AGENCY AND REVOLUTION

Abstract

The societal myth of revolution and the sociological theory of revolution flourished in the nineteenth century - together with the idea of progress and reason - as cornerstones of the era of triumphant modernity. The myth was seriously challenged by the tragic experience of revolutions in the twentieth century; they never produced what they promised, and often replaced reason with irrational violence, and progress with crisis. With some inevitable time-lag, the theories of revolution were revised too. They abandoned developmentalist assumptions (of fatalism, finalism, utopianism, linearity), and focussed on the role of human agency (especially social movements) in bringing about revolutions; and on contingent, variable contribution of revolutions to social change (alternative scenarios of the future). New, agential theories of revolutions attempt to incorporate insights and hypotheses from a plurality of earlier theories. For this effort not to degenerate into eclecticism, it must be controlled by a more general, integrating conceptual framework. The author elaborates a model of `social becoming', which is then applied to the phenomenon of revolution, and engenders a set of hypotheses combining wisdom from traditional `volcanic' approaches with recent emphases on `resource mobilisation' and `political opportunities'. The proposed theoretical sketch promises to overcome the opposition of totalities and individualities, holistic and individualistic approaches, macro and micro foci, as well as static and dynamic biases.