BASS Philosophy and Data Analytics / Course details

This course traces the development of modern revolutions and investigates in which ways they have shaped International Relations. We will examine the broader trends in revolutionary mobilisation (i.e. the shift from armed to unarmed revolution and the move away from ideology) and investigate their political outcomes. How did different types of revolutions shape the state, society and the international system? Moreover, we will analyse different revolutionary waves in terms of their trajectories, socio-political implications and the counter-revolutionary forces that they encountered. This course also investigates why revolutions seem simultaneously more in demand in the 21st century, and less achievable than in the 20th century. The module will explore the different generations of scholarship on revolutions and add a postcolonial perspective to a strongly Western-dominated field of knowledge production. It traces the dilemmas faced by postcolonial revolutionaries in political and economic transformation processes. Throughout, the module will explore the paradoxes that have emerged from the discrepancies between revolutionary ambitions and outcomes. Moreover, we will debate whether the idea of revolution will have to be reconceptualised to reflect the aspirations and constraints on revolutionary agency in the 21st Century. 

• understand how global politics has shaped and been shaped by revolutions.
• comprehend theoretical approaches to revolutions.
• engage with theories on social movements, political violence, nonviolent resistance, state formation, military intervention and    international order.
• understand the socio-economic and political root causes of contemporary mass uprisings and the obstacles they encounter
• comprehend the modus operandi of counter-revolutionary processes across history
• differentiate between divergent trajectories of political mobilization through analysis of revolutionary dynamics and the factors that constrain or fuel them
• critically engage with revolutionary ideologies and utopia
• critically assess the driving forces, effects and limitations of foreign interventions in revolutionary processes.

1) Overview: Revolutions in International Relations
2) Violence, nonviolence and emancipation
3) State power and ‘the people’
4) Ideology, utopian dreams and dystopian reality
5) Counter-revolution
6) Anti-colonial revolutions
7) Communist revolutions
8) Contemporary revolutions and their international environment
9) Future revolutions: tracing connections between women’s, black, indigenous and environmental anti-systemic mobilisation 
10) Dilemmas of contemporary revolutions and essay writing workshop

The course will be taught in weekly 2h lectures and 1h tutorials. Students will be expected to read key texts in advance to enable direct engagement with the texts and broader informed discussion. The tutorials will entail debates in small groups in order to deepen students’ understanding of the module content. These small groups will provide opportunities to engage with peers, develop arguments and seek clarification from the module leader. 

- Comprehend in which ways revolutions, counter-revolutions, and their international    environment have changed since the French Revolution
- Understand how revolutions have shaped International Relations 
- Analyse the paradoxes that revolutions across history have produced and the dilemmas faced by contemporary revolutionaries

- Analyse conceptualisations of global politics and revolutions
- Contrast different theories 
- Interrogate key texts and concepts
- Construct, critique and defend arguments

- Conduct independent research 
- Improve writing skills
- Develop oral presentation skills 

- Critical thinking
- Constructive criticism and engagement with peers
- Independent and teamwork (group presentations). 

Written feedback will be provided within 2-3 weeks after every assignment deadline. The feedback will refer back to the marking criteria and explain the mark. The lecturer will make sure that the feedback is constructive, helpful for future assignments and directed towards the improvement of students’ practical, intellectual and transferable skills (see above). Feedback will follow feminist principles: it will be inclusive (i.e. communicated clearly and transparently), follow a feminist care ethic (i.e. highlight positive feedback even in weak assignments, constructive focus on how to improve), and be respectful (in order to create an environment for learning and personal growth).

Feedback in tutorial discussions will be immediate and involve a constructive engagement with students’ arguments. The focus in tutorial discussions will be on helping students develop their analytical skills further.

·Adebajo, Adekeye. 2016. "The revolt against the West: intervention and sovereignty". Third World Quarterly 37 (7): 1187-1202.
·Adhikari, Aditya. 2014. The Bullet and the Ballot Box: The Story of Nepal’s Maoist Revolution (London: Verso).
·Al-Haj Saleh, Yassin. 2017. The Impossible Revolution (London: Hurst).
·Allinson, Jamie. 2022. The Age of Counter-Revolution: States and Revolutions in the Middle East (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
·Ang, Yuen Yuen. 2017. How China Escaped the Poverty Trap (Cornell University Press).
·Amin, Samir et al. (eds.). 1990. Transforming the Revolution: Social Movements and the World-System (Delhi: Aakar Books)
·Arendt, Hannah. 1963. On Revolution (London: Penguin).
·Aslan, Azize. 2023. Anti-Capitalist Economy in Rojava: The Contradictions of Revolution in the Kurdish Struggle (Quebec: Daraja Press)
·Bayat, Asef. 2017. Revolution Without Revolutionaries: Making Sense of the Arab Spring (Stanford: Stanford University Press).
·Chowdhury, Arjun. 2018. The Myth of International Order (Oxford: Oxford University Press)
·Della Porta, Donatella. 2016. Where Did the Revolution Go? Contentious Politics and the Quality of Democracy (Cambridge: Cambridge University).
·El Said, Maha et al. 2015. Rethinking Gender in Revolutions and Resistance (London: Zed Books).
·Farber, Samuel. 2006. The Origins of the Cuban Revolution Reconsidered (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press).
·Foran, John. 2005. Taking Power: On the Origins of Third World Revolutions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
·Gago, Veronice. 2020. Feminist International (London: Verso)
·Getachew, Adom. 2019. Worldmaking after Empire (Princeton: Princeton University Press).
·Goldstone, Jack A. 1196 (eds) . Revolutions: Theoretical, Comparative and Historical Studies (Wadsworth / Thomson, 2003).
·Halliday, Fred (1999) Revolution and World Politics: The Rise and Fall of the Sixth Great Power (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan).
·Hanieh, Adam. 2013. Lineages of Revolt (London: Haymarket Book).
·Hewlett, nick. 2016. Blood and progress: Violence in Pursuit of Emancipation (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press)
·James, C.L.R.. 1938. The Black Jacobins (London: Penguin Books)
·Kamrava, Mehran (2014) Beyond the Arab Spring: The Evolving Ruling Bargain in the Middle East (London: Hurst & Company).
·Kom’Boa Ervin, Lorenzo. 2021. Anarchism and the Black Revolution (London: Pluto Press)
·Lawson, George. 2019. Anatomies of Revolution (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
·Mayer, Arno. 2000. The Furies (Princeton: Princeton University Press).
·Moghadam, Valentine. 2013. Modernizing Women: Gender and Social Change in the Middle East (Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers)
·Ndlovu-Gatsheni, Sabelo J. and Morgan Ndlovu. 2022. Marxism and Decolonization in the 21st Century: Living Theories and True Ideas (New York: Routledge).
·Nepstad, Sharon Erickson. 2011. Nonviolent Revolutions: Civil resistance in the late 20th Century (Oxford: Oxford University Press). 
·Parsa, Mirsagh. 2000. States, Ideologies and Social Revolutions: A Comparative Analysis of Iran, Nicaragua and the Philippines (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
·Selbin, Eric. 2010. Revolution, Rebellion, Resistance (London: Zed Books)
·Skocpol, Theda. 1979. States and Social Revolutions (Cambridge: Cambridge University)
·Sweig, Julia. 2002. Inside the Cuban Revolution. Fidel Castro and the Cuban Underground (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2002)
·Tomba, Massimiliano. 2019. Insurgent Universality: An alternative legacy of modernity (Oxford: Oxford University Press).
·Wemheuer, Felix. 2019. A Social History of Maoist China: Conflict and Change, 1949 – 1976 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press)