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Southern Political Science Association

Revolution and the Millennium: China, Mexico, and Iran by James F. Rinehart Review by: Jack A. Goldstone The Journal of Politics, Vol. 61, No. 1 (Feb., 1999), pp. 265-267 Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Southern Political Science Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2647805 . Accessed: 21/06/2013 09:17
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Book Reviews

265

Yet, it would be misleading to suggest that the Nuffield study is merely a highly valuablechronicle of events. It is also an interpreter of those events, summarizing those factors that pushed the British electorate one way ratherthan another.The consensus of opinion (endorsed here by Butler and Kavanagh)is that the outcome of the 1997 General Election was largely determinedby two events. The first was "Black Wednesday" when Britainwas forced to leave the European Exchange Rate Mechanism an event that shatteredthe Conservatives' reputation for economic (or more general governing) competence. The second was the election of Tony Blair as leader of the LabourParty in 1994 and the emergenceof New Labour,a partywhose very purposewas to remove doubt about Labour'sfitness for office. The consensus is very probablycorrect, but it is worth pausing here to note two things. First, direct informationabout shifting evaluationsof the electorate from the British Election Study is not yet available. Any conclusions should thereforebe regardedas highly provisional. Second, in many ways the most interestingquestion aboutthe 1997 GeneralElection can be posed in terms of two counterfactuals: (1) What would have been the result if Britain had not left the ERM and Tony Blair had not created New Labour?(2) What would have been the result if John Smith had not died and New Labourhad not been created in any recognizable form? Butler and Kavanagh do not offer their own speculations. Yet, I suspect that much subsequentresearchwill focus on these questions, particularlyas "old" Labour supportersbegin to doubt the necessity of New Labour's financialorthodoxyand GordonBrown'sironcontrolof public spending. These reservationsaside, the Nuffield studies remainthe most comprehensive and compelling accounts of British general elections. For serious students of British politics this is a must read. John Bartle, Universityof Essex, England

Revolutionand the Millennium:China, Mexico, and Iran. By James E Rinehart. (Westport,CT: Praeger,1997. Pp. 194. $59.95.) This is not a full-fledged examinationof these three revolutions,their causes and outcomes, and the details of their unfolding. However,it is a valuableantidoteto overly structuralaccounts of revolution, demonstratingthe role of key ideas in the motivationof revolutionaryleaders and their followers. Rinehartdoes not exclude materialandpolitical factors;indeed,one of his three chief causes of millennialenthusiasmis social distressand dislocation,most often broughton by encounters with imperialistforeignpowers.Butneitherdoes he delve into those materialand political factors in any detail. Rather,his task and this is admirably carriedout is to showhow traditional millennialthemes fromChinese, Amerindian, andShiaIslamicbelief systems suffusedandhelpeddeepenthe appeal of such modern revolutionaryideologies as nationalismand communism.

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Book Reviews

Revolutionand theMillennium has one majorflaw.It is a textbookexampleofthe problemsthat can arise from selecting cases on only one outcome (radicalrevolutionary change) of the dependentvariable. Over and over, one finds conditions attributed to China,Mexico, and Iranthatcould be found in almost all otherdeveloping countries in the world. Rinehart lists three conditions for revolutionary to emerge:(1) a durable of religiouslyinspiredmillenarian millenarianism tradition beliefs; (2) social disorderand dislocation, due to factorsthat are "unclearto the mass of the population," and (3) the emergenceof a charismaticleader(32-33). These conditions do not constitute a theory of the necessary and sufficient conditions for millenarianrevolution, as one can easily think of exceptions. In the Philippines' "People Power" revolution of 1986, centuries of Christianity provided a durable tradition with millenarian beliefs, social disorder due to cronyism,inflation,and excessive U.S. influencewere comparableto that in Iran, and Cory Aquino emergedas a charismaticleader.Yetthe Philippines'revolution was an extremely moderate,not radical revolution;indeed the "radical"revolutionaries of the New People'sArmy were isolated and ineffectual. One can also point to the overthrowof the East German communist regime, which occurred without a charismaticleader, as a converse case. Rinehart'sthree conditions are therefore better thought of as "common backgroundfactors" ratherthan as a well-formulatedtheory of essential conditions for radical change. This limitation aside, Rineharthas many interestingthings to say about millenarianism,its role in revolutions in general, and the millenariantraditionsin these three countries.Those familiarwith currentaccounts of Shia Islam will not be surprisedto read about the role of millenarianbeliefs in gaining supportfor the revolution against the Shah. However, many may be less familiar with the long history of apocalypticbeliefs among native Mesoamericansthat motivated uprisings against the Spanish, or the long history of Buddhist and Taoist millenarianbeliefs that inspiredpeasant rebellions in China. Nonetheless, Rinehartis quite clear that the traditionalmillenarianbeliefs of non-Westerncultures have not been sufficient to generate radical revolutionary movements.The typical Mahdistrebellion in Islamic societies, or Buddhistpeasant rebellion in China, although focusing on charismaticleaders, looked mainly backwardto a "golden age" that would be restored,ratherthan to a utopian future. These movements also rarely gained elite support, as their heterodoxies were not attractiveto the purveyorsof mainstreamconservative culture. It was only when such traditionalbeliefs became tangled up with, or succeeded by, a Christianor secularideology of utopianchange thatmodernrevolutionary movements emerged. For example, in China the first really radicalrevolutionarymovementwas the TaipingRebellion of the 1850s, whose leaderHung Hsiu-ch'uanabsorbedChristian beliefs and saw himself as the youngerbrotherof Jesus. Although eventually utopianism,and anti-Manchu defeated,Hung'smix of egalitarianism, ideology attracted a wide range of followers, from local elites, urban workers, and the

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Book Reviews

267

peasantry.The later nationalist and communist revolutions, in Rinehart'sview, drewupon a legacy of revoltsand idealismthatincludedthe TaipingRebellion,the Boxers, and other secret societies that had held up egalitarianideals and opposed Manchu rule. In Mexico, traditionalnative beliefs in a savior became blended with, while largely supersededby, the vision of the Virgin of Guadalupe.The Virgin provideda bannerthatwas both nativistand utopian,and helped galvanizethe Indianrevolts in Morelos that were a critical element in the Mexican Revolution. Finally,in Iran,the traditionalShia belief in a futuresaviorwas partlysecularized andturnedinto an activistpoliticalprogram by the Iranian sociologistAli Shariatri. Shariatri arguedthat the period priorto the returnof the hidden Imam should not be a time of passive waiting,but of active creationof a betterworld in line with Islamic principles. Shariatri'sinnovative version of Shia Islam helped inspire educatedelites to join with Khomeini'santi-Shahmovement. In China, Mexico, and Iran, therefore, the revolutionaryideologies of the twentiethcenturywere not simply recent imports,nor old traditions,but rathera blend of both. By showing how in all these cases the revolutionaryideologies drew their vision and future-oriented plans for change from more recent ideological innovations, but drew their emotive power from associations with centuries-old egalitarian,millenarian,and antiforeign ideals, Rineharthelps us understand the fervor inspiredby these revolutionaryprograms. One final note: Rinehartsometimes is carriedaway with the utopian ideas he describes, and thus greatly understatesthe darkerside of these revolutions. He notes the defeat of the Zapata-ledmovementfor Indianlands in Morelos, but not the long-term deteriorationof Indian farm communities throughoutMexico in recent decades. He notes that the Chinese "experience"resulted in the deaths of "tens of thousandsof people" (173), but not that the GreatLeap Forward(which Rinehart describes as another element inspired by millenarianvisions of suddenly achieved utopia) resulted in perhaps thirty million deaths. He notes that millenarian revolutions have "therapeutic" effects of identity affirmationand catharsisfor revolutionaryactors, but fails to note the effects of such "therapy" on the revolutions'victims. In short, this is a useful book, but its limitationsneed to be kept in mind. If you don't rely on this book as a majorsource of insight on these revolutions,but as a useful examinationof one aspect, it is a solid contribution. JackA. Goldstone, Universityof California,Davis

Peronism without Perkn: Unions, Parties, and Democracy in Argentina. By James W McGuire. (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997. Pp. xvii, 388. $49.50.) James McGuire sure-handedlytextualizes the developmentof Peronismand its relationshipto the Argentinetradeunion movement.He laborsin these vineyards

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