Reconciling Tensions in the Analysis of Bourgeois Revolutions: A Critical Realist Approach

Yıl 2024, , 79 - 96, 12.06.2024

Klevis Kolasi

https://doi.org/10.33458/uidergisi.1465073

Öz

When and how do agents consciously reproduce or unconsciously transform social structures? This inquiry is pivotal for advancing a theory of socio-historical development, particularly in addressing a key debate within International Historical Sociology (IHS) surrounding modern revolutions. This debate revolves around the tension between the “consequentialist” interpretation of bourgeois revolutions and the “revisionist” critiques, notably from the “historicist” wing of Political Marxism (PM). This article contends that the tension arises from an inadequate conceptualization of the agent-structure relationship. Drawing on Roy Bhaskar’s transformational model of social activity (TMSA) and critical realist philosophy of science, the article proposes a conceptual framework reconciling PM’s focus on class struggle to understand the historical specificity of capitalism with the role bourgeois revolutions historically and structurally played for the development of capitalism. Integrating Bhaskar’s framework with historical materialism-inspired debates on bourgeois revolutions, the paper suggests that agents’ unconscious actions can transform social structures amid social disintegration (“classic bourgeois revolutions”). Conversely, agents consciously seek to preserve and reproduce social structures, as seen in “passive revolutions”. This occurs when social structures, marked by inequality and hierarchies, are viewed as historical constructs rather than natural phenomena, particularly in the context of uneven and combined development of capitalism. This analysis contributes to ongoing IHS debates, enriches our comprehension of modern revolutions, and extends TMSA by empirically delineating circumstances wherein agents consciously uphold or unwittingly trigger the transformation of social structures.

Anahtar Kelimeler

international historical sociology, transitions to capitalism, revolutionary transformation, historicism, transformational model of social activity

Kaynakça

• Anievas, Alexander. 2015. Revolutions and International Relations: Rediscovering the Classical Bourgeois Revolutions. European Journal of International Relations 21, 4: 841–866.
• Anievas, Alexander and Kerem Nişancioğlu. 2015. How the West Came to Rule: The Geopolitical Origins of Capitalism. London, Pluto Press.
• Anievas, Alexander, and Dabney Waring. 2023. The Difference Multiplicity Makes: The American Civil War as Passive Revolution. Review of International Studies: 1–20.
• Archer, Margaret. 1998. Introduction: Realism in the Social Sciences. In Critical Realism: Essential Readings, eds. Archer M., Bhaskar R., Collier A., Lawson T., and Norrie A. London, Routledge: 189-205.
• Bhaskar, Roy. 1991. Realism. In A Dictionary of Marxist Thought, ed. T. Bottomore. Oxford, Blackwell.
• Bhaskar, Roy 1998. The Possibility of Naturalism. New York, Routledge.
• Bhaskar, Roy 2011. Reclaiming Reality. New York, Routledge.
• Blackbourn, David, and Geoff Eley.1984. The Peculiarities of German History: Bourgeois Society and Politics in 19th-Century Germany. Oxford, Oxford University Press.
• Blackledge, Paul. 2006. Reflections on the Marxist Theory of History. Manchester, Manchester University Press.
• Brenner, Robert. 2003 [1993]. Merchants and Revolution: Commercial Change, Political Conflict, and London’s Overseas Traders, 1550–1653. London, Verso.
• Brenner, Robert. 1985. Agrarian Class Structure and Economic Development in Pre-Industrial Europe. In The Brenner Debate: Agrarian Class Structure and Economic Development in Pre-Industrial Europe, eds. Aston TH, Philpin CHE. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press: 10-63.
• Callinicos, Alex. 1989. Bourgeois Revolutions and Historical Materialism. International Socialism 2, 43: 113–171.
• Callinicos, Alex. 2004. Making History: Agency, Structure, Social, and Change in Social Theory. Leiden, Brill.
• Chibber, Vivek. 2007. Sidelining the West? New Left Review 47: 130-141.
• Chibber, Vivek. 2011. What Is Living and What Is Dead in the Marxist Theory of History. Historical Materialism 19, 2: 60-91.
• Chibber, Vivek. 2022. The Class Matrix: Social Theory after the Cultural Turn. Cambridge, Harvard University Press.
• Cobban, Alfred. 1999. The Social Interpretation of the French Revolution. New York, Cambridge University Press.
• Comninel, George. 1987. Rethinking the French Revolution: Marxism and the Revisionist Challenge. London, Verso.
• Creaven, Sean. 2015. The ‘Two Marxisms’ Revisited: Humanism, Structuralism, and Realism in Marxist Social Theory. Journal of Critical Realism 14, 1: 7-53.
• Davidson, Neil. 2005a. How Revolutionary Were the Bourgeois Revolutions? Historical Materialism 13, 3: 3–33.
• Davidson, Neil. 2005b. How Revolutionary Were the Bourgeois Revolutions? (contd.) Historical Materialism 13, 4: 3-54.
• Davidson, Neil. 2012. How Revolutionary Were the Bourgeois Revolutions. Chicago, Haymarket Books.
• Deutscher, Isaac. 1967. The Unfinished Revolution, 1917–1967. Oxford, Oxford University Press.
• Düzgün, Eren. 2022. Capitalism, Jacobinism and International Relations: Revisiting Turkish Modernity. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
• Furet, François. 1981. Interpreting the French Revolution. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
• Halliday, Fred. 1999. Revolution and World Politics. London, Macmillan.
• Reconciling Tensions in the Analysis of Bourgeois Revolutions Halperin, Sandra. 2004. War and Social Change in Modern Europe. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
• Heller, Henry. 2017. The French Revolution and Historical Materialism. Leiden, Brill.
• Hill, Christopher. 1980. A Bourgeois Revolution? In Three British Revolutions: 1641, 1688, 1776, ed. J.G.A. Pocock.. Princeton, Princeton University Press: 109-139.
• Hirschman, Albert. 1991. The Rhetoric of Reaction. Cambridge, Harvard University Press.
• Joseph, Jonathan. 2002. Hegemony: A Realist Analysis. London, Routledge.
• Joseph, Jonathan. 2010. The International as Emergent: Challenging Old and New Orthodoxies in International Relations Theory. In Scientific Realism and International Relations, eds. Jonathan Joseph, and Colin Wight. London, Palgrave Macmillan: 51-68.
• Knafo, Samuel, and Benno Teschke. 2020. Political Marxism and the Rules of Reproduction of Capitalism: A Historicist Critique. Historical Materialism 29, 3: 54-83.
• Knafo, Samuel, and Benno Teschke. 2021. The Antinomies of Political Marxism: A Historicist Reply to Critics. Historical Materialism 29, 3: 245–284.
• Knafo, Samuel. 2010. Critical Approaches and the Legacy of the Agent/Structure Debate in International Relations. Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 23, 3: 493–516.
• Lafrance, Xavier. 2019. The Making of Capitalism in France. Leiden, Brill.
• Lawson, George. 2011. Halliday’s Revenge: Revolutions and International Relations. International Affairs 87, 5: 1067–1085.
• Lukács, Georg. 1971 [1923]. History and Class Consciousness. London, Merlin Press.
• Mirowski, Philip. 2011. Realism and Neoliberalism: From Reactionary Modernism to Postwar Conservatism. In The Invention of International Relations Theory, ed. Nicolas Guilhot. New York, Columbia University Press.
• Mooers, Colin. 1991. The Making of Bourgeois Europe: Absolutism, Revolution, and the Rise of Capitalism in England, France, and Germany. London, Verso.
• Porpora, Douglas. 1998. Four Concepts of Social Structure. In Critical Realism: Essential Readings. eds. Archer M., Bhaskar R., Collier A., Lawson T., and Norrie A. London, Routledge: 339-355.
• Post, Charles. 2018. The Use and Misuse of Uneven and Combined Development: A Critique of Anievas and Nişancıoğlu. Historical Materialism, 26, 3: 79-98.
• Post, Charles. 2021. Structure and Agency in Historical Materialism: A Response to Knafo and Teschke. Historical Materialism 29, 3:107-124.
• Post, Charles. 2011. The American Road to Capitalism. Leiden, Brill.
• Rosenberg, Justin. 2006. Why is There No International Historical Sociology? European Journal of International Relations 12, 3: 307–40.
• Riley, Dylan and Manali Desai. 2007. The Passive Revolutionary Route to the Modern World: Italy and India in Comparative Perspective. Comparative Studies in Society and History, 49, 4: 815–847.
• Rumelili, Bahar. 2022. Introduction to the Special Issue Anxiety and Change in International Relations. Uluslararası İlişkiler, 19, 73: 1-11.
• Saull, Richard. 2015. The Origins and Persistence of the Far-right: Capital, Class and the Pathologies of Liberal Politics. In Longue Durée of the Far-right: an International Historical Sociology, eds.
• Richard Saull, Alexander Anievas, Neil Davidson and Adam Fabry. London, Routledge: 21-43.
• Steinmetz, George. 1998. Critical Realism and Historical Sociology. A Review Article. Comparative Studies in Society and History, 40, 1: 170–186.
• Suny, Ronald Grigor. 1994. Revision and Retreat in the Historiography of 1917: Social History and Its Critics. The Russian Review, 53, 2: 165–182.
• Teschke, Benno. 2005. Bourgeois Revolution, State Formation and the Absence of the International. Historical Materialism 13, 2: 3–26.
• Teschke, Benno. 2011. Advances and Impasses in Fred Halliday’s International Historical Sociology: a Critical Appraisal. International Affairs 87, 5: 1087–1106.
• Teschke, Benno. 2014. International Relations, Historical Materialism, and the False Promise of International Historical Sociology. Spectrum: Journal of Global Studies 6, 1: 1-66.
• Traverso, Eno. 2017. Totalitarianism Between History and Theory. History and Theory 56, 4: 97–118.
• Van der Pijl, Kees. 2015. The Uneven and Combined Development of International Historical Sociology. In Theoretical Engagements in Geopolitical Economy, Vol. 30A, ed. Radhika Desai. Emerald Group: 45-83.
• Wight, Colin and Jonathan Joseph. 2010. Scientific Realism and International Relations. In Scientific Realism and International Relations, eds. Jonathan Joseph, and Colin Wight. London, Palgrave Macmillan: 1-30.
• Wood, Ellen Meiksins. 1996. Capitalism, Merchants, and Bourgeois Revolution: Reflections on the Brenner Debate and its Sequel. International Review of Social History 41, 2: 209–232.
• Wood, Ellen Meiksins. 2002. The Origin of Capitalism: A Longer View. London, Verso.
• Yalvaç, Faruk. 2010. Critical Realism, International Relations Theory, and Marxism. In Scientific Realism and International Relations, eds. Jonathan Joseph and Colin Wight. London, Palgrave Macmillan: 167-185.
• Yalvaç, Faruk. 2013. Historical Sociology and International Relations: Geopolitics, Capitalism and State System. Uluslararası İlişkiler 10, 38: 3-28.
• Yalvaç, Faruk. 2021. Politik Marksizm, Tarihsel Sosyoloji ve Uluslararası İlişkiler. In Uluslararası Tarihsel Sosyoloji, ed. Benno Teschke, trans. Oğulcan Köksal. Ankara, Nika: 7-16.