical literature on revolution, and explore the causes of revolutions,
their dynamics, and their consequences.
COURSE OUTCOMES: This course is designed to help students to:
1) understand the various theoretical perspectives on revolution
2) define revolution as a distinctive form of social conflict and change
3) identify the various social, political, economic, and cultural causes of revolutions
4) analyze the different social structures, historical contexts, and levels of political mobilization that
shaped the revolutionary processes
5) establish a typology of revolutionary outcomes
6) better understand and apply comparative political analysis
Teaching Strategy: This course is designed as a seminar. Students who take it will be expected to keep
up with the assigned readings and participate in class discussions of the readings on a regular basis.
There will be two in class exams, a midterm (20%) a final exam (25%). Each student will write a 15-20
page research paper (30%) on a topic relating to some aspect of revolutionary change in a country of
his or her choice. You will be asked to participate in discussions actively and to report on your case
readings. You will be asked to write a brief response to the reading assignments in each of the sections
of the syllabus (15%).
(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)
Written responses to assigned readings
Class participation
In-class essay examinations
Research Paper
15%
10%
45%
30%
Required Readings:
James DeFronzo, Revolutions and Revolutionary Movements, Fourth Edition (Westview Press, 2011).
Jack Goldstone, ed., Revolutions: Theoretical, Comparative, and Historical Studies, Third Edition
(Thompson/Wadsworth, 2007).
Additional readings will be made available either online or on blackboard.
Course Outline:
I.
Introduction: Some Concepts
Goldstone, Jack A., Introduction: “The Comparative and Historical Study of Revolutions.”
Defronzo, James, Chapter 1.
II.
Theories of Revolution and the Causes of Revolution
Alexis de Tocqueville, "The French Revolution and the Growth of the State"
Marx, Karl and Friedrich Engles, The Communist Manifesto, in Goldstone, pp. 23-31.
Max Weber, Charisma, Bureaucracy and Revolution, in Goldstone, pp. 33-36.
Davies, James C. “Towards a Theory of Revolution,” American Sociological Review, Vol. XXVII,
(February 1962) pp. 1-18.
Samuel P. Huntington, "Revolution and Political Order" in Goldstone, pp. 37-44.
Charles Tilly, "Does Modernization Breed Revolution?" in Goldstone, pp. 45-54.
Selbin, Eric, “Agency and Culture in Revolutions,” in Goldstone, pp. 7684.
The Twentieth and Twenty First Century Case Studies
III.
The Russian Revolution
Vladimir Ilich Lenin, What is to be Done
http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1901/witbd/index.htm Chapter IV part C through part E.
DeFonzo, Chapter 2: The Russian Revolutions an Eastern Europe, pp. 39-64.
Timothy McDaniel, “The Russian Revolution of 1917, Autocracy and Modernization,” in Goldstone,
pp. 183-190.
Theda Skocpol and Ellen Kay Trimberger, "Revolutions: A Structural Analysis,” in Goldstone, pp. 6368.
IV.
The Chinese Revolution
Mao Zedong “Report on an Investigation into the Peasant Movement in Hunan,”
http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-1/mswv1_2.htm
Eric Wolf, “Peasants and Revolutions,” in Goldstone, pp. 55-63.
DeFonzo, Chapter 3: Revolution in China.
Mark Seldon, “The Chinese Communist Revolution,” in Goldstone, pp. 191-200.
V.
The Latin American Revolutions
Walter L. Goldfrank, “The Mexican Revolution,” in Goldstone, pp. 213-223.
DeFonzo, Chapter 5: The Cuban Revolution.
Thomas Leonard, “The Cuban Revolution, in Goldstone,” 201-212.
DeFonzo, Chapter 6: Revolution in Nicaragua. The Americas, Vol. 46, No 2, pp. 189-204.
Jim Handy, ‘A Sea of Indians”: Ethnic Conflict and the Guatemalan Revolution, 1944-1952, The
Americas, Vol. 46, No. 2 (October, 1989), pp. 189-204.
Timothy Wickham-Crowley, “A Comparative Sociology of Latin American Guerilla Movements,” in
Goldstone, pp. 285-294.
Defonzo, Chapter 10: Revolution Through Democracy.
VI.
African Revolutions
DeFonzo, Chapter 9: South Africa
Gay Seidman, South Africa, “The Struggle Against Apartheid,” in Goldstone, pp. 295-303.
Marina Ottaway, “Social Classes and Corporate Interests in the Ethiopian Revolution,” The Journal of
Modern African Studies, Vol. 14, No. 3 (Sep., 1976), pp. 469-486.
A Special Correspondent, “Revolution and Counter-revolution in Ethiopia,” Economic and Political
Weekly, Vol. 13, No 9 (March, 1978).
Gebru Tareke, The Red Terror in “Ethiopia : A Historical Aberration,” Journal of Developing Societies
24, 2 (2008): 183–206.
VII.
The The Middle East and the Islamic Revolutions
DeFonzo, Chapter 7 The Iranian Revolution and Islamic Fundamentalism.
Jerrold D. Green, “Countermobilization in the Iranian Revolution,” in Goldstone, pp. 235-244.
Theda Skopol, “Rentier State and Shia Islaim in the Iranian Revolution,” Theory and Society 11 (1982)
265 -283.
DeFonzo, Chapter 8: Islamic Revolutionary Movements.
Glenn Robinson, “The Palestinian ‘Intifada’ Revolt,” in Goldstone.
Anwar-ul-haq Ahady, “The Afghanistan Revolutionary Wars,” in Goldstone.
VIII. Conclusion:
John Foran and Jeff Goodwin, “Dictatorship or Democracy: Outcomes of Revolution in Iran and
Nicaragua,” in Goldstone, pp. 107-119.
Jonathan Kelly and Herbert S. Klein, “Revolution and the Rebirth of Inequality: Stratification I
Postrevolutionary Society,” in Goldstone, pp. 86-93.
Susan Eckstein, “The Impact of Revolution on Social Welfare in Latin America, in Goldstone,” pp.
120-135.
Final Paper due, Monday, December 6st.
Final Exam Wednesday, December 10th, 12:00-3:00
ACADEMIC HONOR CODE: Each student is required to sign the honor statement on all major work
submitted for this course. Refer to the UNCG Undergraduate Bulletin.
ATTENDANCE POLICY: Students are expected to attend all scheduled classes unless prior permission is
obtained in advance from the instructor.
DROP POLICY: Refer to UNCG Undergraduate Bulletin
Recommended Readings:
Brinton, N Crane. The Anatomy of Revolution. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1952.
Dominguez, Jorge. Insurrection or Loyalty: The Breakdown of the Spanish American Empire. Cambridge, Mass:
HarvardUniversity Press, 1980.
Eisenstadt, S. N. Revoluton and the Transformation of Societies. New York: Free Press, 1978.
Foran, John, Taleong Power: on the Origin of Third World Revolutions Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Universty
Press, 2005.
Foran, John, David Lane, and Andreja Zivkovic eds, Revolution in the making of the modern world : social
identities, globalization, and modernity. New York: Routledge, 2008.
Goldstone, Jack A. Revolution and Rebellion in the Early Modern World. Berkeley: University of California
Press: 1991.
Goldstone, Jack A., Robert Gurr, and Farrokh Moshiri, eds. Revolutions of the Late Twentieth Century.
Boulder: Westview Press, 1991.Greene, Thomas H. Comparative Revolutionary Movements: Search for Theory
and Justice. New York: Prentice-Hall, 1990.
Goodwin, Jeff, Now Other Way out: States and Revolutionary Movements 1945-1991. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2001.
Hart, John Mason. Revolutionary Mexico: The Coming and Process of the Mexican Revolution. Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1987.
Johnson, Chalmers. Revolutionary Change. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1983.
Gurr, Ted Robert, Why Men Rebel. Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1970.
Hibbs, Douglas A. Jr. Mass Political Violence. New York: Wiley, 1973.
Scott, James. The Moral Economy of the Peasant: Rebellion and Subsistence in Southeast Asia. New Haven:
Yale University Press, 1976.
Huntington, Samuel P. Political Order in Changing Societies. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1968.
Keddie, Nikki. Debating Revolutions. New York: NYU Press, 1994.
Lipset, Seymour Martin. “Radicalism or Reformism: The Sources of Working Class Politics,” American
Political Science Review, 77, 1 (1983): 1-18.
Migdal, Joell, Peasants, Politics, and Revolution: Pressures Toward Social and Political Change in the Third
World. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1974.
Moore, Barrington, Jr. Social origins of dictatorship and democracy; lord and peasant in the making of the
modern world. Boston: Beacon Press, 1966.
Popkin, Samuel. The Rational Peasant. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979
Skocpol, Theda. Social Revolutions in the Modern World. Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1994.
Skocpol, Theda. States and Social Revolutions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988
Tareke, Gebru The Ethiopian Revolution: War in the Horn of Africa. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009.
Thompson, John. Revolutionary Russia, 1917. New York: MacMillan, 1996.
Tilly, Charles, “Revolutions and Collective Violence,” in Fred Greenstein and Nelson Polsby, eds., Handbook
ofPolitical Science, 3 (1975): 483-547.
Trimberger, Kay. Revolution from Above: Military Bureaucrats in Development in Japan, Turkey, Egypt, and
Peru. New
Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books, 1978.
Wickham-Crowley, Tomothy. Guerillas and Revoolution in Latin America. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press, 1992.
Wolf, Eric. Peasant Wars in the Twentieth Century. New York: Harper and Row, 1969: pp. ix-xv and 277-302.