COMPARATIVE HISTORY OF POLITICAL SYSTEMS

Proficiency in spoken and written English Ability to read widely Basic knowledge of global modern history and politics (since the French Revolution).

Upon completion of this class students will be able to: Understand and discuss key theoretical questions involved in comparing revolutions in modern global history Identify key events and actors of key revolutions in world history Understand how the idea and the practice of revolution changed from time to time, and how some of these revolutions were informed by or shaped one other Read text critically and effectively Understand, interpret and contextualize primary sources.

Revolutions have been one of the most salient aspects of political modernity, or “the locomotives of history,” as Marx wrote in 1850. Beyond repeating the cliché that revolutions are the driving forces of social and political transformation, the goal in this class is to think through revolutions in their historical time as well as across history from the perspective of political anthropology. We will use the concepts of liminality, social dramas, crowd behavior, imitation, and tricksters, to disentangle the study of revolutions from structures and the search for causes and outcomes, as well as from ideology, culture, and agency, taking instead social practices and meaning formation more seriously, focusing on revolutions as historical events to be studied in their own right. This also prompts the question: Is comparison between revolutions possible at all? After a theoretical introduction, we will examine a series of empirical cases across time and space: from the “big three” (France, Russia, and China) to the “Third World” (Mexico and Cuba) revolutions, from Algeria to Iran, from Eastern Europe to the Arab Spring We will conclude by examining the prospect for revolutionary change in the contemporary world, considering whether the concept of revolution should be consigned, or not, to the “dustbin of history.” The aim of this theoretical and historical investigation is not only to learn more about these specific revolutions, but also to deepen understanding of political and social change more generally.

Hannah Arendt, On Revolution (London: Penguin, 1990 [1965]) Theda Skocpol, States and Social Revolutions: A Comparative Analysis of France, Russia, and China (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979) Bjørn Thomassen, “Notes Towards an Anthropology of Political Revolutions,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 54, no. 2 (2012): 679-706 A full and more detailed list of readings will be distributed on the first day of class All readings will be accessible on the Moodle course page

Lectures, workshops, class discussions and presentations

Participation (attendance, discussions, reading responses, workshops) (35%) Analysis of a primary source (10%) Book review (20%) Group project (10%) Final paper (25%) Non-attending students will have to sit a 1-hour written exam (100%), answering to 8-10 open-ended questions. Please contact class teacher and TAs for further details.

Final grade 30/30 Student project approved by class teacher.