POLI 211 Chapter Notes -Authoritarianism, Neocolonialism, Liberal Democracy
12 Dec 2012
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Marxist vision: bourgeois revolutions lead to historically progressive but socially limited forms of liberal democracy. Proletarian revolutions create the conditions for universal social and political democracy. Russian revolution 1917 established a proletariat dictatorship while exploiting workers. Liberal theorists agree that the only successful revolutions are the moderate ones: the least violent and the least suddenly transformative of existing political and social institutions. Severe revolutions create authoritarian regimes rather than liberal democratic regimes. Realist theories: the most successful revolutions are those which strengthen national political institutions through mass mobilization (involvement of society in the political life. ) Even in authoritarian regimes, governments succeeded in mobilizing a mass majority. 1)english, dutch, and american revolutions (ideal, according to liberal-modernization theorists. 2)classic peasant-based social revolutions (with the overthrow of monarchical regimes of bourbon france, romanov russia, manchu china. ) 3)nation-building social revolutions that have transformed third world countries (iran). Liberal political revolutions in the early modern era.
