Abstract
Mark Beissinger's latest book The Revolutionary City examines revolutions from 1904 to 2014. Mid-nineteenth-century revolutions started in cities. Think of the 1848 waves against several European monarchies, and the most famous of all—the Paris Commune in 1871. Given the state's capacity for lethally coercive power, revolutions later became ruralized. Most of these, Beissinger calls social revolutions: against absolute monarchs or for regaining independence. However, since the turn of the twenty-first century, revolutions have relocated back to cities. Moreover, unlike their antecedents, revolutions are now increasingly “non-lethal.”
The relocation to cities presupposes proximity to the nerve centers of state power, a situation dictating revolutions’ scope and strategy. With the capacity to mobilize large crowds, urban revolutions are typically against corrupt and wasteful state elites. This logic of negativity specifies that, unlike social revolutions, urban revolutions tend to have fewer enduring achievements and legacies because the people joining them are more ideologically mixed. Because they tend to unfold over relatively short periods—lasting weeks rather than years as compared with social revolutions—urban, revolutionary activists must build consensus and forge coalitions. However, coalitions cause urban revolts to eventually fail even when they succeed in ousting incumbent regimes. It is precisely after they oust the former powerholders that urban revolutions become less likely to survive the upheavals they inherited: the marred living conditions that prompted people to revolt in the first place.
The Revolutionary City is comprised of ten chapters. The analysis is driven by quantitative data from across the globe that covers the period from 1904 to 2014 with sensible projections beyond this time period. While the statistical illustrations, charts, and tables might be intimidating to some, they are particularly rewarding when unpacking the uses and abuses of revolutions.
Chapter one “A Spatial Theory of Revolution” highlights how the spatial relocation of revolutions to cities leads to the proximity dilemma. Specifically, what is solved by mobilizing large crowds is lost through the critical need for coalitions. Chapter two “The Growth and Urbanization of Revolution” documents an increasing frequency of revolutionary episodes around the world. The massive migration from rural areas to cities, the consolidation of states during the Cold War, and the rise of a unipolar world order all dictate the rise of urban revolutions.
Chapter three “The Urban Civic Revolutionary Moment” sets the stage for Beissinger's probabilistic approach. Instead of presuming causes, the author proposes exploring the “structural conditions” that characterize urban civic revolutionary episodes. Although conditions such as inequality, poverty, and underdevelopment are associated with social revolutions, Beissinger finds that urban revolutions do not correlate with these factors. Structural conditions thus help explain the break between the unfolding of past and present revolutions.
Chapter four “The Repression-Disruption Trade-off and the Shifting Odds of Success” stipulates how the chances of revolutionary success have been on the rise due to urbanization and proximity to power centers. However, this does not mean that with each revolutionary event, that success in unseating regimes is more frequent and predictable than failures. As outlined in chapter five “Revolutionary Contingency and the City,” it is challenging for both incumbent regimes and the revolutionary opposition to conduct every move and respond to rapidly unfolding events. Mistakes from either side become acutely magnified and often have direct and often irreversible consequences. This is the impact of what Beissinger brilliantly terms “thickened history.” In contrast, mistakes, even outright blunders, used to be contained and remedied within social revolutions.
Chapter six “Public Space and Urban Revolution” reiterates the far-reaching impact of the unfolding of revolutionary work in cities and capitals. As a case in point, cities like Paris were purposefully rebuilt after revolts to facilitate their quelling. However, Beissinger finds that the physical location and the symbolic value in the design of cities can be redefined to serve urban revolutions. In chapter seven “The Individual and Collective Action in Urban Civic Revolution,” Beissinger documents that revolutionary, urban activists are very diverse. This helps explains the fundamental disagreements that surface once contested regimes fall and revolutionaries take the reins. The limitations to leading a smooth post-revolutionary transition underline how “… these were revolutions not for democracy, but against the corrupt and abusive rule” (p. 304).
Chapter eight “The Pacification of Revolution” reveals that the available data from the past century indicates that revolutionary situations have become significantly less lethal. Nonetheless, the decline in lethal violence should not lead us to assume that powerholders have become more ethical. Rather, regimes have become increasingly worried about the backlash from deploying excessive force to control seditious crowds. Chapter nine “The Evolving Impact of Revolution” contrasts the achievements of social revolutions against those of urban civic ones. Specifically, the author identifies five testable achievements: political order, economic growth, inequality, political freedom, and government accountability. New orders emerging from urban civic revolutions are less likely to stay in power compared to their counterparts from social revolutions. Even though they facilitate a substantial increase in political freedom, urban civic revolutions fall short of delivering economic growth or reducing inequality. The last chapter “The City and the Future of Revolution” concludes by predicting that revolutions—given that they have substantially changed in style and delivery during the last three centuries—will continue to evolve. In a nutshell, there is no end to the possibilities for revolutionary regime change.
Sometimes Beissinger's designed abstention from qualification—as when he defines “coupvolution” as “a mass siege of government aimed at regime-change that precipitates a military coup” (p. 29)—sacrifices complexity for smooth theoretical application. However, there are situations where revolutions and counter-revolutions appear very similar to the unbiased observer depending on who does the reporting and what interests the latter is pursuing. Likewise, Beissinger's approach, built on la coupure or rupture between social revolutions and urban civic revolutions, can be deployed by counter-revolutionaries to discourage people from carrying out unfinished emancipations.
These two critical remarks aside, policymakers as well as democracy activists and scholars of social movements will find the book particularly rewarding. Indeed, Beissinger's quantitative approach convincingly explains why certain post-revolutionary situations such as those in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya are stuck in loopholes. Again, his method enables readers to grasp that every eventuality subscribes to the Hegelian logic of necessity where all that exists simply could not have existed. The Syrian nightmare remains the exception that proves Beissinger's case: the longer it takes to defeat the incumbent and the bloodier the struggle, the more enduring will be the fruits for the proletariat.