Hostname: page-component-7bb8b95d7b-s9k8s Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-09-12T07:47:07.076Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Old Regimes and Revolutions in the Second and Third Worlds: A Comparative Perspective

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 January 2016

Jeff Goodwin
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

When they saw so many ridiculous, ramshackle institutions, survivals of an earlier age, which no one had attempted to co-ordinate or adjust to modern conditions and which seemed destined to live on despite the fact that they had ceased to have any present value, it was natural enough that thinkers of the day should come to loathe everything that savored of the past and should desire to remold society on entirely new lines. —Alexis de Tocqueville

The dissolution of empires has been one of the distinguishing and most consequential characteristics of the twentieth century. The popular struggles for national sovereignty that have helped to destroy these empires have sometimes (although certainly not always) been fused with attempts to change radically the socioeconomic institutions inherited from the imperialists. The result of this fusion has been nationalist revolution—or revolutionary nationalism—another phenomenon largely unique to the present century. Most recently, in the Eastern European satellites of the former Soviet Union, imperial domination not only generated a nationalist opposition but also unwittingly radicalized it—albeit in a very peculiar way that I explain below. Thus, the Eastern European revolutions of 1989, as Pavel Campeanu (1991: 806–7) has pointed out, had “a dual nature: social, since their goal was to destroy the socioeconomic structures of Stalinism, and national, since they aspired to re-establish the sovereignty of the countries in question.”

Type
Special Section: Making History from Above and Below: Elite and Popular Perspectives on Politics
Information
Social Science History , Volume 18 , Issue 4 , Winter 1994 , pp. 575 - 604
Copyright
Copyright © Social Science History Association 1994 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Arato, A. (1993) “Interpreting 1989.” Social Research 60: 609–46.Google Scholar
Banac, I., ed. (1992) Eastern Europe in Revolution. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Borocz, J. (1992) “Dual dependency and property vacuum: Social change on the state socialist semiperiphery.” Theory and Society 21: 77–104.Google Scholar
Brown, J. (1991) Surge to Freedom: The End of Communist Rule in Eastern Europe. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Bruszt, L., and Stark, D. (1992) “Remaking the political field in Hungary: From the politics of confrontation to the politics of competition,” in Banac, I. (ed.) Eastern Europe in Revolution. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press: 13–55.Google Scholar
Bunce, V. (1985) “The empire strikes back: The transformation of the Eastern bloc from a Soviet asset to a Soviet liability.” International Organization 39: 1–46.Google Scholar
Bunce, V. (1989) “Soviet decline as a regional hegemon: Gorbachev and Eastern Europe.” Eastern European Politics and Societies 3: 235–67.Google Scholar
Bunce, V., and Chong, D. (1990) “The party’s over: Mass protest and the end of Communist rule in Eastern Europe.” Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, San Francisco, August.Google Scholar
Burawoy, M., and Lukacs, J. (1992) The Radiant Past: Ideology and Reality in Hungary’s Road to Capitalism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Campeanu, P. (1991) “National fervor in Eastern Europe: The case of Romania.” Social Research 58: 805–28.Google Scholar
Chirot, D. (1991) “What happened in Eastern Europe in 1989?” in Chirot, D. (ed.) The Crisis of Leninism and the Decline of the Left: The Revolutions of 1989. Seattle: University of Washington Press: 3–32.Google Scholar
Codrescu, A. (1991) The Hole in the Flag: A Romanian Exile’s Story of Return and Revolution. New York: William Morrow.Google Scholar
Connor, W. (1988) Socialism’s Dilemmas: State and Society in the Soviet Bloc. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Csanadi, M. (1990) “Beyond the image: The case of Hungary.” Social Research 57: 321–46.Google Scholar
Csanadi, M. (1992) “The diary of decline: A case-study of the disintegration of the party in one district in Hungary.” Soviet Studies 43:1085–99.Google Scholar
Dahrendorf, R. (1990) Reflections on the Revolution in Europe. New York: Times Books.Google Scholar
de Fiers, R. (1984) “Socialism in one family.” Survey 28: 165–74.Google Scholar
Dix, R. H. (1991) “Eastern Europe’s implications for revolutionary theory.” Polity 24: 227–42.Google Scholar
Echikson, W. (1990) Lighting the Night: Revolution in Eastern Europe. New York: William Morrow.Google Scholar
Eisenstadt, S. N. (1992) “The breakdown of Communist regimes and the vicissitudes of modernity.” Daedalus 121: 21–41.Google Scholar
Ekiert, G. (1990) “Transitions from state-socialism in east central Europe.” States and Social Structures Newsletter (Social Science Research Council), no. 12: 1–7.Google Scholar
Fagan, G. (1991) “Hungary: The collapse of Kádárism.” Labour Focus on Eastern Europe (June): 23–32.Google Scholar
Farhi, F. (1990) States and Urban-Based Revolutions: Iran and Nicaragua. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar
Fields, G. (1991) “The road from Gdansk: How Solidarity found haven in the marketplace.” Monthly Review 43 (July-Aug.): 95–121.Google Scholar
Fischer, M. (1990) “Totalitarianism, authoritarianism, and revolution: The sultanistic tendencies of Nicolae Ceausescu in Romania.” Paper presented at the Workshop on Sultanistic Regimes, Center for International Affairs, Harvard University, November.Google Scholar
Foran, J. (1993) “Theories of revolution revisited: Toward a fourth generation?” Sociological Theory 11: 1–20.Google Scholar
Foran, J., and Goodwin, J. (1993) “Revolutionary outcomes in Iran and Nicaragua: Coalition fragmentation, war, and the limits of social transformation.” Theory and Society 22: 209–47.Google Scholar
Garton Ash, T. (1990) The Magic Lantern: The Revolution of ’89 Witnessed in Warsaw, Budapest, Berlin, and Prague. New York: Random House.Google Scholar
Garton Ash, T. (1991) “Poland after Solidarity.” New York Review of Books, 13 June, 46–58.Google Scholar
Gati, C. (1990) The Bloc That Failed: Soviet-East European Relations in Transition. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Georgescu, V. (1988) “Romania in the 1980s: The legacy of dynastic socialism.” Eastern European Politics and Societies 2: 69–93.Google Scholar
Giddens, A. (1987) The Nation-State and Violence. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Gilberg, T. (1990) “Romania: Will history repeat itself?” Current History 89: 409–12, 431–33.Google Scholar
Glenny, M. (1990) The Rebirth of History: Eastern Europe in the Age of Democracy. London: Penguin.Google Scholar
Goldfrank, W. (1979) “Theories of revolution and revolution without theory: The case of Mexico.” Theory and Society 7: 135–65.Google Scholar
Goldstone, J. (1986) “Revolutions and superpowers,” in Adelman, J. (ed.) Superpowers and Revolutions. New York: Praeger: 38–48.Google Scholar
Goldstone, J. (1991) Revolution and Rebellion in the Early Modern World. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Goldstone, J. (1993) “Why we could (and should) have foreseen the revolutions of 1989–1991 in the U.S.S.R. and Eastern Europe.” Contention 2:127–52.Google Scholar
Goodwin, J. (forthcoming) “Toward a new sociology of revolutions.” Theory and Society.Google Scholar
Goodwin, J., and Bunce, V. (1991) “Eastern Europe’s ‘refolutions’ in comparative and theoretical perspective.” Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Washington, DC, August.Google Scholar
Goodwin, J., and Skocpol, T. (1989) “Explaining revolutions in the contemporary Third World.” Politics and Society 17: 489–509.Google Scholar
Gurr, T. R. (1986) “Persisting patterns of repression and rebellion: Foundations for a general theory of political coercion,” in Karns, M. (ed.) Persistent Patterns and Emergent Structures in a Waning Century. New York: Praeger: 149–68.Google Scholar
Habermas, J. (1990) “What does socialism mean today? The rectifying revolution and the need for new thinking on the left.” New Left Review, no. 183: 3–21.Google Scholar
Hankiss, E. (1990) “What the Hungarians saw first,” in Prins, G. (ed.) Spring in Winter: The 1989 Revolutions. Manchester: Manchester University Press: 13–36.Google Scholar
Heyns, B., and Bialecki, I. (1991) “Solidarnosc: Reluctant vanguard or makeshift coalition?” American Political Science Review 85: 351–70.Google Scholar
Holmes, L. (1993) The End of Communist Power: Anti-Corruption Campaigns and Legitimation Crisis. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Huntington, S. P. (1968) Political Order in Changing Societies. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Jowitt, K. (1983) “Soviet neotraditionalism: The political corruption of a Leninist regime.” Soviet Studies 35: 275–97.Google Scholar
Judt, T (1988) “The dilemmas of dissidence: The politics of opposition in east-central Europe.” Eastern European Politics and Societies 2: 185–240.Google Scholar
Kaminski, B. (1991) The Collapse of State Socialism: The Case of Poland. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Kolankiewicz, G. (1988) “Poland and the politics of permissible pluralism.” Eastern European Politics and Society 2:152–83.Google Scholar
Konrád, G. (1984) Antipolitics. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.Google Scholar
Kornai, J. (1980) Economics of Shortage. Amsterdam: North-Holland.Google Scholar
Kuran, T. (1991) “Now out of never: The element of surprise in the East European revolution of 1989.” World Politics 44: 7–48.Google Scholar
Lieven, A. (1993) The Baltic Revolution: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and the Path to Independence. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Linden, R. (1986) “Socialist patrimonialism and the global economy: The case of Romania.” International Organization 40: 347–80.Google Scholar
Mack, A. (1977) “Why big nations lose small wars: The politics of asymmetric conflict.” World Politics 27:175–200.Google Scholar
Mann, M. (1986) “The autonomous power of the state: Its origins, mechanisms, and results,” in Hall, J. (ed.) States in History. Oxford: Basil Blackwell: 109–36.Google Scholar
Mason, D. (1989) “Solidarity as a new social movement.” Political Science Quarterly 104: 41–58.Google Scholar
Mason, D. (1992) Revolution in East-Central Europe: The Rise and Fall of Communism and the Cold War. Boulder, CO: Westview.Google Scholar
Michnik, A. (1985 [1976]) “The new evolutionism,” in Letters from Prison and Other Essays. Berkeley: University of California Press: 135–48.Google Scholar
Moore, B. Jr. (1966) Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy. Boston: Beacon.Google Scholar
Naimark, N. (1992) “Revolution and counterrevolution in Eastern Europe,” in Lemke, C. and Marks, G. (eds.) The Crisis of Socialism in Europe. Durham, NC: Duke University Press: 61–83.Google Scholar
Opp, K.-D., and Gern, C. (1993) “Dissident groups, personal networks, and spontaneous cooperation: The East German revolution of 1989.” American Sociological Review 58: 659–80.Google Scholar
Ost, D. (1989) “The transformation of Solidarity and the future of central Europe.” Telos, no. 79: 69–94.Google Scholar
Pakulski, J. (1986) “Legitimacy and mass compliance: Reflections on Max Weber and Soviet-type societies.” British Journal of Political Science 16: 35–56.Google Scholar
Pravda, A. (1981) “East-West interdependence and the future of Eastern Europe,” in Bornstein, M., Gitelman, Z., and Zimmerman, W. (eds.) East-West Relations and the Future of Eastern Europe. London: Allen and Unwin: 162–90.Google Scholar
Prins, G, ed. (1990) Spring in Winter: The 1989 Revolutions. Manchester: Manchester University Press.Google Scholar
Ramet, S. (1991) Social Currents in Eastern Europe: The Sources and Meaning of the Great Transformation. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Ratesh, N. (1991) Romania: The Entangled Revolution. New York: Praeger.Google Scholar
Reich, J. (1990) “Reflections on becoming an East German dissident, on losing the wall and a country,” in Prins, G. (ed.) Spring in Winter: The 1989 Revolutions. Manchester: Manchester University Press: 65–97.Google Scholar
Sampson, S. (1986) “The second economy in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union.” Annals of the American Association of Political and Social Science, no. 493: 120–36.Google Scholar
Schopflin, G. (1991) “Obstacles to liberalism in post-Communist polities.” Eastern European Politics and Societies 5:189–94.Google Scholar
Scruton, R. (1988a) “The New Right in central Europe 1: Czechoslovakia.” Political Studies 36: 449–62.Google Scholar
Scruton, R. (1988b) “The New Right in central Europe 2: Poland and Hungary.” Political Studies 36: 638–52.Google Scholar
Segal, G., and Phipps, J. (1990) “Why Communist armies defend their parties.” Asian Survey 30: 959–76.Google Scholar
Skocpol, T. (1979) States and Social Revolutions: A Comparative Analysis of France, Russia, and China. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Skocpol, T. (1985) “Bringing the state back in: Strategies of analysis in current research,” in Evans, P., Rueschemeyer, D., and Skocpol, T. (eds.) Bringing the State Back In. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 3–37.Google Scholar
Staniszkis, J. (1991) “‘Political capitalism’ in Poland.” Eastern European Politics and Societies 5: 127–41.Google Scholar
Stokes, G. (1993) The Walls Came Tumbling Down: The Collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Suny, R. (1990) “The revenge of the past: Socialism and ethnic conflict in Transcaucasia.” New Left Review, no. 184: 5–34.Google Scholar
Tismaneanu, V. (1989) “The tragicomedy of Romanian communism.” Eastern European Politics and Societies 3: 329–76.Google Scholar
Tocqueville, A. de (1955) The Old Régime and the French Revolution. Translated by Gilbert, Stuart. Garden City, NY: Doubleday.Google Scholar
Verdery, K. (1993) “What was socialism and why did it fall?” Contention 3: 1–23.Google Scholar
Verdery, K., and Kligman, G. (1992) “Romania after Ceausescu: Post-Communist Communism?” in Banac, I. (ed.) Eastern Europe in Revolution. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press: 117–47.Google Scholar
Walicki, A. (1991) “From Stalinism to post-Communist pluralism: The case of Poland.” New Left Review, no. 185: 92–121.Google Scholar
Walton, J., and Ragin, C. (1990) “Global and national sources of political protest: Third world responses to the debt crisis.” American Journal of Sociology 55: 876–90.Google Scholar
Wheaton, B., and Kavan, Z. (1992) The Velvet Revolution: Czechoslovakia, 1988–1991. Boulder, CO: Westview.Google Scholar
Wickham-Crowley, T. (1992) Guerrillas and Revolution in Latin America: A Comparative Study of Insurgents and Regimes since 1956. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Wolf, E. (1969) Peasant Wars of the Twentieth Century. New York: Harper and Row.Google Scholar