What is the relationship between Revolutions and International Relations?

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What is the relationship between Revolutions and International Relations?

De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestinm (1543). This is where the term Revolution was first used to the movement of celestinian bodies by Copernicus, to be later after the 17th century, metaphorically applied to political and social upheavals. It has developed to mean any change, fundamental or complete to the changes in the modes of production, the political and social system, the social and cultural life. Throughout history the world has witnessed a vast number of changes and transformations in many of the fields mentioned above, other more important and other less important to the development and the course towards the modern way of life. Therefore, it can be easily understood that revolutions can be, in a way, very important events not only for ‘individual countries and politics of the world’ as Fred Halliday suggests, but also for the individual persons, their views and perceptions on life and their moral and ethical positions. ‘It all depends on what you mean by Revolution’. More commonly, talking about Revolutions and Revolutionary theories, thinkers refer to the sudden and radical changes, subject of political, social and economical structure of the society throughout history.

Why revolutions occur can be argued from many different points of view. The classical Marxist approach looked for the causes of revolution in the development of the ‘forces of production’ which, by clashing with the ‘conditions of production’ engender industrial class-struggle to the point of explosion. Leninism shifted the emphasis from ‘objective’ to ‘subjective’ conditions for revolutions, stressing the role of the revolutionary organisation, the Party. Others believe that revolutions occur due to sociological determinism, found back on the writings of Hume and Mill, that every event has a cause and it is the most general and comprehensive of all the natural laws. Contemporary sociological theories focus on the need of modernisation as the root cause of modern revolutions, when others as Eric Voegelin and Norman Cohn. Emphasise the recurrence of utopian and millenarian motive in history and look for chiliastic elements in contemporary secular movements.

Focusing on the most common approach mentioned above, it can be argued that Revolutions are related with the International Relations, in ways they affects each other. On the latter of this essay an examination of the international system, its participation on the causes of Revolutions as well as revolutions as events through history, will seek to point out the relationship between this sixth great power, revolution, and the international relations.

According to Fred Halliday (1999), Revolutionary theories have been divided into three broad schools. The first based on the comparative study of regularities in the history of revolutions, where writers like Pettee and Brinton write on the history of individual revolutions finding common characteristics and phases; the second, involving concepts of conflict derived from psychology, sociology and political science, a more ‘scientific’ school with writers such as Johson, Tilly Eisenstadt etc. and focus on the reasons why previously stable forms of social order break down, broadly identifying the international dimension of each case. Finally, the third school Halliday talks about is derived from macro-historical and structural concepts allowing a much greater recognition of the role of the international system and its factors as causes of Revolution.

From the ‘age of the revolution’ (1517-1648) until the mid-20th century, revolutions are commonly and usual sociological events. Starting in 1517 with Martin Luther up to the restoration of the monarchy in England and the Glorious Revolution  the chapter of religious revolution merely ends and modern causes for revolutions emerge.

It is argued by all of these schools, that revolutions are a product of modernity, ‘both in terms of the structures from which they emerge- sovereign states and the capitalist world market- and the agency that determines them- class forces, political parties and popular movements’. Modernity that can be traced back in the 19th century, with the sudden convulsion of the old world and the old system. Two revolutions in Europe, the political revolution in France (1789) and the industrial revolution in England (1750) and in America, the American Revolution (1776), introduced the mass participation on economy and politics; ‘Mass parties, large-scale armies, mass production of consumer goods and rapid growth of consumer markets’. The American and French Revolutions completely reformed politics within states, which changes later also altered the political relations amongst states.

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The term ‘internationalism’ came about in 1860’s after Marx’s ‘First International’ and later on Marxism was ‘the heart of 20th century revolutions’. Paradoxically, although the idea of Revolution is international, it proclaimed the abolition of internationalism in the sense of differences between states and nations. For the Marxist tradition, the consequences of changes that revolutions cause, as well as the way that the international system facilitates that change is more significant, while revolutions in particular states have occurred at distinct moments, they have been produced by crises of International origin.

Reflecting back on the American and /French revolution and their ...

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