Christopher Newman Midwest Political Science Association 2004
Elgin Community College Dark Tobacco Patch War—Revolution Analysis
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alteration of the structure of society,
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referring to a restructuring of the top levels of the
state without accompanying social change as a “military coup d’etat.”
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Let us assume for
the remainder of this paper that “revolution” is a flexible term that can best be considered
using the principle, “I may not be able to define it, but I know it when I see it,” and
follow the Dark Patch War as “rebellious” or “revolutionary” in nature and thus subject
to analysis.
Revolutions have characteristics that are shared with complex adaptive systems.
As noted in Jack Goldstone’s proposed “Fourth Generation theories,”
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revolutions have
a number of contributing causes,
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factors that result in unexpected and uncontrolled
participants can render the same action as a stroke of genius or idiocy. “…when a couple
of touchy subjects were raised, like the suggestion Ditka’s clock management might have
cost the Saints a victory [against the Bears.] Ditka addressed that with mounting
impatience: “If we make a first down we’re happy with it.” Mike Imrem, “No Erupting of
Mt. Ditka on Tough Day.” Daily Herald, Monday, October 4, 1999 Section 2, 1.
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Colburn requires that a revolution include “…an ensuing assault on state and society for
the purpose of radically transforming society. Political and social change necessarily
coincide.” Forrest D. Colburn, The Vogue of Revolution In Poor Countries. Princeton,
NJ: Princeton University Press (1994) [hereinafter “Vogue of Revolution”] 6. Colburn
permits an indefinite lapse of time between the political overthrow and the social
restructuring, thus opening himself to criticism that the social change might well result
from some factor other than the revolution, such as mere passage of time.
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Anatomy of Rebellion ix.
58
Jack A. Goldstone, “The Comparative and Historical Study of Revolutions”[hereinafter
“Comparative and Historical Study”] in Revolutions: Theoretical, Comparative and
Historical Studies, 3
rd
ed., Jack A. Goldstone, ed. (Belmont, CA: Thomson/ Wadsworth
Learning, 2003) [hereinafter “ Theoretical, Comparative and Historical Studies”] 12.
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Anatomy of Rebellion 129. In order to fully understand situations with multiple causes,
it is sometimes useful to focus on contributing factors individually, hypothetically
treating one as the cause for purposes of analysis while retaining a realization of other
contributing causes when returning to a fuller and more thorough consideration of the
event. Andy Clark, “Twisted Tales: Causal Complexity and Cognitive Scientific
Explanation,” Minds and Machines. Vol. 8, No. 1 (February, 1998) 93-94. Thus one
could focus individually on the failures of the Russian military in World War I, the
hemophilia of the tsarevich and concomitant rise in the influence of Rasputin,
inadequacies of the personality of Nicholas II, the failure of Russian society to
modernize, and economic determinism in order to understand the contributions of each to
Convention