This chapter examines the coup d’état carried out by General Juan Velasco Alvarado in 1968, a coup that radically differed from the series of military takeovers in the Southern Cone of South America during the height of the Cold War. It seeks to analyze the causes that led to the coup, its principal objectives, and how the United States, in particular the Nixon administration, responded to Peru’s challenge to relations with the US. It further addresses a series of questions such as who the coup makers were, what their social backgrounds were, and what kind of resistance the new regime faced in what became, over the next several years, a radical effort to transform one of the most tradition-bound countries in Latin America in order to modernize it and bring it into the twentieth century.

Far from representing the abandonment of civilian government by conservative, pro-military forces in Washington, DC, Bolivia’s 1964 coup d’état occurred over strident objections from the United States. In describing this surprising story of local Cold War golpismo (coup waging) in Latin America, this chapter analyzes the overlapping trajectory of three key groups of actors: the deterioration of the ancien régime of middle-class nationalists (los golpeados), the widespread involvement of liberal developmentalist US officials (los gringos), and the multivalent ideologies and strategies of civilian and military plotters (los golpistas) who brought down twentieth-century Bolivia’s most powerful leader. The case study reveals a superpower’s inability to micromanage political development on the periphery, and it highlights the underappreciated intimacy between civil society and military officers in the social phenomenon known as Latin American golpismo.

Over the past two decades, there has been a resurgence of authoritarianism around the globe. The recent wave of autocratization – the declining quality of institutions for clean elections, freedom of expression, and freedom of assembly – stalled the global spread of democratic ideas and principles. A related global trend is the unprecedented frequency, scope, and size of anti-government protests. Women play a vital role in pro-democracy movements and revolutions. Yet, women’s engagement in contentious politics often appears to be invisible in the public discourse. This chapter presents a typology of women’s participation in a revolution. In addition, this chapter provides background information about the Revolution of Dignity and its participants, identifies the main trends in gender inequality in Ukrainian society, and describes data sources.

This chapter investigates the impact of women’s participation in Euromaidan and the ensuing Russia–Ukraine war on gender equality in contemporary Ukraine. Drawing on social movement literature, the analysis distinguishes several types of outcomes: (1) political outcomes, measured by legal changes and women’s representation in different branches of government; (2) economic outcomes, measured by the unemployment rate, the gender wage gap, and occupational segregation; and (3) cultural outcomes, measured by mass attitudes toward gender equality. Consistent with a hybrid model of women’s participation in a revolution, this chapter registers various degrees of progress in different spheres. In addition, based on data from oral history projects and media interviews with female activists, this chapter illustrates the biographical consequences of women’s participation in the Revolution of Dignity.

Percy Shelley was a poet of fiery politics who recognised the power of language to surprise and even shock. Across three centuries and around the globe, politicians and activists have turned to Shelley’s poetry for help furthering their political causes. With specific attention to poems like ‘The Mask of Anarchy’, ‘Song to the Men of England’, ‘England in 1819’, and ‘Ode to the West Wind’, as well as to critical prose pieces like ‘A Philosophical View of Reform’ and ‘A Defence of Poetry’, this chapter situates Shelley’s views on revolution and reform in their historical context and takes some tentative steps towards exploring why Shelley’s poems have so frequently been put to political purpose.

Since the start of the twentieth century, at least three episodes of contention preceding Euromaidan had a profound impact on the development of Ukrainian statehood and the dynamics of state–society relations: the 1917-1921 Ukrainian Revolution, the 1990 Revolution on Granite, and the 2004 Orange Revolution. This chapter provides an overview of women’s activism over the course of these revolutions in the Russian Empire, the Soviet Union, and postcommunist Ukraine on the assumption that earlier episodes of mass mobilization shape patterns of state–society relations in the country. The findings suggest that such educational organizations as Prosvita and student unions served as mobilizing structures for many young women. Furthermore, this chapter shows how women gradually challenged dominant gender norms and gained greater visibility in contentious politics.

This chapter highlights a diversity of women’s roles during the Revolution of Dignity, which aligns well with a hybrid model of women’s participation in a contemporary revolution. Drawing on rich data from oral history projects, the book identifies twelve main domains of women’s activism, including art production, crowdsourcing, food provision, legal aid, medical services, public order, and public relations. This chapter challenges a binary construction of women’s involvement in stereotypically feminine or stereotypically masculine activities during a period of mass mobilization. The patriarchal model of women’s participation in a revolution assumes a gender-based division of labor within a revolutionary movement, which reinforces preexisting patriarchal norms in society. The emancipatory model, on the contrary, assumes women’s access to formal positions of leadership within the movement. Located between these two extremes, the hybrid model of women’s participation in a revolution acknowledges the diversity and fluidity of women’s roles. According to the hybrid model, women might adopt three different strategies: (1) acquiescence to a traditional gender-based division of labor, (2) appropriation of the masculine forms of resistance, and (3) adoption of gender-neutral roles or switching from stereotypically feminine to stereotypically masculine roles.

Consistent with a hybrid model of women’s participation in a revolution, this chapter uncovers a wide range of motivations for women’s engagement in civil resistance, including dissatisfaction with the quality of governance, motherhood, civic duty, professional service, and solidarity with protesters. Specifically, empirical evidence suggests that outrage over police violence and the government’s disregard of human dignity can serve as a catalyst for mass mobilization. This chapter also highlights various mobilizing structures that galvanized women into action, including friendship networks, professional associations, social media, and civic organizations. Moreover, the book contributes to the literature about the impact of biographical availability on protest participation by demonstrating how women might come up with creative solutions to overcome barriers to protest engagement. For example, many women tried to combine their childcare duties with involvement in the revolution by virtue of social media. The empirical findings presented in this chapter speak to a key debate in contentious politics literature on determinants of protest participation.

As the Irish Free State came into being, Egypt too was declared independent. Whilst in Ireland, League membership was rapidly forthcoming, negotiations for Egypt’s accession were protracted, with Egypt acceding in 1937, the last member state to join the League. Chapter Five investigates why Egypt, which was never formally a colony of the British Empire and from 1922 deemed an independent state, was obstructed by Britain from joining the League for fifteen years. This chapter examines the contested relationship between the Egyptian nationalist Wafd party, that sought Egyptian independence, and Britain, that sought Egyptian acquiescence to a treaty of alliance. Egypt’s contested accession to the League reveals the risks that colonial membership to the League posed to British imperial policy, and how Britian could act as a gatekeeper for the accession of their colonies to the League. Finally, this chapter reveals how the actions of another imperial party, Italy, and its growing encroachment into North-East Africa would ultimately lead to a compromise that would see Egypt’s accession to the League.

This chapter examines how the history of science became a resource for the development and defense of important alternatives to logical empiricist views of scientific theory and the growth of scientific knowledge. The chapter also examines the different meanings attached to scientific paradigms in Thomas Kuhn’s account of scientific change and different notions of incommensurability implicated in his account. Like other postpositivist thinkers, Kuhn rejects the logical empiricist idea of separating observational and theoretical language, arguing instead that observation is theory-laden. The history of science plays an important but distinct role in Imre Lakatos’s methodology of scientific research programs, which aims to represent the rationality of scientific thought. The chapter concludes by examining Paul Feyerabend’s epistemological anarchism, which appears to cast doubt on the prospects for providing a systematic account of scientific rationality. Are Feyerabend’s views as extreme as their expression suggests, or is there another way to understand his provocations?

The Cambridge History of the Papacy is organized to provide readers with a critical–historical survey of the structural development of the papacy as an institution and as an actor in Church history, and in world history. It is hard to imagine a sphere of human activity over the past two millennia that has not been influenced by, and influenced in turn by, papal action – be it in the domains of religious belief and practice; social, cultural, and political thought; art, science, medicine, ethics, diplomacy, and international relations. Four questions – each addressed throughout the three volumes of the present work – have framed that vision across vast chronological and geographical expanses: the pope’s centrality within the Catholic Church, the primacy of papal power as an instrument of governance, the papacy’s cultural influence in society and culture, and the implications of secularity for its place in the lives of believers and non-believers alike. Each question – and the search for answers – converges around the fundamental question of papal authority: its original claims; the ebbs and flows of its effective reach; and the numerous ways in which claims, and expressions of papal authority and supremacy, have been contested within the Catholic tradition, and from without.

This chapter explains the project to which the book is devoted: to develop a descriptive-explanatory theory of social change resulting from the struggle against domination and use it to develop a normative theory of social change, a theory that can identify when social change is morally progressive. The descriptive-explanatory dimension of my theory of social change wrought by the perpetual struggle between hierarchs and resisters is an account of how change occurs. It makes no judgments as to whether changes are progressive or otherwise. The normative dimension evaluates changes produced by the struggle, identifying some of them as morally progressive. This chapter has two goals: to clarify the nature of the descriptive-explanatory dimension of my theory and to defend its normative dimension against two assaults on the very idea of moral progress.

This chapter begins by explaining why understanding social change is of exceptional importance. The first reason is that humans are historical beings: To understand who and what we are now, it is necessary to know where we came from and that requires understanding the changes that have shaped the social environment that shapes us. The second reason is forward-looking: If we understand the processes and patterns of past social changes, we may be able to exert more control over future changes and perhaps even increase the probability that they will be progressive. Or at least we may be able to avoid the most regressive changes.

Some social changes are more important than others. Those I examine in this book are among the most important: changes in the concepts and norms we use to evaluate the unequal power relations that constitute hierarchies and changes in the institutions that embody and regulate hierarchies. I will explain how major changes in moral concepts, norms, and institutions are produced by the struggle between hierarchs and those who resist hierarchical power. That struggle is a contest for extremely high stakes. It is, among other things, a battle for freedom. So, there are two ways to look at this book: more generally, as a study of social change; and more specifically, as an examination of the nature of the struggle for liberation.

The Cambridge History of the Papacy is organized to provide readers with a critical–historical survey of the structural development of the papacy as an institution and as an actor in Church history, and in world history. It is hard to imagine a sphere of human activity over the past two millennia that has not been influenced by, and influenced in turn by, papal action – be it in the domains of religious belief and practice; social, cultural, and political thought; art, science, medicine, ethics, diplomacy, and international relations. Four questions – each addressed throughout the three volumes of the present work – have framed that vision across vast chronological and geographical expanses: the pope’s centrality within the Catholic Church, the primacy of papal power as an instrument of governance, the papacy’s cultural influence in society and culture, and the implications of secularity for its place in the lives of believers and non-believers alike. Each question – and the search for answers – converges around the fundamental question of papal authority: its original claims; the ebbs and flows of its effective reach; and the numerous ways in which claims, and expressions of papal authority and supremacy, have been contested within the Catholic tradition, and from without.

This chapter traces the development of Iranian Shi’ite revolutionary Ali Shariati in his conception of a nonviolent Islam encompassing humanist, existentialist, and socialist ethics in pursuit of an egalitarian ‘System of Abel’. This is in turn placed in tension with his valorisation of ‘alter-inflicted violence’ as a means to altruistic self-transcendence.

The Cambridge History of the Papacy is organized to provide readers with a critical–historical survey of the structural development of the papacy as an institution and as an actor in Church history, and in world history. It is hard to imagine a sphere of human activity over the past two millennia that has not been influenced by, and influenced in turn by, papal action – be it in the domains of religious belief and practice; social, cultural, and political thought; art, science, medicine, ethics, diplomacy, and international relations. Four questions – each addressed throughout the three volumes of the present work – have framed that vision across vast chronological and geographical expanses: the pope’s centrality within the Catholic Church, the primacy of papal power as an instrument of governance, the papacy’s cultural influence in society and culture, and the implications of secularity for its place in the lives of believers and non-believers alike. Each question – and the search for answers – converges around the fundamental question of papal authority: its original claims; the ebbs and flows of its effective reach; and the numerous ways in which claims, and expressions of papal authority and supremacy, have been contested within the Catholic tradition, and from without.

This chapter explains the tendency of revolutions to produce new forms of oppression rather than genuine liberation. It distinguished between Lockean and Hobbesian revolutionary conditions. In the former, the aspiring revolutionary leadership has institutional resources for solving the participation problem (how to get enough people to join the revolution) and the coordination problem (how to organize participation). Because they have access to relevant institutions and experience in operating within them, the aspiring revolutionary leadership can solve the participation and coordination problems in a relatively peaceful, noncoercive, consensual manner. In contrast, in Hobbesian conditions, where they lack access to institutions, the aspiring revolutionary leadership will typically have to resort to coercion to solve the participation and coordination problems. A particular kind of revolutionary ideology can help them achieve coercive solutions to those two problems. The features of this type of ideology that encourage coercive solutions to the participation and coordination problems are (1) framing the struggle against the regime as a Manichean contest between good and evil, a zero-sum, winner-take-all battle where the only options are victory or annihilation, (2) extreme deference to those the ideology identifies as the true leaders of the revolution, and (3) reliance on conspiracy theories that explain away failures of the leadership or other setbacks to the revolution. I then go on to identify the factors which, combined with reliance on this type of revolutionary ideology, make it highly likely that the new regime will be authoritarian, violent, and oppressive.

This chapter investigates the life and ideas of Syrian dissident thinker Jawdat Said, who attempts to balance an absolute moral obligation to bear witness with a systematic rejection of political compulsion through scriptural models from Abel to Bilal ibn Rabah.