Blog 8: Categorizing Political Violence

Blog 8: Categorizing Political Violence

            Political scientists commonly split the topic of political violence into several categories. These categories include terrorism, genocide, civil war, interstate war, and revolution. A revolution is defined by David Samuels, a political scientist, as an “armed conflict within a sovereign state between insurgents and the state, in which both the insurgents and the state claim the allegiance of a significant proportion; authority over the state is forcibly transferred from the state to the insurgents, and the insurgents subsequently bring about wholesale political change” (Samuels). Because I have been studying France I have chosen to take the example of the French Revolution and see if, by Samuels’ standards, it is truly a revolution.

            The French revolution was indeed an armed conflict within France between the monarch King Louis XVI and his loyal subjects know as royalists and the insurgents the Jacobins led by Robespierre. Both sides claimed to have more support. The royalists did have a lot of support while the Jacobins were seen as too radical by the majority but still maintained enough support to have a significant portion of the people on their side as well (Strayer). Eventually Robespierre succeeded in encouraging the people to dethrone Louis XVI and to have him beheaded which led to the forcible transfer of authority to Robespierre himself and ultimately to the Reign of Terror in France. Although Robespierre was killed quite quickly after this as well, his fall led to the rise of Napoleon Bonaparte. Unlike the constitutional monarchy the French people had begun under Louis XVI, Napoleon became an authoritarian dictator which created “wholesale political change” for the citizens of France.

            The definition Samuels uses to classify revolution does fit in the case of the French Revolution. There was indeed armed conflict between state and insurgent, as well claimed allegiance of a significant proportion of people in France. Eventually power and authority was shifted not once but at least twice from Louis XVI to Robespierre and from Robespierre to Napoleon. This in turn led to the shift from a constitutional monarchy to an authoritarian dictatorship which is differ in several ways. A constitutional monarchy moved the people of France closer to a democracy of sorts. At least with this form of government there were certain rights that they as citizens could not be denied and that could not be infringed upon by the monarch. Under Napoleon’s dictatorship the people essentially had not say in how their country was run. They had no rights that were not granted by Napoleon himself and they had no way to control him or what he did. With the dictatorship Napoleon had full power and authority as can be verified by his incessant invasions and wars with other nations regardless of the opinion of the citizens of France. The differences in these systems of government show that the French Revolution even fully fulfills the last requirement to truly be a revolution.

            In this case at least Samuels’s definition and classifications work out. The French Revolution is indeed classified as a revolution. It may not always work perfectly, as even the French Revolution didn't go straight through the definition without some deviation. As a basic structure however, I think that Samuels’s definition works.

Sources

Samuels, David J. 2012. Comparative politics. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education.

Strayer, Robert. Ways of the World. 2. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2009. Print.