Legacies of States and Social Revolutions

Abstract

Forty years after its publication, Theda Skocpol’s States and Social Revolutions confronts us with a series of questions: Are social revolutions different today compared with 50 years ago, and if yes in what ways and why? What is the state of the study of Revolutions in political science and sociology? More generally, how do we understand and relate to social revolutions in the post-Cold War world? Why do we pay more attention to civil wars now compared with then – and vice versa? If the 40th anniversary of Theda Skocpol’s path-breaking book forces these questions on us, answering them opens up fundamental concerns about how we approach the study of social phenomena and the way we are embedded, as social scientists, into the politics of our world.