UPSC SOCIOLOGY Syllabus :
Paper 1 – Chapter 7 – Politics and Society:
(a) Sociological theories of power
(b) Power elite, bureaucracy, pressure groups, and political parties.
(c) Nation, state, citizenship, democracy, civil society, ideology.
(d) Protest, agitation, social movements, collective action, revolution.
- According to James M Jasper, ‘Revolution is a social movement that seeks, as minimum, to overthrow the government or state’.
- Green Revolution, Knowledge Revolution, Social Revolution etc, but they are more so in metaphorical sense and more strictly its context is political as in James Jasper’s definition of overthrowing an existing political order by means of mass participation and often accompanied by violence as well.
- A revolution is also different from other similar sounding terms like revolt, uprising, rebellion or mutiny in the sense that the latter may not have a lasting impact on the society.
- A revolution leads to fundamental change in the structure of the society, while the latter may be merely attempts at such a
change.
CAUSES OF REVOLUTION
- Their root causes are structural in nature, and the processes associated with their mass mobilization typically involve cultural, psychological, and political factors.
- The systematic social scientific study of revolutions may be traced back to the 19th century.
- These early works accounted for the structural causes and social forces behind them.
CONDITIONS FOR REVOLUTION
- I. Mass discontent leading to popular uprisings,
II. Dissident political movements with elite participation,
III. Strong and unifying motivations across major parts of the society,
IV. A significant political crisis affecting the state reducing its ability or will to deal with the
opposition (see political opportunity), and
V. External support (or at last, lack of interference on behalf of the state)
SOCIAL MOVEMENTS AND REVOLUTIONS
- Social movement may want to make various reforms and to gain some control of the state, but as long as they do not aim for an exclusive control, its members are not revolutionary.
- Social movements may become more radical and revolutionary, or vice versa – revolutionary movements can scale down their demands and agree to share powers with others, becoming a run-of-the-mill political party.
EXAMPLES
- Goodwin distinguishes between conservative (reformist) and radical revolutionary movements, depending on how much of a change they want to introduce.
- An example of a conservative revolutionary movement would be the American Revolutionary movement, or the Mexican Revolutionary movement.
- Examples of a radical revolutionary movement include French Revolution,
- Bolsheviks Revolution in Russia, Revolution led Chinese Communist Party and other communist movements in most of Southeast Asia and most recently Arab Spring in Tunisia and Egypt.
