A Fifth Generation of Revolutionary Theory is Yet to Come

Abstract

Despite revolution's recent return to the world stage, the progress of revolutionary theory has markedly stalled. While some have argued that recent work on the 2011 Arab Spring constitutes a new, misguided 'fifth generation' of theory, I show this claim to be misplaced, demonstrating the remarkable continuity between foundational fourth-generation scholarship and present-day analyses.Furthermore, I critically analyse the theoretical, methodological and professional obstacles which fourth-generation theory has encountered, concluding that scholars must move beyond the fourth generation if we are to surmount them. Finally, I consider the theoretical, methodological and ethical prospects of a true fifth generation of revolutionary theory. ***** It would be hard to call oneself a revolutionary theorist without acknowledging the importance of overturning old paradigms. It is in this regard that Jaime Allinson (2019) most certainly carried forward some revolutionary energy in his recent endeavour to prove that a fifth generation of revolutionary theory has come and passed. † In his article for the Journal of Historical Sociology, Allinson engages with three books which he claims belong to a new generation of theory: Asef Bayat's, (2017) Revolution without Revolutionaries; Donatella Della Porta's (2016) Where did the Revolution Go?; and Daniel Ritter's (2015) The Iron Cage of Liberalism. He uses these books as core evidentiary markers for his proposed new generation, and deploys a series of insightful critiques to build a case for rejecting it altogether.In what follows, I advance an alternative hypothesis, contending that our problems instead lie with an overly-long fourth generation of theory, from which the field has so-far failed to evolve. I show Allinson's central claim to be ultimately misplaced, and that his critiques more readily apply to the tail-end of fourth-generation revolutionary theory. I then move to consider why this generation of revolutionary theory has encountered so much trouble since its inception in the early 1990s (Foran, 1993), and argue that we are currently experiencing its death throes. Finally, in light of the anticipated downturn of the fourth generation of revolutionary theory, I offer some ambitions and speculative suggestions for a true fifth generation of revolutionary theory, one that is yet to come. suite of fleeting revolutionaries who neither knew who their 'leaders' were, nor, in fact, whether they had any?Many of today's revolutions neither resemble the classical revolutions of the past, nor those of the non-violent post-Soviet wave. They are, as Allinson, (2019:148) rightly notes, often "restricted to the momentary," easily crushed, and particularly vulnerable to counter-revolution. This, in many ways, is their identifying feature: while the past generation of revolutions were characterised by their non-violence, newer revolutions have been characterised by their fragility (we could even collectively call them the 'fragile revolutions'). Some scholars have even deemed them so ...

Toward a Regeneration of Revolutionary Theory

“…5 The development of this project is discussed at length in Abrams' (2019) A Fifth Generation of Revolutionary Theory is Yet to Come, as well as Lawson's (2016) Within and Beyond the Fourth Generation of Revolutionary Theory. 6 This is extensively discussed in work by Abrams (2019), Lawson (2016, and most recently Beck and Ritter (2021). 7 I focus here on the specific question of overcoming generational thinking, but I have made broader recommendations elsewhere (Abrams, 2019;Abrams, 2018).…”

“…6 This is extensively discussed in work by Abrams (2019), Lawson (2016, and most recently Beck and Ritter (2021). 7 I focus here on the specific question of overcoming generational thinking, but I have made broader recommendations elsewhere (Abrams, 2019;Abrams, 2018).…”

Thinking Beyond Generations: On the Future of Revolution Theory

“…Most recently, theories of revolution for the past 25 years have been seen as belonging to a fourth generation that has an epistemology of conjunctural causation, dynamic eventful analyses, and an ever-expanding universe of factors under consideration (see Lawson, 2019). It is here where Allinson (2019) and Abrams (2019) differ. For Allinson, the fourth generation represents a return of agency-centered explanations that has been eclipsed by a short-lived "fifth generation" examination of unarmed revolutions and changes to political regimes.…”

Structure, Temporality, and Theories of Revolution. Reading Alberto Melucci in Revolutionary Saint Domingue, 1791–1804

“…3 In the suggested alternative, the very distinction between agency and structure is abandoned by way of a shift from an attributional to a processual ontology, which sees revolution as emergent processes and challenges to embedded fields of action through novel political, economic, and symbolic "assemblages" (Lawson, 2016, p. 122). 4 Unlike recent accounts, my response to the structuralist bias in the golden age of third-generation revolution theory is not to create a contribution "within and beyond" (Lawson, 2016) the fourth-generation theory, nor is it to identify (Allinson, 2019) or call for (Abrams, 2019) a "fifth generation". Instead, I propose that revolution theory should abandon the generational narrative as such, which tends to reify what are seen as "old" theories beyond usefulness a priori (a remark found in Beck, 2020, p. 1, forthcoming; see also Goodwin, 2001).…”