(Re)Conceptualizing Revolution for Political Science

Session Submission Type: Roundtable

Session Description

While it was once thought that the age of revolutions was over, the last two decades have shown that revolution continues to be a major form of regime change and political development, particularly in the Global South. Mass movements and popular uprisings in Central Asia, Eastern Europe, Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America have spawned new research agendas on the changing forms of revolutionary mobilization and the varied social and political outcomes that revolutions bring about. Yet across this burgeoning body of research there remains considerable disagreement over basic conceptual questions. What is a revolution? How do we define and operationalize it in political science research? And how does the concept of revolution relate to others commonly used in the discipline, including "uprising," "nonviolent resistance," and "rebellion"? This roundtable brings together a range of leading scholars in the study of revolution to debate these conceptual questions. Participants will discuss various definitions of revolution and how they have applied these definitions in their research. They will also be asked to reflect on how the study of revolutions can inform and speak to a variety of existing research agendas in political science, including on violence/nonviolence, authoritarianism, democratization, coups, and civil wars.

Sub Unit

• Division 11: Comparative Politics

Chair

• Jack A. Goldstone George Mason University

Presenters

• Megan A. Stewart University of Michigan

• Killian Clarke Georgetown University

• Anne Meng University of Virginia

• Stathis N. Kalyvas University of Oxford

• Lucan A. Way University of Toronto

• James Mahoney Northwestern University

• Mark Beissinger Princeton University

• Mai Omer Hassan MIT