A Macat Analysis of Theda Skocpol's States and Social Revolutions By Riley Quinn
This was a very interesting analysis of alternative empirical theories to Marxism for as to why revolutions occur Quite a lot was covered in 110 pages but no specific example was given enough detail to provide nuance or allow for outside applications of the propositions put forth Ultimately an informative analysis with no true significance A good read but not one that contributes to conversation beyond addressing flaws in Marxist approaches to class revolutions A Macat Analysis of Theda Skocpol s States and Social Revolutions
Many people want to understand what revolutions are and especially how they come about from the academics who study them to the states that wish to prevent or in some cases provoke them But it is arguably the US scholar Theda Skocpol who has done most to create a viable model of revolution and States and Social Revolutions is the work in which she sets out her intellectual stall Skocpol s magnum opus can be considered a classic product of the critical thinking skill of problem solving She assesses several different revolutions those of France Russia and China and asks new productive questions about their causes and outcomes The answers collectively allow her to move beyond existing theories such as the voluntarist school which suggests that revolutionaries have agency and the Marxist school which sees state institutions as nothing than a front for class interests Skocpol s model assumes that states are autonomous bureaucratic institutions which act in their own interests a fundamental re imagining based on fresh interpretations of the evidence Her analysis extends beyond the causes of revolution to their consequences and her argument that the revolutionary state that survives is the one that successfully implements a far reaching program of reform helps to explain not only why the three revolutions she studied have proved enduringly influential but also why hundreds of others less successful are barely remembered today A Macat Analysis of Theda Skocpol s States and Social Revolutions
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