no other way out, jeff goodwin

(5) two questions/contributions

1. looking at revolutions during Cold War era, in peripheral/dependent societies
   
2. refuses to look only at 'successful' revolutions (otherwise you have a problem of sampling on dependent variable, which doesn't allow you to think about causes of revolution clearly--because you conflate longer, common causal processes like poverty/inequality with the specific causes of revolutions)

(10): radical revolutionary movement -- aims to overthrow State, but also to transform society

(19): modernization theory focuses on 'elite intransigence'/inflexible States -- the obvious question, though, is why are States inflexible (to which they don't have a good, theoretical answer)

(21): for Marxists, revolutions in peripheral societies owing to weak national bourgeoisie, worker-peasant alliances, etc. when they don't develop, attributed to: (1) strong peripheral bourgeoiseis, (2) lack of revolutionary leadership, (3) the fact that not all types of peasants are inclined to support revolutionary movements.

(22): Wolf vs. classical Marxism -- middle peasants vs. landless rural workers/poor peasants (and middle peasants waver in allegiances)

(23): two responses to Marxists

1. a wide variety of rural and urban strata have played important roles -- not mainly as economically exploited classes, but as violently repressed State subjects
2. success or failure of revolutionary movements depends fundamentally on nature of specific states that revolutionaries seek to overthrow (not whether or not movements have a critical Mass

(24-25): vs. Parsa, revolutions can emerge without expanding political opportunities* or State breakdown (but the caveat -- pg 43 -- is that this happens with 'infrastructurally weak' States; so it's not a repudiation of the basic insight)

(25): "state constuctionism" -- revolutionary movements are largely artifacts or products of historically contingent political context.

(37-44): state-centered approaches (state-autonomy--conflicts w/ elites, state-capacity--to implement agenda, political-opportunity--incentives to organize, state-constructionist--construct social forces around grievances/actions) help us answer four puzzles and address four questions:

1. why is revolution a modern phenomenon? no states, no revolution
   
2. why are radical movements concerned with seizing power? those who want to change society, must go through the State
3. why must States breakdown?
   
4. why do revolutions occur when they do?
   

(44): why do groups attract popular support?

1. state sponshorship of unpopular economic and social arrangements*
2. repression and/or exclusion of mobilized groups form State power -- political incoporation of radiczlized groups is deradicalizing*
3. indiscrinate state violence against mobilized groups and oppositional figures
4. weak policing capacities and infrastructural power
5. corrupt and abribtrary personalistic rule that alienates/weakens/divides counterrevolutionary elites*
   

(52): State autonomy discussion [there is a theoretical discussion to be had here, though it's not particularly useful to probe this question, I don't think]

(53-54): nice rejoinder to Timothy Mitchell's line that there is no State-Society boundary

(55-57): weakness of State-centered arguments

1. don't account for social networks
2. don't account for resources
3. don't account for ideology

(59-63): State constructionist acct of Cuban revolution

(82-83): (1) exploitation, (2) class basis cannot make sense of why revolutionary movements emerged in some places, but not in others

(84, 91): in Vietnam and Indonesia, broad multiclass coalitions were formed*

(87): in Indonesia, Communists couldn't make inroads because of the popularity of Sukarno and the nationalist leadership (party was removed as a threat after 1948 Maidun revolt; though they made a quick comeback!)

(90): Japanese occupation as a godsend for the Communist Parties, who could fight fascists without collaborating with Western imperialists (in India opposite, of course)

(170): proof of no revolutionary movement in Honduras is that it doesn't have much mass support*

(183-186): personalistic vs. institutionalist dictatorships*

(192): 5,000 guerillas in Nicaragua, but 50,000 dead

(220): excluding separatists

(231): Land Reform might not be necessary to defeat insurgencies -- see Philippines and Malaya (US land reform advisor denounced as communist by Phil HoR!)

(237): 'massive state terrorism' mentioned as explanation

(266): radicalizing, but not runing to violence (as he'll say later, partly because of the 'infrastructural power' of these regimes--relatively 'strong States'--just doesn't make sense)

(284): Romainia like Haiti in 1986 (flight of dictator, but elite stays in power)

(290): implausibility of a general theory of revolution

(294): armed insurgencies on the wane [?]

(296): increasing infrastructural power --> prevalence of non-violent strategies*

(300): democracy predominantly counterrevolutionary consequences -- no popular revolutionary movement has overthrown a consolidated democratic regime [does this argument, though, depend on a conflation of revolution w/ mass rebellions/popular insurgencies? are we talking about all forms of rebellion? isn't an E. Europe-type affair fairly plausible?]

- - - - -

[1] there's a question about where State breakdown fits: for Parsa, it's an alternative way you get to revolutions; here, they're being associated (i.e., expanding political opportunities are produced by State breakdown), but Jeff is saying state breakdown/political opportunities don't represent the universe of cases]

[2] point about State in political/economic life --> revolutionary movements raises the same questions as the Parsa, re: ideological/structural problem (comes out very clearly on p. 268)? (note that he raises, on p. 169, the point that not all of the grievances that lay behind the revolutionary movements pertained directly to the actions of the States--indeed, I'm sure that they understood themselves as fighting States that were in the service of landlords and capitalists, no? isn't this important? it, at the very least, helps us specify why and how States matter)

[3] the point about 'incorporation' raises several questions, in Jeff's account.

(a) who, exactly, is being incorporated, and why does incorporation work (in the Malaysian and Philippine cases, it really does seem as if 'inclusion' means something more like 'co-option' -- see p. 127, p. 233)? (indeed, the limitations of 'incorporation' become part of Jeff's explanation of persistent insurgency.)

is it that elites are able to offer the State a sufficient social base? or is it that the social base of erstwhile radicals enter into the political process rather than pursues arms (this seems not to be the case, in any of the examples -- it's more and more unlikely, the less thorough incoproration is, no? maybe it works in Honduras, but where else?)? or, is it the fact that people withdraw support from radicals, even if they don't actively offer their support to moderates?

(b) there is also the question of whether it isn't the case that -- in Jeff's case studies -- particularly successful 'repression' (or even, particularly successful 'divide and rule', in the Malayan case) is doing more work than 'incorporation' (in Malaya, British launch 'Operation Starvation', forced urbanization, 'expense and ferocity of the 'Emergency' -- there isn't much evidence given that the Chinese collaboarationists had much of a base (p. 116-118); in El Salvador and Guatemala, repression was tremendously violent and only a narrow elite were incorporated, who very narrow grievances (p. 198-200, p. 205, p. 207)). given the fact that so many of these elections/incorporations were tremendously narrow--was it really the fact that people 'believed' in more moderate solutions that explains their unwillingness to support radicals? couldn't it just be the fact that they were unable to support them?

[4] when we say that personalistic regimes alienate counterrevolutionary elites, who are the sectors that we're talking about (high elites, or -- pace Parsa -- small 'capitalists'?) , and what exactly is the logic/mechanism (is that that they're not able to organize or they don't want to organize? if the latter, why? given that they understand the threat of a revolutionary movement arrayed against them?)

[5] important question about 'radical revolutionary movements,' given the fact that we're considering Communists who were organizing multiclass nationalist movements. to what extent to we miss something (which would be strategy--see p. 210, where it's suggested that Sandinista strategy was important to their success), when we ignore that they were organizing as natoinalists? (Viet Minh organizing 'patriotic landlords', withdrawing land reform slogans in 1941; 'executive committee of bourgeoisie' largely supported the Sandinistas -- pg. 189).

this relates, obviously, to Parsa' insistence that some measure of 'coalition' is critical, in the absence of total State breakdown (although, at the same time, these were examples of military victory, which Parsa excludes from the set of cases where coalition is important)

the question is raised, again, when it comes to Eastern Europe. not only is 'radical' in question (p. 270), here (means just 'something really different', rather than an identifiable ideology--which may be defensible), but also 'revolutionary'?

[6] key question about 'conducive political contexts' and 'State constructionism,' in general -- if certain colonial rulers/States were more open to 'opening up' the political system/incoporating elites, why is this? (Jeff, to his credit, addresses this at some points). why was Japanese rule in Indonesia different? why was Honduras different (p. 173 -- no landed elite (which it had in common with Nicaragua, though), and relatively plentiful supply of land. but if this is the explanation, doesn't class re-enter?) similarly, why do you get personalistic dictatorships and closed colonial rule in Nicaragua and Vietnam, respectively, but not in the other cases (Guatemala/El Salvador and Malaysia/Philippines)?

the theoretical stakes are real, are they not? doesn't this point us away, though, from the idea that the explanation is "State-centered," insofar as that, itself, begs a question: in other words, are we failing to highlight that which is fundamental in the causal chain?

[7] what's interesting -- though we don't want to take this too far -- is that even in cases where the revolutionary movement is successful, they are actually quite weak up until a few years before taking power (in the Parsa, Iran/Nicaragua; in Goodwin, noted at quite a few times that these were relatively weak insurgent groups). this shouldn't discourage us from making the contrast Goodwin does (between Honduras and the rest), but it should give us some pause, I think.

[8] given the importance of this for the conclusion, at the end -- might we need a causal theory of 'infrastructural weakness'? moreover, is 'infrastrural power' a relative or absolute problem? because if relative, it has existed forever. if absolute (a la George Orwell), then we're in trouble...