Revolutions and Revolutionary Movements

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
James DeFronzo
Keyword(s):  
Revolutionary Movements

The Culture of New Wars

2019 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 1-21
Keyword(s):  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Armed Conflicts ◽  
Global Integration ◽  
New Wars ◽  
Key Factor ◽  
Revolutionary Movements ◽  
Small War ◽  
Eighteenth And Nineteenth Centuries ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The Military

The article analyses the dominant trends in contemporary armed conflicts that are referred to as the “new wars.” Rather than debating the empirical aspects of the concept, the author focuses on its conceptual content, which provides a theoretical framework for understanding the military actions that came after the end of the Cold War. She traces the genealogy of irregular wars, which is a concept known since late antiquity, although it was not at that time a definitive part military theory. Traditional military conflicts often took place between armies of states that officially declared war on each other. They were limited in time and space and had clear goals that, once achieved, left open the possibility of a return to peace. The term “small war” came into use by theorists only at the turn of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to describe the processes taking place on the periphery of classical conflicts. However, that term seems to be the most relevant for understanding the irregular nature of combat actions in the twenty-first century. New wars add a dimension of biopolitics to the traditional realm of geopolitics. Drawing examples from the conflicts and armed revolutionary movements of the second half of the twentieth century, the author argues that there were fundamental transformations that set irregular warfare apart: a shift of strategic emphasis, the insurgent and guerrilla nature of the conflicts, the redefinition of “collateral damage,” the spread of terrorist methods for waging war between unequal forces, and private financing of paramilitary groups. The characterization of the essential features of the new wars concept includes an analysis of the factors that led to reformulating war; the key factor was the combination of authoritarianism with economic openness and neoliberal economic policy. The conclusion reached is that, against the background of ongoing global integration, the changes in the conduct of armed conflicts are creating a new culture of security that is justifiably labelled “new wars.”

The Spanish Church and The Revolutionary Republican Movement, 1930–1931

1962 ◽  
Vol 31 (4) ◽  
pp. 430-439
Author(s):  
José M. Sánchez
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
The Political ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Nineteen Thirties ◽  
Republican Movement ◽  
Revolutionary Movements ◽  
The Right ◽  
Political Realities ◽  
The Church

Few subjects in recent history have lent themselves to such heated polemical writing and debate as that concerning the Spanish Church and its relationship to the abortive Spanish revolution of 1931–1939. Throughout this tragic era and especially during the Civil War, it was commonplace to find the Church labelled as reactionary, completely and unalterably opposed to progress, and out of touch with the political realities of the twentieth century.1 In the minds of many whose views were colored by the highly partisan reports of events in Spain during the nineteen thirties, the Church has been pictured as an integral member of the Unholy Triumvirate— Bishops, Landlords, and enerals—which has always conspired to impede Spanish progress. Recent historical scholarship has begun to dispel some of the notions about the right-wing groups,2 but there has been little research on the role of the clergy. Even more important, there has been little understanding of the Church's response to the radical revolutionary movements in Spain.

Elites, Elite Settlements, and Revolutionary Movements in Latin America, 1950–1980: Introduction

1994 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 543-574
Author(s):  
Timothy P. Wickham-Crowley
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Latin America ◽  
Latin American ◽  
American Politics ◽  
Social Revolution ◽  
Latin American Politics ◽  
Revolutionary Movements

Social revolutions as well as revolutionary movements have recently held great interest for both sociopolitical theorists and scholars of Latin American politics. Before we can proceed with any useful analysis, however, we must distinguish between these two related but not identical phenomena. Adapting Theda Skocpol’s approach, we can define social revolutions as “rapid, basic transformations of a society’s state and class structures; and they are accompanied and in part carried through by” mass-based revolts from below, sometimes in cross-class coalitions (Skocpol 1979: 4; Wickham-Crowley 1991:152). In the absence of such basic sociopolitical transformations, I will not speak of (social) revolution or of a revolutionary outcome, only about revolutionary movements, exertions, projects, and so forth. Studies of the failures and successes of twentieth-century Latin American revolutions have now joined the ongoing theoretical debate as to whether such outcomes occur due to society- or movement-centered processes or instead due to state- or regime-centered events (Wickham-Crowley 1992).

Struggling for democracy: Paulo Freire and transforming society through education

2017 ◽  
Vol 15 (6) ◽  
pp. 744-766 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy D Bolin
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
Education Policy ◽  
Teaching Strategies ◽  
Paulo Freire ◽  
Democratic Process ◽  
Policy And Practice ◽  
Revolutionary Movements

An exploration is presented of how education policy and practice may be used to transform society. Specifically, connections are made between Paulo Freire's teaching strategies and radically democratic organizing. The connections are contextualized within the prefigurative tradition, which explores how the democratic process is central to consistent and sustainable social change. The article contributes to an understanding of Paulo Freire's ontology, and the philosophy of social change, as well as how democratic strategies may address failures of revolutionary movements of the 19th and 20th centuries.

The September Program: Reflections on the Evidence

1978 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 348-354 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wayne C. Thompson
Keyword(s):  
The State ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Diary Entry ◽  
Indirect Control ◽  
The Press ◽  
Political Warfare ◽  
Revolutionary Movements ◽  
War Aims ◽  
Individual Human

In August 1914 Kurt Riezler accompanied Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg to the Supreme Headquarters in Koblenz and Luxembourg. His duties were not clearly defined and included a variety of things: He worked on war aims, parliamentary speeches, revolutionary movements, and domestic political questions. He helped interpret the chancellor's policies to the press, establish guidelines for censorship, and write anonymous articles supporting Bethmann Hollweg's policies. He could be called Bethmann Hollweg's assistant for political warfare.Unlike most Germans Riezler sensed from the beginning that a German victory was not assured. On August 14, 1914, in his first diary entry after the outbreak of war, he noted that although “everybody was apparently happy to be able for once to dedicate himself unreservedly to a great cause, … no one doubts or appears to consider even for an instant what a gamble war is, especially this war.” Riezler also realized that the “ideas of 1914” would not retain their strength forever. “Just as the storm frightens the vermin out of the air—when it becomes quieter again, everything crawls out of its refuge—and emerges again in the state as well as in individual human beings.” This realization protected Riezler from the naive belief that Germany could bear a long war without an obvious effort to achieve a negotiated peace, without a new European order which at most allowed Germany indirect control, and without domestic political concessions to the German masses.

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