Jay C Colburn II GOVT 731

3/30/11

A Critical Analysis of Goodwin's No Other Way Out

The study of revolutions, or of any phenomena involving the state, society, and their relationship, is undoubtedly a complex task and one that is sure to encounter many difficulties and critiques along the way. The number of methods or frameworks with which to approach the study of revolutions indeed may even outnumber actual cases of revolution from history. One popular method used in analyzing revolutions, their origins, paths, outcomes, and the movements that make them happen is the state-centered approach. This approach is not monolithic, though, as different scholars focus on different aspects, capacities, and institutions of the state. Using a state-centric approach, Jeff Goodwin in No Other Way Out: States and Revolutionary Movements, 1945-1991 is an ambitious study, both in terms of the scope of the questions and the variety of cases under investigation. The two main questions Goodwin explores throughout this book are: Why do revolutionary movements form and thrive in some states and not in others? Why do revolutionary movements succeed in seizing state power in some states and not in others? In his attempt to answer these questions, cases from three different geographical areas are examined in different time periods, namely Southeast Asia from World War II to the mid-1950s (Vietnam, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Malaya), Central America from 1970 through the 1980s (Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras), and Eastern Europe in 1989. Being an important work in the comparative politics literature on revolutions, Goodwin's book clearly identifies his dependent variable as "the formation (or absence) and subsequent fate of radical revolutionary movements in peripheral societies during the Cold War
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era" (p.16). In an attempt at "good" social science, Goodwin chooses his cases with variation on the dependent variable in mind; in order to uncover the factors that answer his key research questions, negative cases, or cases where revolutionary movements and revolutions do not occur, are compared with successful cases. The way the book is divided by region also has methodological reasoning behind it; by comparing cases within the same region and time period, it is possible to rule out or hold constant a number of factors that are similar across each set of cases, like religion; if such factors are common among both positive and negative cases, they need not be examined as possible explanatory factors. A number of other factors are ruled out as Goodwin critiques various theoretical frameworks, those of modernization theory and Marxist theory. The modernization approach claims revolutions are more likely to happen in societies undergoing a rapid transition from a traditional to a modern society, whereas the Marxist approach claims revolutions are more likely to happen in societies undergoing a transition from one mode of production to another. Both of these perspectives are criticized by Goodwin because of their neglect or underestimation of the political context in which these processes (modernization) and relationships (between classes) take place. Goodwin does not assert that these and other factors, like economic, associational, or social-psychological ones, have no effect on the outcomes of revolutionary movements; rather he asserts that all of these other factors are filtered through the political contexts of states and their structures and practices. While Goodwin explains a variety of state-centered approaches, he chooses to utilize what he calls the state constructionism approach. This approach essentially claims that state structures and practices actually construct revolutionary movements; in other words,

Jay C Colburn II GOVT 731

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Goodwin's state constructionism says that revolutions will emerge when states are configured and act in certain ways. He identifies five characteristics or practices of states that contribute to the development of revolutionary movements: 1) unpopular economic, social, and/or cultural policies, 2) repression and/or exclusion of certain sectors of society from resources or state power, 3) indiscriminate violence against opposition groups, 4) weak policing capacities and infrastructural power, and 5) corrupt, personalistic rule that alienates, weakens, and/or divides counterrevolutionary elites. It is clear in these characteristics include non-state actors and factors, but their effects are directed through the state. Throughout the book, Goodwin's investigation of revolutionary movements across the three geographic regions of Southeast Asia, Central America, and Eastern Europe points to these five general characteristics and practices of states as the common explanatory factors of why revolutionary movements either succeeded or failed in these cases. His diagrams on pages 28 and 29 visually demonstrate the types of state organization, political regime, and infrastructural power that are most likely to "incubate" revolutionary movements and be overthrown by them. In his defense of taking a state-centered approach, he notes that revolutions by definition involve the overthrow of the existing state, whether the political regime alone or in combination with the social, economic, and/or cultural order. Having been a student of Theda Skocpol, known for "bringing the state back in" to such analyses of revolutions, it is no surprise that Goodwin's emphasis lies in political contexts and various aspects of the state. However, Goodwin does recognize that there are limitations to statist analyses in that they do not account for nonstate or nonpolitical sources of: 1) associational networks, like civil society, 2) material resources, and 3) collective beliefs, assumptions, and emotions (including strategies,

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identities, etc.). There are a number of approaches, including social network analysis, resource mobilization and political process theories, and world-systems theory, social-psychological approaches, or culturalist approaches, that could contribute to understanding revolutionary movements and their successes or failures. Unfortunately, Goodwin does not include aspects of these alternative frameworks into his state-centered investigation. While the statecentered approach indeed has much explanatory power for analyzing certain political phenomena, the complex of society and its many constituent actors, interests, and ideologies as well as various economic actors, interests, and institutions all are seemingly obvious factors that need to be included in any well-rounded attempt at understanding such social phenomena as revolutions. The role of agency is sorely missing from Goodwin's analysis, as individuals are influenced by and act in response to not only state structures and practices but a host of other competing influences. Even though Goodwin understands that a state-centered approach alone cannot fully explain why revolutionary movements form or not and succeed or fail in some states and not in others, he still chooses not to incorporate these factors into his approach, claiming the state is the most important factor and that other factors are filtered through the political context of the state. The first empirical section of No Other Way Out deals with the cases of revolutionary movements in Southeast Asia, specifically Vietnam, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Malaya, in the period between World War II and the mid-1950s. The analysis in chapter three focuses on the formation of revolutionary movements in the four states, determining that Western and Japanese imperialist political institutions and actions created a political context that fostered the joining or supporting of Communist revolutionary movements (except for Indonesia's

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nationalist movement). Goodwin points to the variation of political rule, either inclusionary or exclusionary, as contributing to the revolutionary movements growth. It was only in Vietnam, however, that the Communist revolutionary movement, the Viet Minh, successfully achieved power. A number of counterproductive French colonial policies are identified as significantly influencing this outcome, particularly their lack of political reforms towards decolonization, their authoritarian and harshly repressive policies, and their failure to establish a nonCommunist pro-Western leadership to whom they could transfer power. The colonial policies in Malaya and the Philippines such as reforms from above, gradual transitions to independence, elections (even if not wholly competitive), and discriminate use of force, on the other hand, undermined the appeal of revolutionary movements. Figure 4.1 on page 131, which shows Goodwin's analytic trajectory of revolutionary movements in Southeast Asia, is a helpful visual representation of the causal chain that he claims explains the variability of revolutionary movement formation and success or failure. Interestingly, Goodwin digs further into the analysis by trying to understand the reasons for the variation in Japanese occupation and colonial policies; in doing so, a number of nonstate factors, like Japan's geopolitical interest and international alliances, the economic value of colonies, and cultural and ideological differences between the different colonial powers, come to the fore. Goodwin says that these non-state actors are influenced or filtered through the state policies and actions, but the mere acknowledgement of these non-state explanations seems to undermine his state-centered approach. Also, the use of Indonesia as a case, which experienced a nationalist as opposed to Communist revolution, is problematic; Goodwin's

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reasons for this awkward comparison between the non-Communist and Communist revolutionary movements are not well justified or explained. Part 3 of Goodwin's book deals with the revolutionary movements in Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. Similar to the cases of Southeast Asia, Goodwin finds that revolutionary movements were formed and strengthened in Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Guatemala because of 1) a militarized state with weak infrastructure, 2) exclusionary and antireformist policies marked by electoral fraud, and 3) indiscriminate repression of political opposition. Only in Nicaragua, though, did the revolutionary movement, the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN), take power. On the contrary, the lack of a strong revolutionary movement in Honduras is explained in part because of that state's more moderate civilian and military rule and their implementation of land reforms. There is an emphasis on the institutionalized practices of these states, claiming that the ruling regimes structures and practices had become a norm and were continued regardless of their ineffectiveness or counterproductivity. Like in the explanation for Southeast Asia, the variation of outcome of the revolutionary movements is attributed to the different structures of the authoritarian regimes and their differing responses to the revolutionary movements; the neopatrimonial and self-destructive rule of the Somozas, along with elite opposition, international isolation, and a lack of political opening, contributed to the success of the FSLN, while the more institutional bureaucratic authoritarian rule of the Salvadoran and Guatemalan regimes combined with their loyal elites and semi-openness resulted not in the failure of revolutionary movements but of persistent insurgencies that lasted for years (see Figure 6.1 on page 211 for visualization).

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Goodwin's analysis of the revolutionary movements of Central America is the most convincing and true to his theoretical framework laid out in Part 1. It would be beneficial to add cases of revolutionary movements that failed (instead of resulted in civil wars) to coincide more with the rest of the cases in the book and the original research question, which is framed as the success or failure of movements. A number of perspectives, namely dependency theory or other types of economic and cultural explanations, also seem to be a necessary additions to Part 3 of No Other Way Out. As with much of the rest of this work, there is an underestimation of the importance of international actors, especially the dominant Cold War powers, the US and USSR, in the overall explanation of why certain movements succeeded or not under different states. The final geographic area explored by Goodwin is Eastern Europe in 1989. The common explanations given for the revolutions in Eastern Europe, like economic factors (that the Soviet Union's territories couldn't keep up with the capitalist West), the newly emerged civil society, and Gorbachev's reforms, are not satisfactory for Goodwin. Again he relies on the statecentered approach to explain the differences in revolutionary movements and outcomes in Poland, Hungary, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, and Romania. Goodwin discovers that state structures and practices, such as variations in regime type, once again seem to explain the differences, but other factors, like the relative strength of civil society and whether hardliner or reformist Communists dominated, are also part of his conclusion (see Figure 8.1 on page 287 for visualization). This section differs the most from the rest of the book's investigation; Goodwin even questions if these cases represent revolutions and not "refolutions." His format of analysis

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strays from the two chapter format of the other sections, which explore first the formation of revolutionary movements and then the success or failure of them. Even the questions being asked are different; much of the chapter is devoted to explaining why the Eastern European states and revolutionary movements are comparable to the Third World periphery cases of Southeast Asia and Central America as well as the relatively peaceful nature of these Second World revolutions. It seems that Goodwin tries to fit these Eastern European cases into same analytical structure as the other regions, but he does so unconvincingly. Given these weaknesses, of the Eastern European section and of the work as a whole, No Other Way Out does make a significant contribution to the study of revolutions. Despite his lack of inclusion of non-state factors into his theoretical framework, his analyses and conclusions about the role of the state and its structures and practices are clearly important explanatory factors in understanding the formation and outcomes of revolutionary movements, though not the only important factors. Ideally, the weaknesses described above should be combined in some way with the contributions made from Goodwin's analysis and state constructionist approach. It is clear, admittedly so by Goodwin, that his approach does not provide a complete picture of revolutionary processes. No one perspective or unit of analysis, whether state-centered, Marxist, economic, or socio-psychological, is sufficient in any analysis of political phenomena, but only a combination of these various political, social, economic, and cultural factors will be able to truly explain the formation (or absence) and success (or failure) of revolutionary movements.

Jay C Colburn II GOVT 731

3/30/11

Causal Chains

Southeast Asia

Jay C Colburn II GOVT 731

3/30/11

Central America

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Jay C Colburn II GOVT 731

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Eastern Europe

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